Understanding sparked in his eyes. “Have you seen my uncle? I thought he was with you.”
“He came by but left a while ago. Thank you for the dagger.”
“No problem.”
She went back into her room, locked the door, put the dagger on the night table next to the bed, turned off the lights, and lay down. If any of the Hand’s freaks decided to hide under her bed, she would turn it into mincemeat.
KALDAR leaned on the rail of a long balcony wrapping the third floor of the hotel. Below him, a landscaped courtyard tried to tempt him with a small pool. Mmm. A swim wouldn’t be unwelcome right about now. A paved walkway wound around it and stretched on toward some small river winding its way between green shores. A full moon hung above all of it, like a pale coin in the dark sky. In the moonlight, the river’s water glistened like volcanic glass.
Regret filled him, and when he looked at the moon’s face, it seemed mournful to him.
He had blown it with Audrey. He said things he should’ve kept to himself if he entertained any hope of ever being with her. What he had said was the truth, but it would change nothing. When they were done, she would return to her life in the Broken and persist in slowly wasting away. He truly had never seen anyone better, and it brought him nearly physical pain to think she would waste it all. He sighed, hoping to exhale his frustration into the night.
Careful footsteps came from the stairwell. A moment, and Gaston leaned on the rail next to him. “Here you are, Uncle. I was worried.”
“I’m touched,” Kaldar replied out of habit, but his voice sounded devoid of mirth even to him.
Gaston’s eyes caught the moonlight and reflected it in bright silver. He gathered himself, his gaze fixed on the pale disk as if wanting to reach for it. The thoas always had a thing for the moon.
“Does it speak to you?” Kaldar asked.
“No. But there is something about it. It’s this beautiful thing you can never reach. No matter what you do, you’ll never touch it. You can only look and imagine what it would be like to hold it.” Gaston turned and looked at him. “Something’s bothering you, Uncle.”
“How old was your father when he had you? Twenty-eight?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“And you’re the youngest of the three.”
Gaston nodded.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kaldar said. “Before the Hand decimated the family, we had seven men within five years of my age. None of them were unmarried.”
Gaston frowned at the moon. “No, except for Richard.”
Yes, Richard. Bringing up his older brother’s marriage was like worrying an old scab—it had healed over, but it still hurt. Richard’s wife had left him, as their mother had left their father a decade before. Richard had never recovered. Come to think of it, neither had he.
Kaldar had arranged that marriage. He’d arranged most marriages within the family. Love was one thing. Getting two swamp clans to settle on the dowry and terms was another. At the time, he had no misgivings. Richard and Meline seemed perfect for each other. Both serious, both focused. In retrospect, they had been too alike.
“It’s Memaw’s fault,” Gaston said. “She nags everyone into marriage. I remember my older brother complaining. The moment he turned twenty, she started after him with the guilt. ‘Oh, I will die soon and won’t get to see you have the little ones. If only you’d find yourself a nice girl, I could go to the funeral pyre happy.’ She’s like an ere-vaurg—once she gets her teeth into you, she won’t let go until you give up.”
“She never brought it up with me.”
“Strange. You always had the prettiest girls.” Gaston grinned. “Maybe she was scared, Uncle. If we had Kaldar number two and Kaldar number three around, nothing would stay put. You’d set something down and whoosh, it would be gone, and nobody would know what had happened to it.”
Kaldar looked at the river. He had to give Audrey that one. Nobody had ever expected him to settle down. Not even his own family. He didn’t inspire the family-man kind of confidence.
Thinking back, he remembered faces and names, men he used to know in the Mire. Men who were his friends. One by one, he’d stop seeing them around, and a year or two later, he’d find out they were married. They’d run into each other, they’d introduce their wives and watch him with more diligence than needed. He could imagine the conversation around the dinner table. Wives had little use for him—he was liable to get their husbands into trouble, and his former friends weren’t too keen on letting him talk to their women too much.
Marriage was a trap. The moment the man said the words “I do” at the altar, he surrendered his freedom. He was no longer free to pursue other women. Staying out past the appointed hour required his wife’s permission. Getting drunk with his friends resulted in a fight when he got home. He’d have to report where he went, when he would be back, who he would be with, and why he would choose to do something else rather than stay home and pick out fabric for new drapes. A married man was no longer carefree. He was a provider, a husband, and a father. His castle was no longer his. He was permitted to live there on someone else’s terms. He already had Nancy Virai telling him where to go and what to do there. That was as much supervision as he cared to accept.
“Is Audrey doing okay?” Gaston asked.
“She’s fine.”
“Oh good. She came by asking for a knife. I think she’s scared to sleep by herself.”
“It’s a harder thing for her than it is for us,” Kaldar said. “George deals with death every day. He’s come to terms with it. Jack has killed things in the woods since he could walk. He has a simple way of looking at it. You and I are from the Mire. Audrey has had very little experience with brutality. It wasn’t a part of her life.” And the last time she experienced it, it scarred her. She didn’t seem like she was falling apart, but Audrey was an excellent actress.
Genius conman. Yes, there was the pot calling the kettle black.
There were nights when he was afraid to go to sleep by himself as well. He’d planned on making it easier on both of them tonight, but even the best of plans occasionally came crashing down.
“She’s funny,” Gaston said.
Kaldar looked at him.
“And pretty. And she doesn’t buy any of the bullshit you’re selling.”
“I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”
Gaston grinned, his eyes shining. “Whatever you say, Uncle.”
He started toward the stairway and turned, walking backward. “If you had a kid, would he be my cousin once or twice removed?”
“Keep walking.”
Gaston laughed. A moment later, a quick staccato of footsteps announced his going down the stairs.
Kaldar looked back to the moon. It stared back at him, beautiful and indifferent. The moon was the same everywhere, here over some small river in the Broken or back in the Mire, hanging over the dark cypresses, serenaded by ere-vaurgs. He used to look at it like this from the balcony of the old Mar house. Thanks to the Hand, the family home lay abandoned now. None of them could ever return to it.
He missed the Mire but less than he’d expected. The family had built a new house on the edge of the Red Swamps in Adrianglia. The Red Swamps differed from the Mire, but it felt like home. He’d built his own house too, not too far from the family’s, on the edge of a quiet river. It wasn’t grand—the Mirror’s pay wouldn’t buy him a palace, and since the builder had wanted cash, the purchase had wiped out his accounts—but it was large and comfortable, and in the late afternoon, when the sun shone through the living-room windows, the polished floor and wooden walls seemed to glow.
He hadn’t gotten around to putting furniture in it, except for a rocking chair on the porch. But he did own a house. At least that part she was wrong about.
Kaldar closed his eyes and pictured a woman in his kitchen. She laughed, turned, and he realized she was Audrey.
He couldn’t have Audrey. He’d have to think up a different fantasy.
Audrey smiled at him from his kitchen.
They were perfectly in tune. Birds of a feather. She understood him. Oh yes, she understood him too well. She knew exactly how things would play out between them, and she had decided against it. And she was right. One hundred percent right. He was a scoundrel, and he would use her. Both of them would have the time of their lives while they did. But in the end, he wouldn’t be caught, and she refused to try.
It was said that there was honor among thieves; there wasn’t. But there was honor between him and Audrey. Well, aside from the theft of the cross, which she had taken rather badly. She could’ve led him on, she could’ve seduced him into her bed—not that it would have taken much. He’d climb a mountain to taste her again, and then, when he was comfortable and happy, she could’ve tried to trap him with guilt. Most men got married because they were comfortable where they were, and breaking free was too hard and too unpleasant. She didn’t go that route. No, she told him up front that he wasn’t good enough for her.
And why exactly was that? He was good at what he did. The best thief, she’d said. The best swordsman, the sexiest man she’d ever met. The genius conman. Genius. She told him he was better than her father, for crying out loud. It wasn’t often a woman said something like that.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t provide for her. Not that he ever intended to marry, but if he did, his wife wouldn’t want for anything. He was a Mar, after all. Mars took care of their families.
Besides, if he ever did bring Audrey to his house, she wouldn’t stay home and bake pies. She would insist on going with him. Now that would be an unbeatable pairing. The things they could accomplish together . . . It was almost too tempting to contemplate. Not only did Audrey understand his schemes, but she could change direction on the fly. She had no trouble improvising under pressure, and say what you wanted about her aversion to violence, when push came to shove, she’d blow an enemy’s brains out. In their world, there would be no unlocked doors. It would be so much fun.
Kaldar pushed himself back from the rail. Unfortunately, their cooperation would end after they retrieved the diffuser bracelets. That was, after all, the goal of the whole exercise. Where would she go after this was over? Her old job and identity in the Broken were burned. She’d have to start fresh. And do it quietly, too. If they pulled this off, Helena d’Amry would make it her mission in life to hunt them down . . .
Kaldar froze.
His mind painted an image of Audrey, funny, beautiful Audrey, dead, hanging off a tree limb. Or worse, sliced to pieces. Or skinned alive. The anxiety punched him right in the gut with an icy fist. The Hand would kill Audrey. They would murder her. She was hellishly smart and slick, but the Hand simply had too many resources, and Audrey knew next to nothing about them.
Kaldar paced along the balcony. She would die. No more bright smiles. No more laughter. No more sly winks and wide-open eyes.
He lived in a bitter cold place, a deep darkness where he plotted revenge on the Hand for all their wrongs, past and future. Audrey was like a ray of sunshine in the middle of his night. She had lifted him out of the dark hole he had dug for himself into a place where he laughed, and his mirth and humor were genuine as long as she stayed around.
The Hand would crush that light.
He could live in a world where Audrey existed, even if it was far away from him. He was never fond of the idea of suffering nobly; still, he could resign himself to living without her if he knew that she was happy somewhere. The Hand would not take her from him. They had taken two-thirds of his family, they had killed Murid, and he would be damned if he let them butcher Audrey while he cowered in the shadows like a frightened dog with his tail between his legs.
He loved Audrey. The realization came to him, plain and simple. He would give anything to keep her safe. The only way to do that would be to know where she was at all times. If he had to marry her to keep her safe, he would marry her. He would be respectful and responsible and all the other things that turned his stomach. If he knew she would wake up next to him, safe and happy, it would be worth it.
Kaldar stopped pacing. It was decided, then. He would marry Audrey.
He just had to convince her to see things from his point of view.
THE church sat abandoned, its doors flung wide open. Helena marched through them, the rest of her team moving quietly behind her, afraid to make a sound. Inside, overturned benches and shattered wood greeted her. The sickening, cloying stench of decomposition hit her nostrils. A stage and a pulpit at the far end of the structure still smoked weakly, their wood charred to blackness. A twisted thing of jagged metal and melted rubber lay on its side on the right—one of the Broken’s vehicles, destroyed beyond recognition. The acrid, bitter reek of Cotier’s explosive darts emanated from it, and from another spot, farther to the left.
Her eyes picked out a dart lying on the floor. Another. Another. At least a dozen darts lay in a circle around a wet spot on the floor. A single dart packed enough charge to explode an average-size carriage.
Helena’s gaze slid up. Cotier’s body hung from the rafters, upside down. A large hole gaped in the crown of his head. A matching smaller hole pierced the back of his head near the neck. He must’ve seen the shot coming and curled up to avoid it. The bullet caught him in the back of the skull, scrambled his brain, and exploded out of his forehead. In the next hours, the brain matter and blood had dripped out of him onto the floor.
Helena looked down on the floor. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen darts. Any physical barrier would’ve been demolished. Only magic could withstand an assault of such magnitude. Someone in Kaldar Mar’s party could create a blisteringly potent flash shield.
Helena turned. A leg with telltale orange skin stuck out from behind a clump of benches. She approached. An orange body lay in two pieces, cleanly severed at a diagonal and peppered with dead flies, poisoned by the Mura’s toxic blood. The sword stroke—if that’s what this was—cleaved her from left shoulder, through the ribs, through the heart, through the stomach, and through the right side of her ribs. The cut was perfectly clean, the severed bones flat. Karmash had mentioned that the Mars possessed an ancient art of sword fighting, but this was beyond her experience. Swords didn’t do this.
Behind her, a foot scraped on the ground. She turned. Sebastian bowed his head. “You should see this, my lady.”
She followed him to a break between the benches. A shapeless mass of flesh sat in the stretch of open floor, hidden from her view by the demolished vehicle. It resembled a pile of meat that had been shredded and dumped in a heap. Emily, her tracker, knelt by it, sampling the air.
“What is this?”
“I believe it’s Soma, my lady.” Sebastian bowed his head.
“Did they put him through a meat grinder?”
“This was done by one person,” Emily said. “A boy.”
Helena knelt by her. “What makes you think this?”
“Only one scent with the body. Young scent. Male. And also this.” Emily pointed at the floor. Two bloody shoe prints clearly visible. Sebastian put his foot next to them. The shoe print was an inch and a half shorter than his foot.
Helena rose and saw a giant headless body slumped against the far wall. A wrought-iron inch-wide beam protruded from his chest. It took her a moment to recognize it as one of the church’s candelabras.
Her magic whipped around her in a furious frenzy. Sebastian and Emily backed away. Helena whirled, her cloak flaring around her, and strode out of the church.
Sebastian trailed her.
“One man, a woman, and a boy against four operatives.” Helena bit off words with diamond-cut precision. “Why are they still alive? Why don’t I have Kaldar’s head?”
“I don’t know, my lady.”
Four operatives. Each a veteran, each an expert in death. Taken out by an Edge rat. Shame gripped her. When Spider had spoken of the Mars, his face was ice, and his eyes boiled with fury. Now she understood why.
A vehicle c
limbed up the narrow road and entered the camp.
Sebastian growled under his breath.
The doors opened. Three men stepped out, two older, one young and bruised, followed by an older blond woman.
The larger of the older men clamped his hand on the younger male and half led, half dragged, him forward.
The blond woman and the smaller of the older men walked up to them. The man spoke. “We represent the local Edge families.”
“I’m Helena d’Amry.”
“You are the Hand,” the woman said.
“Yes.” Helena didn’t feel the need to correct her. The Edgers knew the Hand and feared it.
“You are looking for a man and a red-haired woman,” the woman said.
“Yes.”
“We don’t like problems,” the smaller of the older men said. “We want the violence to end. There has been too much upheaval lately. Things must go back to normal.”
Ah. “Help me, and I swear on the throne of Gaul, I will leave in peace.”
The larger of the men pulled the younger closer. “This is Adam. He will tell you everything you want to know.”
THIRTEEN
THE continental breakfast buffet ran from six until eight thirty. When Audrey finally awoke, the clock by the bed said 8:09, and so she dragged herself downstairs to find the trays of bagels and doughnuts mostly picked over. She loaded her paper plate with fruit, snagged a yogurt and a cup of orange juice, and went upstairs to check on the boys.
She paused by the door. Kaldar would be inside. Her throat constricted. Audrey stepped away from the door and walked down the hallway, trying to calm herself. Last night she’d lain in bed, thinking of Kaldar. He’d gotten deep under her skin. She’d thought about the wicked look in his eyes. She’d thought about his smile. She had imagined him touching her. She’d entertained improbable scenarios, where Kaldar decided to fall madly in love with her, and they went off on wild adventures. In her fantasies, they made love in the house where they lived together. It had gone on and on. All attempts of not thinking about Kaldar had led back to Kaldar.
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