“What are those?” Jack asked.
“Climbing claws.”
Kaldar pressed his hand to the side of the window. Barbs shot out from the claws, biting into the stone. He hung on it with his full weight, testing. It held. He pulled his hand away, and the claw automatically retracted the blades.
“Make sure the door stays locked,” he whispered.
The boys nodded.
“If someone knocks, don’t open it. Let them break it down if they have to. If it comes to that, send a bird to William and Cerise for help. George, keep a bird on me at all times. If I die, go to William right away.”
“Understood,” George said.
Kaldar leaned out the window. Audrey was in Cerise’s room, two windows to the right. Below him, the sheer drop yawned. No guts, no glory.
He climbed onto the windowsill and planted his right-hand claw on the wall. The blades clicked. He pressed his right shin against the stone. Claws pierced the wall. Climbing was never his favorite. In fact, heights weren’t his favorite altogether. Swimming, that he could do.
Kaldar exhaled and stepped off the window.
The claws held.
He planted his left shin, then his left claw, and began crawling up the wall, slowly, like some sort of insect. His heart hammered against his ribs. He knew not to look down, but he didn’t have to. In his mind, his claws failed. He slid down the wall, hopelessly scrambling to find purchase and failing. The wall ended, and he plummeted down, turning in the air as he fell, and smashed down on the sharp rocks below with a wet thud.
Sometimes, an overactive imagination was a curse.
A shadow crawled out of the window to the right and began making its way to him. Audrey.
Kaldar hung in place, waiting for her.
She drew even with him, her eyes thrilled, and whispered. “This is fun! The Mirror has all the best toys.”
“You’re scared to fly on a wyvern, but this is fun?”
“When I’m on the wyvern, it’s out of my hands. I can’t do anything about crashing. I can control this.” She leaned closer. “Are you okay? You’re looking green.”
“Bet me something that we can make it up this wall.”
She detached her right claw and fished a coin out of her pocket. “I bet you this coin we can’t make it.”
“You brought money on the heist?”
“It’s small and easy to bet in case we get in trouble.”
He really did love this woman. He swiped the coin and slid it under the collar of his suit next to his skin. The familiar surge of magic burst through him, snapped to Audrey, and returned to him. Kaldar began climbing.
“So how does this betting thing work, anyway?” Audrey asked, climbing next to him.
“It has to be physically possible. If it’s something continuous like this or walking through a minefield, it works best if I hold the object I’m betting on. If it’s a bet on other people, it works about a third of the time, and I don’t have to hold anything.”
Her eyes gained a sly glint. “So did you bet I would marry you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because it wouldn’t have been real. “Didn’t need it.”
“You are an arrogant ass.”
He grinned. “You love it.”
Above them, the keep tower loomed. Shaped like a huge rectangle, the top of the tower had no roof. A textured parapet—a low stone wall interrupted by rectangular slits through which castle defenders would fire arrows at the attackers—encircled the tower’s top, protruding about a foot out over the main tower wall, like the rail of a balcony. Once they crawled over it, they would be out in the open, plainly visible to anyone who was at the top of the tower.
“Are there guards up there?” Audrey whispered.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“I always have a plan,” he told her.
“Would you mind letting me in on it?”
“We create a diversion, you open all the doors, we swap the replica for the real bracelets, escape unharmed, and have hot sex.”
“Good plan.”
They reached the parapet protruding at the top of the tower. Below them, the keep wall plunged way down, to the cliff and certain death.
George’s bird landed on Kaldar’s shoulder, opened its beak, closed it, opened it again. One, two, three, four, five.
Kaldar held up his hand to Audrey. Five guards.
Audrey nodded.
He mouthed, “Wait here.”
She nodded again.
Kaldar crawled sideways, moving crab-like along the wall, just under the archer slits of the parapet. If anyone looked over the wall and down, his goose would be cooked. You wanted this excitement, he reminded himself. You wanted to fight the Hand. You volunteered, and you’re living your dream.
He kept moving along the wall until he was almost sixty yards away from Audrey. He barely saw her, a dark spot clinging to the wall to his left. Far enough.
Kaldar sank his right claw into the parapet and pulled himself up. For a torturous moment his legs hung above the sheer drop without any purchase, then his claws caught the wall again. Kaldar carefully raised himself high enough to glance through the closest archer gap.
The top of the tower was flat. In the center of the flat roof squatted a wide, rectangular, stone structure, its entrance guarded by a massive door. Hello, Morell’s vault. Two veeking warriors stood guard by the door. To the left, a Texas sharpshooter slumped against the wall, half-asleep, his feathered hat edged over his eyes, a grass stalk in his teeth. To the right, at the end of the roof, another veeking and a sharpshooter played cards.
Kaldar pulled the cord of his backpack and slipped his hand inside. His fingers brushed a metal carapace. He pulled it out. The spy spider, one of the Mirror’s better-known gadgets. Slightly larger than a dinner plate, the spider rested inert, its eight segmented legs securely clutched to its metal thorax. He slid the panel on its back open and turned the timer dial to five minutes and set the mode to rapid surveillance. The spider’s gears whirred softly. Kaldar slid the panel closed and positioned the spider on the edge of the parapet. The second spider followed, but this time he set the delay to an hour and fastened the spider to the wall, just below the parapet. It would be invisible from above.
Kaldar crawled left, moving until he was hanging above Audrey, and motioned up. She climbed next to him. They waited at the edge of the parapet, peeking through the archer gaps.
Kaldar raised a small spyglass to his left eye.
The first spider stirred. Long, segmented legs shivered. It crawled over the parapet, slowly, one metal leg after the other.
One moment, the sharpshooter was asleep, the next a gun barked in his hand. The bullet hit the spider’s carapace in a flash of pale green—the spider’s flash shield. The spy unit snapped into evade mode and dashed across the balcony, zigzagging wildly. The sharpshooter fired again, swore, and chased after the spider. A moment later, the two veekings took off after him.
Kaldar heaved himself over the parapet, pulled Audrey up, and they dashed to the door and pressed against it. Green magic slid from Audrey’s hands and sank into the door. She bit her lip.
Excited shouts came from the other end of the balcony.
“Hurry, love,” he whispered.
“The lock’s heavy,” she ground out. Sweat broke on her forehead.
The sounds of footsteps and muffled conversation carried to them. The veekings were returning. The door clicked open. Audrey slipped inside. Kaldar ran in after her, shut the door—three locks; no wonder it took her a second—and locked it from the inside. They pressed against the door, barely breathing.
Nothing.
No heavy breathing, no testing of the locks, nothing. They were in.
In front of them, a short hallway led to a large vault door. Kaldar tapped the bird and pointed toward the vault. The bird took off to scout the way, then returned to perch on his arm.
It
didn’t seem alarmed. If he worked with George again, they would have to establish some sort of signal system. Wings open—the way is clear. Wings closed—run for your life. Or something like that.
They started down the corridor. The vault lay at the very end, a huge round door, thick and heavy. Audrey knelt by it. “Five locks. This is the most I’ve ever seen. This will take time.”
He sat by her. “Anything I can do to help?”
“No. The more I can do by hand, the easier it is. Lifting a two-inch tumbler by magic is like trying to carry a hundred-pound rock.” Audrey extracted a leather bundle from her pack and opened it. Thin metal lock-picking tools lay inside. The tools and the bundle looked suspiciously familiar.
Kaldar peered at the tools. “Where did you get this?”
“In your bags. You’ve been holding out.”
Heh.
“They are mine now.” She stuck the tip of her tongue out at him. “Stealers, keepers.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out her hair band with a pale metal flower on it.
“Kaldar! I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”
She reached for it, and he yanked it back. “Stealers, keepers.”
Audrey shook her head and probed the first lock with a narrow picklock. “There is a lock-picking competition in St. Louis. No electronics, no magnifying glasses, nothing but your fingers. I always wanted to enter. My dad never let me.” She slid the second picklock into the lock next to the first.
“You’d kill it,” he told her.
She grinned.
“So why not enter after you left the family?”
“I don’t know. I guess subconsciously I always knew I’d go back to the life of crime. I didn’t need that kind of visibility.” Audrey frowned. “Now that’s interesting. De Braose is left-handed, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
She held her hand to the keyhole. A thin tendril of magic slipped from it, licked the inside of the keyhole, and vanished. “Hey, baby, can you move a bit?”
He rose and backed away.
“More. More. Keep going. Okay, that’s probably good.” Audrey stepped close to the door, standing on the right of the lock. Her long elegant fingers clasped the picklocks and twisted.
Razor-thin blades shot out of the floor and the wall, slicing the space where he’d stood a moment ago. On the left, a wide circular blade severed the air less than six inches from Audrey before vanishing into the wall. If she had stood on the left of the keyhole, as a right-handed person would, he would be cradling the bloody pieces of her body.
“Morell is a fun guy,” Audrey said. “One down, four to go.
TWENTY minutes later, the fourth lock was down. Audrey stretched on the floor. The cold stones felt good under her back. The previous lock resisted the pick. She had to use her magic, and the five minutes of straining and gritting her teeth against the pain it took to open it had sapped her dry. The pain receded now, slowly. It was so nice not to hurt anymore.
“Are you okay?” Kaldar asked.
“Mhhm. I just need a small break. Do we have time?”
“Thirty minutes.”
Audrey sighed.
“I can take the last one,” Kaldar said.
“No, let me do it. Equal division of labor: you pickpocket, I open locks.” She closed her eyes. “What will happen once we get out of here? Out of the castle, I mean?”
“Well, we’ll take the boys back. Hopefully, Declan will be understanding. Then I will take you to meet my family. You will be expected to eat too much and carry on conversations with people whose names you probably won’t remember right away.”
His lips touched hers. He kissed her, and she smiled into the kiss.
“My grandmother will want to pry your entire story out of you. You have to be careful with Memaw. She is very good with sharp objects. Like swords.”
“Is there anyone in your family who isn’t a deadly swordsman?”
“My stepsister Catherine. She knits with superhuman speed and poisons people.”
Audrey laughed. “The Mar family: everyone you see can kill you.”
“Something like that. Then we’ll go to my house.”
Her eyes snapped open. “You have a house?”
He nodded. “You’ll like it.”
Audrey rolled to her feet. “Well, I better get on with opening the lock then.”
“What is it with you and houses?” Kaldar asked.
“We moved a lot when I was little,” she said, examining the last lock. “I lost count of how many places we lived. We never owned any of them. I want a place of our own. Okay, you might have to help me with this. I need an extra hand.”
They fiddled with the lock for almost ten minutes. Finally, it clicked. The vault door swung open with a whisper. Lights flared inside one by one, weak but revealing enough to illuminate a long, rectangular room. Gold coins lay here and there, piled in casual heaps. Priceless art hung on the walls, under thick glass. Gadgets and statues from both worlds stood, each on its own pedestal, backlit by colored lamps. To the right, a huge ruby sat under glass, like a drop of blood-colored ice.
“Best date ever,” Audrey whispered.
Kaldar clicked a small wheel on his spyglass and surveyed the room through it. No additional defenses. He clicked the wheel again.
“Nothing. Either Morell is using something the Mirror had no knowledge of, or he didn’t bother putting heavy internal alarm systems inside the vault. Shall we take a chance?”
Audrey nodded. “You take me to such interesting places, Master Mar.”
“I strive to please.”
Audrey held her breath. They stepped forward in unison.
Nothing.
She exhaled.
“Twelve minutes,” Kaldar said, checking his watch. “We need to move.”
It took them almost ten minutes to find the diffusers. They waited in the same wooden box Audrey had originally stolen. She opened it and stared at the twin bracelets. The source of all her problems. Dread washed over her in a cold wave.
Kaldar pulled out the fakes from his backpack.
“This is it,” she said. “This is what my brother and Gnome died for.”
He crouched by her.
“I wish I could rewind time and go back to when my father asked me to take this job. I wish I had told him no.”
“Then we would have never met.” He pulled her to him and kissed her.
“I wish it was done,” Audrey said softly. “I wish we were free and clear. I have this awful feeling that something will go wrong.” Apprehension had churned in her stomach ever since Helena d’Amry walked into that ballroom. Her instincts warned Audrey that things wouldn’t go as planned, and she’d learned long ago to trust her intuition. It had saved her more than once from being caught, and now it was screaming at her to get out. But they were in, and until the auction concluded tomorrow, they couldn’t leave.
“I know,” Kaldar told her. “I have it, too. We’ll be fine.” Audrey looked at the diffusers. An irrational urge to smash them swelled in her.
“Come on,” Kaldar said. “Let’s replace them and be done. We have ten minutes till the spider makes the guards run around again.”
They swapped the bracelets, put the box back on its pedestal, and left the vault.
MORNING came far too quickly for Audrey’s taste. Last night, after Kaldar kissed her, both of them hanging on the sheer wall, she climbed back to her room, changed her clothes, and got into bed.
And then she stayed awake. She rolled on her side, on her stomach, on her side again. She flipped the pillow until both sides of it were too hot to sleep on.
She finally fell asleep and woke up at the first light, tired and groggy. Cerise had lent her a gown, a complicated twisted affair of blue that took forever to put on, but at least the skirt was wide enough that she could run in it, and the pleats hid the dagger Gaston had given her.
They just had to get through today. Just get through.
A se
rvant brought a breakfast tray. She forced herself to eat some of the fruit and a small piece of some sweet pastry. Low blood sugar was bad in their business.
A knock sounded through the door leading to Cerise’s quarters.
“Come in!”
Cerise stepped into her room carrying an odd collection of buckles and belts, attached to an oblong metal disk. About four inches wide and six inches long, the disk bore the complex ornamentation of the Weird that usually meant there were high-magic gears inside.
“What’s this for?”
“An emergency escape harness.” Cerise handed her the harness. “Think of it as a parachute. Kaldar has this too, more than one. They come standard issue on most missions. You never know when you have to dive off a mountain cliff. If you put your night suit on, we can fit it over it, then pick a good dress to hide it.”
On autopilot, Audrey ran her hands along the belts, checking them for weak spots. “Why did you decide to work for the Mirror?”
Cerise sat next to her on the bed. “About two years ago, my family was in trouble. William made a deal with the Mirror: they would give us asylum in Adrianglia. In return, he has to work for them for ten years. He’s a changeling who’s been trained as a soldier. The work is good for him. It lets him practice all the skills he already has.” Cerise sighed. “And if something happened to him while he was working off his debt to the Mirror, I would never forgive myself. I don’t want him to die because of my family. So I go with him. That way, there are two of us, and we watch each other’s back.”
“What happens if William stops working for the Mirror before ten years are up?” Audrey asked.
“He won’t. He gave his word. But if he ever did, our family would lose its asylum.”
“And Kaldar?”
“Kaldar has no similar agreements with the Mirror,” Cerise said. “He does it because he wants revenge. And because, if something happened to William, his work and mine would give the Mirror an additional incentive to keep protecting our family.”
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