Knowing you were poor was one thing. But living with that knowledge, having it rubbed in your face again and again, being forced to hustle, scheme, and finagle so you could buy the kids new clothes for the winter or post bail for a relative, that was another thing. It drained her will to live.
And then there was Tobias. He turned out to be a piece of work.
Now if a man came on to her, the first thing that went through her mind was what did he really want? Was he after her or after the family’s money, what little there was of it? Was he trustworthy? How badly could he screw up, and how much would it cost the family if they had to make the issue go away? That one drank too much, this one had a kid from the first marriage that he wanted to see well taken care of by someone else, the third one humped anything that moved … Too reckless, too stupid, too quick to anger … Soon she got a reputation for being choosy, and she didn’t think she was. And even if she was, she couldn’t afford not to be.
But William didn’t know any of that. He didn’t know the first thing about her and didn’t give a damn about her family. She blindsided him and got an honest reaction.
Cerise recalled the look in his eyes and shivered.
The question was, what would she do when he came out of the shower? The thought stopped her in her tracks. He had to be in good shape. He was strong like an ox—dragging the punt through the swamp singlehanded was no picnic, and he’d picked her and the bags up and run, as if their combined weight were nothing. Her imagination tried to paint a picture of William coming out of the shower and toweling off, and she slammed the door on that thought real fast. It was fine if he was smitten. But she had other things to worry about.
A part of her really wanted to find out if his reaction was just a one-time thing or if she could get him to look at her that way again.
Cerise swiped two cans of beef stew off the shelf and headed back to the kitchen. Doesn’t matter, she told herself. You’re not fifteen. Put it out of your mind. You have parents to rescue.
In a few minutes he’d step out of the shower, and she had to treat him like a potential enemy, no matter what he looked like. Safer that way.
Lord Bill was an enigma. He dressed like a blueblood, he talked like a blueblood, but he came to the Mire through the Broken. Nobles from the Weird usually couldn’t enter the Broken. They were too full of magic, and they had to turn back or ended up dying. Either he was a dud magically or there was something very funky going on with his bloodline. Then there were the eyes full of fire. And now this.
He knew of the Hand. She had to make use of that. She could always kill him if he stepped out of line.
The stove had a fancy glass top. Cerise turned it on, waited until one of the burners glowed red, set a pot on it, and dumped the stew into it. Blueblood or not, she would figure Lord Bill out sooner or later. Or they would go their separate ways and the problem would solve itself.
The door opened.
It was curiosity, Cerise decided. Just normal healthy curiosity. She pretended to be occupied with the stew.
She could just look up at him and glance away … Oh, Gods.
Instantly she knew she’d made a mistake.
He wore jeans and a white T-shirt. His clothes molded to him. William wasn’t built, he was carved, with hard strength and lethal speed in mind. No give, no weakness. He had the honed, lean body of a man who was used to fighting for his life and liked it that way. And he strode to her like a swordsman: sure, economical movements touched with a natural grace and strength.
Their stares met. She saw the shadow of the feral thing slide across William’s eyes, and she stopped stirring the stew.
They stared at each other for a long tense moment.
Damn it. That was not supposed to happen.
She turned to grab two metal bowls, poured the stew into them, and set them on the table. He took his seat, she took hers, their stares crossed again, and Cerise wasn’t sure which one of them was in more trouble.
William leaned forward, pulling his bowl closer as if she was about to take it from him. He needed a shave, but then he didn’t look bad with the stubble. Quite the opposite, in fact. He kept his expression calm, but she knew with some sort of inborn female intuition that he was thinking about her and about doing things with her. She felt like a fifteen-year-old dancing with a boy for the first time, nervous, and shaky, and trying not to say or do the wrong thing but thrilled deep inside every moment.
Great. She couldn’t decide which one of them was the bigger idiot.
“The food is crap. Sorry. But it’s hot,” she said, keeping her tone calm.
“I’ve had worse.” His voice was flat, too.
“This stove is great.”
William looked up from his bowl. “What do you cook on?”
“The main house has a huge woodstove and a small electric one. It’s not nearly as nice.” Cerise sighed, glancing at the glass-top stove with a small GE logo. “I want to steal this one.”
“Good luck getting it past that damn eel.” He dug into his stew.
“If we bring it along, you can always drop it on him.”
He paused, as if he was actually considering dragging the stove through the swamp.
“I’m joking,” she told him.
William shrugged and went back to his food.
A thin red stain spread through the side of his shirt.
“You’re bleeding.”
He raised his arm and looked at his side. “Must’ve reopened it. That asshole clawed me.”
Those claws were half a foot long. “How deep?”
He shrugged again. More red seeped through.
“Stop shrugging.” She jumped off her chair and walked over to him. “Lift your shirt.”
He peeled the shirt up, exposing his side. Two deep gashes crossed his ribs. Nothing life threatening but nothing that would do him any good untreated either.
“Why didn’t you bandage this?”
“No need. I heal fast.”
Yeah. “Don’t move.” She grabbed her bag and pulled out a Ziploc bag with gauze and tape and a tube of Neosporin. “Did you at least wash it out?”
He nodded.
“Good. Because I’m not dragging you across the swamp if you pass out from an infection.” She washed her hands with soap and squeezed Neosporin on the cuts. “This is medicine from the Broken. It kills infection in the wound.”
“I know what it does,” he said.
“And how would a blueblood know that?”
“No personal questions.”
Ha. Walked into her own rule face-first. Cerise applied dressing and taped up the cuts. “Oh, look. You survived unscathed.”
“Your Neosporin stinks.”
“Get over it.”
He pulled his shirt down, and she caught a glimpse of blue on his biceps. Cerise reached over and pulled his sleeve up. A large bruise covered most of his shoulder.
“You have ointment for that, too?” William asked.
“No, but now if I have to punch you, I know where it will hurt the most.” She let go of the sleeve and went to put her supplies up. That was some biceps. His back was well muscled, and you could probably bounce a quarter off his abs. Either he still was a soldier or he did something nasty for a living. Men didn’t stay in that kind of shape unless they had to.
She came back to the table.
“Thanks,” he told her.
Now was her chance, Cerise decided. She had to get as much information out of him as she could. Who knew what would happen tomorrow. “I take it that turtle thing was one of the Hand’s agents.”
He nodded.
Come on, Lord Bill, don’t keep it all to yourself. She tried again. “What about that bat? When we ran past it, it looked like it had been dead for a while. There was a hole in its side, and you could see its innards even before you put the knife into it. It stank like carrion, too.”
He nodded again.
Maybe she was being too subtle. “Tell me about the Hand. Pl
ease.”
“No questions. You made the rule, remember?” William hooked a piece of meat with the fork and chewed quickly. He ate fast—she had barely finished half, while he was almost done.
“I’m willing to trade.”
William glanced at her from above the rim of his bowl. “An answer for an answer.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll answer me honestly?”
Cerise gave him her best sincere smile. She had two stories ready to go, depending on which way he was leaning. “Of course.”
He barked a short laugh. “You’re an Edger. You’d lie, rob me blind, and leave me naked in the swamp if you thought you’d get something from it.”
Smart bastard. “I thought you said it was your first time in the Edge?”
“And now you’re trying to sneak a question in. You think I was born yesterday.”
If he was born yesterday, he sure matured fast. “I’ll give you my word.”
He choked on the stew, coughed, tossed his head back, and laughed.
For a blueblood, he was damn hilarious. Cerise rolled her eyes, trying her best not to laugh herself. “Oh, please.”
William pointed up at the sky with his spoon. “Swear to them.”
She raised her eyebrows. “How do you know my grandparents would be upset if I lied?”
“How do you know they wouldn’t?”
Good point. She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I promise to play fair.”
William leaned back, watching her through half-closed eyes. “You want to know about the bat?”
“For starters.”
“They’re called deaders. I’m Adrianglian. I told you—we’re all about gadgets and toys that amplify our magic. Some people have implants; some use military-grade magic amplifiers. Louisiana went the other way. They undergo permanent, irreparable body modification that makes them into freaks. Some of them sprout tentacles from their asses. Some spit poisoned barbs. From what I’ve heard, the kind of shit they do to their bodies is banned in other countries. The tracker you saw on the river—he wasn’t born that way. The ambusher didn’t grow all that armor by himself either. They cooked them up somewhere.”
The armored freak was ugly, but the tracker deeply disturbed her. Something about watching those tentacles slither awoke a primal, deep-seated revulsion. She would never manage to scrub that image out of her mind, and she couldn’t wait to pay him back. “I’ll kill that tracker one day.”
“Get in line.”
The two of them grimaced at each other.
“The Hand uses a kind of necromancer, a scout master,” William said. “You said your cousin was a necromancer. You know how the natural necromancers operate?”
They twisted the head off your favorite doll, stuffed a dead bird into it, and made it walk around. And then they were puzzled why you got upset. “More than I ever want to.”
“Well, this one takes it to a whole new level. A scout master sheds chunks of himself and stuffs them into corpses, turning them into deaders.”
Ew. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”
He shook his head. “These deaders become a part of him. He sees what they see. Then he finds himself a nice quiet spot, sends them out, and waits for the reports to roll in.”
“That is incredibly disgusting.”
“My turn.” William leaned in, his hazel eyes fixing her with a direct stare. It was an odd gaze, magnetic and powerful, but betraying nothing. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, and Cerise leaned closer to hear it. She could’ve stared into those eyes for a thousand years and never noticed the time passing by.
“Why does the Hand want you?”
“That’s a neat trick you do with your eyes, Lord William,” she murmured. “Very scary.”
“Answer the question.”
“They have my parents.”
“Why?”
She smiled at him. He actually thought he’d get an equal trade. “That’s a second question. What are you doing in the Mire?”
“Looking for something that was stolen from my family. It’s an heirloom, a ring. It was given to us by an Anglian king back on the Old Continent. The man who stole it ended up here, and I have to retrieve it.”
If his family was truly that old, he should have been able to flash. He shot a crossbow, he was a master with a knife, and he could probably mow through opponents with his bare hands, but so far he hadn’t flashed. Probably because he couldn’t. He shouldn’t have survived the trip to the Broken either. Cerise smiled to herself. She had guessed right. Someone in Lord William’s long list of ancestors had dipped a toe in some muddy waters—the blood of either an Edger or a migrant from the Broken flowed through his veins.
“Why did the Hand kidnap your parents?” William asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
She shook her head. “Our family is in a feud. Has been for the last eighty years. One generation slaughters each other, the feud dies down until the next crop of people grows up, and then we go at it again. A few days ago, my parents left to check an old house on the edge of our land. When they didn’t come back, I went out to look for them. I found the family we’re feuding with on the property. They told me the Hand took my parents. They neglected to mention why.”
“You didn’t do anything about them being on your land?”
She caught a hint of disapproval in his voice. Fury bubbled up in her. “That’s an extra question, William. But fine. I’ll answer it. I had three horsemen; they had six rifles. I did the math and the results weren’t in my favor. But don’t worry on my behalf. I’ll see the light fade from their eyes before this is over.”
She rose, washed her bowl, and went into the bedroom.
SEVEN
WILLIAM finished the stew—it was food, and he had no idea when he’d get to eat again. He rinsed his bowl, padded to her bedroom on quiet wolf feet, and nudged the door open with his fingertips. The girl was already asleep. She slept sitting up against the wall, her legs crossed, her sword leaning on her shoulder. He had a feeling that if he came any closer, she would wake up with her blade in him, so he just stood in the doorway.
He studied the way the wave of her dark hair framed her face, spilling over her shoulders down almost to the floor. She was so pretty, it was like looking at a painting. Except this painting was alive and warm, and her scent made him want to whine like a puppy because he had to stay away.
She’d fixed the wound on his side. He’d sat very still and let her do it. He still remembered the feel of her fingers on his skin. If she’d known what he’d been thinking, she would have run away screaming. Then maybe not. Screaming didn’t seem to be her thing.
Her story sounded genuine enough. The Edgers loved to feud over stupid crap, and once the feuds started, they never really died down. The smaller the stakes, the harder they fought.
Cerise hadn’t given him a single name, except her own, and he had no guarantee that even that was genuine. She planned to dump him in Sicktree and vanish into the swamp. If they were on solid ground, he could track her, but in the swamp, where water broke up scent trails, he wasn’t sure. She knew what she was doing.
If this was a normal conflict, things would be simple. She would be an enemy. But if she was telling the truth, she was a victim, a noncombatant. Noncombatants were off-limits. Until she made herself into an enemy by attacking him, he had no justification to treat her as such.
He wanted her to like him. Women rarely liked him, even in the Broken. They seemed to sense that something was wrong with him and gave him a wide berth.
What William needed was a way into her family, so he could figure out why Spider had decided to screw with them. Cerise was his way inside. He had to get her to like him or at least make her think he was useful enough to bring along. He had to think like a human and be sly.
Being sly wasn’t among his virtues. Cats were sly. Foxes, too. He was a wolf. He took what he wanted, and if he couldn’t have i
t, he’d bide his time until an opportunity to take it presented itself. She mentioned she expected to make Sicktree by the end of the next day. His window of opportunity was shrinking. He was running out of time.
William looked at her one last time and moved off into the living room. He pulled the cushions off the couch, made a makeshift pallet on the floor, and lay down, blocking the door. The Mirror had a man in Sicktree, Zeke Wallace. Officially he was a leather merchant and taxidermist. Unofficially he worked for Adrianglia and smuggled contraband in his spare time. According to Erwin, Zeke would provide him with up-to-date intelligence on Spider: where he and his crew had been seen, whom they contacted in the Mire, and so on. Zeke could help identify Cerise, but that was about it. The rest was on him.
Think. You’re a human, too. Think.
He was still trying to come up with something, when sleep mugged him.
* * *
THE sound of faint steps tugged on William through his sleep. He opened his eyes in time to see Cerise’s bare ankles as she slipped past him outside.
Running out on him. I don’t think so.
William rolled into a crouch and followed her out. The dour lake stretched placidly under a morose gray sky. At the dock Cerise waded into the water up to her knees, still wearing her long T-shirt. He followed her, moving silently across the grass to the dock, padding across the boards until he could see her face. Her eyes were closed. She lifted her head to the dreary sky and stood, her arms out slightly, as if welcoming someone.
Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a glossy waterfall. Her face was sad.
William sat on the edge of the dock. What the hell was she doing now?
CERISE breathed in the morning air. She’d slept badly. Once she woke up because she dreamed that they had gotten to Sicktree and Urow was dead. The next time she’d dreamed the house was attacked. The dream had been so vivid, she actually got up and went as far as her doorway. From that point she could see the dining room and the living room, both dark, and William asleep in front of the door, barring the way for any intruders. In his dreams, the hard edge faded from the blueblood. He looked peaceful and calm. Watching him reassured her and she went back to sleep.
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