He had a very simple plan: keep watch, identify the traitor as he or she left for the woods, then follow their trail to the wonderful presents that waited on the other end. He might get a drop on the Hand’s agent and follow him to whatever deep dark hole Spider claimed as his lair in the swamp.
Perhaps he might even let the Hand’s agent see him, William decided. Then they would have to have a conversation. Maybe some bones would even get broken. He chuckled soundlessly.
The window slid open without a sound. He eased through it onto the long balcony and crouched down, moving away into the deeper shadow by the rail.
The moon dipped in and out of ragged clouds. In the distance an old gator voiced a lazy roar. The wind smelled of water and the mimosa-tinted perfume of night needle flowers.
It had been a while since he’d hunted, and the night was calling.
Below, past the rail, the yard lay empty. William sat still, quiet and patient.
Minutes stretched like honey.
A faint shiver troubled the cypress branches to the left. A boy with a rifle. No older than twelve.
Another stir, to the right. A young woman in the pine. Judging by the distance between the trees, a third look-out probably waited on the opposite side of the house. They faced out, watching the Mire. None saw him.
A door closed shut with a quiet thump up ahead.
He slipped along the balcony, staying in the shadows, and sank down by the rail again. The spot gave him a view of a narrow slice of the front balcony and most of the staircase.
Measured footsteps, followed by a barely audible second set. He’d learned that second sound very well by now. Kaldar. Ugh.
The wind fetched their scents for him. Yeah, Kaldar and Richard. Those two were on the top of his traitor suspect list. Kaldar had the air of a man who always needed money but never had enough. The Hand paid well. When they didn’t murder their hirelings, that was.
Richard was a different story. William had picked Catherine’s brains while sitting in the library and listened to the family’s chatter for the entire evening until he’d pieced together the family tree. Grandmother Az had seven children. Of the seven, Alain Mar had been the oldest. Alain had three children, Richard, Kaldar, and Erian. When the Sheeriles had shot Alain in the market place, Richard was seventeen, Kaldar was fourteen, and Erian was ten. The family reins passed to Gustave, Cerise’s father. Cerise’s parents had taken Erian, because his brothers had been too young to take care of him.
Richard smelled like a natural alpha. Rational, calm, respected, from what little William had seen. People looked up to him, Cerise included. But Richard wasn’t in charge. Cerise was. Why?
He liked Richard for the traitor. The bulk of Cerise’s relatives consisted of her cousins, their children, and relatives by marriage, but only the core of the family knew about Urow meeting Cerise. He’d managed to narrow it down to eight people: Cerise, Richard, Kaldar, Erian, Murid, Petunia, and Ignata.
Catherine mentioned that Richard’s wife had left him about a year ago. Spouses didn’t seem to last among Mars.
If he had a wife and she left him, he would feel powerless, William decided. He would try to find the biggest, baddest asshole and take him down. It wouldn’t matter if he won or lost the fight. Either way, he’d replace the emotional hurt with real physical pain, something he could deal with, something that did eventually get better. They were similar, Richard and he. They both kept things contained inside. He’d sat next to Richard during the evening for a few minutes. They didn’t say a word to each other, sharing a calm silence. Richard had shown emotion only once. They’d both watched Kaldar slip the knife back into the sheath on Erian’s belt, and Richard had permitted himself a long-suffering sigh.
Maybe Richard wanted to prove to everyone that he wasn’t as powerless as his wife had made him feel.
“The man carries military-grade explosives in his pack,” Richard said quietly. “They came from the Weird. The magic aftershock was so strong, my teeth hurt.”
“Cerise said he used to be a soldier.” Kaldar’s tone was light. “William’s obviously on a hunting expedition. As long as he hunts the other side, we win.”
They were talking about him. Ha!
The two men stayed silent for a long moment.
“I didn’t hit that door,” Richard said.
“Hm?”
“The door to the Bunker. It was all him. He knocked it out, before I hit it. I barely grazed it.”
“So you’re sore, because you missed out on a bruise on your shoulder?” Kaldar asked.
“After we got Mikita out, I looked at the Bunker. One of those big storage shelves had fallen against the door. The weight of the door plus the shelf …”
“Richard, I told you today that you’re like a mother hen.” Kaldar took a few steps down the stairs, coming into his view. William stayed still.
“You have to loosen up, brother. You’re so tense, you’ll get the lot of us killed.”
“The man is dangerous.”
Kaldar raised his arms. “Of course he’s dangerous. You’ve got to have balls to come out after the Hand. They hunt; they don’t get hunted. Besides, you know she wouldn’t have brought him here if they didn’t reach some sort of agreement. She trusts him and I trust her.”
“She’s young. Don’t tell me you can’t see what’s going on. I saw the way she looked at him when he dragged her up the stairs. Her parents are gone. She isn’t thinking clearly.”
Kaldar turned on his foot on the stair. William had to give it to the man—Kaldar had balance.
“Richard, how old do you think she is?”
“She’s …” Richard didn’t finish.
“Yeah,” Kaldar said. “She is twenty-four. And you’re thirty-three. In your head you must still be a teenager, while she and Erian are toddlers. They grew up. We all grew up. I come here more often that you do. Gustave runs the family, but Ceri runs the house.”
“What do you mean?”
Kaldar heaved a sigh. “I mean that our dear uncle Gustave drove the Mar family ship right into the ground. He has no head for business. You could give him a free crate of guns from the Broken, and he’d manage to sell it at a loss. Genevieve’s too busy, she’s dealing with Lark and trying to keep the rest of the kids fed and watered, but when it comes down to it, she just doesn’t want to deal with money. Can’t say I blame her. I wouldn’t want to do it. So three years ago they dumped the accounts onto Ceri. She balances the books, she pays out our allotments, and she picks up our expenses. Why do you think she’s been going with me to the Broken? She knows how bad it is, and she’s pinching every penny, looking for some sort of angle to get us more money. We’re clawing out of the hole Gustave put us in, but it’s slow going. And there are too damn many of us, and everyone keeps having emergencies that bleed the money.”
“I had no idea.” Richard’s voice was clipped.
William grimaced. He had no idea either. Money wasn’t something he had in abundance, but he knew it had to be rationed. Back in the Legion, his food and gear were free, so what money he had, he spent on leave, on booze, books, and women. The first few months in the Broken turned his world upside down. He’d almost gotten himself evicted before he learned to pay bills first and spend on other things later. He’d seen enough of the Mars—their clothes were patched, their equipment was old, with the exception of a rare piece here and there, but everyone looked well fed. To keep the horde of Mars in line, Cerise would have to squeeze every cent.
Kaldar kept going. “They make a pretense of Gustave still approving everything, but trust me on this, it’s all her. If you go into her room, wake her up, and ask her how much money we have, I bet you she’ll tell you the balance down to a penny. If any of us are thinking clearly, she is it.”
Richard’s voice gained an icy haughtiness. “I’ll speak to Gustave, once we find him.”
“And say what? That it doesn’t sit well with you that our funny baby cousin is scrounging for change t
o keep us in this oh-so-rich style we’ve become accustomed to?”
Richard didn’t answer.
Kaldar’s face jerked. “When I found out, I asked Gustave about it, and he looked at me like I’d sprouted a water lily on my head. She was twenty-one then, and when Gustave was twenty-four, he’d taken over the family.”
“It’s not right,” Richard said.
Kaldar shrugged. “She works hard, Richard, and the Hand just pulled the rug out from under her feet. If this blueblood makes her happy, I’m all for it. She hasn’t gone out with a man in three years, since that asshole Tobias. Now, that isn’t right. Sure, the timing stinks. Trust me, if the blueblood bastard fucks up, I’ll be the first in line to slit his throat. But until then, he’s her guest, and you and I will be making him feel welcome.”
“And if she falls for him and he leaves her? Last time I looked, Weird nobles weren’t in the market for exile brides.”
“Then at least she would’ve lived a bit,” Kaldar said. “She’s allowed her mistakes. You and I both made plenty. We’re the big fucking rock around her neck. She can’t leave until the family is on its feet again, and by then she will be your age. Let her have some fun. She could die tomorrow. We could all die tomorrow.”
Kaldar walked off down the stairs and turned left, angling toward a smaller building. A few moments later Richard’s retreating steps told William he had gone inside.
So they knew Cerise liked him, and Kaldar, at least, was all for it. William made a mental note to find out about Tobias.
William gave Richard a few seconds to make his way from the door, crossed the front porch, and dropped into the grass, pressing against the wall, hidden from the sentries.
He heard a tiny noise and turned toward the thicket of ickberry bushes flanking the cypresses. A long shoot covered with thorns shivered, then another.
William leaned forward. Heat surged through his muscles, making him fast and focused.
The shrubs shook, as if taunting him, and a big square head thrust through the leaves. Two brown eyes fixed on William from across the clearing.
Idiot dog.
Cough pushed through the brush and trotted toward him, not so much walking but falling from paw to paw. If the lookouts decided to follow Cough’s course, they’d run right into him.
William bared his teeth. Go away.
Cough kept coming, a lopsided canine grin on his furry face and not a thought in his head. If the dog could hum, he’d be singing “La-la-la!” in tune with his footsteps.
Cough sauntered over to him.
William pressed against the wall. No bullets. So far, so good.
Cough clenched, and vomited something chunky onto the grass.
Terrific.
The big dog sat on his haunches and looked at William with a perplexed expression on his face.
“Well, eat it back up,” William hissed. “Don’t waste it.”
Cough gave a tiny whine.
“I’m not eating your puke.”
Cough panted at him.
“No.”
A lean shape leaped off the porch and ran past them into the woods. William caught a glimpse of dark hair and small brown boots. Lark. Why would a child be sneaking out into the woods in the middle of the night? Was she meeting “the monster” there?
Cough got up and trotted after her.
Good idea. William peeled himself from the wall and sprinted across the clearing. As he passed the tree with the sentry, he looked up and saw the kid asleep between the branches, the rifle leaning on his lap.
Finally something was going his way.
EIGHTEEN
WILLIAM glided through the grove. The cypresses gave way to the Edge pines. Huge pine trunks surrounded him, black and soaring, like a sea of masts that belonged to ships sunken deep under the carpet of blue leaf moss.
Dense thickets crowded the pines, punctuated by the patches of rust ferns. Stunted swamp willows with startling pale bark protruded through the brush like white wax candles. This wasn’t his Wood. This was an old treacherous place, a garish decay and new life mixed into one, and William felt uneasy.
The dog by his side didn’t much care for the wood either. The sleepy-eyed, good-natured idiot had raised his ears, and his brown eyes scanned the woods with open suspicion.
A breeze touched them. They both sniffed in unison and turned left, following Lark’s trail.
Where was that kid going? William leapt over a fallen branch. He hoped with all of him that Lark wasn’t meeting some “nice” monster in the woods and telling him all of the secrets of her family.
A large white oak loomed in the woods, a lone giant tinseled with maiden hair moss. The air currents slapped William with a dozen odors of carrion, some old, some new. What the hell?
With all this carrion, he could smell nothing else.
Cough barreled on ahead. Dogs. Stupid creatures.
William jogged closer.
A dozen small furry bodies hung from the oak’s branches. Two squirrels, a rabbit, an odd thing that looked like a cross between a raccoon and an ermine—something the Edge had cooked up, no doubt—fish …
A skinny shape scrambled through the branches above him. Lark’s small face poked through the leaves.
“You shouldn’t be here. This is the tree where the small monster lives,” she said. “This is the small monster’s food, and that’s the small monster’s house.”
He looked up to where she pointed. A haphazard shelter sat in the branches of the oak, just some old boards clumsily nailed and tied to make a little platform with an overhang. A small yellow something sat on the edge of the platform. William squinted. A stuffed teddy bear next to Peva’s crossbow.
Cerise was right. Lark thought she was a monster. A small one. Who the hell was the big monster?
The teddy bear looked at him with small black eyes. Looking at it made him feel uneasy, as if he was sick or in serious danger and he wasn’t sure when the next blow would be coming. He wanted to take Lark and her teddy bear away from the tree, just carry her off to the house, where there was warmth and light. His instincts told him she’d bolt if he tried.
Human children didn’t do this and she wasn’t a changeling. If she was one, he would’ve recognized her by now and Cerise wouldn’t be surprised by his eyes.
William tapped the tree. “Can I come up?”
Lark bit her lips thinking. “I can trust you?”
He let the moonlight catch his eyes, setting them aglow. “Yes. I’m a monster, too.”
Lark’s eyes went wide. She stared at him in silent shock for a long breath and nodded. “Okay.”
William took a couple of steps back and launched himself up the trunk, scrambling up like a lizard. It took him less than two seconds to crouch on the branch across from Lark.
“Wow,” she said. “Where did you learn to climb that fast?”
“It’s something I do,” he said.
Cough whined below.
Lark scuttled down the branches, pulled out a small knife and cut the rope holding a water rat. The rat’s body fell with a wet plop. Cough sniffed it and sat on his haunches, panting, long sticky drool stretching from his mouth.
“He never eats them.” Lark frowned.
That’s because they’re rotten. “Do you come here a lot?”
She nodded. “If we don’t find my mom, I might move here. I like it. Nobody bothers me here. Except for the big monster, but I usually run away when I hear him.”
“The big monster?”
She nodded. “It moans and snarls when the moon is up.”
The Hand’s agents were freaks, but he doubted they would howl at the moon. “Is it something that’s always lived here?”
“I don’t know. I only started this tree four weeks ago.”
“What does it look like?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It gives me the creeps, and I usually run straight to the house.” Her face shut down.
“Do people bother you at the hous
e?”
Lark looked away.
“Monsters belong in the woods,” she said. “They don’t belong at the house. Were kids mean to you when you were a small monster?”
William considered the question, trying to sort through the mess that was his childhood to find something a human girl would consider mean. “I grew up in a house with a bunch of kids who were monsters like me. We fought. A lot.” And when they really went at it, only one changeling got up in the end.
Lark scooted closer to him. “The adults didn’t stop you? We aren’t allowed to fight.”
“They did. They were strict. We got whipped a lot, and if you really screwed up, they would put you on a chain in a room by yourself. Nobody would talk to you for days.”
Lark blinked. “How did you get food?”
“They would slide it through a slot in the door.”
“And bathroom?”
“There was a hole in the floor.”
She pursed her lips. “No showers?”
“No.”
“That’s nasty. How long did you stay in there?”
He leaned back, lowering one leg down. “The longest was three weeks. I think. Time is odd when you’re in that room.”
“Why did they put you in there?”
“I broke into the archives. I wanted to find out who my parents were.”
“Did you?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“So you didn’t ever have a dad? Or a mom?”
William shook his head. This conversation had gotten deeper than planned.
“How can you not have a mom? What if you got sick? Who would bring you medicine?”
Nobody. “What about your mom? Is she nice?”
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