Fate's Edge

THE Rose Cliff Rehabilitation Center could only be described as posh, Kaldar reflected, walking through the glass door into a foyer. Huge windows painted the cream and pale peach walls with rectangles of golden sunlight. The floor was brown marble tile, polished to a mirror sheen, and as he walked across it to a marble counter, his steps sent tiny echoes through the vestibule. Normally, he preferred shoes that made no sound, but the set of Broken clothes had to be obtained quickly, and he didn't have a lot of choices. Now he felt like a shod horse: clack, clack, clack.

The mirrored wall behind the receptionist presented him with his reflection: he wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt so crisp he was half-afraid the folded collar might nick his neck and draw blood, and the cursed black shoes. His dark hair was slicked back from his face. He'd shaved, trimmed his eyebrows, and dabbed cologne on his skin. He smelled expensive, he made noise as he walked, and he projected enough confidence to win a dozen sieges.

The blond receptionist behind the counter smiled at him. "May I help you, sir?"

"My name is Jonathan Berman." He held out his business card. She took it and studied it for a second. Silver foil cursive crossed the dark blue card printed on the best stock money could buy. It read: SHIFTING THE PARADIGM. Below it his name was printed, followed by a phony Los Angeles address.

"Good morning, Mr. Berman."

Kaldar nodded. Amazing how the Broken worked: all those forms of identification, but hand someone a business card, and they forget to ask you for your driver's license. He'd had business cards in twenty different names, one for each region of the country. Each communicated something different. This one said money, confidence, and success, and, judging by her even wider smile, this fact wasn't lost on the receptionist.

"How may I help you, Mr. Berman?"

"I'm here to see Alex Callahan."

The receptionist glanced at her computer screen. Her fingers with very long nails colored canary yellow flew over the keyboard. "Mr. Callahan was admitted three days ago. Normally, we recommend that our guests refrain from distractions during the first two weeks of treatment."

Kaldar leaned on the counter and gave her a knowing smile. "What's your name?"

"Bethany."

"Well, Bethany, Alex is my cousin. I understand he came in with his parents."

That was a wild stab in the dark, but who else would make a deal with the Hand, then blow all of that hard-earned cash on a rehab for an addict? That kind of love came only from parents. If Alex had a woman, she was either an addict like him or penniless like him.

"His father, actually," Bethany said.

Kaldar felt the first hint of excitement. He was right; there was a family, and they were in this theft up to their eyeballs. Alex was probably too far gone to care, but they cared. They had something to lose. That meant he could lean on them.

Everyone had a lever . . .

While his mind processed and calculated, his lips were moving. "Just between you and me, did Alex's father strike you as a man who can simply drop forty thousand dollars on this marble counter and walk away?"

"I can't say." The receptionist leaned back, but he read the answer in her eyes. "It's not proper."

"Who will know?" Kaldar leaned closer and made a show of glancing around. "I don't see anyone, do you?" His voice dropped into a conspiratorial, intimate half whisper. "So just between you and me, he looked like a man who hunts for spare change in his couch."

Bethany blinked, big eyes opened wide.

"You have to ask yourself, Bethany, where does a man like that get this kind of money. He borrows it, of course. No bank would give him a loan, so he has to turn to family." Kaldar smiled magnanimously.

Understanding crept into Bethany's eyes. "Oh."

"All I want is to make sure that I've made a correct investment in Alex's future. I'd like to speak to him and let him tell me if he is treated well and that his needs are being seen to. I promise I carry no contraband." He raised his hands palms out. "You may search me if you'd like."

He slipped just enough suggestion into that last phrase to make Bethany blush a little. "That won't be necessary." She pointed to the right, where a group of blocky leather chairs and couches surrounded a glass cube of a table. "Please wait here."

Kaldar turned on his heel and clacked his way across the floor to the leather chairs. A hollowed-out wooden dish, shaped almost precisely like a canoe, sat on the table. The canoe held three spheres about the size of a large grapefruit made of smoky glass shot through with veins of gold. Odd decoration. He pictured himself swiping a sphere, its comforting weight heavy in his hand. In a pinch, he could use it to shatter the windowpane and give himself a head start if he had to leave in a hurry.

Two men emerged from the side hallway. One was middle-aged and blond, going gray, with the slick, clean look of someone accustomed to dealing with people of money and making a good living from it. The other was Alex Callahan. Tall, lanky, with longish hair on the crossroads of dishwater blond and faded red, Callahan walked oddly, as if he didn't fully trust the ground to support his weight. His cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut, his cheeks caved into his face, and his neck, left bare by the collar of a too-big T-shirt, stuck out, thin, long, and bony. A mean, arrogant sneer bent his lips. His eyes radiated a manic energy and contempt. It was the look that said, "You think I'm shit because I'm a junkie, but guess what? I am better than you."

Kaldar had seen that same look on the faces of spoiled addicts before. This wasn't a desperate soul in need of help debasing himself for a fix. This was a man surfing the edge of violence, who saw himself as a victim and the rest of the world as owing him.

Callahan was too far gone. Threats wouldn't work. He simply didn't care about himself or his family.

"Cousin!" Kaldar grinned at Alex.

Callahan didn't miss a beat. "Didn't expect to see you here, cousin."

The older handler held out his hand. "I'm Dr. Leem. I want to assure you that Alex is being well looked after. Isn't that right, Alex?"

"Sure," Callahan said.

"Let's sit down?" Leem suggested.

They took their places on the leather furniture, and Leem launched into a long overview of the facilities. Kaldar pretended to listen, watching Callahan. Callahan watched him back. The file back in Louisiana said he was twenty-eight; he looked forty-eight. His foot tapped the floor; he picked on the skin around his nails; he rolled his mouth into different variations of his sneer, which was probably semipermanent. He'd been in the facility for over forty-eight hours. They had detoxed him. Alex Callahan was sober, and he hated it.

Finally, Kaldar raised his hand.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but my time is limited. I'm due in LA for a meeting. Would you mind giving Alex and me some privacy? This won't take long."

"Of course." Leem rose and moved to the counter, keeping them in plain view.

Callahan leaned back, bony knees straining the loose fabric of his jeans. "What do you want, dear cousin?"

Kaldar flicked his fingers. A small clear packet appeared between his index and middle finger as if by magic. Inside the packet, a small purple flower spread three petals. Bromedia. The most potent herbal hallucinogenic the Weird had to offer. The purest of highs. He'd procured it during one of the jobs he'd done for the Mirror. It involved a caravan of illegal contraband trading between the Edge and the Weird, and in the chaos of the arrest, nobody ever realized that some of the illegal goods had gone missing.

Callahan's eyes fixed on the packet, on fire with greed. Kaldar closed his fingers for a moment and opened them, showing Callahan an empty hand. The packet with the flower had vanished.

"How did you get out of Adriana?" Kaldar asked.

"I ported us. That's my thing," Callahan said. "Can only do it once in a while and about twenty feet tops. It went sour, the Hand's freaks were closing in, so I got me and my old man out of the square, then we ran."

A teleporter. Kaldar had run across them before - it was a rare talent and very useful, but teleporters could only move a few feet at a time, and most of them couldn't do any magic for a day or two after.

"What happened to your third partner?"

"Audrey had left before we got to Adriana."

A woman? Of course. Fate had decided to have a little fun with him. Very well, he could take a joke.

"She said she was done." Callahan shrugged. "My dear sister doesn't care for me very much."

I wonder why. "Where is the box?"

"Don't know, don't care. Old man found a buyer somewhere. All I know, he dropped me off here to 'get clean.'" Callahan's voice dripped with derision. "That's the last I've seen him."

"Where would your father go to hide?"

Callahan rocked back and laughed, a dry humorless chuckle. "You won't find him. Old man's a legend. They call him Slippery Callahan. He's got a hideout in every settlement in the Edge. Anyway, he isn't who you want. You need Audrey."

"I'm listening," Kaldar said.

Callahan leaned forward. "The old man is good at planning. That's his shtick. But to pull off the heist, you go to Audrey. She's the picker. Any lock, any door, she can open it like that." He snapped his fingers. "She doesn't like me because of some business back, but the old man, him she hates. Daddy issues, blah-blah-blah. My sister is anal. She'd know who he sold it to, and she would be the one to get it back for you."

Whenever a woman got involved, things instantly became more complicated. Kaldar flipped the packet of Bromedia back into view. "Where can I find Audrey?"

"That's the funny part. She's up in Washington, near some town called Olympia. The old man said she'd gone law and order on us. Works for some PI firm under her real name. Can you believe that shit?" Callahan laughed again.

Kaldar rose and held out his hand. Callahan got up, shook it, and Kaldar slipped the packet into his fingers. Callahan palmed it with practiced ease and let go. The whole thing took a second at most.

"Half a petal in hot water," Kaldar murmured. "Any more, and you'll regret it."

"Don't school an expert," Callahan told him.

Kaldar headed for the door, nodding at Bethany and Leem in passing. There was no need to exchange threats and promise to return in case he was lied to. Callahan had been around long enough to know the score.

"THIS wasn't one of my better ideas," George murmured.

"Yes, but it's fun." Jack strode down the street. The sun shone bright, and he squinted at it. Kaldar's scent floated on the breeze, spiced with the deep, resin-saturated aroma of eucalyptus. "When was the last time you've had fun, George?" He stretched "George" out the way Adrianglian blueblood girls did.

George looked sour. "I'm too busy making sure that you don't kill anybody or get killed to have fun."

"Blah-blah-blah."

Around them, tan, white, and pale brown stucco buildings lined the street. They passed a gas station, followed by a furniture store, and some sort of restaurant emanating a smoky, charred-meat smell that made him drool, and now they marched along a low stone wall, behind which houses rose, each with a small square of a yard.

Jack stopped. Kaldar's scent lingered at the curb and vanished, replaced by the bitter stink of gasoline, rubber, and a foul burned smell. He shook his head, trying to clear his nose.

"What's the matter with you?" George asked.

"The fumes. All that time in the Weird with no cars made my nose extrasensitive. He got into a car here."

"Which way did it go?"

Jack puzzled over the faint marks of rubber on the pavement. "Right."

George surveyed the intersection up ahead. "That would've put him into the right-turn lane. Come on."

"Why are we following him?" Jack trotted down the street. When he first mentioned that he wanted to go to the Broken, he'd expected George to shoot him down, but his brother jumped on the chance. At first they had to follow Kaldar to get to the boundary, which made sense. The crossing had been harder than he remembered. The magic squeezed him and ground, not wanting to let go, but, finally, he won and made it through into the Broken. Then they followed Kaldar's scent so they wouldn't get lost, which made sense, too. But the trail led them deeper and deeper into the city, and now Kaldar had gotten into a car. They were still wearing the Weird's clothes: he wore a dark brown shirt, George wore a white shirt with loose wide sleeves, and they both sported brown practice leggings that passed for sweatpants in the Weird.

"I'm fourteen," George said. "You're twelve. Gaston is only five years older than me."

"Yeah?"

"Gaston gets to run around with William and do cool shit."

Jack gave him a sideways glance. "Do cool what?"

"Do cool shit."

Jack peered at George.

"What?"

"Waiting to see if your face will crack after saying 'shit,' Cursed Prince."

"Whatever." George waved his hand.

Jack turned the corner. Ahead, a long street rolled into the distance, bordered on the right by a tall, dense hedge. The scent of the car continued up the street. Jack followed it.

"The point is, Gaston fights the Hand, he gets weapons, and he hasn't spent a day stuffed into a boarding school," George said.

"You like school."

George stopped and gave him an icy look. "I don't."

Jack turned on the ball of his foot to face George. "You rule that damn school." While he could do no right.

"I know the rules, and I follow them. It doesn't mean I like it. I can't just punch everyone who calls me Edge Trash, because both of us can't screw up all the time. The more you throw your fists around, the less freedom I have to make mistakes."

Oh, really? "Exactly how is it my fault?"

"We're the two brothers from the Edge. When the bluebloods look at us, they lump us together. If we both screw up, then they'll completely despise us."

"And this way they just despise me." Jack stopped. A short side street sliced through the hedge. Through the break, he could see a parking lot. Whatever Kaldar drove, he had taken it in there. Why steal a car to drive it only a mile?

Jack turned into the parking lot. George followed. Rows of cars greeted them. To the left, five older boys loitered on the edge of the lot.

"Yes, please, do feel sorry for yourself." George rolled his eyes. "Oh, poor Jack. Oh, he just doesn't understand."

Jack growled.

"When he grabs a guy by his hair and smashes his face into the wall, he is just reacting to being bullied. He is sensitive."

Jack spun and launched a quick jab, aiming for George's stomach. George blocked and danced aside.

"And then he runs and hides in his room, and his poor sister has to go and take his plate to him because he is brooding there . . ."

Jack snapped a quick hook. George dodged, and the blow whistled past his chin.

". . . Crying into his pillow . . ."

Jack veered left, right, rocking on the balls of his feet, and sank a quick powerful punch. George saw it, but too late. All he could do was turn in to it, and Jack connected with his brother's shoulder. Ha! Landed one. And then the heel of George's left hand slammed into his nose. Jack staggered back. Ow.

"That's right, solve all your problems with violence."

"Don't worry, I won't hit your pretty face." Jack stood on his toes and bowed, twisting his hands as expected before you asked a girl to dance. "We wouldn't want to mar that delicate beau - "

George's fist slammed into his face. Pain exploded in his jaw. The world blinked. He locked his fingers on George's wrist, jerked his foot up into his brother's stomach, and rolled back, heaving George over him. George slapped the asphalt with his back. The air burst out of him in a loud gasp. Jack rolled up, clamped George's right arm between his legs, scissoring it, and leaned over George's torso with his back, pinning him down, right forearm across the windpipe.

George squeezed out some hoarse noises.

Jack leaned closer and grinned. "Hi. How are you doing?"

George tried to jab the fingers of his free left hand into Jack's neck. Jack ducked out of the way. He could still remember, five years ago, when George was dying, and he fought all of his fights for him. Jack had the upper hand now, but there was a second or two back there when, if they had been playing for real, George could've won. He had been practicing, and not just with the rapier. Jack had to figure out what George was doing and do that, or he'd be left behind.

Jack leaned a little harder.

George growled.

"You know I can lie here all day. It's not hurting me at all. How long do you practice every day? Two hours? You should practice more. Don't struggle now. You might get your hair dirty."

"Hrgff."

"What's that?" Jack eased the pressure.

"In the Edge, I would've killed you by now."

"With your flash, yes. Don't kid yourself. If this was for real, you would've broken your neck in the fall."

A desperate high-pitched squeak jerked Jack's attention to the end of the parking lot. Straight ahead, the five guys crowded around a tree growing from a square flower bed. The thicker kid with brown hair held a rope. Another squeak. Jack focused on the end of the rope coming from beneath the hedge on the other side. The kid on the left looked back at him and George, said something, and laughed.

A fist landed on his ear. Jack ignored it and sat up. George sat up next to him.

The thicker kid jerked the rope and pulled, dragging a small gray shape into the light. It was bedraggled and filthy, its fur smeared with some sort of mud or paint.

Jack forgot where he was.

The little cat shook and hugged the ground, trying to break free of the rope. The asshole on the other end kept pulling, dragging the limp body across the asphalt.

Red flooded the world. Jack exhaled rage through his nose. Suddenly, he was on his feet and walking, and he didn't remember how he got there.

Next to him, George caught up with him, reached out, and snapped an antenna off the nearest car.

The world snapped into crystal clarity, the smells too sharp, the sounds too loud. Jack floated through it, light as a feather.

"Don't kill anyone," George said.

The bastards noticed them and turned toward them.

"You two done making out?" a tall blond kid asked.

The little cat lay on its side. He wasn't moving. A long stripe of bright green paint ran along his back, gluing his fur into small, sharp spikes. They had painted the cat. Those fucking bastards had painted the cat and then tortured it.

The Wild snarled inside him. He strained, pushing it back into its den.

"I'll make it simple," George's voice rang out next to him with icy precision. "Give us the cat, and you can go."

"Man. What a fucking dumb-ass." The blond kid snorted. "Get the hell out of here, fags."

"What's with the clothes? Are you from some sort of fag cult?" the asshole with the rope asked.

"No, man, they're from a Renaissance fair."

"Maybe they need the cat for their fag sacrifice!"

The Wild retreated into its lair and stared at him with glowing eyes.

"Yeah, be careful, they might pull some crazy satan shit on you, man." The bigger dark-haired kid laughed.

The smaller kid on the right raised his hands and crossed his index fingers. "Stay back, the power of Christ compels you!"

Jack looked at George. "Now?"

"Ooh, I am so scared." The blond kid raised his hands. "So scared . . ."

"Now," George said.

Jack charged.

OUTSIDE, the California sun hit Kaldar. He kept walking, down the path and out into the street, through the open iron gates, past the cream-colored wall bordering the rehab facility. He turned left, heading for the parking lot. He'd left his stolen vehicle there. Men in pristine black shoes did not walk; they drove expensive cars, and so he'd procured one on an off chance someone might see him arrive. And now he needed one to depart quickly because a man in his outfit would draw attention jogging down the street.

He had to find Audrey Callahan. Kaldar imagined a female version of Alex Callahan. Ugh. Likely an addict as well. If Callahan was to be believed, she hated him, so she wouldn't have helped them with the heist out of love or from a sense of obligation. No, their father must've dangled money or drugs before her, and she took it.

Family was the last line of defense. No matter what Kaldar had done or would do, he could walk through the gates of the New Mar house and be welcomed with open arms, food, and friendly proposals to rearrange his face. They would lament and bellyache and whine, but in the end, crossbows and rifles would come off the walls, and the Mars would ride out to fix whatever he'd wrought.

The Callahans couldn't stand each other. Alex despised his sister and thought his father was a sucker. Since Audrey returned the hate, using her brother's safety as leverage was out of the question.

Audrey wasn't an obnoxiously common name, and the list of PI firms in Olympia had to be somewhat limited. It shouldn't take him too long to find her . . .

Ahead, a vicious snarl ripped through the afternoon. It sounded inhuman, but he'd heard it before. That's how William sounded when he cut through people like they were butter. Kaldar sped up.

A scream of pure terror followed. A changeling here in the Broken? William could cross back and forth, so it was plausible . . . Was someone else from the Weird or the Edge here for Callahan?

Ahead, an adolescent boy, around fifteen or sixteen, stumbled out from between the hedges bordering the entrance to the parking lot. His nose was bloody, and both of his eyes sported red puffy bags that promised to develop into spectacular shiners. Red whip marks crossed his forearms and neck.

The boy stared at Kaldar, looking but not seeing, his eyes two pools of fear, and took off down the street, limping. Kaldar broke into a run.

A moment, and he turned the corner into the parking lot. Four adolescent kids rolled on the ground, clutching various limbs as a result of a savage beating. In the center of the carnage Jack stood, his arms raised in a trademark South Adrianglian style. Next to him, George brandished a car antenna.

Damn it all to hell.

The bigger of the boys moved. George let him rise halfway and whipped the car antenna. Right, left, right. The kid tumbled down.

George glanced up, saw Kaldar, and grabbed Jack's shoulder. The two kids froze.

He had to get them away from the damn parking lot before someone called the cops. Escape first, explanations later. Kaldar moved past the prone bodies to the first decent older vehicle he saw and slid the long narrow strip of metal from his sleeve. The boys followed. A second to pop the door open, another three seconds to hot-wire the car, while Jack slid into the back, clutching a small cat that looked dead, and George hopped into the shotgun seat.

Another second, and they pulled out of the parking lot and merged into the current of cars, heading out of the city toward the boundary and the safety of the Edge.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had the two wards of the fucking Marshal of the fucking Southern Provinces in a stolen car. An entire continent away from where the two of them were supposed to be. In the Broken. Where they had beat up some Broken children. Well, if those children weren't broken before, they were surely broken now.

Fate, that bloody, vicious, fickle bitch. Sometimes she loved him, and he could do nothing wrong. And sometimes she stuck a knife in his back.

Kaldar adjusted the rearview mirror until Jack's face swung into view. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"They were torturing the cat," Jack said.

That explained volumes and nothing at all. "Who else knows you're here?"

"Why are you asking?" George asked.

"So I would know if I could kill you and dispose of the bodies." That ought to shake them up. For all he knew, Declan was scouring the countryside looking for these precious darlings and breathing fire. How the hell was he going to get out of this?

In the rearview mirror, Jack gathered himself. Kaldar was suddenly aware that sitting with his back to the boy left his neck vulnerable.

"You won't kill us," George said from the front seat. His voice trembled slightly.

"Why not? Cerise is mildly fond of you, but I have no emotional attachment to either of you. I could slit your throats and toss you into a ravine. Nobody would know. You can be sure I would be sad and express my condolences to your sister at the first opportunity."

George paled and stared straight ahead. No tears, no hysterics. Some sort of calculation was taking place behind those blue eyes. At least the boy was thinking. That was usually a positive sign.

"We told Lark that we had stowed away on your wyvern. She will wait until Declan and Rose panic, then tell them where we are."

It wasn't enough that Fate had stabbed him with a knife. No, the blade had to be poisoned. Kaldar feverishly sorted through the possible outcomes. How in the world would he explain this? And it would have to be explained and justified. Instead of wondering where his brothers-in-law had disappeared to, Declan would know that some distant, no-good cousin of his best friend's wife had taken them to the Democracy of California, the place that made Convict Island seem like a walk in the park.

He would need Richard, Kaldar decided. His older brother and Declan were cut from the same cloth. The two of them would sit down, sip some wine, share stories of their siblings' regrettable behavior, commiserate with each other's family issues, and in the end the Marshal of the Southern Provinces would see the light and perhaps condescend not to murder him.

The two boys sat completely quiet. Idiots. "I'm waiting for an explanation," Kaldar ground out.

"Jack might be sent to Hawk's," George said. "William promised to intervene on his behalf."

The light dawned. "But he's gone on a mission, and the two of you are trying to buy some time at my expense."

"Yes." George nodded.

Perfect. Just perfect. "I understand why Jack would run away. Why are you here?"

The kid looked at him as if he were stupid. "I'm his brother."

Of course. Why did I even ask? "How much time do we have before your brother-in-law loses his grip on his temper?"

"At least a week," George said. "I informed them that we had a weeklong camp at College. It's an annual tradition, and since I told them about it, they won't have any reason to doubt it."

"And why would that be?" Kaldar made a left turn off the highway onto a country road. Two more miles, and they were in the clear. "Is it because you never lie?"

"No, it's because I only lie when I know I won't get caught."

Good answer. Kaldar considered his options. He could load them on the wyvern and take them back, which would take two days there and two days back. Too long. He had no reason to trust Alex Callahan. For all he knew, the junkie was calling his supposedly hateful sister right now with a warning. If he delayed, he risked losing Audrey. Not to mention that Lady Virai would be less than pleased. In fact, after she was done with him, they wouldn't even be able to harvest his organs.

He could load the kids on the wyvern and send them off with Gaston while he made his own way up the coast to Washington State. Going through the Edge on his own was out of the question - it was a wilderness. Going through the Weird was too dangerous - the Democracy of California consisted of a collection of baronies only loosely organized into a country. Each baron had his own private army at his disposal. They disliked their neighbors, but they hated outsiders. That left him with traveling through the Broken in a stolen car, ready to be pulled over by every highway patrolman with half a brain.

He could also just take the kids with him. It was the only solution that still permitted him to do his job. There would be hell to pay, but he would worry about it when the time came.

Kaldar leveled a heavy stare at George. "Tell me why I shouldn't load you on the wyvern and send you back to the loving arms of your sister?"

"We can be useful," George said.

"How? You think that you're smarter than everyone around you, and he" - Kaldar pointed at the backseat - "he can't control himself and starts breaking legs if someone looks at him for half a second too long. What I do requires perfect timing, resolve, and cold temper, none of which you've demonstrated so far."

George blushed.

"The fact that you're turning pink, like a happy bride, tells me you aren't well suited for my line of work."

The blush died. "We can be useful."

"Nobody pays attention to us because we're kids," Jack said from the backseat. "I can go anywhere. I can climb a wall, listen to the conversation, and tell it back to you word for word. George can animate a mouse, send it to a locked room, and tell you what's inside."

"We can speak three languages fluently," George said. "We're trained in self-defense, we know the protocol, and we're motivated."

"By what, exactly?" Kaldar asked.

"We're Edge Trash," George said. "No matter how perfect we are, we'll never be accepted completely. I can never hold a political post like Declan, and if I could attain it, I wouldn't have the kind of influence he does."

Kaldar glanced at him. Now that was interesting. "What makes you think that?"

George looked back and held his gaze. "Declan's uncle tried to enroll me into Selena University. It's the best school in Adrianglia. I scored in the top one percent of nine hundred applicants. I was denied admission. They know that Declan can pay for my school. They just don't want the likes of me on their admission scrolls."

Welcome to the real world, kid. The Weird ain't all it's cracked up to be. For all of their reforms and talk of equality, pedigree still mattered in the Weird.

"Jack can at least do the military, but he has to get his temper under control. I can't," George said. "I'm fast and strong, and I can fight well; but I don't have the endurance. I've worked on it for two years, and a ten-mile run leaves me nearly dead. I can't put on a fifty-pound backpack and march thirty miles in one day. I will never be good at it. But I could be good at this."

"The Mirror doesn't care if we're Edge Trash," Jack said. "It doesn't care that I'm a changeling, either."

This was ridiculous. These two kids thought they were good enough to go up against ruthless killers, augmented with magic and trained to murder. Two fools, full of innocent arrogance. Was he ever that young? No. No, he wasn't.

"This isn't an exercise or a drill. Nobody will blow the whistle and make the other side stop shooting while we huddle up and review what we did wrong. This is the real shit. People I go up against kill children. They won't hesitate. They will slit your throats and never think about it again. Your lives mean less to them than the life of a mosquito."

"We're not children," George said. "You killed your first man when you were fourteen."

He would have to wire Gaston's mouth shut.

"I was fighting in a family feud. It was about pride and hate and survival. And I had my family around me. It's different when you're in a group. Crowd mentality kicks in."

Kaldar made a right turn and slowed. The boundary bit down on them with its blunt teeth. The kids gasped. The car kept rolling, the pressure grinding him, compressing his bones, then, suddenly, they were through. George coughed.

"We're a crowd," Jack said.

Kaldar sighed. "More like a gang of idiots, and I am the biggest moron in it."

George coughed carefully. "Would that make you the Chief Moron then?"

Kaldar parked the car under a tree and rapped his knuckles against George's head. The boy grimaced.

"Gaston does that, too," Jack reflected.

"Family punishment." Kaldar got out of the car. "You will come with me to Washington. I need to find a woman there. You will not get in my way. No more unsupervised outings, no more field trips, and no more fights. You do as you are told, when you are told, or I will hog-tie you, load your scrawny behinds onto that wyvern, and have Gaston hand-deliver you home to your sister with a pretty little ribbon tied over your mouths. Understood?"

"Understood," the two voices chorused.

As they headed up the path, he checked the gray shape in Jack's arms. "How's the cat?"

"He'll be okay," Jack said. "He just needs someone to take care of him for a while."

Don't we all, Kaldar reflected. Don't we all.