On the Edge

THE first word that came to mind when one saw Max Taylor was "solid." About two hundred and fifty pounds, he had the build of a pro wrestler gone to fat. His bullet-shaped head was shaved bald, and his small gun gray eyes were the very definition of unfriendly as he stared at Rose's truck through his store's front window.

Rose slid her vehicle into the parking spot in front of Taylor's Metal Detectors. The yellow script in the window, bright and shiny in the morning light, promised to purchase rare coins and scrap gold for the best prices.

Georgie fidgeted in the backseat, uneasy. Yesterday's chicken episode reminded her that placing all her eggs in one basket wasn't the most prudent course of action. True, she wanted Georgie to earn good grades, and go to school in the Broken, and possibly get a decent paying job there, but in the end Georgie lived and breathed magic. He was an Edger. She had neglected the Edger part of his education, and it was time to correct that oversight.

"There are two people in Pine Barren who can fence precious metals," she said. "Gold, silver, jewelry, anything like that. One is Peter Padrake and the other is Max Taylor. Peter is very straightforward in how he deals. He'll charge you a flat forty-five percent fee. That means that for every hundred dollars, Peter takes forty-five and you keep fifty-five."

Georgie's smart eyes turned calculating. "So he takes almost half?"

"Yes. He won't try to cheat you, but he also won't haggle. Peter's comics store is doing well, and he has money. He doesn't have to hustle to make a living, so he can afford to let some deals go. That's why you must only go to Peter as a last resort. Always come here first." She glanced at Max through the windshield. "Max Taylor will try his best to dupe you. He'll claim your stuff is fake, and he'll try to give you some ridiculously small amount for it. He's a big man, and he'll get loud and try to intimidate you. He also keeps a gun in his desk, and he likes to take it out and wave it around during haggling. Now, I heard a rumor that the gun isn't even loaded, but we know what the golden rule for guns is, right?"

"Every gun is loaded," Georgie recited.

"That's right. We treat every gun as if it's loaded, with a round in the chamber and the safety off. We never point guns at other people, even when we think they're not loaded, unless we intend to shoot the person, yes?"

"Yes," Georgie agreed. "We hold the gun to the side and down, so we don't shoot our feet by accident, or barrel up."

"Very good." She nodded. "So the golden rule says, we must treat Max's gun as if it's loaded."

"Would he shoot us?" Georgie shifted in his seat.

"Not very likely," she assured him. "His store is a front. Nobody buys metal detectors. The only way he can stay in business is to make money off people like us. If he shoots someone, what would happen?"

"People would go to Peter instead," Georgie said.

"That's right. If we're smart, we can get Max to come down on the fee. Anything below a third is good. So, we're going to sit here in our truck for a bit more, as if we're deciding what to do, and then we'll go inside and haggle. No matter how loud or stupid Max gets, keep calm."

"Okay," Georgie promised.

Rose dug in her pocket and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper.

Jack joined me for the morning exercise. We'll be back before lunch.

Declan

She had awakened to find this piece of paper on the table. She was a light sleeper, but Declan moved like a wolf, and nobody could hear Jack when he didn't want to be heard. They had snuck out of the house like two thieves in the night.

Rose frowned at the note. When he was tiny, Jack used to run off into the woods. Left to his own devices, he'd be gone for days, and so Rose kept some of his fur and hair and claw and nail clippings so she could find him. She had done a quick scrying spell, but it had a short range, and Jack was nowhere within two miles from the house. That meant Declan had taken him into the wilderness of the Wood.

Her initial impulse was to run after them, but Rose stopped herself. First, she had no idea where they had gone. Second, her kitchen was empty - they literally had nothing to eat. The last of the cereal was gone. Georgie had finished it. He was still hungry, and she was hungry as well. Georgie couldn't go too long without a snack, not with the drain his magic placed on his body. She could spend a couple of hours searching for Jack, or she could go and get some money and buy food. So she had borrowed four dollars from Grandmother - it nearly killed her to do it - put a gallon of gas into the truck, and drove out to see Max Taylor.

It irritated her that she hadn't woken up in time to stop Declan. Logically, she had nothing to worry about. Declan had sworn not to harm the boys. Jack was a changeling just like Declan's friend, and the emotion she had glimpsed behind Declan's blueblood facade felt genuine to her. He had saved Jack once; it made no sense that he would put him into any sort of danger. Besides, the safest place in the Edge now was by Declan's side.

She kept herself from panicking through logic, but worry ate at her. Jack was gone. They'd probably gone deep into the Wood. Why? They didn't tell her, and there was nothing she could do about it, not without making some major magic happen.

Inside the store, Max started rearranging things on his desk. "See? He's getting antsy. Let's go."

Rose popped the doors open, and together she and Georgie stepped into the shop.

Max sat behind the glass counter. "What do you got?"

Rose showed him the doubloon. He reached for it, but she shook her head. "You can see it from right here."

Max squinted. "A hundred bucks," he said.

She closed her fist over the doubloon and nodded to Georgie. "Let's go to Peter."

"That damn pirate won't give you more," Max growled.

Rose gave him a withering look. "The coin is exactly one-half ounce of gold. Right now a half-ounce U.S. Gold Eagle is trading for four hundred and fifty-seven dollars and forty-seven cents and a half-ounce Maple Leaf is going for four hundred and sixty-four dollars and ninety-four cents."

"How did you know that?"

"I went to the library and looked it up on the Internet. Peter charges a flat forty-five percent, so I should get at least two hundred and fifty dollars for each of my coins."

Max's beady eyes shone. "Coins?"

"Coins. As in more than one."

"How many do you have?"

She shrugged. "Three for now. There will be more."

"Nine hundred and fourteen dollars for the whole thing," Max offered.

"That's a third. I don't think so. I might go as low as twelve hundred."

"Nine fifty."

"Eleven seventy-five."

"You won't get a better price . . ."

She shrugged. "I can always take it to a jeweler in the city. It's an hour's drive."

Max reached under the counter. By the time he'd pulled out a Glock and put it on the glass, Rose's gun pointed at his head.

"That's a .22," Max sneered. "It will bounce from wet laundry."

"I can shoot you three times before you squeeze off one shot. You think my bullets will bounce off Max's face, Georgie?"

George didn't miss a beat. "If they don't, we can take him into the Edge and I'll raise him."

Max blinked. Rose smiled at him.

"One thousand twenty-eight dollars and twenty-five cents!" Max said.

A twenty-five percent fee. "Done."

She didn't put away the gun until they peeled out of the parking lot.

"You did very well," she told Georgie.

Georgie smiled in the rearview mirror.

Tiny sharp needles prickled Rose's hands, a belated reaction to the adrenaline rush. It finally sank in - she had a month's worth of money.

"What would you like to eat?"

"Whatever I want?"

"Whatever you want."

"French fries," Georgie said. "And chicken nuggets. And then maybe shrimp."

Shrimp would have to wait till home, but nuggets and fries she could manage. Rose made a left into the McDonald's drive-through.

ROSE took her gaze off the road for a second to steal a glance at the white Wal-Mart bags in the passenger seat. She'd bought beef, and chicken, and shrimp for Georgie. She managed to snag a couple of packs of country-style pork ribs on sale. She'd gotten potatoes. And cheese. And the tomatoes she liked. And apples for Jack. And eggs, and butter, and milk, and cereal . . . The truck was full of bags. She was too paranoid to put them into the truck bed. Who knew what might happen? They could fall out or fly off.

She had enough groceries for a month, and all of her bills were paid. It was a most wonderful feeling. She would go home and spend an hour putting it all up, separating the meat into dinner-sized portions, wrapping it in plastic wrap, and putting it all into her freezer. Rose grinned. No worry about the food. For a month.

"Rose?" Georgie asked.

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you like Declan?"

Now there was a loaded question. She wanted to tell him the truth, without mincing her words, but both he and Jack were smitten with Declan. Looking at him from the boys' perspective, Declan was the very definition of cool. They were two boys raised by women. Enter Declan, who had swords and magic, who was strong and manly, and who stood up to her, something neither of them could do. It's little wonder they wanted to be like him.

For the thousandth time, she wished Dad hadn't run off.

"Do you like Declan?" she asked carefully.

"Yes."

"Why?" she asked.

"He's smart," Georgie said. "He knows a lot of things, and his magic is as good as yours. He said that his house has its own library, except you don't have to have a card to check the books out. You can just go and take one whenever you want."

Rose's heart clenched a little in her chest. "I see." She swallowed. Declan was working on the kids, more so than she had realized. He was working on her, too. She couldn't get him out of her head.

This would have to be phrased very carefully. Anything she said to George would find its way to Jack. She didn't want to destroy their fragile faith in the only cool guy they knew, and she definitely didn't want this situation to turn into "Big bad Rose drove the super-cool Declan away." But she didn't want to delude them either.

"We've had people from the Weird approach us before to get me to go away with them," she said, choosing her words as if she were walking a tightrope and the wrong one could pitch her to the side. "You probably don't remember because you were little."

"Like Declan?"

She doubted there was another Declan. The world wouldn't be able to stand more than one. "Not quite like him. A couple were retainers of the nobles and one was a lesser blueblood."

"What happened?"

"Well, the first retainer tried to bribe Dad and Grandpa with presents. And when he figured out he was wasting his time, he set our house on fire. He thought that if we had nothing left, I'd leave with him. That's why the wards are so far out from the house now and my bedroom has different walls. The second retainer had a lot of people with him, and they tried to blockade the house. Dad shot him in the head, and then they went away."

"What about the blueblood?"

Rose sighed. "Oh, he was a special kind of worm. He was very sweet and nice. And very handsome. He tried to 'court' me. He'd bow down, and recite poetry, and tell me I was beautiful. I almost believed him. And then the caravan from the Weird came into town and one of the traders, Yanice - you remember her, right?"

"She wears a veil," Georgie said.

"Yes. Yanice recognized him. He was a slaver and a wanted criminal. If I had gone with him, he would've auctioned me off like a cow. I wouldn't have a choice - I would be forced to go with whatever man bought me." She wouldn't have. She'd have fought to the end, and they would've had to kill her, but there was no need to frighten George.

"Declan isn't like that."

"We don't really know what Declan is like. All that we have to go on is what Declan tells us and how he acts. I know he seems like a cool guy." She fell silent, realizing she wanted very much to believe that he was a "cool guy." He seemed . . . it would be a shame if he turned out to be a scumbag. There was warmth underneath all that arrogance, and more, there was integrity. She sensed it very clearly. Declan had a moral code. She suspected that there were lines he wouldn't cross, but she didn't exactly know where those lines lay.

"We don't know what he'll be like once I agree to go with him," she said. "What if he takes me with him and leaves you here? He told Jack that he would take all of us with him, but really nothing would force him to keep his word. What if he does take us with him and then makes you into servants or drops you off at some orphanage?"

Or kills them and leaves their bodies on the side of the road. His promise not to harm expired once he won the challenges. Surely, he wouldn't. Not Declan. But again, she had no guarantees.

"Besides, if I go with Declan, I'll have to be his wife. And Declan doesn't love me."

"Why not?" George asked.

"Because I'm not a lady. I don't have good manners, I'm not educated, and I'm not demure and sweet. I say what I mean, and I'm not always nice. He probably thinks he can force me to be pleasant, but no matter what clothes I wear and how you mess with my hair, I'll still be me." Crude, vulgar, and disagreeable.

Rose sighed. "See, Declan is used to people obeying his orders. Back in the Weird, when he orders something, people fall over themselves to make it happen. I'm not like that. That's why we argue so much. We would drive each other insane, and if we fought, Declan would win. My magic is like a lightning strike. It's precise and contained, because I have good control. Declan's magic is like a hurricane. Terribly, terribly powerful. He blew the roof off Amy's house."

"Really?"

"Yes. His flash just exploded and killed a whole bunch of those hound beasts. Tore the roof right off."

She stopped herself. Last thing she needed was a new way to feed Georgie's hero worship. "Bottom line: we can't trust Declan. He's very strong, and we don't want to be at his mercy."

If she were born into a good Weird family, it might have been different, Rose thought, guiding the truck up to Grandma's house. She might have had tutors and clothes. Of natural colors. She would have been witty and carefree, and then Declan might have thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread. He might have tried to win her. Now that would be an interesting exercise: the arrogant, icy, monstrously powerful Declan bowing and asking her to dance or making polite small talk with Grandma in French before asking for permission to take Rose for a stroll in the park. Oh, that would be hilarious.

She killed the smile that stretched her lips and let the fantasy die. Living in a dream never did her any good. She would never be a lady. She was born an Edger mongrel. Good for - how had he put it? - a carte blanche, but little else.

Yesterday when he stepped close to her and she looked into his eyes, she realized he wanted her. Not just her, the white-flashing-freak, but her as a woman. It wasn't a calculated move like that stare he had given her before. It was a completely spontaneous and honest declaration of attraction, and it was completely devastating. She had thought about it all evening, and then half of the night, and now again, she was thinking about it and couldn't let it go. The idea of being in Declan's bed filled her with a kind of happy terror. It wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling, and she was furious with herself for it.

He was so out of place in her house that Rose never expected him, and when she ran into him while straightening up or cooking, her heart did a little skip. That skip was dangerous. Watching him, talking to him, was dangerous. She had been fooled before, and she couldn't afford to be fooled again. She needed to get her head on straight.

When she allowed herself to dream, being the object of a blueblood's lust didn't enter her fantasies. No, she dreamt of a regular guy, a nice guy with a steady job, someone who'd love her as much as she loved him and take care of her just like she would take care of him. Someone like William. Except her heart didn't make those little jumps when she saw William.

She pictured herself living in the Broken, with a regular guy, just like a regular family, going to a regular job . . . Dear God. She would slit her own throat out of boredom.

"I don't know what I want," she mumbled.

Five minutes later, she drove up to Grandma's, parked, and eyed the house. Grandma had to be dying to give her a piece of her mind regarding Declan. This morning Rose got away without a conversation by making excuses about Georgie needing to eat. Maybe if she got lucky, she could get away with her hide intact again.

"Come on, Georgie." He climbed out of the truck, and together they made their way up the steps and into the kitchen, which smelled like vanilla and cinnamon.

"Smells like cookies," Georgie said.

Grandma ElEonore smiled and handed him a plate of cookies. "There you go. Why don't you go to the porch, Georgie, and let me and Rose talk a bit."

Rose bit her lip. She knew what was coming and tried to beat a hasty retreat, just like this morning. "I brought back your four dollars," she announced, putting the money on the table. "I really can't stay. I have groceries in the truck and they might spoil . . ."

"Sit!" Grandma pointed to a chair.

Rose sat.

"Where is Jack?"

"With Declan."

"And you trust Declan enough to leave a child with him?"

Rose grimaced. "They snuck out this morning. By the time I woke up, they had gone beyond the scrying spell. Jack worships the ground Declan walks on, and he probably wanted to show off in the Wood. I'm not happy about it, and I'll chew him out when they get home, but I don't think Declan would hurt him or let him be harmed. He saved Jack once, and I don't believe he has it in him to injure a child."

"And what makes you think so?"

Rose shrugged. "It's a feeling I get from him."

"A feeling?" Grandma fixed her with an intense blue gaze. "I'll hear about the blueblood. All of it."

All of it took almost a half hour. The more Rose talked, the more the corners of Grandma's mouth sagged.

"Do you like him?" she asked when Rose fell silent.

"Why would you even ask me that? I - "

"Rose! Do you like him?"

"A little," Rose said. "Just a little."

Grandma sighed.

"Most of the time, I want to strangle him," Rose added to ease her fears.

For some odd reason, her attempt to reassure Grandma actually made things worse. ElEonore's face paled. "Que Dieu nous aide."

God help us . . . "What did I say? I don't like him enough to go away with him. He's arrogant and overbearing and - "

Grandma raised her hand, and Rose fell silent. ElEonore opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. "Anything I say will only make things worse," she murmured.

"What do you mean?"

Grandma sighed. "You have a flaw, Rose. You're daring. Just like my Cletus, just like your father. It's a Drayton trait, and it has brought us nothing but misery. You see a challenge, and you must go after it."

Rose blinked. She didn't chase challenges, at least not intentionally. At least she never thought she did.

"And this Declan, he's a terrible challenge," Grandma ElEonore continued. "Proud and powerful. And he looks . . . You know yourself how he looks. I know you'll turn yourself inside out, trying to win. Declan is the same way: he saw you out the window on the phone and went out the back door like he was about to storm a castle. He has decided you're his."

"I'll undecide it for him." Rose snorted. "He thinks he's already won. Well, I have a surprise or two coming."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Grandma murmured. "You must understand, he's a dangerous man. Very dangerous. I cursed him."

"You what?"

"I cursed him," Grandma repeated. "That evening when William called, he came through the door asking for you, and I didn't know who he was, so I cursed him."

Oh God. "What did you cast?"

"Rubber legs."

The Edgers had many talents. The ability to curse wasn't the rarest talent, but it was one of the strongest. The older you were, the stronger was your cursing. The elder Edgers had the cursing monopoly, and they didn't warm up to new-comers until they were past middle age, which for some Edger families hit around seventy or so.

For most curses, there was no cure. They had to be broken by the target or left to run their course. If the target did manage to break your curse, the magic lashed out back at you. While you tried to deal with the consequences, a very put-out cursee might arrive with his trusty shotgun, intending to use you for target practice. And if the curse did succeed, often the family of the afflicted would petition one of the older cursers for help to bring you down to size. Then you really had problems. An Edger had to be well along in years and have a good deal of respect before she could get away with cursing someone, or the retribution would be swift and brutal.

Rose had learned cursing when she was only six, by accident, just like everyone else. The family was out at a barbeque, and a girl named Tina Watty had stolen her doll and thrown it on the grill. Rose wished Tina's hair would fall out. As soon as she said it, her magic gushed, and then they had to go home. The next time she saw Tina, her long blond hair was gone, and short stubble covered her head.

Everyone was allowed one curse, their first one, because that's how you learned you had the power. But after that, you learned to control yourself or there would be hell to pay. Luckily for her, Grandma was a curser as well, one of the best in East Laporte, and Rose got more education in the art of cursing than she would ever need. The only proper way to learn curses responsibly was to suffer through most of them. Grandmother knew a lot of curses, and Rose had wanted to learn badly. She'd tried rubber legs on for size when she was twelve.

Rubber legs was an excruciatingly painful curse. The victim felt her legs torn apart like string cheese. If she tried to take a step, she would inevitably plummet to the ground. The curse left no harmful effect and vanished after a half hour or so, but meanwhile a person could lose her mind.

And Grandma had cast it on Declan. It was a wonder he didn't slaughter the lot of them.

"Why would you curse him?"

Grandma shrugged. "He surprised me."

"What happened?"

"Your blueblood grunted a bit and shrugged it off. Just muscled on right through it. And that's when I hit him with the bottle of olive oil and missed. He dodged, took the bottle out of my hands, and told me in perfect French that while he appreciated my vigor when defending my family, if I attempted to hit him again, I would sorely regret it."

That sounded like Declan. "He's good at intimidation," Rose said.

Grandma nodded, her eyes opened wide. "Oh, I believed him. Besides, the curse had backlashed and I had to sit down. Do you know what I was going to do for a living before your rogue of a grandfather sailed into port with his ship and a dashing smile?"

"No."

"Our village supplied retainers for Count d'Artois of the Kingdom of Gaul in the Weird. My family, in particular, had served him for years. Trust me, I recognize blood when I see it. I don't know what Declan told you, but that boy has generations of blueblood ancestors to prop him up."

Rose waved her hands. "I don't think he is all that high on the peer ladder. Sometimes he forgets to act like a blueblood, and he's almost normal. Besides, I checked him in the Encyclopedia , and it says 'Earl Camarine' is a courtesy title. He probably got it for his military service in the Red Legion."

Grandma's mouth closed with a click.

"What did I say now?"

"Nothing," Grandma said. "Nothing at all. You're right, Jack is probably safe with him. Still, don't you think you better check on them?"

Rose glanced at the clock on the wall. Thirty minutes past noon. She was late, but the change in subject was awfully sudden. "There is something you're not telling me."

"Dear, I could fill this room with things I'm not telling you."

Grandma had that particular glint in her eyes that said arguing was useless. Rose shook her head and went to look for Georgie. She found him curled up on the daybed, asleep.

"Leave him with me," Grandma ElEonore said. "He needs the rest. I'll walk him back when he's awake."

Rose sighed, hugged her, and left.

She went down the steps, crossed the lawn, and went to her truck. A challenge chaser. She never considered herself to be that way. Well, yes, she did work on her flash until it became an obsession, but that was because she had so little else to occupy her.

What she needed to do was to get home, have a long talk with Jack about not going off on wild field trips with enemies of the family, and explain to Declan . . . What the hell did she want to explain to Declan? That in the moments when he forgot about being a blueblood, she found herself drawn to him like a foolish little moth is drawn to a bug-zapping lantern?

Rose drove back to the house. Declan and Jack were still out. She dragged the groceries in and sorted them out between the freezer, fridge, and pantry. A bag of apples and a plastic container of strawberries came up missing. Probably still in the truck. She went outside.

As Rose approached the truck, broken glass crunched under her foot. Glittering shards from a busted windshield lay on the road, stretching to the left in a shiny trail. A quick glance at the truck assured her that her own windshield was intact. Rose crouched and examined the glass. Odd. Not the typical spray or sheet of glass that resulted from a crash. It looked as if someone had smashed a windshield and then carefully poured the pieces out to get her attention. She could've sworn it hadn't been there when she got home.

The sparkling trail ended at an old pine. Rose frowned, looked up, and saw a license plate dangling off a branch on a cord. BOSSMAN. Emerson's license plate. What in the world . . .

She scanned the road. At the far left a chunk of red metal lay on the side, by some bushes. She jogged to it. It was a piece of a red car hood in the precise tomato shade of Emerson's SUV, its edges dark from the blowtorch burn.

Farther down the road, another chunk lay just before the bend. Rose strode to it, passed the curve, and saw a third red spot a hundred yards down. A trail of car crumbs, leading away from the house, toward the Broken. Very well. She jogged back to her truck and started it. She had to see where the car parts led.