A whispery rustling of leaves made Jack open his eyes. He unsheathed his claws and hissed.
Declan emerged from the undergrowth. He moved quietly and his eyes were different now: focused and dark. Hunter's eyes. Jack tensed.
The blueblood approached the net and then stopped, looking up.
"Are you hurt?"
Jack hissed and spat, growling fighting noises.
"I'll take that as a no." Declan bent down, picked up the knife, wiped the handle on his sleeve, and sat on a mossy log.
"There is a great difference between a knife and a sword."
He unsheathed the smaller sword he carried at his waist. The afternoon sun caught it, turning the blade into a beautiful long claw bright with reflected light.
"Swords are long and cumbersome. They are made to kill your opponent in battle from a distance." He glanced at Jack with his scary green eyes. "Swords are not for you."
He sheathed the sword and picked up the knife. "Knives are quick. Efficient. Quiet. There's no such thing as a knife battle. When a knifemaster pulls out his blade, he doesn't want to fight off his opponent. He means to kill him."
Declan leapt off the log and struck at the empty air so quickly he became a blur.
"Rogues carry knives."
The knife sliced and stabbed unseen opponents in a shimmering dance of steel. Jack watched, mesmerized. So quick.
"Thieves. Spies. Assassins. They carry knives."
Declan tossed the blade into the air, caught it by the tip, and flipped the knife so the handle landed into his palm. "A knifemaster armed with a blade like this can go through a room full of soldiers. I've seen it happen."
Jack wanted the knife so badly, even his tail itched for it.
Declan examined the blade. "A fighting knife like this can't be stolen. But you could earn it."
Jack pricked his ears.
"If you prove to me that you can be quick, efficient, and quiet." Declan sat back on the log. "Two miles north from here, there is a trail of the beasts that chased you. They run fast along the ground and they can climb, but they're slow in the trees. A forest cat can easily outrun them in the branches. If such a cat were to track them, quietly and patiently and find their lair . . ."
Jack growled and spat. He would fight them, he would . . .
"No fighting," Declan said. "Sleek, stealthy, and silent. Like a knife sliding into a man in the darkness. Track the beasts. Find their lair. Don't be seen. If you do this and show me where they are, you'll earn the knife."
He smiled. "But that's an adventure for tomorrow. Right now we have to decide what to do with you. I caught you fair and square. Are you going to come quietly like a wise and patient predator, or will I have to carry you in the net, like a wild beast?"
ROSE sat in the attic, the enormous dusty Encyclopedia of the Weird spread open on her lap. The book was two feet tall, about a foot thick, and heavy as hell, and her thighs were sweaty and rapidly going numb in her jeans.
She had gone through the Bestiary but found nothing that had to do with the hounds. The Encyclopedia was her next best bet.
She turned the big page and adjusted her posture a bit. Her butt was going numb, too.
Adrianglia, Formal Forms of Address. She scanned down the ranks . . . Earl. Earl of "Domain Name." Lord "Name." She yawned and flipped back a page.
Earl - derivative of the Northland jarl. Equivalent to Count in Gaulic Empire. Landed noble above viscount but below marquis.
What was his name . . . Earl Carmine? Carmaine? Camarine. Yes, that was it. She turned the pages to the index and found Earl Camarine.
Earl Camarine: noble ruling Earldom of Camarine. Traditional domain of the Duke of the Southern Provinces. Most frequently used as a courtesy title.
"Courtesy title." She wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but she got the gist of it. For all of his la-di-da manners, Declan wasn't even a real earl. Rose snickered.
"Rose!" Georgie's high-pitched voice shattered her thoughts.
"Coming!" She pushed the book off her lap and went down the ladder, dusting off her jeans. "Georgie, did you go outside?" She marched onto the porch. "Didn't I tell you to stay inside?"
Declan stood in the yard. In his arms curled Jack. His eyes were shut. He growled softly in his sleep and kneaded Declan's arm with his claws. Declan didn't even wince. "I think he's tuckered out. Where do you want him?"
The world reared and kicked her in the teeth. She took a moment to recover, and when she spoke, her voice was almost normal. "I'll take him."
Declan gently deposited Jack into her arms. "I'm sure it would hurt his feelings, but he makes a handsome kit."
"You should've seen him when he was a baby," Rose said through her shock. "Nothing but fuzz and ear tufts. Every minute was like a National Geographic Kodak moment."
She took Jack inside and gently put him in his bed.
In an hour she served dinner. Jack slept through it. Afterward Georgie curled up to reread InuYasha, yet again, and Rose brewed a cup of tea and escaped onto the porch. Her solitude didn't last.
Declan sat next to her on the steps. "Disappointed?"
His voice held no mocking, and she shrugged. "Yes. How did you do it?"
"I set four traps and baited the most obvious one with a knife he drooled over in my room."
What did she expect? After all, Jack was only eight. It was a huge burden to put on him. She shouldn't have done it in the first place. When she had pictured Declan tracking Jack through the woods, the idea of him setting traps and lures had never entered her mind. "Boys and knives," Rose murmured. "Irresistible attraction."
"We never grow out of it."
He certainly didn't, considering how many swords and knives he dragged around with him. Dad's entire room was full of blades.
In the soft light of the afternoon, Declan's features gained a new tint. His eyes looked into the distance. He seemed to be wrestling with his thoughts. The harsh line of his mouth relaxed. His gaze lost its aggression. Sitting like this, he seemed almost approachable. The urge to touch him returned. It was natural, she told herself. He was so handsome, and she had no life. But just because she felt the irrational desire to kiss him didn't mean she had to follow through with it.
The last time he let the blueblood persona slip, he was reasonable. Maybe if she told him a little more about them, he would understand and leave them in peace.
"You seem to like Jack," she said carefully, testing the waters.
"He tried his best," he said. "Tell me, why didn't he change shapes when the hounds were after him on the lawn? The survival instinct should've driven him to become a lynx in the face of danger."
Rose looked into her cup. "It might be different in the Weird, but when changelings shift in the Edge, it's almost like a seizure. They fall down and convulse. It's frightening, and it can last up to a minute. If he had changed shapes, the creatures would've torn him apart before he had a chance to finish. It took us a long time to teach him not to go cat every time he got scared. Did you see the bracelet he wears?"
"Yes."
"I taught him that so long as the bracelet stays on, he knows not to change shapes. It's not actually magic, or anything. Just conditioning."
"That must've taken a lot of work." His voice betrayed respect.
"It did."
Declan hesitated, mulling something over. Something was clearly eating at him.
"In the Weird, the changeling children are segregated and taken to special schools until they become adults," he said finally.
She glanced at him. "You exile children?"
Declan grimaced. "It's not exactly like that. There are specialized trainers, who oversee their education . . ." He fell silent. "Yes," he said with a measure of resignation. "We exile changeling children. It's common wisdom that it's better for them."
"I can see how people would think that."
His thick eyebrows crept up. "I didn't expect you to agree with that."
"Some changelings are born human. Jack was born a kitten. We knew something was wrong when he was in the womb, because my mother felt claws, and when Grandma did her spells, all the tests kept pointing to the forest. We couldn't take my mother to the hospital, because my parents were afraid Jack would die without magic, and my dad had to pay a huge bribe to the midwife from the Broken, so we could get him the proper documents. When Jack was born, he wouldn't nurse. My mother would pump her breast milk, and we had to feed it to him out of a bottle. It took him three days to change into a human, and when he finally did, he was still blind for almost a month. He looked odd as a baby. I thought he was deformed."
She swallowed the last of her tea. "Even now, with Jack, it's . . . it's hard. He has moments when he stops understanding what's being said. He hears the words and knows what they mean, but they just don't penetrate. He doesn't always comprehend why people react the way they do. And he fights like a maniac. Older kids are terrified of him. Every time my phone rings and it's the school, I get panicky, because I always think he must've hurt someone. So yes, I can see how some people might find it too much. Ordinary human kids are hard enough as it is. Don't get me wrong, I would never give Jack up. Never. They'd have to pry him from my dead fingers. But I always wonder, what if I'm doing things wrong?"
"He's one of the most socialized changelings I have ever seen," Declan said. "He goes to a regular school. He plays. He's smart and can be reasoned with, and he shows empathy for other people. He talked about protecting George. I don't think you understand how remarkable that is."
She glanced at him. "He's just a little boy, Declan. You talk like he isn't human."
Declan's face looked haunted. "I have a friend," he said. "We were soldiers together."
Not only was he a blueblood, but he was also a soldier. An officer, no doubt. No wonder he thought ordering people around was the only way to communicate. "How long were you in the military?"
"Ten years," Declan said.
"That's a long time," she said.
"I thought it was better suited to me than being a peer," he said.
"Why?" she wondered.
"I wasn't responsible for anyone but myself," he said. "It was simple that way."
So not an officer then. "Were you happy?"
"I was content," Declan said. "I was good at killing, and I was praised and rewarded for doing it well. It felt like the right place for me at the time."
"I thought you were all about balls and etiquette and womanizing," she needled him.
The look she got back was deadly serious. "You have an odd view of the life of a peer. Mostly it's work. Lots and lots of work and lots of responsibility. At that time in my life, I didn't want it. I still don't, but now I have no choice."
His voice was bitter and hollow. Rose looked away, not sure what to do with herself. "Tell me about your friend."
"He's a changeling," Declan said. "A predator like Jack. There are few paths a changeling can take in our society, especially if they aren't born into a family of means. My friend was born poor. He was abandoned by his mother at birth and given to the Citadel, Adrianglia's premier military school. Changelings born into wealthy families are taught a certain way so one day they can reenter society."
"And your friend wasn't?" she guessed.
Declan shook his head. "He was a ward of the realm, and the realm never meant for him to live with other people. They made him into a killer. He was raised to have no emotions, only strict control and strict punishment when he failed. He told me that he grew up in a bare room, twelve feet by ten feet, which he shared with another boy. He was allowed no personal possessions except his clothes, a toothbrush, a comb, and a towel."
"That's awful," she said. "You can't lock children up like that. Any children. Jack has to be able to run in the Wood, to play. Without it, he would - "
"Go insane," Declan finished. "Or learn to survive and carry a lot of hate."
"How could your friend become a soldier after this? He had to have been" - she searched for a right word and couldn't find it - "not okay."
"He fit right in," Declan said. "We were in the Red Legion. We did the necessary things people don't want to know about."
"Black ops?" she asked. What do you know, Latoya proved right - he was one of those bug-eating, wilderness-surviving, take-out-terrorists-with-a-pinecone-and-bubble-gum types.
"Black sounds about right. We went where nobody else could go, and we were very good at killing everything we found there. We weren't bound by treaties or conventions. In that type of unit, few things are certain. You rely on yourself and, if you're lucky, on a man or woman next to you. I watched out for my friend, and he watched out for me. He saved my life a few times, and I repaid the favor. Neither of us counted who owed what to whom. I would've died for him if needed."
"Why?"
"Because he would've done the same for me," Declan said.
"Who did you fight?"
Declan shrugged. "The Kingdom of Gaul. The Spanish Empire. The FOGL."
"What is the FOGL?"
Declan dragged his hand across his face as if trying to peel the memories off. "It's a religious sect. Forces of Great Lucifer. Their prime directive is to establish dominion over the entire world, and they go about it in pretty terrible ways. Adrianglia is full of refugees, from past conflicts and present. Some of them commit heinous crimes and require extraordinary measures to be neutralized. During one of these missions, things went wrong and my friend made the mistake of behaving like a human."
"What happened?"
"There was a dam. A small band of criminals held it and its workers for ransom. They had attached a device to the dam supports and threatened to set off an explosion and drown the town below it. The dam was very old, almost labyrinthine, and everyone who knew its layout was inside, being held hostage. My friend went in because he was a changeling. He could rely on his sense of smell, and our superiors counted on his logic prevailing if he had to make a morally difficult choice. He was told that if the situation put the lives of the hostages against the security of the dam, he was to place greater importance on keeping the dam intact. If the dam had failed, the potential loss of life would be much greater than the deaths of the six people trapped inside.
"He tracked down the hostages, but the criminals had quarreled, and one of them set off the charges. My friend had a choice: he could go after the charges or he could save the hostages. He had what he called an attack of humanity and rescued the hostages. The dam burst, flooding the town. The flood didn't result in any deaths, but the financial damages were staggering. He was court-martialed."
"Why? For saving people?"
"For disobeying an order. He was sentenced to death."
"But nobody was hurt!"
"It didn't matter." Declan's face was merciless. "You see, they wanted to kill him not because he disobeyed the order but because he was a changeling who was judged unstable. They had turned him into a lethal killer, and they were happy to use him as long as he did exactly as told. But now they could no longer predict his actions."
"They were going to put him down like an animal? What kind of country would do that?"
"He was a ward of the realm, and the realm was afraid of what he might do next. They didn't want the responsibility of keeping the public safe from him."
"Did you try to help him?"
"Yes. I left the military and assumed the title, because my status as a peer would give my words greater weight. I petitioned, I lobbied, I argued that if an ordinary soldier were in his place, he wouldn't have received the death penalty."
He'd abandoned his career to rescue his friend, and he said it without any bravado, like it was the obvious logical thing to do, not even deserving a second thought. Ten years of his life, and he'd turned his back on it for the sake of another person. Not many people would do that. She wasn't sure she could've done it. That was admirable.
Rose bit her lip. "Did you save him?"
"No. I failed."
He'd said it with such bitterness. His eyes had turned distant and mournful, as if dusted with ash. She wanted to reach out and touch him. To somehow make it better.
"At the last moment, Casshorn, the brother of the Duke of the Southern Provinces, adopted my friend, assuming complete responsibility for his actions. Because Casshorn was childless, and a high peer, he claimed the bloodline privilege. Basically, my friend was his only heir, and as such, the realm couldn't kill him. Casshorn paid an exorbitant sum for his release."
"That was very kind," Rose said.
Declan gave her a flat look.
"What did I say?"
"Casshorn is a brigand. He's a slimy stain upon the honor of the Duke's house. He didn't adopt my friend out of kindness. He adopted him because that was the only way he could've saved him from execution. See, my friend is lethal with a blade, and he hates - "
A clammy touch of foul magic brushed her. Rose froze. She didn't really believe they had killed all the beasts, but she had hoped. Apparently, she was wrong.
"Keep talking," Declan said. "I doubt the creature understands what's being said, but it's likely sensitive to the tone of our voices."
"Where is it?" she asked lightly.
"On the left, near a small shed. Let's get up and stroll a bit."
He rose and offered her his hand. She took it mechanically, before realizing she had done it, and they walked side by side, wandering toward the road. Her hand rested in Declan's calloused fingers, as if they were a couple of teenagers going steady. He was building his magic for one hell of a flash, his whole body wound tight, full of barely contained violence. It was like walking next to a tiger who decided that he liked you: Declan held her hand lightly, but he wasn't about to let her get away.
He squeezed her fingers. In that moment Rose felt a connection between them, an alarmingly intimate bond. She glanced at him to reassure herself she was imagining this and saw the same thought mirrored on his face: he had her hand and he liked it.
She turned away.
"A little closer." Declan applied subtle pressure to her arm, but didn't let go of her hand.
The creature crouched in the myrtle by the shed. To see it out like this, unafraid in full daylight, was eerie.
Declan's voice was steady. "When I say duck, you - "
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"I don't want you to kill it. You'll do your big kaboom thing and blow my shed to smithereens." And Grandpa Cletus with it. She didn't even want to think what it would do to Georgie.
He glanced at her, indignant. "I don't go kaboom."
"Tell it to Amy's roof."
"That kaboom is the reason all of us are still breathing."
The creature watched them, making no move to advance.
"I'm not saying it wasn't necessary. But that was her house. She isn't a noble swimming in money. She can't just wave her hand and get another roof. You didn't even warn her first. People need to have a moment to prepare for that kind of shock."
Declan halted, and so did she. They stood entirely too close. Her back was to the creature. Its magic dripped onto her skin, squirming along her spine in a slippery trickle.
Declan locked his teeth. It made his jaw even squarer. "That hound is less than two feet away from the shed. There's no way I can strike at it and not singe the shed. It's physically impossible. And I've left my swords inside."
"That's why you should let me take care of this."
"How, pray tell, will you manage that?"
"Like this." She spun around and whipped a blindingly white line of magic at the beast. The flash snapped, slicing the beast's head off its neck like a giant razor blade. The headless torso froze in a half crouch for a long moment and toppled over. The oppressive magic vanished.
Declan stared at her, openmouthed.
Rose smiled.
Declan released her fingers and strode to the headless body. "Hmm," he said.
"Hmm back at you," she told him and went to check the brush for signs of other beasts. She didn't feel any, but it didn't mean they weren't there.
They searched the bushes, but no other beasts were in attendance.
"Where do they keep coming from?" Rose wondered. "And why?"
"Why is simple. They hunger for the magic."
"I guess I better get a shovel. We should bury that damn thing."
"Who taught you to flash?" He said it like he expected her to lie.
"Nobody taught me. I practiced for years. Several hours a day. I still do, when I have time."
Declan's face reflected disbelief.
"Don't look so surprised," she told him. "I'm the Edger girl who flashes white, remember? The reason for your trip to this horrible, awful place where you have to mingle with unwashed commoners."
"I knew you could flash white. I didn't know how precise you are."
"You're precise. You knocked aside my bolt."
"Yes, but I didn't aim for the bolt specifically. I just sent a wide pulse of magic from the front of my body, like a shield. It would've knocked away one bolt or ten."
"Oh. Well, thank you for the tip! Now I know how you did it."
They looked at each other.
"Just how precise are you?" he asked.
She gave him a sly Edger smile. "Do you have a doubloon on you?"
He reached into his pocket and produced a coin.
"I'll make you a deal. You throw it in the air, and if I hit it with my flash, it's mine."
Declan looked at the doubloon. It was slightly larger than a quarter from the Broken. He tossed it high above his head. The doubloon spun in the air, catching the sunlight, shining like a bright spark . . . and fell into the grass stung by a thin white whip of her flash.
Declan swore.
She grinned, plucked the still-hot coin from the grass, blew on it, and showed it to him, taunting him a little. "Groceries for two weeks. A pleasure doing business with you."
"I've only met one person who could do that," he said. "She was a flash-sniper in our unit. How can you do this with no proper training?"
"Did you study flashing?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it's the best weapon available, and I wanted to be good at it. And everybody in my family was good with it. I was a noble, and I had to uphold the honor of our name."
"I had a much better motivation than you," she said. "When I was thirteen, my mother's parents died in a house fire. Grandpa Danilo always smoked like a chimney. The whole house was covered with cigarette butts, and one night he'd smoked one too many. Nobody got out alive, not even my grandparents' cat. Their death broke my mother. She just kind of died right then, but her body kept on living. She started sleeping around and didn't stop. She'd have anybody who'd have her. Married, blind, crippled, crazy, she didn't care. She said it made her feel alive."
"I'm sorry," he said. "It must've been very painful for you."
"It wasn't fun. People called my mother a slut to my face. Leanne, who lent you the clothes? She used to chase me around the school, chanting 'whore's bitch.' She'd written it on my locker once in big letters. You were the son of a nobleman, handsome, wealthy, probably well liked. Poor little rich boy. I was the daughter of a whore, penniless, ugly, and despised. I had a lot of motivation to flash well. I wanted to ram my flash down the world's throat to show everyone that I was worth something."
"How did it work out for you?"
"Not so well," she admitted. "But now playing with my flash is a habit. I taught myself a lot of fun tricks."
"Aha." Declan pointed to the tree. "Double slicer."
The magic slashed from him in two even streams, running low through the grass, and collided in a brilliant explosion at the tree. He had used a mere fraction of his power, just to show her the move. Declan had better control than she had thought.
"Don't be upset if you can't do it right away," he said. "It takes a bit of pra - "
He clamped his mouth shut with a click as she sent two identical streams of magic into the tree.
"Oh my . . ." she murmured innocently.
"Ball lightning." A sphere of magic ignited over his shoulder and smashed into the tree in a shower of sparks.
She hadn't seen that one before, but she had practiced making spirals for years - mostly because she thought they looked neat - and a sphere was just a folded spiral. The trick would be to snap it with a spin, the way he had done. She concentrated and watched in satisfaction as a white ball formed over her shoulder. It was a bit lopsided and it didn't spin as well as his, but she was able to send it flying into the bark.
Declan shook his head. "Unbelievable."
"It's killing you that you can't stump me, isn't it?" Rose grinned. She never got to show off. To have him here as her audience was satisfying beyond words. She'd managed to impress a blueblood from the Weird. An earl and ex-soldier. It didn't get better than that.
Declan planted his feet into the grass and concentrated. His eyes shone. A ghostly breeze stirred his hair. A crisp line of white burst from his back to rise two feet above his head. The top of the magic line curved down, stretching all the way to the grass in a white half arch, and began to circle him, drawing a perfect ring in the dirt.
Wow.
"Ataman's defense," he said, letting it die.
Rose tried it. She had no problems creating the straight upward line, but as she tried to bend it down, it struck at the grass under a sharp angle, not curved gently the way Declan's had.
Declan smiled.
"Let me see it again, please."
He reconstructed the arch. "It took me a year of constant practice to learn how to do this."
Rose watched the arch go around him. Turn. Turn. Turn. Like a whip. Turn. "Give me a few minutes."
"You have time." He sat in the grass.
"Are you just going to sit there and watch me?"
"Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best."
"Peasant?"
He shrugged. "You started the name-calling."
She snorted and went to work. It was harder than it looked, and for the first few minutes the sight of him on the grass distracted her. He looked like a painting with his strong body, long lean legs, and absurdly handsome face. There was humor in his green eyes, and when their gazes met by chance, he winked at her. She nearly singed herself with her own flash. But soon, she sank into the task, and Declan and the rest of the world faded.
Sometime later Declan stirred on the grass. "Do you want me to tell you how it's done?"
"No!"
He grinned.
She struggled with it for another half hour, until it dawned on her to put a spin into the line. At first it merely sagged, but the harder she pushed, the lower it curved, until finally her line of white arched down gracefully and spun about her, like an obedient pet.
She turned, thrilled, and saw him striding across the lawn to her. He paused and ducked under the spinning line of her flash. He was so close, they practically touched. She let the flash die.
"That's incredible," he said quietly.
"It's not that incredible," she said.
"It took me a year to learn it."
"I practiced a lot more than you."
"I can see that."
She glanced at his face, and all thoughts scattered from her head. She saw admiration and respect in his eyes, an acknowledgment one would give an equal. They looked at each other. Slowly his eyes darkened to deeper green. The way he looked at her made her want to take the half step to close the small distance between them, open her mouth, and let him kiss her. She could almost feel his lips on hers. Like playing with fire. Rose moistened her bottom lip, biting it a little to get rid of the phantom kiss, and saw Declan's gaze snag on her mouth.
Oh no. No, no, no. Bad idea.
He took a step forward, his hand reaching for her. Rose sidestepped.
"Thank you. It means a lot to me, coming from someone like you. I think we better dig a grave for that thing. The stench is killing me."
She headed to the back of the house for a shovel.
"Rose," he called. His voice was deep and touched with a hint of command. She pretended not to hear him and hid behind the shed.
She'd done precisely the same thing for which she had berated Georgie during lunch. Declan had won the first challenge, and if he did have any doubts about her abilities, she had shattered them. Now he knew that not only could she flash white, but she did it extraordinarily well. And the way he looked at her left her with no questions: Declan wanted her. She had to stump him on the second challenge, or in a few days she'd be packing her things and following him into the Weird.
