She gave him a bitter smile. "Yes. I've heard. You told him that if something happened to me, the whole family would suffer, because nobody would be left to steal."
"I said it in a way he would understand: if something happened to you, there would be no more drugs."
"Because it's all he cares about." Audrey sighed. "I left four years ago. I didn't cover my tracks, I just ran clear across the bloody continent to the other side. I would've gone to the moon if I could, but I would've still left you a nice trail to follow, because I kept hoping that one day my parents would wake up and realize they had a daughter. It took you this long to find me, because you didn't look until you needed me. I spent years stealing and grifting, so you could put him into one rehab after another. I'm done with you. Don't come here. Don't ask me for any favors. It's over."
"This will be the last time," he said quietly. "If you won't do it for me, do it for your mother. You know if Alex dies, it would kill her. I swear, this is the very last time. I wouldn't be here if I had any choice, Audrey. Just look at the pictures of the job." He pushed some photographs to her across the table.
She glanced down. The first two shots showed some sort of resort. On the third a white pyramid rose, its golden top gleaming in the sun. A stylized bull carved from reddish stone polished to a gleam stood before the pyramid. "The pyramid of Ptah? Are you out of your mind? You want me to go into the Weird and steal something from a pyramid?"
"It can be done."
"People who rob the pyramids in West Egypt die, Dad."
"Please, Audrey. Don't make me beg. Do you want me to get down on my knees? Fine, I can do that."
He would never leave her alone. If she did this job, he'd be back in six months with another and tell her that it would be "the very last time." She had to find a way to end it now and end it so he wouldn't return.
Audrey leaned forward. "I'll give you a choice. I'll do the job with you, but from that point on we're strangers. You don't have a daughter anymore and I don't have a father or a mother. If you show up on my land again, I'll shoot you. I'm dead serious, Dad. I will put a bolt through you. Or you can walk away now and keep me as your daughter. Pick. Him or me."
Seamus looked at the image of her bruised face in the photo album.
She waited. Deep inside her a little girl listened quietly, hoping for the answer that the adult in her knew wouldn't come.
"I'll see you at the end of the road tomorrow at seven," he said and walked out the door.
The disappointment gripped her so tightly, it hurt. For a few short pain-filled breaths she just stood there, and then she grabbed the pan, burned pancakes and all, burst out the back door, and hurled it over the cliff.
Chapter One
Kaldar Mar stepped back and critically surveyed the vast three-dimensional map of the Western Continent. It spread on the wall of the private conference room, a jeweled masterpiece of magic and semiprecious stones. Forests of malachite and jade flowed into plains of aventurine and peridot. The plains gave rise to mountains of brown opals with ridges of banded agates and tiger eye, topped by the snowy peaks of moonstone and jasper.
Beautiful. A completely useless waste of money, but beautiful. If it somehow could be stolen... you'd need a handcart to transport it and some tools to carve it to pieces. Hmm, also a noise dampener would work wonders here, and this being the Weird, he could probably find someone willing to risk creating a sound-proof sigil for the right price. Steal a custodian's uniform, get in, cut the map, wrap each piece in tarp, load them on the handcart, and push the whole thing right out the front door, while looking disgruntled. Less than twenty minutes for the whole job if the cutter was powerful enough. The map would feed the entire Mar family for a year or more.
Well, what was left of the family.
Kaldar's memory overlaid the familiar patterns of states over the map, ignoring the borders of the Weird's nations. Adrianglia took up a big chunk of the Eastern seaboard, stretching in a long vertical ribbon. In the Broken, it would have consumed most of the states from New York and southern Quebec to Georgia and a small chunk of Alabama. Below it, West Egypt occupied Florida and spread down into Cuba. To the left of Adrianglia, the vast Dukedom of Louisiana mushroomed upward, containing all of Louisiana and a chunk of Alabama in the south, rising to swallow Mississippi and Texarcana, and ending with the coast of Great Lakes. Beyond that smaller nations fought it out: the Republic of Texas, the Northern Vast, the Democracy of California...
Kaldar had grown up on the fringes of this world, in the Edge, a narrow strip of land between the complex magic of the Weird and the technological superiority of the Broken. Most of his life was spent in the Mire, an enormous swamp, cut off from the rest of the Edge by impassable terrain. The dukedom of Louisiana dumped their exiles there and killed them when they tried to reenter the Weird. His only escape had been through the Broken. He travelled back and forth, smuggling goods, lying, cheating, making as much money as was humanly possible and dragging it back to the family.
Kaldar stared at the map. Each country had an enemy. Each was knee-deep in conflict. But the only war he cared about was happening right in the middle, between the Dukedom of Louisiana and Adrianglia. It was a very quiet vicious war, fought in secrecy by spies, with no rules and no mercy. On the Adrianglian side, the espionage and its consequences were handled by the Mirror. He supposed if they were in the Broken, the Mirror would be the equivalent of the CIA or FBI, or perhaps both. On Louisiana's side, the covert war was the province of the secret service known as the Hand. He had watched the two organizations clash from the sidelines for years, but watching wasn't enough anymore.
First, the Mirror woke him up at ten till five, and now he spent fifteen minutes waiting. Puzzling.
The heavy wooden door swung open soundlessly and a woman entered the room. She was short, with a sparse, compact body, wrapped in an expensive blue gown embroidered with silver thread. Kaldar priced the dress out of habit. About five gold doubloons in the Weird, probably a grand and a half or two in the Broken. Expensive and obviously custom tailored. The blue fabric perfectly complimented her skin, the color of hazelnut shells. The dress was meant to communicate power and authority, but she hardly needed it. She moved as if she owned the air he breathed.
Nancy Virai. The head of the Mirror. They've never met - he had not been given that honor, poor Edge rat that he was - but she hardly needed an introduction.
He'd spent last two years doing small assignments, challenging, but nothing of great importance. Nothing that would warrant the attention of Lady Virai. Anticipation shot through Kaldar. Something big waited at the end of this conversation.