"You're an evil woman," George said.
"What do you know of evil, you stupid puppy?" Magdalene turned her gaze on him. "You think this is evil? Give me two weeks with Yonker's toy, and I could make you rape your own mother, and you'd enjoy it."
"Kaldar, if you kill her, please don't shoot her in the head," George said, his face cold, as if carved from a glacier. "Raising a body with a shattered brain requires more magic, and I think we can use her corpse to make sure her relatives will get run out of town."
Now that's interesting. Kaldar studied George. He had had no idea the kid had that kind of calculated cruelty in him. He was willing to bet it wasn't genuine, but it was hellishly convincing.
"You can't do that," she sneered.
"I can," George told her. "That's what I do. Would you like me to stab Adam through the heart and demonstrate?"
"No!" Adam squirmed behind the couch. "Mother!"
Everyone had a lever. Kaldar laughed. "And the little Moonflower opens his big mouth. It's over, Magdalene."
Magdalene's face drooped in defeat.
"The invitation," Kaldar ordered.
"In the black box in the safe," she said.
Audrey handed the gun to Gaston, crossed the room to the steel door, and put her hand against it. Green magic shimmered around her. The locks clicked open.
"I have it," Audrey said.
"What are you going to do now?" Magdalene glared at Kaldar.
"Now we walk away."
"What?"
He shrugged. "What's the point of killing you? I may have to use you again."
She actually shook with rage. "If you ever come here again . . ."
"If I ever do, you will welcome me in a civil manner and do whatever is requested of you," Kaldar let the crisp tones of Adrianglian high society slip into his voice. "You will not warn de Braose. You will not seek revenge. Or the Mirror will replace you with someone more agreeable. I could slit your throat right now, kill your son, bury your bodies in an unmarked grave, and tomorrow a new soothsayer would walk through these doors and take your place. Your people won't care who they work for as long as their bills are paid."
Magdalene stared at him, mute.
"Let me put things in perspective for you: I can level this entire building with a single blast of my flash. I could've simply ordered you to hand the invitation over, but I've chosen to play by the rules out of respect. You broke the rules, Magdalene. You tried to engineer the death of a Mirror agent and a blueblood peer. That's an act of war against Adrianglia. True, we're on the other side of the continent, but we have a long reach. Think about that for a moment."
Magdalene Moonflower turned as white as the marble floor she was standing on.
"Consider it a learning experience. Next time I won't be in the mood to give you a lesson." Kaldar turned and walked out.
They had reached the parking lot before George said, "Kaldar?"
"Mhhm?"
"You're not really a blueblood or a peer of the realm."
"True." He popped open the vehicle's door.
"Also, you can't flash hard enough to level the building," Jack said.
"True again."
"So you lied?" George asked.
"Of course he lied, George," Audrey said.
Kaldar grinned. "But Magdalene doesn't know that, does she? Now pile into the car. Quickly now. We have less than twenty hours to get to Morell de Braose's castle and make ourselves presentable. The rest of the Hand can't be far behind."
The kids and Gaston climbed into the backseat.
"What if she warns de Braose?" George asked.
"And be the laughingstock of the entire western Edge, while risking the Mirror's wrath?" Kaldar shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Just out of curiosity, how are you planning on getting in?" Audrey asked, sliding into the front passenger seat. "To get into the auction, we need three things: an invitation, a pedigree, and money. We have the invitation, and we can fake the money, but you can't just show up and claim to be a blueblood noble. Morell will smell a fake in an instant."
"I've got it covered." Kaldar steered the car out of the parking lot.
She heaved a sigh. "Next you'll be claiming you're a lost heir to a blueblood fortune."
"I don't need to claim anything." He grinned. "I have the two wards of the Marshal of the Southern Provinces in the backseat."
In the rearview mirror, the two boys blinked like two baby owls.
"Do you boys still remember your etiquette lessons?"
George recovered first. "We'll manage."
THERE were times in life when nothing was better than a hot, soapy shower, Audrey reflected, stepping out of the shower onto a soft white towel. After the meeting with Magdalene, it was decided that it was best to take off immediately, and so all of them, bloody and exhausted, piled into the wyvern's cabin. Three hours later, the wyvern touched down in the Edge near the small town of Valley View in southern Oregon. Ling and the nameless cat were released into the night to forage for themselves, the wyvern was watered, and everybody agreed that they desperately needed hot showers and beds.
It was determined that of all of them, Kaldar had somehow ended up being the least bloody, so he cleaned his face, got two suites at the Holiday Inn Express, and snuck the rest of them in through the side entrance. The men took one suite, she took the other.
It was almost eleven in the evening now, and Audrey had finally washed all of the nastiness out of her hair. She couldn't smell the blood anymore, only the cocoa butter from the body wash and lilac from the shampoo. Audrey scrubbed her face with a white towel and examined it. No red. Good. She wrapped one towel around herself, put the other over her wet hair, twisted it, flipped the end over, and came out of the bathroom with a towel turban on her head.
"It's amazing how every woman knows how to do that."
Kaldar sat on the edge of her bed. Well, well. Someone had been hiding lock-picking skills. Or, more likely, he had just asked for an extra keycard for her room and kept one.
The shower had turned his hair nearly black, and it framed his clean face in casual disarray. He hadn't bothered to shave his stubble, and he looked like a rogue, a highwayman who had somehow ended up wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.
A very sexy highwayman.
In her imagination, Audrey walked over to him. He gave her one of those wicked looks and stole her towel, sliding it off her to the floor. Kaldar ran his clever hands up her hips, over her sides, to her breasts. Audrey leaned back, letting him caress her. It felt so good. He rose and pulled off his T-shirt, baring a muscled torso. She wound her arms around him. He hugged her to him, his arms strong, his skin so hot it was nearly burning. His lips trailed the line of her pulse on her neck. The memory of the day faded from her head. The visions of blood and gore fled.