Fate’s Edge (The Edge #3)(93)
Author: Ilona Andrews

It took them almost ten minutes to find the diffusers. They waited in the same wooden box Audrey had originally stolen. She opened it and stared at the twin bracelets. The source of all her problems. Dread washed over her in a cold wave.

Kaldar pulled out the fakes from his backpack.

"This is it," she said. "This is what my brother and Gnome died for."

He crouched by her.

"I wish I could rewind time and go back to when my father asked me to take this job. I wish I had told him no."

"Then we would have never met." He pulled her to him and kissed her.

"I wish it was done," Audrey said softly. "I wish we were free and clear. I have this awful feeling that something will go wrong." Apprehension had churned in her stomach ever since Helena d’Amry walked into that ballroom. Her instincts warned Audrey that things wouldn’t go as planned, and she’d learned long ago to trust her intuition. It had saved her more than once from being caught, and now it was screaming at her to get out. But they were in, and until the auction concluded tomorrow, they couldn’t leave.

"I know," Kaldar told her. "I have it, too. We’ll be fine." Audrey looked at the diffusers. An irrational urge to smash them swelled in her.

"Come on," Kaldar said. "Let’s replace them and be done. We have ten minutes till the spider makes the guards run around again."

They swapped the bracelets, put the box back on its pedestal, and left the vault.

MORNING came far too quickly for Audrey’s taste. Last night, after Kaldar kissed her, both of them hanging on the sheer wall, she climbed back to her room, changed her clothes, and got into bed.

And then she stayed awake. She rolled on her side, on her stomach, on her side again. She flipped the pillow until both sides of it were too hot to sleep on.

She finally fell asleep and woke up at the first light, tired and groggy. Cerise had lent her a gown, a complicated twisted affair of blue that took forever to put on, but at least the skirt was wide enough that she could run in it, and the pleats hid the dagger Gaston had given her.

They just had to get through today. Just get through.

A servant brought a breakfast tray. She forced herself to eat some of the fruit and a small piece of some sweet pastry. Low blood sugar was bad in their business.

A knock sounded through the door leading to Cerise’s quarters.

"Come in!"

Cerise stepped into her room carrying an odd collection of buckles and belts, attached to an oblong metal disk. About four inches wide and six inches long, the disk bore the complex ornamentation of the Weird that usually meant there were high-magic gears inside.

"What’s this for?"

"An emergency escape harness." Cerise handed her the harness. "Think of it as a parachute. Kaldar has this too, more than one. They come standard issue on most missions. You never know when you have to dive off a mountain cliff. If you put your night suit on, we can fit it over it, then pick a good dress to hide it."

On autopilot, Audrey ran her hands along the belts, checking them for weak spots. "Why did you decide to work for the Mirror?"

Cerise sat next to her on the bed. "About two years ago, my family was in trouble. William made a deal with the Mirror: they would give us asylum in Adrianglia. In return, he has to work for them for ten years. He’s a changeling who’s been trained as a soldier. The work is good for him. It lets him practice all the skills he already has." Cerise sighed. "And if something happened to him while he was working off his debt to the Mirror, I would never forgive myself. I don’t want him to die because of my family. So I go with him. That way, there are two of us, and we watch each other’s back."

"What happens if William stops working for the Mirror before ten years are up?" Audrey asked.

"He won’t. He gave his word. But if he ever did, our family would lose its asylum."

"And Kaldar?"

"Kaldar has no similar agreements with the Mirror," Cerise said. "He does it because he wants revenge. And because, if something happened to William, his work and mine would give the Mirror an additional incentive to keep protecting our family."

Nothing in the world was free. Audrey looked at the harness.

"Look, it’s not that bad." Cerise grinned at her. "I enjoy it. As long as we follow the orders and deliver the results, they treat us like heroes. Come on, it’s time to get dressed."

008

HALF an hour later, a guard knocked on her door. The auction was about to begin. She and Cerise followed William and the guard through the hallway to a large room Audrey promptly dubbed "Blue Hall."

The Blue Hall had five exits, the one through which they had entered and two in each of the side walls. All the walls were painted a bright, happy blue. Two guards decorated each entrance, looking like they meant business. Two additional guards stood at the end of the room, where an auctioneer’s block rose, facing rows of white chairs upholstered with blue, with an aisle between them. A throne-like chair stood to the block’s left, facing the audience. No doubt that was where Morell would sit. As they were led to their seats, Audrey craned her neck and spotted the boys in the third row, watched over by Gaston in black leather, with the kind of scowl that made people cringe. Farther toward the auctioneer’s podium, Kaldar was talking to Morell. They seemed relaxed, their postures telegraphing calm nerves. Morell was smiling. The robber baron seemed to genuinely like Kaldar.

Like him or not, Morell would kill Kaldar all the same. She’d counted twelve guards in the Blue Hall alone. She wasn’t the only one looking, either. All around her, bodyguards scanned the room, ushering their employers to their seats.

Cerise took her seat – the third chair in the row. Audrey paused, expecting William to follow, but he shook his head. "Get in."

"But shouldn’t you sit together?"

"You’ll sit between us," William said. "We can better protect you that way."

Audrey sat next to Cerise. Kaldar’s cousin squeezed her hand, and whispered, "Stay close to me."

A moment later, Francis landed in the chair in front of Cerise, turned, and hit her with a melodramatic stare.

Helena d’Amry strode through the door. Tall, elegant, she seemed to project aristocratic haughtiness and refinement. People moved out of her way. Men bowed. Women gave her the evil eye and shriveled the moment her slit-pupiled eyes glanced at them.

The tattooed man who’d thrown Gnome’s head at Audrey followed Helena, barely a step behind. Sebastian, Audrey remembered. Fear squirmed through her in a cold, nauseating wave. She tensed and forced herself to look past him at the rest of Helena’s crew. Four more people rounded out Helena’s party: a bald man, hard and sharp, naked to the waist and carrying a sword; a large woman with a mane of red hair, who could probably pick up any person in the room and hurl them into a wall; a cloaked figure who could be either female or male; and another man who moved with a jerky gait. He looked hungry, and he surveyed the people in front of him like they were meat.