Sincerely yours, Spider
Mindless hot fury flooded William, sweeping away all reason and restraint. He raised his head to the sky and snarled, giving voice to his rage before it tore him apart.
For years he’d tracked Spider as much as the Legion would permit him. He’d found him twice. The first time he’d ripped apart Spider’s stomach—and Spider broke William’s legs. The second time, William had shattered the Louisianan’s ribs, while Spider nearly drowned him. Both times, the Hand’s spy had slipped through his fingers.
Nobody cared for the changelings. They grew up exiled from society, raised to obey and kill on command for the good of Adrianglia. They were fodder, but to him they were children, just like he once had been a child. Just like Jack.
He had to find Spider. He had to kill him this time. The child murderer had to be punished.
A man stepped out of the Wood. William leapt off the porch. In a breath he pinned the man to the trunk of the nearest tree and snarled, his teeth clicking a hair from the man’s carotid.
The man made no move to resist. “Do you want to kill me or Spider?”
“Who are you?”
“The name is Erwin.” The man nodded at his raised hands.
A large ring clamped his middle finger—a plain silver band with a small polished mirror in it. The sign of the Adrianglian Secret Service, the Hand’s greatest enemy.
“The Mirror would like a word, Lord Sandine,” the man said softly. “Would you be kind enough to favor us with an audience?”
CERISE LEANED OVER THE TEA-COLORED WATERS of Horseshoe Pond. Around her, massive cypresses stood like ancient soldiers at attention, the knobby knees of their roots straddling the water. The Mire was never silent, but nothing out of the ordinary interrupted the familiar chorus of small noises: a toad belching somewhere to the left, the faint scuttling of Edge squirrels in the canopy above her, the persistent warbling of the bluebill . . .
She rolled up her jeans and crouched, calling in a practiced singsong, “Where is Nellie? Where is that good girl? Nellie is the best rolpie ever. Here, Nellie, Nellie, Nellie.”
The surface of the pond lay completely placid. Not a splash.
The rolpie was in there. Cerise was absolutely sure of it. She’d tracked the stubborn animal since three past midnight when Arthur heard Nellie break out of the rolpie enclosure. Cerise had been going from stream to stream for the last four hours. The trail—a long smudge in the mud, flanked by swipes from the paws—ended five feet to the left of her.
“Here, Nellie! Here, girl. Who is a good girl? Nellie is. Oh, Nellie is so pretty. Oh, Nellie is so fat. She is the fattest cutest stupidest rolpie ever. Yes, she is.”
No response.
Cerise looked up. Far above, a small chunk of blue sky winked at her through the braid of cypress branches and Mire vines. “Why do you do this to me?”
The sky refused to answer. It usually did, but that didn’t stop her from talking to it.
A chirp echoed overhead and a white globe of bird poop plummeted from the branches. Cerise dodged and growled at the sky. “Not cool. Not cool at all.”
It was time for emergency measures. Cerise leaned her sword against a cypress knee, anchoring the scabbard in the muck, shifted her weight, pulling the backpack off her shoulders, and dug in the bag. She fished out a length of rope with a headcollar, designed to fit on the rolpie’s muzzle and loop behind her ears, and arranged it on the mud for easy access. The can opener was followed by a small can.
She held the can out and knocked on it with the can opener. The sound of metal on metal rolled above the pound. Nothing.
“Oh, what do I have? I have tuna!”
A small ripple wrinkled the surface about thirty feet out. Gotcha.
“Mmmm, yummy, yummy tuna. I’ll eat it all by myself.” She arranged the can opener on the can and squeezed, breaking the seal.
A brindled head popped out of the water. The rolpie sampled the air with a black nose framed with long dark whiskers. Large black eyes fixed on the can with maniacal glee.
Cerise squeezed the top of the can, letting some of the fish juice drip into the pond.
The rolpie sped through the water and launched herself out onto the shore. From the bottom up to the neck, she resembled a lean seal armed with a long tail and four wide half-legs framed with flat flippers. At the shoulders, the seal body stretched into a graceful long neck, tipped with an otter head. When she was a little girl, Grandpa once told her that rolpies were reptiles and their fur was actually modified feathers, but looking at one, you wouldn’t think it.
Cerise shook the can. “Head.”
Nellie licked her black lips and tried her best to look adorable.
“Head, Nellie.”
The rolpie lowered her head. Cerise slipped the collar over her wet muzzle and tightened it. “You’ll pay for this, you know.”
The black nose nudged her shoulder. Cerise plucked a chunk of tuna from the can and tossed it at the rolpie. Razor-sharp teeth rent the air, snapping up the treat. Cerise swiped her sword off the ground and tugged on the leash. The rolpie lumbered next to her, wiggling and pushing herself across the swamp mud.
“What the hell was that? Breaking out in the middle of the night and taking off for a stroll, are we? Did you get tired of pulling the boats and decided to take your chances with Mire crocs?”
The rolpie squirmed along, watching the can of tuna like it was some holy relic.
“They can bite bone sharks in half. They’ll look at you and see a plump little snack. Brunch, that’s what you’d be.”
Nellie licked her lips.
“Do you think tuna grows in the mud?” Cerise plucked another chunk of fish out of the can and tossed it at Nellie. “In case you didn’t know, we live in the Edge, between two worlds. We have to get our tuna from the Broken. The Broken has no magic. But you know what the Broken does have? Cops. Lots and lots of cops. And alarm systems. Do you have any idea how hard it is to steal tuna from the Broken, Nellie?”
Nellie emitted a small squeal of despair.
“I don’t feel sorry for you. It takes four days to get to the boundary that separates the Edge from the Broken, because it’s three miles off-shore, and crossing the boundary hurts like hell. And we can’t afford to get arrested in the Broken. They don’t know the Edge or the Weird exist. Most of them don’t have enough magic to see the damn boundary, let alone cross it. Can you imagine how hard it is to explain why you have no ID to a Broken cop? If you think that you’ll get tuna treats every time you decide to take a stroll in the moonlight, you have another think coming, missy. Besides, I work hard and I have better things to do than drag my butt out of my very comfortable bed and chase you all around the damn Mire.”
The vegetation parted, revealing the dark water of Priest’s Tongue stream. A green Mire viper lay in the mud. It hissed as they approached. Cerise hooked the snake with her sword and tossed it aside.
“Come on.” She threw another bite of tuna to the rolpie and led her into the stream. Cerise wrapped the leash loop tighter around her wrist and slid her arms around Nellie’s narrow neck. “You get the rest when we get home. And no dives into the peat at the bottom either.” Cerise clicked her tongue and the rolpie took off down the stream.