Kaldar picked up the buckets and retreated a few steps. Gaston watched him with an amused grin on his face.
Pretty Audrey. Honed into a tool. Used like one, then shoved into a drawer and forgotten until she was needed again. He had the strong urge to punch the entire Callahan clan in the face one by one.
Snap out of it, you fool. A pretty face and a sweet smile, and you’ve lost all common sense.
Kaldar kicked some bushes, forcing them to rustle.
“Hurry up, Gaston!”
His nephew pushed to his feet, swiped the buckets off the ground, and croaked in a choked-up voice. “Yes, master.”
Kaldar rolled his eyes and carried the buckets to the wyvern’s mouth to feed him.
EIGHT
KALDAR squinted at Magdalene Moonflower’s lair. The Center for Cognitive Enhancement and Well-being occupied a large three-story building in northern San Diego. The white stucco walls rose, interrupted by huge windows. The whole structure nearly floated off the pavement, sleek, modern, and somehow light, almost delicate. The salt-spiced wind blowing from the coast less than a mile away only strengthened the illusion.
He’d given Gaston a pocketful of money and sent him out on a fishing expedition with the locals. If Magdalene had dealings in the Edge, he would soon know all about it. But in the meantime, they had to approach her directly. The wheels of time never stopped turning; sooner or later, they would bring the Hand and the blond blueblood closer to them. The blonde troubled Kaldar. She wasn’t on any of the Hand’s rosters he had in his possession.
“Magdalene’s building looks like an ivory tower,” Audrey said next to him.
“Pretty much. You see it?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Just beyond the tower, the boundary shimmered, cutting off a section of the building. A person with no magic would see only the tower. Kaldar and Audrey saw the tower and the long two-story-high rectangle of the rest of the building behind it. Magdalene operated halfway in the Edge.
“Clever,” Audrey murmured.
“It is. The Edge Gobble.”
“Yep.” Audrey nodded.
The Edge wasn’t a stable place. It shrank and expanded, sometimes forming bubbles in the Broken—holes in reality, invisible to those without magic. The Edgers called the bubbles the Edge Gobble. San Diego had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, and this one was of a good size, at least as large as a football field. Normal passersby would just walk by it, completely unaware it existed.
“You think if you crashed a car into that hole, chunks of the building would fly out into the Broken?” Audrey asked.
“I don’t know. They might bounce off the boundary back into the Edge.”
“We should test that theory sometime.”
Kaldar snuck a glance at her. Her clothes from yesterday had been too bloodstained to salvage, so after they had stolen a car, they drove to an outlet mall. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket. He’d thought she would choose something similar, but no. She came out in pale capris that molded to her behind in a very interesting way and a light, blue-green, teardrop blouse. The blouse tied at the clavicle with two cords, and the teardrop cutout fit perfectly between Audrey’s breasts, promising a glimpse but never giving one. He was focusing way too hard on that teardrop, and it was screwing up his concentration.
Audrey’s red hair gleamed in the sunlight. Her makeup was barely noticeable, except for her lipstick, which was a shade lighter than raspberry and gave him an absurd impression that her lips would taste sweet. Her face wore an easy, carefree expression, as if she skated through life completely unscathed and untouched by any tragedy. Considering that they had just buried Gnome—well, what was left of him—and she had cried her eyes out, her control was impressive.
“Admiring my blouse?” Audrey asked.
“It’s a nice shade of sea foam. Goes well with your hair.” A potato sack. He needed to put a potato sack over her, then it would be fine.
“Most men wouldn’t know that sea foam is a color, let alone what it looks like.”
Kaldar shrugged. “For one of my assignments, I had to be a butler to a blueblood noble. The Mirror put me through two months of intensive preparation. If you show me a gown made in the Weird in the past five years, I’ll tell you in what year and what season it was made.”
Audrey laughed. “Were you very proper as a butler?”
All the tears, all of the hurt, where did it all go? He had to give it to her: she hid it well. She had a lifetime to learn how to do it. He just had to pray it didn’t boil out of her again under the pressure.
He slipped into a clipped, upper-class version of Adrianglian English. “I was simply a very competent butler. It was, after all, what my employer deserved. Would my lady care to cross the street?”
“She would.”
They crossed to the other side. “How shall we play this?” she asked.
“Straight.” He held the glass door open for her.
She grimaced.
“You disagree?”
“It’s your show.”
He fired a test shot. “Oh, come on, Audrey. You know I need you to pull this off.”
She glanced at him. “Kaldar, I told you I’d help you. I still think it’s a stupid plan.”
“Trust me.”
“Ha! I’d rather give all my money to a snake-oil salesman.”
They walked through the long lobby to the counter. Kaldar took a mental inventory of the place. Let’s see, floor of gray tile streaked with softer brown, calming white walls, large, enhanced photographs in gallery frames: vast Arizona vistas, serene mountain lakes, tangled green forests. At the counter, a deathly pale young man looked up at them. His hair was long, brushed to the side in a ragged cut that probably cost an arm and a leg, and his clothes, designer khaki pants and a high-end olive shirt, would’ve set him back two weeks of a normal receptionist’s pay.
The man smiled. “Hello. My name is Adam. How may I help you today?”
“Hello, Adam.”