Steel's Edge (3 page)

Charlotte slumped against the chair. She had few options. She could go back to Ganer College and hide away from the world. No, returning to the College where everyone knew her and about her marriage was out of the question. Their pity would drive her over the edge.

She could remain in the manor and live in seclusion and hope that isolation would reduce the temptation to use the dark side of her magic, but she didn't want to be Charlotte de Ney either. Lady de Ney was a stupid, naive girl who was blinded by a handsome face and the promise of a happy tomorrow. She had thought that after the years of training and service, she deserved to be loved for who she was, as if love was some sort of a right. If she stayed here, she would have to face her neighbors and friends, and explain why her marriage had been annulled. No, that wouldn't be a good idea either, especially since Elvei would be moving in the same circles, hunting for a new wife.

At the memory of Elvei, the magic surged inside her. Charlotte hugged herself. Injuring him felt so good. She could imagine making him sick. Maybe just a little bit. Nothing drastic. She knew where he'd lived before their marriage. He still owned that house and would likely return there. And if he married, she might make his happy blushing bride just a little less vivacious. The thought of it would gnaw at her until it consumed her, then she would do it. It was wrong and evil. She knew it, but she was so worn down and her emotional wounds were too raw. She wasn't sure how long she could hold out. She had to disappear someplace away from bluebloods, Adrianglia, and Elvei.

Her memory served up a half-forgotten incident from many years ago when she had been called to heal a group of soldiers. She recalled feeling a strong magic boundary, an invisible wall that seemed to sever their world, and watching the soldiers come through it, one by one, their faces twisted by pain. She spoke to one of them while sealing his wounds. He told her they belonged to the Mirror, a secret counterespionage agency. They had been traveling outside their world, the man had said, in a place where magic was weak. He called it the Edge. The man had been delirious, and she would've dismissed him if she hadn't sensed the invisible wall rising like a barrier of pressurized magic.

In this Edge, a place of weak magic, the pull of the darkness might be weaker too, so even if it managed to get the upper hand, she would do less harm.

The real question was, could she find it?

*   *   *

ÉLÉONORE
Drayton leaned back in her rocking chair and sipped the iced tea from a tall glass shaped like the center of a daffodil. The spring sun warmed the porch. Éléonore smiled, cozy in all of the layers of her torn clothes. She had been feeling every single one of her 109 years lately, and the heat felt so nice.

Beyond the lawn, a road ran into the distance, and on the other side, the Edge woods rose, dense, nourished by magic. The air smelled of fresh leaves and spring flowers.

Next to her, Melanie Dove, herself no spring chicken, raised her glass to the light and squinted at it. The sun caught a thin gold thread spiraling inside the glass walls. “Nice glasses. They from the Weird?”

“Mhhm. Keeps the tea cold with magic.” The glasses worked even here, in the Edge, where the magic wasn't as strong. It didn't keep the ice from melting indefinitely as the note with it promised, but it lasted a good five to six hours, and, really, who couldn't drink a glass of tea in five hours?

“The grandkids got it for you?”

Éléonore nodded. The glasses came by a special courier, straight from Adrianglia in a box with Earl Camarine's seal on it, the latest in the stream of presents. Rose, the oldest of her grandchildren, had picked them out and written a nice note.

“When are you going to move there?”

Éléonore raised her eyebrows. “Trying to get rid of me?”

“Please.” The other witch shook her gray head. “Your granddaughter married a loaded blueblood noble, your grandsons have been after you for months to move, but you sit here like a chicken on a compost heap. In your place, I'd be gone.”

“They have their own lives, I have mine. What am I going to do there? The boys are in school all day. George is thirteen, Jack's eleven, and Rose has her own marriage to worry about. I don't even have a place of my own there. Here I have two houses.”

“Earl Camarine will buy you a house. He lives in a castle, woman.”

“I've never taken anyone's charity, and I'm not about to start now.”

“Well, in your place, I would go.”

“Well, you're not in my place, are you?”

Éléonore smiled into her tea. They had been friends for fifty years, and for the entire half century, Melanie had been telling anyone and everyone what they should have done with their lives. Age only made her more blunt, and she hadn't been all that subtle to begin with.

Truth was, she missed them. Rose, George, and Jack, she missed her grandbabies so badly, her chest ached sometimes at the memories. But she didn't belong in the Weird, Éléonore reflected. She'd gone to visit and would likely go again, but it didn't feel like home. The magic was stronger, and she'd probably live longer, but here in the Edge, in a space between the Weird with all its magic and the Broken with none of it, was her true place. She was a Drayton and an Edger, through and through. She understood this small town; she knew all of her neighbors, their kids, and their grandkids. And she had power, too. A certain respect. When she threatened to curse someone, people stood up and listened. In the Weird, she'd just be a stone around Rose's neck.

It is inevitable, she reassured herself. Children leave the nest. Everything is as it should be.

A truck rumbled past the yard, Sandra Wicks at the wheel, her bleached-blond hair a teased mess.

“Hussy,” Melanie said under her breath.

“Yep.”

Sandra waved at them through the window. Both witches smiled and waved back.

“So did you hear about her ‘friend' near Macon?” Éléonore asked.

“Mhm. The moment her husband leaves, she hightails it through the boundary into the Broken. It's a wonder her magic still works, as much time as she spends there. Someone ought to clue Michael in.”

“Stay out of it,” Éléonore told her. “It's none of your business.”

Melanie grimaced. “When I was her age . . .”

“When you were her age, they thought wearing a camisole instead of a corset was risqué.”

Melanie pursed her lips. “I'll have you know, I wore a slip.”

“Well, aren't you a rebel.”

“It was made of rayon, too.”

A woman stumbled around the bend of the road. She walked unsteadily, swaying as she put one foot in front of the other, her blond hair rolled up on her head, her face smudged with dirt.

“Who the hell is that?” Melanie set her glass down.

Between the two of them, they knew the entire population of East Laporte, and Éléonore was dead sure she'd never seen this woman before. Woolen clothes, Weird cut. Anybody from the Broken would be in jeans or khakis, shoes with heels or sneakers. She wore boots, and she was walking funny.

The woman swayed and fell down on the side of road.

Éléonore rose.

“Don't,” Melanie hissed. “You don't know what she is.”

“Half-dead, that's what she is.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You have a bad feeling about everything.”

Éléonore stepped off her porch and hurried down the road.

“You'll be the death of me,” Melanie muttered, and followed her. The woman slowly turned and sat up. She was tall, but thin, not naturally either. Starved, Éléonore realized. Not a teenager, a woman, around thirty or so. Still a girl by Éléonore's standards.

“Are you all right, dear?” Éléonore called.

The woman looked at her. Yes, definitely from the Weird and from means, too: the face was pretty and unlined, no doubt well taken care of at some point, but now haggard, sharpened by the lack of food, and stained with dirt.

“I've been shot,” she said, her voice quiet.

Mon Dieu.
“Where?”

“Right thigh. It's a flesh wound. Please.” The woman looked at her, and Éléonore read desperation in her gray eyes. “I just want some water.”

“Éléonore, don't you dare take her into your house.”

Rose was many miles away, and this girl in the dirt didn't look anything like her, but somehow there were shadows of her granddaughter in the stranger's face. Éléonore grasped the girl's hands. “Try to get up.”

“This will end in tears,” Melanie grabbed the girl's other arm. “Come on. Lean on me.”

The woman pushed herself upright and gasped, a small, painful sound. For a tall girl, she weighed near nothing. They got her up the steps, one tiny step at a time, inside, and onto the spare bed. Éléonore pulled her woolen trousers aside. A small red bullet wound gaped in her thigh.

“Melanie, get the first-aid kit.”

“I am, I am.” The witch went into the kitchen

“Is the bullet out?” Éléonore asked.

The girl nodded.

“How did you get shot?”

“There was a boy . . .” Her voice was weak. “With a broken arm. I tried to heal the break, and his father shot me.” Surprise and outrage vibrated in her voice.

Healing magic was really rare, almost unheard of. Éléonore frowned. What in the world was she doing here in the Edge?

Melanie popped in the doorway with a first-aid kit. “If you can heal, why don't you fix the hole in your leg?”

“Can't heal myself,” the girl told her.

“I think you're lying,” Melanie said, passing the kit over.

The girl raised her hand. Her fingers brushed Melanie's age-stained arm. A faint stream of golden sparks flared from her fingers, sinking into Melanie's skin. The dark liver spots melted.

Éléonore gasped. Melanie stood frozen.

The girl smiled, a sad, sagging curving of lips. “Can I please have some water?”

Her leg was still bleeding.

“Get her some water, Melanie.”

“What am I, a servant?” Melanie went into the kitchen.

Éléonore unscrewed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, poured some on the gauze from the kit, and pressed it to the wound. The girl jerked.

“You're from the Weird, aren't you? What are you doing here in the Edge?”

“I had to leave,” the girl said. “I had a horse and money. Somebody stole it. I tried to earn more, but nobody will let me heal them. I tried to help this man's child, and he shot me. He shot me! What kind of insane place is this?”

“That's the Edge for you.” Éléonore squeezed some Neosporin from a tube onto the wound. “We don't take kindly to outsiders.”

Melanie reappeared with a cup. The girl drank in big, thirsty swallows. “Thank you.”

“Who shot you?” Melanie asked. “What did he look like?”

“Tall man, red hair . . .”

“Face like a weasel?” Melanie asked.

“More like a stoat,” the girl offered, her voice weak.

“Marvin,” Éléonore and Melanie said in one voice.

“He's our resident paranoid nut,” Éléonore continued. “The man can't sit still in church because he's scanning the ceiling for black helicopters.”

“What's a helicopter?” the girl asked.

“It's a big metal contraption with a propeller on top. The police in the Broken use them to fly around.”

“What's the Broken?”

“Oh, boy.” Melanie sighed.

“The place you came from is called the Weird,” Éléonore said. “You passed through the boundary to get here, a magic barrier, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now you're in the Edge, between the worlds. On the other side of the Edge, there is another magic barrier, and past it there is another place, just like the Weird, except that world has no magic.”

“That's why it's called the Broken,” Melanie said. “If you go there, it strips the magic off of you.”

“What do you mean, it has no magic?” the woman asked.

Éléonore continued working on the wound. The bullet had entered the thickness of the girl's outer thigh and exited two inches later. Barely more than a graze. Marvin couldn't hit a herd of elephants if they were coming straight at him. “What's your name?”

“Charlotte.”

“You sleep now, Charlotte. Don't worry. You're safe. You can stay here until you feel better. Nobody will shoot you here, and we'll have plenty of times to talk about the Broken and helicopters.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte whispered.

“You're welcome, dear.”

The girl closed her eyes. Her breathing evened out. Éléonore finished dressing the wound.

“Found yourself another bird with a broken wing,” Melanie said. “And you wonder where George gets it.”

“Look at her. How can I turn her away?”

Her friend shook her head. “Oh, Éléonore. I hope you know what you're doing.”

*   *   *

IT
was the evening of the next day. Éléonore sat on the porch of her house, drinking iced tea from the Weird glass and watching the Edge swallows glide back and forth, snacking on mosquitoes.

The screen door swung open behind her. Charlotte stepped out onto the porch, wrapped in the blanket. Her hair was a mess, and her face was still pale, but her eyes were clear.

“Feeling better?” Éléonore asked.

“Yes.”

“Come sit by me.”

The girl lowered herself in the chair carefully. That wound must've still hurt.

“How's that leg?”

“It's just a graze,” the girl said. “I'm sorry I went all to pieces. It was shock and dehydration more than anything.”

“Here.” Éléonore pushed the platter of cookies toward her. “You look like it's been a while since you ate.”

Charlotte took a cookie. “Thank you for helping me. I don't know how to repay you.”