Ilona Andrews - Fate's Edge

Audrey laughed and picked at her fruit.

The boys emerged from the back room, both scrubbed clean. George wore a white shirt, pants of a deep green color, tucked into gray boots, and a gray jacket, which was almost leather armor, with accents of matching green. His blond hair all but glowed, framing his face like a curtain. A blueblood prince from head to toe.

Jack wore darker brown pants and a reinforced leather vest with brass-colored accents over a beige shirt. The vest sported a raised leather collar shielding his neck. Jack’s reddish brown mop of hair had somehow been coaxed into a perfectly slick bowl shape over his eyebrows that was completely wrong for his face. He looked about as happy as a boy who had just gotten himself a mouthful of overcooked spinach. Audrey choked on a piece of honeydew melon. “Jack, who did this to your hair?”

George drew himself up. “It’s a very popular hairstyle right now.”

“I’m sure. Do you like it?”

Jack shook his head.

“Go wet your head and bring me some hair gel. I’m going to play with your hair.”

A moment later, she had a bottle of hair gel and a brush and a wet-haired Jack, who sat cross-legged in front of her chair. She worked the gel into Jack’s hair and began to spike it, shaping it into a calculated mess.

“The trick is to own it,” she told Jack. “If you’re confident, everyone else will buy it.”

“So what’s the plan?” Gaston asked.

“George and Jack are themselves. I’m their tutor.” Kaldar turned to the boys. “My name is Olivier Brossard. I’ve been your tutor for two years. Declan hired me, and your sister Rose has the utmost confidence in me. Gaston, you’re Magnus, our groom.”

“And Audrey?” Jack asked.

Kaldar grimaced. “Unfortunately, there is no appropriate way to include Audrey in our party. Adolescent male bluebloods don’t typically travel in the company of a woman, unless she’s a blood relative. Audrey, you don’t have the knowledge necessary to pull off the guise of a blueblood.”

“We could dress her up as a man,” Jack said.

Audrey smiled. “You’re so sweet, Jack. Thank you for thinking of me. But even if we somehow managed to hide my chest, there is no way to disguise my face.”

“I concur,” Kaldar said. “You are too pretty and too feminine. Even if I glue a false beard on you, you would look like a woman with a false beard and not a man.”

That one casual word, “pretty,” made her heart speed up a bit. The way he said it, so matter-of-factly, just made the impact stronger. She’d fallen harder for Kaldar than she had thought. Well, what’s done is done.

He was talking to her. “Would you mind staying in the cabin when we land? Magnus will stay with you to keep an eye on things, and we’ll sneak you into our rooms at night.”

“That will be fine.” Audrey critically examined Jack’s head. His hair stood on end, not completely spiky but not completely curling, either. He looked like he could kick some butt. “I don’t mind hiding in the cabin.”

She glanced at Kaldar, trying to gauge his emotions. But Kaldar was gone. Only Olivier Brossard looked back at her, with a calm, sardonic expression.

THE wyvern circled the mountain, obeying the gentle suggestions of Kaldar’s long fingers touching the console levers. The huge beast turned and swept into the open. Next to Kaldar, Audrey leaned to the windshield. The California of the Broken was a desert in some parts, she reflected. The California of the Weird was all mountains, lakes, and lush greenery.

In the cabin behind them, the boys completed final preparations: the right weapons, the right gear. A quiet argument had broken out between Gaston and Jack over the choice of a dagger, with George acting as a referee.

Far ahead on the mountaintop, cushioned with the fluffy foliage of the Weird’s old forests, a castle thrust to the sky. Tall, majestic turrets and flanking towers of white stone covered by conical roofs of bright turquoise green stretched upward, connected by a textured curtain wall. In the middle of the courtyard the keep towered, six enormous stories of carved stone, touched here and there with green and gold. The six pinnacles on top of the keep proudly bore long standards of turquoise and gold.

“It’s like a fairy tale,” Audrey said.

“How many people do you think died carrying that stone up the mountain, my lady?” Kaldar asked casually. He had refused to let go of the Olivier persona, sinking into it completely, with his mannerisms and voice matching his new looks.

“Dozens,” she guessed.

“At the very least.”

The great beast banked, and they saw the front of the castle. Its rampart, the forward wall, was three stories high and colored the same bright turquoise as the flags and the roof. Long gold shapes marked the turquoise. Audrey raised the binoculars to her eyes. Dragons. The gold shapes were dragons, carved by a master sculptor and positioned crawling on the walls. More dragons fought a valiant battle on the keep, and yet another long, serpentine creature wound itself around the corner tower.

“Wow.” No expense spared. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Kaldar arched his eyebrow. “All of my ideas are good ideas, my lady.”

“I can think of a couple that weren’t.”

A hint of his wicked grin touched his lips. “You are surely mistaken, my lady. I’m never wrong. Once I thought that I might have been . . .” His voice trailed off. He stared at the field below them, where several wyverns rested, each with a tent by it.

“Kaldar?”

“I know that wyvern.” He spun to her. “I need you to go back into the cabin. There is a large wicker trunk near the back wall. It has a tulip on the clasp. There is a green gown in there. Put it on and style your hair.”

“Why?”

“Audrey, if you don’t do what I ask, I will kiss you until you do.”

Oh, really? “I will slap you until you turn purple.”

“I’m prepared for the consequences of our kissing,” he said. “Are you?”

Good point. “Jackass.”

She got up off the chair and climbed back into the cabin.

“Have George fix your hair!” he called.

“Shut up!”

THE cabin shook as the wyvern touched down. Kaldar surveyed his crew. The boys looked the picture of aristocratic finery. Gaston oozed menace.

“We’ll do fine. Just be yourselves, and we’ll have this in the bag. Morell de Braose will likely test you; don’t be eager, but don’t avoid it, either. It’s to be expected. Now is the time to pull out all of those etiquette lessons you complained about. Treat me as you would a trusted teacher. If you’re not sure how to handle something, come and get me. It will be expected of you to seek my guidance. Yes?”

“Yes, Mother.” Jack rolled his eyes.

Kaldar reached over and thumped him on the back of his head. “Yes, who?”

“Yes, Olivier.” Jack grinned.

“We have company,” Gaston growled.

Kaldar turned to the windshield. Three riders approached. Two hulking men wearing bonded chain mail, lighter than steel but just as good at stopping a sword slash: veekings. Each carried an axe on his back and wore a solid, heavy sword at his waist.

The third man hung back, riding with natural ease, as if he were sitting on a couch in his living room. He wore leather and a rete—an odd hybrid of a jungle hat and a standard traveler’s hat, one side bent up and boasting a merlin feather. The dark barrel of a long-range rifle protruded over his shoulder. He rode with one leg up on the saddle, and another rifle with a shorter, wider barrel rested on his knee.

“Who’s the musketeer?” Audrey murmured from behind him.

“That’s a Texas sharpshooter. See that short barrel? When he primes it, it splits on the sides and spits out a ball filled with shrapnel and charged with magic. It’s like lashing three or four grenades together and tossing them into a crowd.”