challenge, and if he did have any doubts about her abilities, she had shattered them. Now he knew that not only could she flash white, but she did it extraordinarily well. And the way he looked at her left her with no questions: Declan wanted her. She had to stump him on the second challenge, or in a few days she’d be packing her things and following him into the Weird.
FOURTEEN
THE first word that came to mind when one saw Max Taylor was “solid.” About two hundred and fifty pounds, he had the build of a pro wrestler gone to fat. His bullet-shaped head was shaved bald, and his small gun gray eyes were the very definition of unfriendly as he stared at Rose’s truck through his store’s front window.
Rose slid her vehicle into the parking spot in front of Taylor’s Metal Detectors. The yellow script in the window, bright and shiny in the morning light, promised to purchase rare coins and scrap gold for the best prices.
Georgie fidgeted in the backseat, uneasy. Yesterday’s chicken episode reminded her that placing all her eggs in one basket wasn’t the most prudent course of action. True, she wanted Georgie to earn good grades, and go to school in the Broken, and possibly get a decent paying job there, but in the end Georgie lived and breathed magic. He was an Edger. She had neglected the Edger part of his education, and it was time to correct that oversight.
“There are two people in Pine Barren who can fence precious metals,” she said. “Gold, silver, jewelry, anything like that. One is Peter Padrake and the other is Max Taylor. Peter is very straightforward in how he deals. He’ll charge you a flat forty-five percent fee. That means that for every hundred dollars, Peter takes forty-five and you keep fifty-five.”
Georgie’s smart eyes turned calculating. “So he takes almost half?”
“Yes. He won’t try to cheat you, but he also won’t haggle. Peter’s comics store is doing well, and he has money. He doesn’t have to hustle to make a living, so he can afford to let some deals go. That’s why you must only go to Peter as a last resort. Always come here first.” She glanced at Max through the windshield. “Max Taylor will try his best to dupe you. He’ll claim your stuff is fake, and he’ll try to give you some ridiculously small amount for it. He’s a big man, and he’ll get loud and try to intimidate you. He also keeps a gun in his desk, and he likes to take it out and wave it around during haggling. Now, I heard a rumor that the gun isn’t even loaded, but we know what the golden rule for guns is, right?”
“Every gun is loaded,” Georgie recited.
“That’s right. We treat every gun as if it’s loaded, with a round in the chamber and the safety off. We never point guns at other people, even when we think they’re not loaded, unless we intend to shoot the person, yes?”
“Yes,” Georgie agreed. “We hold the gun to the side and down, so we don’t shoot our feet by accident, or barrel up.”
“Very good.” She nodded. “So the golden rule says, we must treat Max’s gun as if it’s loaded.”
“Would he shoot us?” Georgie shifted in his seat.
“Not very likely,” she assured him. “His store is a front. Nobody buys metal detectors. The only way he can stay in business is to make money off people like us. If he shoots someone, what would happen?”
“People would go to Peter instead,” Georgie said.
“That’s right. If we’re smart, we can get Max to come down on the fee. Anything below a third is good. So, we’re going to sit here in our truck for a bit more, as if we’re deciding what to do, and then we’ll go inside and haggle. No matter how loud or stupid Max gets, keep calm.”
“Okay,” Georgie promised.
Rose dug in her pocket and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper.
She had awakened to find this piece of paper on the table. She was a light sleeper, but Declan moved like a wolf, and nobody could hear Jack when he didn’t want to be heard. They had snuck out of the house like two thieves in the night.
Rose frowned at the note. When he was tiny, Jack used to run off into the woods. Left to his own devices, he’d be gone for days, and so Rose kept some of his fur and hair and claw and nail clippings so she could find him. She had done a quick scrying spell, but it had a short range, and Jack was nowhere within two miles from the house. That meant Declan had taken him into the wilderness of the Wood.
Her initial impulse was to run after them, but Rose stopped herself. First, she had no idea where they had gone. Second, her kitchen was empty—they literally had nothing to eat. The last of the cereal was gone. Georgie had finished it. He was still hungry, and she was hungry as well. Georgie couldn’t go too long without a snack, not with the drain his magic placed on his body. She could spend a couple of hours searching for Jack, or she could go and get some money and buy food. So she had borrowed four dollars from Grandmother—it nearly killed her to do it—put a gallon of gas into the truck, and drove out to see Max Taylor.
It irritated her that she hadn’t woken up in time to stop Declan. Logically, she had nothing to worry about. Declan had sworn not to harm the boys. Jack was a changeling just like Declan’s friend, and the emotion she had glimpsed behind Declan’s blueblood facade felt genuine to her. He had saved Jack once; it made no sense that he would put him into any sort of danger. Besides, the safest place in the Edge now was by Declan’s side.
She kept herself from panicking through logic, but worry ate at her. Jack was gone. They’d probably gone deep into the Wood. Why? They didn’t tell her, and there was nothing she could do about it, not without making some major magic happen.
Inside the store, Max started rearranging things on his desk. “See? He’s getting antsy. Let’s go.”
Rose popped the doors open, and together she and Georgie stepped into the shop.
Max sat behind the glass counter. “What do you got?”
Rose showed him the doubloon. He reached for it, but she shook her head. “You can see it from right here.”
Max squinted. “A hundred bucks,” he said.
She closed her fist over the doubloon and nodded to Georgie. “Let’s go to Peter.”
“That damn pirate won’t give you more,” Max growled.
Rose gave him a withering look. “The coin is exactly one-half ounce of gold. Right now a half-ounce U.S. Gold Eagle is trading for four hundred and fifty-seven dollars and forty-seven cents and a half-ounce Maple Leaf is going for four hundred and sixty-four dollars and ninety-four cents.”
“How did you know that?”
“I went to the library and looked it up on the Internet. Peter charges a flat forty-five percent, so I should get at least two hundred and fifty dollars for each of my coins.”
Max’s beady eyes shone. “Coins?”
“Coins. As in more than one.”
“How many do you have?”
She shrugged. “Three for now. There will be more.”
“Nine hundred and fourteen dollars for the whole thing,” Max offered.
“That’s a third. I don’t think so. I might go as low as twelve hundred.”
“Nine fifty.”
“Eleven seventy-five.”
“You won’t get a better price . . .”
She shrugged. “I can always take it to a jeweler in the city. It’s an hour’s drive.”
Max reached under the counter. By the time he’d pulled out a Glock and put it on the glass, Rose’s gun pointed at his head.
“That’s a .22,” Max sneered. “It will bounce from wet laundry.”
“I can shoot you three times before you squeeze off one shot. You think my bullets will bounce off Max’s face, Georgie?”
