George didn’t miss a beat. “If they don’t, we can take him into the Edge and I’ll raise him.”
Max blinked. Rose smiled at him.
“One thousand twenty-eight dollars and twenty-five cents!” Max said.
A twenty-five percent fee. “Done.”
She didn’t put away the gun until they peeled out of the parking lot.
“You did very well,” she told Georgie.
Georgie smiled in the rearview mirror.
Tiny sharp needles prickled Rose’s hands, a belated reaction to the adrenaline rush. It finally sank in—she had a month’s worth of money.
“What would you like to eat?”
“Whatever I want?”
“Whatever you want.”
“French fries,” Georgie said. “And chicken nuggets. And then maybe shrimp.”
Shrimp would have to wait till home, but nuggets and fries she could manage. Rose made a left into the McDon ald’s drive-through.
ROSE took her gaze off the road for a second to steal a glance at the white Wal-Mart bags in the passenger seat. She’d bought beef, and chicken, and shrimp for Georgie. She managed to snag a couple of packs of country- style pork ribs on sale. She’d gotten potatoes. And cheese. And the tomatoes she liked. And apples for Jack. And eggs, and butter, and milk, and cereal . . . The truck was full of bags. She was too paranoid to put them into the truck bed. Who knew what might happen? They could fall out or fly off.
She had enough groceries for a month, and all of her bills were paid. It was a most wonderful feeling. She would go home and spend an hour putting it all up, separating the meat into dinner-sized portions, wrapping it in plastic wrap, and putting it all into her freezer. Rose grinned. No worry about the food. For a month.
“Rose?” Georgie asked.
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t you like Declan?”
Now there was a loaded question. She wanted to tell him the truth, without mincing her words, but both he and Jack were smitten with Declan. Looking at him from the boys’ perspective, Declan was the very definition of cool. They were two boys raised by women. Enter Declan, who had swords and magic, who was strong and manly, and who stood up to her, something neither of them could do. It’s little wonder they wanted to be like him.
For the thousandth time, she wished Dad hadn’t run off.
“Do you like Declan?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s smart,” Georgie said. “He knows a lot of things, and his magic is as good as yours. He said that his house has its own library, except you don’t have to have a card to check the books out. You can just go and take one whenever you want.”
Rose’s heart clenched a little in her chest. “I see.” She swallowed. Declan was working on the kids, more so than she had realized. He was working on her, too. She couldn’t get him out of her head.
This would have to be phrased very carefully. Anything she said to George would find its way to Jack. She didn’t want to destroy their fragile faith in the only cool guy they knew, and she definitely didn’t want this situation to turn into “Big bad Rose drove the super-cool Declan away.” But she didn’t want to delude them either.
“We’ve had people from the Weird approach us before to get me to go away with them,” she said, choosing her words as if she were walking a tightrope and the wrong one could pitch her to the side. “You probably don’t remember because you were little.”
“Like Declan?”
She doubted there was another Declan. The world wouldn’t be able to stand more than one. “Not quite like him. A couple were retainers of the nobles and one was a lesser blueblood.”
“What happened?”
“Well, the first retainer tried to bribe Dad and Grandpa with presents. And when he figured out he was wasting his time, he set our house on fire. He thought that if we had nothing left, I’d leave with him. That’s why the wards are so far out from the house now and my bedroom has different walls. The second retainer had a lot of people with him, and they tried to blockade the house. Dad shot him in the head, and then they went away.”
“What about the blueblood?”
Rose sighed. “Oh, he was a special kind of worm. He was very sweet and nice. And very handsome. He tried to ‘court’ me. He’d bow down, and recite poetry, and tell me I was beautiful. I almost believed him. And then the caravan from the Weird came into town and one of the traders, Yanice—you remember her, right?”
“She wears a veil,” Georgie said.
“Yes. Yanice recognized him. He was a slaver and a wanted criminal. If I had gone with him, he would’ve auc tioned me off like a cow. I wouldn’t have a choice—I would be forced to go with whatever man bought me.” She wouldn’t have. She’d have fought to the end, and they would’ve had to kill her, but there was no need to frighten George.
“Declan isn’t like that.”
“We don’t really know what Declan is like. All that we have to go on is what Declan tells us and how he acts. I know he seems like a cool guy.” She fell silent, realizing she wanted very much to believe that he was a “cool guy.” He seemed . . . it would be a shame if he turned out to be a scumbag. There was warmth underneath all that arrogance, and more, there was integrity. She sensed it very clearly. Declan had a moral code. She suspected that there were lines he wouldn’t cross, but she didn’t exactly know where those lines lay.
“We don’t know what he’ll be like once I agree to go with him,” she said. “What if he takes me with him and leaves you here? He told Jack that he would take all of us with him, but really nothing would force him to keep his word. What if he does take us with him and then makes you into servants or drops you off at some orphanage?”
Or kills them and leaves their bodies on the side of the road. His promise not to harm expired once he won the challenges. Surely, he wouldn’t. Not Declan. But again, she had no guarantees.
“Besides, if I go with Declan, I’ll have to be his wife. And Declan doesn’t love me.”
“Why not?” George asked.
“Because I’m not a lady. I don’t have good manners, I’m not educated, and I’m not demure and sweet. I say what I mean, and I’m not always nice. He probably thinks he can force me to be pleasant, but no matter what clothes I wear and how you mess with my hair, I’ll still be me.” Crude, vulgar, and disagreeable.
Rose sighed. “See, Declan is used to people obeying his orders. Back in the Weird, when he orders something, people fall over themselves to make it happen. I’m not like that. That’s why we argue so much. We would drive each other insane, and if we fought, Declan would win. My magic is like a lightning strike. It’s precise and contained, because I have good control. Declan’s magic is like a hurricane. Terribly, terribly powerful. He blew the roof off Amy’s house.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His flash just exploded and killed a whole bunch of those hound beasts. Tore the roof right off.”
She stopped herself. Last thing she needed was a new way to feed Georgie’s hero worship. “Bottom line: we can’t trust Declan. He’s very strong, and we don’t want to be at his mercy.”
If she were born into a good Weird family, it might have been different, Rose thought, guiding the truck up to Grandma’s house. She might have had tutors and clothes. Of natural colors. She would have been witty and carefree, and then Declan might have thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread. He might have tried to win her. Now that would be an interesting exercise: the arrogant, icy, monstrously powerful Declan bowing and asking her to dance or making polite small talk with Grandma in French before asking for permission to take Rose for a stroll in the park. Oh, that would be hilarious.
She killed the smile that stretched her lips and let the fantasy die. Living in a dream never did her any good. She would never be a lady. She was born an Edger mongrel. Good for—how had he put it?—a carte blanche, but little else.
Yesterday when he stepped close to her and she looked into his eyes, she realized he wanted her. Not just
