Steel's Edge

childhood. Was Mother blond? He strained, searching through the vague recollections . . . His eyes snapped open. She was blond. He was sure of it.

It didn’t mean anything. Many men liked blond women.

The sailor was looking directly at him. “Good-looking boys. Aren’t they too old for the Market? They like their kids younger.”

George’s stomach churned with acid. Next to him, Jack clenched his fists. A drop of blood slid between his fingers onto the pale scrap of fabric tied around his hands.

Hold it in, George prayed.

“Special order,” Richard said.

The sailor grimaced. “Never understood that myself.”

“As long as they pay me.” Richard spat again.

George climbed into the boat, Jack at his heels, and stared at the sailor on the beach. Say your damn name.

The sailor grinned. “Hello, my lords and ladies. My name is John Drayton. I’ll be your captain this evening.”

A hot, invisible knife stabbed George straight in the pit of his stomach. The world gained a red tint. Logic told him it was the capillaries in his eyes expanding in reaction to his increased blood flow, but that logic spoke from some distant place in his brain, and he shut it off. Grandmother was dead, and the scumbag who was her son and his father made his money from playing captain to her murderers. John Drayton trafficked in slaves. He had abandoned his children, so he could get rich off of other people’s misery. He might as well have killed his own mother with his own hands. He was responsible.

“Welcome aboard Intrepid Drayton for your island cruise. You’ll notice bluefin sharks following our ship. If you make any trouble, we’ll tie a line around your neck and toss you overboard. The bluefins like a little chase before their dinner. You behave, and they’ll go hungry. Personally, I hope you don’t—I enjoy a little spectacle. Brightens up a boring voyage.”

He had to kill his father, to bring him to justice. It was the only right thing to do.

A soothing current of magic prickled his skin. His heartbeat slowed.

“Sit by me, George,” Charlotte called, her voice like a rush of cold water onto his scalding anger. “Please.”

He forced himself to turn around. She sat in the bottom of the barge, her hand resting on Jack’s forearm. His brother’s head was down, the mass of brown hair hanging over his face. A hoarse, strained sound, a muted, controlled snarl, emanated from Jack with every breath. His brother was teetering on the verge of losing his human form.

They still had a job to do. They had to get to the island. His vengeance would have to wait. His legs felt wooden. He couldn’t make himself move.

A hard wooden baton smashed in the back of his knees. George crashed down.

“Sit the fuck down,” one of Jason’s slavers said.

“I see we have the first candidate for the shark feeding,” his father called. “One more, boy, and I’ll personally shove you off my deck.”

George forced himself to sit next to Charlotte. She was watching the rest of the slaves board, her face calm.

“There will be a time later,” she said, her quiet voice laced with menace. “We won’t have to wait long.”

EIGHT

CHARLOTTE closed her eyes and listened to the waves splash against the hull. Two hours ago, they had been loaded inside the hold of the ship, slaves first, then the slavers. John Drayton was a careful man who locked up his passengers, willing and unwilling. Richard and Jason were the only two men who had remained above on deck.

George and Jack sat on the floor near the bulkhead. Jack’s shoulders, rigid with tension, slumped forward. He hasn’t said a word since they boarded, but she had seen his eyes. A violent, furious thing stared at her through his irises. Something savage lived inside Jack, and he was using all of his power to hold it at bay. She wanted to tell him she knew exactly how he felt, but her instincts warned her that any stray word could tip the balance in that thing’s favor. She had treated changelings before, or rather she’d treated the changeling soldiers, the hardened, barely human killers who had come out of the crucible of the Adrianglian changeling academy. If Jack lost control now, in the hold, none of them would survive it.

George knew it, too. He sat next to his brother, hovering protectively over him. His eyes were clear with determination, his face sharpened with grief and anger. He felt betrayed, and he wanted revenge, and she didn’t blame him one bit.

Anger filled her too, and she held on to it, letting herself steep in it, solidifying her resolve. John Drayton, Éléonore’s long-lost son. Not so lost anymore. She pictured his smug smile. “Good-looking kids.” They are your children, you heartless bastard. It wasn’t enough their grandmother is dead, now you’re indirectly responsible for her murder. She wished she could strangle the swine, but he was upstairs. This one life she would’ve taken with pleasure. She glanced at the boys again. Yes, with pleasure.

Charlotte glanced out the narrow porthole, little more than an air vent. The ship had activated a cloaking device the moment they raised anchor. A dense cloud of magic-infused fog slid over the vessel, wrapping it like a blanket. The myriad tiny droplets of water that created the mist acted as countless minuscule mirrors, busily reflecting the ship’s surroundings. An outside observer wouldn’t see the ship. He might perhaps notice a smudge against the perfect line of water and sky. In bright daylight, this distortion would be quite obvious, but at night, with the mist rising from the water, the Intrepid Drayton was practically invisible. Unfortunately, from the inside, the reflective fog was opaque and all she saw now was a dense curtain of mist.

They must’ve been sailing for at least an hour or two. Time stretched here, inside the hold.

“I want out of this damn ship. How are we gonna get out of here?” a blond woman next to her murmured to Miko. “We can’t kill the sailors until we get to port, and if we kill them when we get there, there will be a commotion.”

The slender girl nodded at Charlotte. “She’s our key.”

The blond woman stared at her. “You don’t look like much.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Charlotte told her.

“They better be.” The blond woman bared her teeth. “Because if they lead me out of this bucket in chains and into the slave pens, you’ll be the first I come after. You’ve got a skinny throat. Easy to cut.”

Charlotte’s magic stirred in response to the menace in the woman’s voice, bubbling to the surface. She kept it in check and stared back at the blond woman with disdain.

The woman yanked a knife from inside her rags.

Miko stepped in her way and hissed. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Did you see the way she looked at me? Like I’m gutter trash, and she’s the Marchesa of Louisiana. I’ll cut her throat!”

Miko moved and suddenly there were two slender blades in her hands. “You are gutter trash, Lynda. Jason has a plan. You fuck with his plan, you fuck with me.”

“You got a big mouth for such a dumb bitch. About time someone shut it for you.”

Lynda lunged forward. Miko spun, thrusting, and the woman crumpled to the boards, gurgling on her blood.

Miko turned, one arm held high, the other low, blood dripping from her knives, and surveyed the hold. “Anybody else want to fuck with the plan?”

Nobody volunteered.

Lynda writhed on the floor, hot, dark blood spreading around her on the wood. Charlotte let her magic lick at her. External jugular vein cut, internal jugular vein partially nicked, rapid blood loss, estimated time of death: two to three minutes. A familiar sense of obligation tugged at Charlotte, but this time it wasn’t backed by kindness, only