Steel's Edge(39)

Please respect my need for justice.”

“My apologies,” he said. “I won’t mention it again.”

Charlotte wiped her face with her sleeve and rose. Richard got up.

She held out his cloak. “Thank you for your cloak.”





“My pleasure.”

Richard held her horse’s reins while she put her foot in the stirrup and mounted.

He handed them to her, got into his saddle, and they rode out.

Half an hour later, the forest parted.

Charlotte halted her horse. A wide field of waist-tal grass spread in front of her, rol ing into the distance, where a nacre sea lapped at the shore under a bottomless dark sky. To the left, bathed in the salt water of the ocean, rose impossibly tal towers. Built of pale gray stone, they were triangular in shape, smoothly curved at the corners. A turquoise metal wave tipped each tower, sending rivulets of metal down the pale stone sides, like climbing plants that had sprouted a network of thin roots. The moonlight played on the metal, and its gleam matched the reflections on the placid ocean. The towers stood in a perfect semicircle, enclosing most of the city, like wave breakers.

“Kelena’s Teeth,” Richard said.

“During hurricanes the towers send out a magic barrier, shielding the city from the storms and the worst of the surge.”

“It looks as if the city is halfway in the water.”

“About a third. There are canals running al through the city, so when the tide rises, the water simply passes through Kelena into the salt marshes. Al that grass is deceptive. That’s not solid ground under it, it’s marsh flats with a thin layer of water over mud. An ideal home for horned turtles. They grow to five feet wide and can snap a human femur in half with their jaws. Fortunately, they are slow and rarely venture on the road. Shal we?” Charlotte nodded and they trotted down the highway toward the city. She could see between the towers now, and from her vantage point in the saddle, the interior of the city looked like a mess of roofs, balconies, and bright, frayed banners. A human hive, just as Richard had described it: messy, chaotic, fil ed with strangers. A vague anxiety rose in her. From here, the city appeared too large, too ful of people. While at the Col ege, she had dreamt of traveling, but once she left it, the marriage and the house had taken precedence.

Now she was riding toward this

teeming city through the night, accompanied by a man born between the worlds who cut steel with his sword and had flawless manners. It felt surreal.

“My brother says the Broken has a city in this exact same spot. According to him, its citizens have an unhealthy fascination with pirates,” Richard said.

She found his voice strangely

reassuring. “The same brother who stole your bal ad?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“What does he do?” she asked to keep the conversation going.

“He’s an agent of the Mirror.”

Charlotte turned to him. “He is a spy?”

The Mirror was Adrianglia’s intel igence and espionage agency, the realm’s main weapon in its cold war with the neighboring Dukedom of Louisiana. It operated in the shadows, and the exploits of its agents were legendary.

Richard grimaced. “He steals anything that’s not nailed down, cons people into going along with his improbable schemes, and possesses a unique talent that lets him win when he gambles. It was the Mirror or a prison cel .”

His distaste had a false, put-upon quality about it. “You’re proud of him,”

she said.

A narrow smile lit Richard’s face.

“Extremely.”

“I’ve never been to the Broken,” she told him. “I tried, but my magic was too strong.”

“Neither have I,” he said. “I also tried to cross and nearly died. The Edge is my limit. I would love to see the Broken.”

“I would, too.”

The Broken’s gadgets fascinated her.

Some, like microwave ovens, had their equivalent in the Weird, but others, like plastic wrap and cel phones, were completely new to her. When she had received de Ney manor, she had climbed into the attic. It was fil ed with strange things from the previous owners’ travels, and she loved to sort through their abandoned treasures. Each item was a little discovery, wrapped in echoes of adventure. She felt the exact same way about the swap meets she’d gone to in the Edge. She rarely bought things, but accompanying Éléonore on one of her treasure hunts was an experience in itself.

Éléonore would find some strange gadget from the Broken, and her face would light up.

Grief stabbed her. Charlotte stared ahead at the city. She would make them stop. They would regret the day they ever came to East Laporte.