Fate's Edge

puts it back. It’s not personal. He does the same to everybody in the family—” He saw her face and clamped his mouth shut.
    She faced Kaldar. “Never take it again, or we’re through.”
    Kaldar raised his hands. “I promise.”
    “I’m dead serious. You take it again, and I walk.”
    “I understand.”
    She turned away and went around the wyvern, away from the two of them.
    “Audrey . . .” Kaldar called.
    She kept walking, away, into the woods, until she was far enough not to see the blue bulk of the dragon. A tree stub jutted out of the soil. She sat on it. She felt so angry, she couldn’t even put it into words.
    Ling ran out of the bushes, sat before her on hind paws, and dropped a dead cicada on her lap.
    “Thank you,” Audrey told her, brushing the insect off her jeans. “But you better eat it.”
    Ling scratched at her knee. Audrey opened her arms, and the raccoon jumped into her lap. She petted Ling’s soft fur.
    The light sound of a twig snapping underfoot came from behind her. Ling hissed and jumped down. Kaldar circled the stump and knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry.”
    “Why did you take it?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I wanted something of yours.”
    “There must be trust between partners. You broke it. When I worked with my brother and my father, I always had to guard my things. Any slip-up, and they would take what was mine and laugh in my face when called on it because I wasn’t good enough to catch them in the act.”
    “That’s not why I did it.” Kaldar took her hand. “I’m sorry, Audrey. Please smile at me.”
    She shook her head. “No. Let me alone.”
    “Audrey, seriously, what do you want me to do? You ran away like a child.”
    She squeezed the words out through clenched teeth. “I walked away so I wouldn’t have to deal with you.”
    Kaldar stood up, his hands held out. “Well, I’m here anyway. Why don’t you just be a big girl and deal with me. What are you afraid of—”
    She punched him. She did it right, turning with the punch, hitting him in the precise corner of his jaw. Kaldar’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he went down like a log.
    Audrey studied his prone body for a long moment. Her hand hurt. She should just leave him here in the woods. But she wasn’t mad anymore—all her ire had gone out with that punch. She nudged him with the tip of her shoe.
    “Get up.”
    Slowly, Kaldar’s eyes opened. He sat up and rubbed his jaw. “Good hit.”
    “You deserved it.”
    A gray ball of fur dashed from the undergrowth, all but flying. Ling charged Kaldar. Her sharp teeth closed on his arm. Kaldar cursed in surprise, and the raccoon darted into the safety of the bushes. Ling the Raccoon Vigilante.
    “What the hell?” Kaldar stared at the bite marks on his forearm.
    “Don’t expect mercy from Ling the Merciless.” Audrey reached for him. He grasped her hand, and she pulled him up. “We better disinfect this.”
    He shook his head. “How did you manage to train her like that?”
    “Little bit of food and petting.” Audrey stepped over a fallen branch. “She is like a cat: she only does what she already wants to do. Something really bad happened to Ling when she was very young. When I found her, she was covered in blood. The vet said something bit her. I wasn’t even sure she would survive. She did, but she is a terrible coward. She’s scared of dogs, so she coughs when she smells them. She is scared of strangers, so when she smells or sees one coming, she will run and hide somewhere close to me. I’m surprised she’d gathered enough courage to bite you.”
    “She must’ve thought you were in danger,” Kaldar said.
    She wasn’t wrong. The theft of the cross hurt, but it hurt most because Kaldar had done it. She had thought that all of her inner warnings to herself and all of her careful reasoning would keep her out of trouble, but she had been wrong. She’d wanted to trust him, and a small, naive part of her desperately wanted him to be better than he pretended to be. This is the precursor of things to come, she told herself. Learn from this. He treated you as a mark once; he will treat you like that always.
    Kaldar looked at her. “Does this cross have something to do with why you stopped stealing?”
    “The cross is mine, Kaldar. Everything else belonged to our family together. My clothes, my toys, all that stuff could be sold if we needed money or left behind if we had to leave in a hurry. I learned not to get