Fate's Edge

nearby.
    “Yes,” Jack said. “I get it.”
    “You just need to find your role. George is a Cursed Prince, and you might do better as the Mysterious Dark Loner.”
    William stared at his wife. “You thought way too much about this.”
    Cerise waved her hand at him. “You hush. Jack, look, it’s very simple. You just have to keep to yourself and look nonchalant.”
    Jack blinked. “What?”
    “William does a really good nonchalant look.” Cerise turned to William. “Do the nonchalant for him.”
    William sighed and looked at Jack. It wasn’t any sort of special look. It was just flat.
    “So I have to look bored?”
    “You have to look like you don’t care. Like you would rather be somewhere else.”
    “I would! I would rather be anywhere else.”
    “Then it shouldn’t be too hard. Don’t tell people about yourself. Try not to get excited about anything where people can see you. If someone challenges you to a fight, shrug and keep going. If they persist, kick their ass. And once in a while, be yourself and do something randomly kind, the way you usually do, like help a smaller kid. If someone asks you why you do something, look nonchalant and tell them they just wouldn’t understand and that there are things about you they’re better off not knowing. Girls will eat it up.”
    Jack glanced at William for confirmation. William shrugged and looked nonchalant.
    “Give it a shot,” Cerise said. “Jack, you have to go to school. Trust me, you can’t do anything in the Weird without at least a third-degree graduation scroll in your hand.”
    Jack inspected the table for a bit. “Nonchalant won’t work on Rose and Declan,” he said.
    “What happened?” William leaned toward him and fixed Jack with his wolf stare. It was a hard, merciless stare that pinned Jack in place like a knife. If he met a wolf who looked at him like that in the forest, Jack would’ve puffed his fur out and snarled. And if that didn’t work, he’d take off as fast as he could.
    “There was a ball,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice monotone. “Or a banquet. One of those things Declan does because of his job as Marshal. A lot of people came. I walked around. They never notice me because I am quiet. Some people were standing there eating shrimp and those crab things on toast. I walked up behind them. They were talking about Rose. An older man said that Declan had all those women he could’ve picked and he had to go to the Edge to get himself a whore, and why do they suppose he had to do that?”
    His voice was building. Jack knew he should keep calm, but the fury he’d felt last night woke up again inside him, like an animal that rose to find himself caged. He remembered every word and every sound of that conversation. William had told him before that it was a changeling thing, and his perfect memory was spurring him on now.
    “And then the woman in blue on his left said that maybe there was something wrong with Declan, physically. He had to get the kind of woman who was dependent on him completely, so she wouldn’t say anything.”
    The anger was scratching at him now, trying to rip him up from the inside out and escape. The skin between his knuckles itched, eager to let his claws out.
    “And the other woman, in yellow, she said, ‘Like mother like son. His mother was an Edge woman of ill repute.’ And the man said that he questioned the wisdom of associating with a woman who brought two mongrel children with her and that there must be something really valuable in the services she performs in the bedroom for Declan to keep her around. And then I said . . .”
    His voice snapped into a deep, ragged growl. The fury broke and took him off his chair. He knew his eyes were glowing, and he didn’t care. “And I said that the Edgers take care of themselves and don’t come to other people’s houses looking for handouts and insulting people who’re feeding them, like fat ticks leeching off their hosts and complaining that the blood they’re stealing doesn’t taste right. I said, you think my sister is an Edge whore? Then don’t come here to eat her food.”
    “Oh, Jack,” Cerise whispered.
    “And then everyone was shocked.” Jack paced up and down, snarling. The hair on his arms was standing on end. He remembered the man’s scent, vivid and sharp, his face, his voice. “I wanted to kill him. They should’ve let me kill him! I would snap his neck with my teeth!”
    “What happened next?” Cerise