Fate's Edge

to live my life. You can’t steer Seamus Callahan. You can only bargain with him.”
    He leaned back. “So the two of you did strike a bargain. He got forty thousand dollars. What did you get?”
    “I got to never see my family again.”
    Kaldar frowned. “Come again?”
    “I got to be cut off. Left in peace. I want nothing to do with them or with their stupid schemes. I don’t have parents, and they don’t have a daughter. That was my condition.”
    Kaldar reeled back a little. She could almost feel gears turning behind that pretty face.
    “I’ve met your brother. If anyone should be cast off, it should be him.”
    “That’s not how it works in our family. He is the heir, the pride and joy, who carries on the family name. I’m his younger sister.” And she wasn’t bitter about it. Not at all. “Anyway, my life is none of your business. Did you have any more questions about the heist? If not, you should go now. My patience is all worn down.”
    The moment he was out the door, she’d grab Ling and bail.
    “I need to find out who bought the box.”
    “No clue.”
    “Where can I find your father?”
    “No clue, either.”
    “Audrey, I really need your help.” Kaldar smiled at her. Now there was a work of art. If she were just a girl and he were just a man, and they met at a party, that smile would’ve guaranteed him a date. The man was hot. There was no doubt. But right now, all it would get him was a solid punch in those even teeth.
    Audrey laughed. “Aren’t you sweet? Tell me, do girls usually throw their panties at you when you do that?”
    He grinned wider, and she glimpsed the funny evil spark in his eyes. “Do men throw money when you do your little Southern belle?”
    Pot calling the kettle black. “Men enjoy my ‘sweet tea’ Southern. Nobody here is enjoying that stupid grin on your ugly mug.”
    “Ugly.”
    “Hideous.”
    The kids snickered.
    “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.” The Mirror agent sat straighter. “Do you know what you’ve stolen?”
    “It wasn’t my job, and I wasn’t paid to know.” She waited for a jab. No good thief ever did a heist without knowing every detail, especially what and why. “We were paid to obtain the box and deliver it to the buyer.”
    He didn’t say anything.
    “The box had four seals on it, anyway,” she said.
    “Did you look in the box, Audrey?”
    “I said it had four seals on it.”
    He just waited. Oh, for Christ’s sake. “Of course I looked in the box.”
    He leaned to his gadget, whispered something, and nodded. “Did it look something like this?”
    A pair of ghostly metal bracelets appeared above the table. At first glance they looked silver, but where silver leaned toward a gray shade, this metal blushed with warm tones of peach and pale pink. The wider part of each bracelet bent and flowed, thin and wide, like a ribbon. A smooth border tipped the edges, which otherwise would’ve been too sharp. At the other end, tiny pebbles of metal encrusted the narrow edge of each bracelet, seeded so close together, sometimes on top of each other, almost like barnacles on the bottom of the ship. The two bracelets together were an elegant piece of jewelry, unique and beautiful. She would wear them in an instant, with a flowing gown of pure white. But it was just jewelry. A hunk of metal, yet the Hand, the Mirror, and the Claws were after it, and now, curiosity was killing her. She had to know why.
    “Yes, that’s what we stole,” Audrey said. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
    “It’s a portable Gorleanean diffuser,” Kaldar said.
    “What is that?”
    The blond boy, George, stirred. The kids had been so quiet, she had almost forgotten he and his brother were there at all. “A Gorleanean diffuser functions like a magic battery,” the boy said. “You can charge it with a blast of magic, like flash, for example. It holds the magic for a while, but it starts leaking the charge into the environment right away. Also, they’re huge. The size of a house.”
    “Not anymore.” Kaldar nodded at the bracelets. “These hold only a very small amount of magic.”
    “What’s the purpose of having one?” George leaned closer and peered at the bracelets. “Some sort of last resort in battle, when you overflash? To keep from dying?”
    Kaldar drew his hand over his face. “You are too bright for your own good. That was the original plan, yes.”
    Audrey stared at the bracelets. She’d heard