Fate's Edge

charged out of the barn, scattering the guards like a pike scattered a school of fish. The horse veered left, galloping toward them, its mane like white silk. A stallion. Kaldar wasn’t a horseman, but even he had to admit: the stallion was one hell of an animal.
    A door opened, and a half-naked man marched out from between the porch arches into the open, three guards following at his heels. The man waved his arm, pointing a gun at the guards outside the ward. The wind brought tatters of his voice from the distance, “What do I pay you for . . . get the fucking horses . . .”
    Hello, Arturo Pena.
    The guards set down their rifles. Pena bent down, grasped an iron spike, and pulled it out of the ground. The flow of magic around the spikes vanished. Pena pointed at the guards next to him. Two men chased after the herd while the third went back inside. A moment later, the guard from the tower slid down and joined the pursuit. Pena surveyed the scene, spat, and went back into the house.
    Audrey moved, slinking through the darkness with Ling as her silent shadow. He followed. Together, they ran toward the house, angling to the right, away from the horses and guards toward the darkness of the pool. A few moments, and they sank into the deep shadows by the glass patio door.
     
    AUDREY touched the lock on the glass door. Locked. Her face burned under the mask. She wished she could take it off, but that would’ve been foolish. The Mirror’s suits were beyond cool. They made her practically invisible. Kaldar wouldn’t be getting this one back. Not in a million years.
    When Kaldar kissed her, she hadn’t reacted quickly enough. She’d been focused on the horses, and the bastard ambushed her. All her nerves had been keyed up, and the kiss had sung through her, hot and sudden. Kaldar kissed like the world was ending. And after she came to her senses, his face was so full of self-satisfaction that she knew she’d stumbled. It had been a crucial blunder, and now he’d be insufferable.
    Her magic slid off her fingers in translucent tendrils of deep, beautiful green. The tendrils tasted the lock, seeped into the tiny space between the door and the frame. She pushed. The lock clicked, and she gently swung the door open and slipped inside. Kaldar followed and shut the door behind them. She had to give it to him: when the man closed his mouth, he could actually move quietly.
    The living room lay shrouded in inky night shadows. Across the room, a wet bar of mahogany spanned the wall. Between the bar and her, a set of plush couches circled a coffee table, facing a colossal flat screen on the wall. A handful of pinpoint lights in every color of the rainbow glowed under the TV, where assorted electronic equipment sat on glass shelves. For an Edger, this was unimaginable luxury. Amazing what selling other people into slavery could buy you.
    Ling trotted along the wall, sniffing at the air. Audrey kept still, listening.
    Hello, house.
    The house answered: the tiny buzzing of electronic gadgets, the whisper of the air-conditioning, the murmur of the generator filtering from the outside, the faint creaking of the walls . . . The sounds enveloped her, blending into a calm white hum, and she committed their pattern to memory. Any stray noise, no matter how tiny, would sound the alarm in her head.
    Audrey padded through the room, toward the right-hand end of the bar, where the hallway led deeper into the house, diving under a wide staircase. The safe would be on the first floor. Gaston’s intelligence claimed the safe was large enough for a man to fit inside. Most of the larger varieties weighed thousands of pounds and required reinforced flooring, which wasn’t likely judging by the first floor’s ceiling. Besides, the logistics of dragging a safe of that size and weight up the stairs would drive anyone mad. You needed a forklift to move it.
    A quiet creak announced a door swinging open above. Her mind snapped into overdrive, thoughts firing off in rapid succession. Heavy footsteps—male. Coming down to the first floor, fast, but not running or sneaking—not alarmed. Stomping—irate. Her gaze snagged on the bar. Arturo Pena wanted a nightcap. That had to be it.
    Audrey crouched, pressing against the outer edge of the bar, and put her hand on the floor. Hide. Ling darted under the couch and lay down. Kaldar dropped down next to Audrey.
    Arturo Pena jogged down the stairs. She caught a flash of hairy tan legs under a short white