Fate's Edge

face. It was two days before my seventeenth birthday. And what did you do, Dad?”
    She let it hang. Seamus looked at the window.
    “You did nothing. Because I don’t matter.”
    “Audrey, don’t say that. Of course you matter. And I spoke to Alex about it.”
    She gave him a bitter smile. “Yes. I’ve heard. You told him that if something happened to me, the whole family would suffer because nobody would be left to steal.”
    “I said it in a way he would understand: if something happened to you, there would be no more drugs.”
    “Because it’s all he cares about.” Audrey sighed. “I left four years ago. I didn’t cover my tracks—I just ran clear across the bloody continent to the other side. I would’ve gone to the moon if I could have, but I would’ve still left you a nice trail to follow because I kept hoping that one day my parents would wake up and realize they had a daughter. It took you this long to find me because you didn’t look until you needed me. I spent years stealing and grifting, so you could put him into one rehab after another. I’m done with you. Don’t come here. Don’t ask me for any favors. It’s over.”
    “This will be the last time,” he said quietly. “If you won’t do it for me, do it for your mother. You know that if Alex dies, it will kill her. I swear, this is the very last time. I wouldn’t be here if I had any choice, Audrey. Just look at the pictures of the job.” He pushed some photographs to her across the table.
    She glanced down. The first two shots showed some sort of resort. On the third, a white pyramid rose, its golden top gleaming in the sun. A stylized bull carved from reddish stone polished to a gleam stood before the pyramid. “The Pyramid of Ptah? Are you out of your mind? You want me to go into the Weird and steal something from a pyramid?”
    “It can be done.”
    “People who rob the pyramids in West Egypt die, Dad.”
    “Please, Audrey. Don’t make me beg. Do you want me to get down on my knees? Fine, I can do that.”
    He would never leave her alone. If she did this job, he’d be back in six months with another and tell her that it would be “the very last time.” She had to find a way to end it now and end it so that he wouldn’t return.
    Audrey leaned forward. “I’ll give you a choice. I’ll do the job with you, but from that point on we’re strangers. You don’t have a daughter anymore, and I don’t have a father or a mother. If you show up on my land again, I’ll shoot you. I’m dead serious, Dad. I will put a bolt through you. Or you can walk away now and keep me as your daughter. Pick. Him or me.”
    Seamus looked at the image of her bruised face in the photo album.
    She waited. Deep inside her, a little girl listened quietly, hoping for the answer that the adult in her knew wouldn’t come.
    “I’ll see you at the end of the road tomorrow at seven,” he said, and walked out the door.
    The disappointment gripped her so tightly, it hurt. For a few short, pain-filled breaths she just stood there, then she grabbed the pan, burned pancakes and all, burst out the back door, and hurled it over the cliff.

ONE
    KALDAR Mar stepped back and critically surveyed the vast three-dimensional map of the Western Continent. It spread on the wall of the private conference room, a jeweled masterpiece of magic and semiprecious stones. Forests of malachite and jade flowed into plains of aventurine and peridot. The plains gave rise to mountains of brown opals with ridges of banded agates and tiger eye, topped by the snowy peaks of moonstone and jasper.
    Beautiful. A completely useless waste of money, but beautiful. If it somehow could be stolen . . . you’d need a handcart to transport it and some tools to carve it to pieces. Hmm, also a noise dampener would work wonders here, and this being the Weird, he could probably find someone willing to risk creating a soundproof sigil for the right price. Steal a custodian’s uniform, get in, cut the map, wrap each piece in a tarp, load them on the handcart, and push the whole thing right out the front door, while looking disgruntled. Less than twenty minutes for the whole job if the cutter was powerful enough. The map would feed the entire Mar family for a year or more.
    Well, what was left of the family.
    Kaldar’s memory overlaid the familiar patterns of states over the map, ignoring the borders of the Weird’s nations. Adrianglia took up a big chunk of the Eastern seaboard,