And that was precisely the problem.
Around him, the late-summer forest teemed with life. Tiny squirrels chased each other through the branches, chittering in outrage at some perceived slight. Forest mice scurried between the roots of huge Weird oaks. Butterflies floated on the breeze like bright petals. Although Jack had been born in the Edge, he liked the Weird’s forests. They were old and powerful and held magic secrets. Still, he missed hunting in the Edge woods, creeping up on soft paws along the branches of a huge tree, smelling the moss, and hunting Edge critters in the dusk. It was the last time he remembered being really free.
A small yellow butterfly glided closer, bouncing up and down on air currents above his head. He paused, frozen.
Up and down, bright yellow wings. Bounce, bounce, bounce . . .
Jack jumped a couple of feet into the air and swatted at the butterfly with his hand. Ha! Got it.
He opened his fingers carefully. The butterfly crawled up his palm, fluttering the lemony yellow wings. It climbed the heel of his hand, onto his thumb, spread its wings, and glided off, leaving a faint yellow dust on his skin. He watched it fly away with an odd longing. It was not that he wanted to be one. Butterflies couldn’t hunt, couldn’t speak, and their lives were short. But butterflies could fly about carefree. They didn’t have to worry about being sent off to military prison schools.
Jack sighed, sniffed the traces of powder on his palm—they smelled dry and flowery—and went on his way.
Four years ago, he, George, and Rose had lived together in the Edge, a narrow strip between the Broken of no magic and the Weird of too much magic. They lived in an old house. They were poor. Really, really poor. He didn’t understand how poor they were until they came to the Weird. Their mother had died. Jack didn’t remember her that well, except for a faint scent. He had smelled something similar once, in the perfume of a girl at a ball, and that scent had opened a big gaping hole inside him. He’d had to leave right then, so he’d gone over the top-floor balcony into the trees, and when he’d returned in the morning, he had to go into Declan’s office and explain himself.
With their mom dead, their dad had run off. Jack recalled him but only vaguely, just a blurry, man-shaped thing. He remembered the voice, though, a rough, funny voice. Their dad went to look for some treasure and never came back. It was just him, Rose, George, and Grandma. Rose worked all the time. George and he had to go to school in the Broken. George had been slowly dying because he couldn’t let things go. Every time George had found something that had died, a bird, a kitten, Grandpa, he’d bring it back to life—but it took his own life force to keep it going. Right before they moved to the Weird, George had brought back so many things, he was sick all the time.
Jack sighed. People had picked on George, but he’d always fight for him. That was his job, Jack reflected. He protected George and Rose. He was a changeling, a predator. Stronger and faster than other people even in the Broken, without magic.
And then Declan came from the Weird. Big, strong, wearing armor and carrying swords, and blowing houses up with a flash so powerful it was like white lightning. Declan wanted Rose. He fixed George’s problem, defeated the monsters, protected everyone, then Rose fell in love with him, and off they went into the Weird.
Grandma didn’t want to go. She came to visit every summer, so it wasn’t all bad.
In the Weird, changelings didn’t live with normal people. Most of the time, their parents gave them up for adoption by the government, and they were sent off to Hawk’s Military Academy. William had gone through Hawk’s. He said it was like a prison: no toys, no books; nothing except seven changes of clothes, towel, toothbrush, and hairbrush. Changelings at Hawk’s lived in small, sterile rooms. It was a life of studies and constant drills, designed to turn them into perfect soldiers. Jack read an article about it once—it said that changeling children couldn’t understand how regular people interacted. “A controlled low-stimulus environment” was better for them.
There was nothing worse than Hawk’s. Jack felt an odd tightness in his back and shrugged to get rid of it. Rose and Declan had both told him that he would never be sent there. But the older he got, the more he screwed up.
Last night, Declan sat him down and told him that they couldn’t keep going on like this. Changes had to be made. He didn’t say anything about Hawk’s, but Jack could read between the lines. He wasn’t a baby.
William was his only hope. William was Declan’s best friend. If anyone could come to Jack’s defense, it would be him.
He had to make William understand how things were before it was too late.
WILLIAM’S house sat in the middle of a vast grassy lawn, bordered by ancient ashes and oaks. It was a big place, three stories with an attic on top, all brown stone under a roof of green clay shingles. Four round towers, two stories high, sat at the corners of the house. Each tower had a round balcony with a stone rail on the second floor. Their other place was even bigger, a mansion the size of Declan and Rose’s house, but William and Cerise both hated it. They still went there once in a while because it had a bigger pool.
Jack left the tree line, crossed the lawn, and stood in front of the arched entrance, letting William catch his scent. One minute, two . . . Long enough.
He went to the arched front door. It swung open under his fingertips, admitting him into the dark stone entranceway. The door shut behind him, and darkness took him into her black mouth and gulped him down. Jack crouched on instinct, letting his eyes adjust.
William could kill any intruder while he stood there, blinking like an owl. When Jack got his own house, he’d have an entrance just like this one.
Jack’s pupils caught the weak light and the glint of a trip wire strung across the way just at the right height to trip an unsuspecting attacker’s ankle. Jack stepped over it, went through to the next door, and out into the courtyard. The bright light of the day shocked his eyes again. He blinked until he saw a blue pool on the left, surrounded by a stone pathway. Around the path, flowers bloomed in curvy flower beds, yellow and blue blossoms catching the sun with delicate petals. His nostrils caught wood smoke. Cerise was cooking.
Jack headed down the path to the back of the house, through a side door, and into the large kitchen. The huge solid table took up most of the room. William lounged at the other side of it in a big chair, close enough to touch Cerise, who stood at a stone counter. Like Declan, William was tall, but where Rose’s husband was blond and buff, William was black-haired, lean, and hard. Their stares met. William’s eyes shone with yellow once. Just a friendly warning. Jack looked to the floor for a second to let him know he didn’t have a problem with his authority.
When he looked up, Cerise was grinning at him from the counter. She was short and tan, with long dark hair, and she wore a blue apron. “A hare! Is that for us?”
Jack nodded and offered her the hare. Cerise took it. “That’s perfect, Jack. Just in time. And so nicely cleaned, too.”
Jack grinned. She liked it.
“Come, sit.” William pushed a glass of Adrianglian tea in his direction. Jack swiped the cup and landed in the nearest chair. Cerise set a pan on the fire, threw some chopped bacon into it, and started peeling an onion.
“How’s it going?” William asked.
“Fine.” Jack kept his voice flat. He’d have to go about this conversation very carefully.
“How’s school?” Cerise asked, chopping the onion to pieces.