“Kaldar, leave my raccoon alone, or I will push you off this mountain and laugh while you try to grow wings.” Audrey turned away and kept walking.
“How much farther?” Kaldar asked.
“Are you tuckered out already?”
“I bet I could beat you there.”
“No.”
“You’re sure?” Kaldar grinned.
“No more bets.”
“As you wish.”
Audrey pointed up and left, where a cliff thrust out, bristling with ancient trees. “He lives around there. Another fifteen minutes, and you can rest your delicate footsies.”
He let the footsies comment pass. “Why do they call him Gnome, anyway?”
“Because of his size, of course,” Audrey said.
Fifteen minutes later, they emerged into a narrow clearing. A huge structure stood at the far end: a two-story ruin built of the same gray stone as the framework of Audrey’s house. A collection of columns stretched out to the sky, each carved with some sort of battle scene, forming a precise rectangle, with two smaller squares at each end. A wooden house had been built within the stone skeleton, in some places inside it, in some places hanging over it, its walls and rooms protruding under odd angles. Windows of all shapes and sizes punctuated the wooden walls at random, as if some toddler had mixed several construction sets and thrown together a structure with his eyes closed. Moss and flowering vines climbed over the timbers, and some sort of small furry beast, with charcoal fur and a long tail with a puff on the end, scurried up the vines to the roof.
“Come on.” Audrey headed toward the house.
“Anything I need to know about this Gnome?” Kaldar asked.
“He doesn’t like outsiders much. Let me do the talking, and we’ll be fine.”
They approached the building. “Hey, Gnome! Gnooome!” Audrey turned to the boys. “Okay, kids, make some noise. He’s hard of hearing sometimes. Gnoome!”
“Hello!” George yelled. “Hi!”
“Open the door!” Jack roared.
Kaldar put two fingers into his mouth. A piercing whistle rang through the forest. Jack stuck his finger into his ear and shook a bit.
A misshapen window swung open on the top floor. Someone moved in the gloom.
“Hey, Gnome!” Audrey waved.
“What do you want?” A male voice called out.
“I have a question I need to ask you!” Audrey called.
“I’m busy now.”
“I brought payment.” Audrey turned to Kaldar. “Show him the beer.”
He raised the bottle.
“Is that Speedway Stout?”
“Yes, it is,” Audrey confirmed.
The shadowy figure heaved a sigh. “All right. I’ll be right down.”
A cascade of thuds and banging echoed inside the house.
Kaldar leaned to Audrey. “Is he falling down the stairs?”
Audrey grimaced. “No, he just has . . . things. Many, many things.”
Kaldar’s imagination served up a hunchback gnome struggling to climb down the stairs among stacks of dirty pots. Why he’d imagined pots, he had no idea. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to climb in there to rescue the man.
A section of the wall slid aside. A huge man emerged into the sunlight. His oversized jean overalls barely enclosed his enormous frame. Thick defined muscle strained the sleeves of his white T-shirt. His hair was a reddish curly mess, and his face, with sunken eyes and a massive jaw, looked menacing enough to frighten away rabid wolves. He could’ve been sixty or eighty; with the Edgers, it was hard to tell. Some of them lived to a couple of hundred.
The giant ambled over to Audrey, towering a foot over her, and held out his shovel-sized hand. Beer. Right. Kaldar thrust the bottle into Gnome’s hand. The giant bit the cork with his teeth, twisted the bottle, spat out the cork, and took a deep gulp.
“Good.” Gnome peered at him. “I know her. I don’t know you.”
Kaldar opened his mouth.
“He’s my fiancé,” Audrey said.
What?
Gnome blinked. “Fiancé?”
“Yep,” Audrey confirmed.
“When’s the wedding?” Gnome asked.
Kaldar stepped closer to Audrey and put his arm around her. She didn’t stiffen; she even leaned into him a little. He caught a hint of her perfume again and grinned, squeezing her closer, as his hand slipped into her pocket. His fingers caught something metal and Kaldar pinned the object between his index and middle fingers and withdrew his hand. “Not for a while. We’ve been living in sin and enjoying every bit of it.”
“And they are?” Gnome jerked his chin at the boys.
“My cousins,” Kaldar said.
Gnome pondered the four of them for a long moment. “Okay, come.”
Kaldar took a step forward, his arm around Audrey. Gnome held up his hand. “The changeling stays outside. I’ve got a lot of glass in there, and I don’t want it broken.”
Jack was a child, not a wild dog. Kaldar hid a growl. “Fine.”
Gnome turned and went back into the house.
Audrey sank her elbow into his side.
“Ow,” Kaldar winced.
“Keep your paws to yourself,” she murmured, and followed Gnome.
“It was worth it,” he called after her.
She turned around, her eyes indignant, punched her left palm with her right fist, and kept walking.
“I don’t think she likes you,” Jack said.
Kaldar ruffled his hair. “You have a lot to learn about women. Jack, Gnome doesn’t want you inside.”
Jack wrinkled his nose. “That’s fine. He doesn’t smell right anyway.”
Ling tried to dart past them, following Audrey. Kaldar scooped the beast off the ground by the scruff of her neck. The raccoon snarled and raked the air with her claws. “Hold her.” He held out Ling, and George stepped up to grab her. Kaldar hesitated. He’d expected Jack to take Ling. The little beast would scratch George bloody.
George’s hands closed about the raccoon. Ling snorted and sat on his arm, perfectly calm.
They had to be the strangest children he’d ever come across. “Can either of you sense magic?”
“Yes,” George nodded. “I feel it, and Jack smells it.”
“If you sense a lot of magic coming, let Ling go and run to get Gaston. No waiting, no hesitation.” His luck had held out—without realizing it, they’d landed the wyvern only half a mile from Audrey’s house. He’d left Gaston there with instructions to be ready for takeoff at a moment’s notice. It would take the kids less than fifteen minutes to get there. “Just run to Gaston as fast as you can.”
“What, I don’t get to fight?” Jack asked.
Kaldar appraised the indignant note in his voice. Now was the time for finesse. “We have Audrey with us. If people are coming to kill us, we may have to get out of here in a hurry, and the best way to keep Audrey safe is to load her onto the wyvern. Make sense?”
Jack thought about it. “Yes.”
At the door, Audrey called, “Are you coming?”
“No, just breathing hard, love.” He glanced at her and was rewarded by an outraged glare, followed by, “Oh, my God!”
Kaldar took a moment to look at both boys. “No heroics. Do exactly as you are told. The mission is our first priority.”
“We understand,” George said.
“Good.”
They took off for the trees. Kaldar glanced at the object he’d taken from Audrey’s pocket. It was a simple gold cross on a chain. In the middle of the cross a tiny black stone winked at him. He wondered why she didn’t wear it. Pretty Audrey, full of secrets like a puzzle box. Now he’d have to find an excuse to touch her again to put the cross back.
The boys reached the trees and melted into the brush. Kaldar slipped the cross and the chain between his fingers, turned, and caught up with Audrey. “You could’ve warned me he was a giant.”
“And spoil the fun? Please.”
Kaldar swiped a chunk of rock and wedged it between the door and the frame.
Audrey raised her eyebrows.
“For your raccoon,” he told her. “In case of emergency, the kids will let her go. You said she always finds you, so she’ll run right back here.”