spider opened his eyes. he lay submerged on the bottom of the pool, in the cool shadowy depths. above him, a wet sky glistened where the water kissed the air. he felt neither hot nor cold. nothing troubled the water. he was utterly alone, floating weightless, watching from the shadows as the sunrays filtered through the water, setting it aglow.

if he closed his eyes, he could pretend that he was diving in the translucent waters far to the south, where a chain of the new egypt islands stretched from the eastern tip of the continent far into the ocean. swimming there, gliding above the coral reefs, surrounded by life but blissfully free of humanity, brought him a sense of peace and the simple thrilling exhilaration of being alive.

alas, he wasn't diving in the ocean now. spider allowed himself one last moment of regret and surfaced with a single kick, emerging without a sound.

the air was unpleasantly cool. the skin flaps on his sides closed, hiding the pink feathery fans of his gills. among his many alterations, this was the least useful but the most enjoyable.

spider grasped the edge of the well and pulled himself up. above him the sun shone bright. the sky was a clear crystalline blue, but despite the rare sunshine, the swamp still looked the same, a primeval mess of rot and mud. to the left, the manor where he'd made their base rose among the trees, struggling for stately elegance and failing.

veisan's peacock blue eyes greeted him. the contrast between those turquoise irises and her red skin never failed to surprise him. she looked at him with earnest expectation. like a puppy, spider thought. a murderous, lethal, psychotic puppy.

"hello, m'lord," veisan whispered.

"hello, veisan."

"your skin has healed remarkably well, m'lord."

considering the amount of catalyst he'd dumped into the well water, the rapid progress was expected. "veisan, why are you whispering?"

her eyebrows crept up, making her look pitiful. "i'm not sure, m'lord," she said in a slightly louder voice. "it seemed appropriate."

she offered him a fuzzy towel. he gripped the stone rim of the pool, pulled himself out, and dried off. the liquid left light pink smudges on the yellow towel. it had been a few months since he'd sustained an injury severe enough to require underwater restoration. spider touched his face, pleased with the smoothness of the skin on his cheek, where the burn blisters had been.

veisan traded a meticulously folded stack of clothing for his towel. he began to dress. "anything vital happen while i was under?"

"judge dobe ruled in the mars' favor. the sheeriles have been given one day to clear the sene manor. their reprieve expires tomorrow morning. advocate malina williams sent the sheeriles a letter detailing her apologies. she intends to appeal."

spider shrugged. "she'll get nowhere with it. they should've gone with one of the local hacks. the edgers prize familiarity more than skill."

"we've received a message from lagar sheerile."

spider grimaced. "he wants reinforcements before the mars attack him tomorrow."

"yes, m'lord."

"he's on his own. i don't need him anymore." let the mud rats fight it out between themselves. it saved him the trouble of wiping them out to cover his trail, and this way none of his people risked injury. there was always a chance that lagar would kill cerise, but considering how well her mother was progressing, it was unlikely they would need her. spider flung the water off his hair in a vigorous shake. he'd spare a few moments of regret for her death, the way one would mourn the destruction of a prized painting - the girl represented a forgotten martial art, and it was a shame to lose her. but in the grand scheme of things, she was of little use to him.

"send a scout master out there. i want to know about the crossbowman."

"yes, m'lord."

veisan handed him a brush, and he dragged it through his wet hair.

"lagar also reported an attack by a feline of unusual size."

he looked at her.

"there are two attacks to date. the first was a sentry on duty. the second was a man returning from the settlement with purchases. in both cases the animal took the weapons belonging to its victims. lagar sheerile estimates it to be about four yards long and seven hundred pounds heavy. the circumference of the paw prints - "

"back up. the bit about the weapons."

"in both cases the animal took the weapons belonging to its victims." veisan repeated the sentence exactly, reproducing the same intonation and pauses she had used the first time.

"does lagar have an opinion as to why it's attacking his men?"

"no, m'lord."

odd. spider dismissed the rest of it with a flick of his fingers. "any news of embelys and vur?"

"they are still in hiding at the perimeter of mar territory."

he didn't really expect them to capture cerise. but one could always hope . . . spider ran his hand across his cheek. stubble. he'd have to shave.

veisan produced a shaving kit, the soap already whipped into thick foam. he took it.

"what else?"

"john reports that the subject has regained consciousness. he says that in two days she will either be ready for instruction or her brains will ooze out of her ears, m'lord."

"i take it he's still frustrated with the rushed schedule."

"i believe so."

prima donna. "he'll get over it."

"and if he doesn't, m'lord?"

"then you can have him. assuming you can limit yourself to one death."

veisan licked her lips nervously. "i'll try. it's been . . . a long time."

he put his hand on her shoulder, feeling steel cables of muscle tense under his fingers. "i understand, gabrielle. i apologize for keeping you idle."

she sniffled and a slow purple blush spread through her red skin. like all agents, she had taken a different name when joining the hand. he only used her birth name on special occasions. spider made it a point to know the birth names of all agents under his command. funny how a single word could have a devastating effect.

"thank you, m'lord."

spider strode to the manor, veisan following at his heels.

"my lord?"

"yes?"

"what's in that diary?"

he grinned at her. "a weapon, veisan. a means to win the war."

"but we're not at war."

he shook his head. "when we obtain the diary, we will be."

007

william raised his head from the rifle he'd finished cleaning and handed it to gaston. murid, cerise's aunt with the sniper eyes, had asked for his help. he'd spent the last three hours cleaning the rifles and checking the crossbows with her at the range behind the house.

murid didn't say more than two words to him, which suited him just fine, but she watched him. she wasn't too subtle about it, and the constant scrutiny put him in a foul mood. at first william had guessed she was keeping him away from cerise, but now he decided she had something else in mind.

murid had empty eyes, the kind of eyes a man got after he'd been through some rough shit and redlined. lost his brakes, lost himself. it made her unpredictable, and so william didn't try to guess what she would do. he simply waited for the moment she would do it and prepared to react.

murid test-fired a crossbow. the bolt bit into the target. she was good. not as good as he, but then he was a changeling and his coordination was better. if she'd turned and fired at him instead, he wouldn't have been surprised.

his ears caught the sound of light steps coming. he glanced back. lark, running from the house, wasp in her hand. she saw him looking and slowed down, a scowl on her face. upset at being caught. she sauntered over and stood on his left next to gaston.

william picked up the last crossbow from his stack, raised it, and fired without aiming, purely on muscle memory. the bolt sliced into his target next to the other ten or so he'd put into the bull's-eye in the past hour.

lark snapped her crossbow, imitating him, and fired. the bolt went wide.

"it won't work," gaston told her with an expression of complete gloom on his face. "i've been trying to shoot like he does for the last hour."

he'd been picking up the bolts out of the grass for the last hour, too, william reflected. the kid shot well enough. good hand-to-eye coordination, good perception. with proper training, he would be an excellent shot.

lark jerked her crossbow up, fired another bolt, and missed. "how come you can do it?"

"practice," william said. that and a changeling's reflexes. "i've been a soldier for a long time. i can't flash, so i had to use the crossbows a lot."

lark hesitated. "i can flash."

"show me."

she grasped a bolt in her fist. pale lightning sparked from her eyes down to her hand, clutched the bolt, and vanished. another white flasher. figured. flash usually ran in the family.

"nice!" he told her.

lark offered him a narrow smile. it was there and gone almost as fast as her flash, but he saw it.

william turned to gaston. "you?"

"none of the thoas can flash." the boy shook his head, sending his black mane flying. the damn hair reached nearly to his waist. on the one hand, it was too long. if you grabbed the hair, you could control the kid's head in a fight. on the other hand, the hair hid his face. he looked human enough in passing, but he'd fail close scrutiny. his jaw was too heavy, his eyes were too deep set under the wide black eyebrows, and his irises luminesced with pale silver when they caught the light.

still, the kid needed a shock to the system. proof that he was done with his family. a rite of passage. william pulled a knife from the sheath. "cut it."

gaston's eyebrows crept up.

"cut the hair."

gaston glanced at him, glanced at the knife, and took the blade, his teeth clenched. he grasped a strand of hair in his hand and sawed at it with the blade. the black strands fell on the ground.

lark crouched and picked them up. "it's not good to leave the hair out," she said quietly. "someone could curse you with it. i'll burn it for you."

"thanks." gaston grabbed another handful of his hair and sliced it off.

murid opened her mouth.

here it is. william tensed.

"it's almost time for lunch."

he nodded.

"it would be good if we knew what they were cooking in the kitchen," she said. "if they're cooking fish, we need to head to the house. fish doesn't take much time. if they're cooking a pig, we have another half an hour."

"i can go and ask," gaston said.

william sampled the wind. "they're cooking chicken."

murid turned her expressionless dark eyes on him. "are you sure?"

"chicken and rice," he said. "with cumin."

"that's good to know," murid said. "we have time, then."

william had an odd feeling that something important had just happened, but what he had no idea. behind him gaston sliced another handful from his mane and deposited it into lark's hands. william loaded the next crossbow and fired. he would figure it out sooner or later.

lagar closed his eyes. it did no good - peva was still there, even in the darkness of his mind.

"look at your brother," his mother's voice whispered like the rustling of snake scales across the floor. "it's because of you he's dead. you weren't smart enough to keep your brother safe."

slowly he opened his eyes and saw peva's body, blue and nude, on the washing table. a single lamp hung above it, its harsh glow concentrated by the fixture into a cone. the light clutched at the faces of two women, bleaching them into pasty masks. he watched them dip thick cloths into the buckets of scented water and rub the mud from peva's limbs. the dirty water ran off peva's skin into the groove on the table.

peva was dead. he would never rise, never speak again. there was a horrible finality in death, an absolute and total ending. there was nothing to be done. no way to help it.

lagar rolled his head back and took a deep breath. they spent their lives jerking and clawing their way to the top, and for what? to end up like this. on the table.

tomorrow cerise would come for him. tomorrow evening either he or she would be on the table, just like this. this wasn't what he wanted. in his dreams, when he was alone with nobody to spy on him, this wasn't what he wished for.

"why do you bother?" lagar's voice caught, and he forced the words out, raspy and strained.

kaitlin stared at him from the gloom, a squat ugly thing, wrapped in her shawl. his mother. like an old poisonous toad, he thought.

"why do you bother?" he repeated. "he's dead. the soul's gone. peva's gone. nothing left but this . . . shell. dump it in the ditch. give it to the dogs. he isn't going to care."

she said nothing, clamping her lips together. disgust swelled in him. lagar spun and left the room, slapping the door shut behind him.

cerise padded out onto the verandah and closed the door behind her, shutting off the busy noises fluttering from the kitchen. earlier, tired of making plans and choosing weapons, she'd come down there hoping to cook. being in the kitchen, in the middle of bustle, standing over the fire, smelling spices, tasting food, and catching up on the mire gossip usually comforted her. today she cooked in a daze, listening to her aunts and cousins, while her mind cycled through tomorrow, wondering who else would die.

then, before she knew it, dinner came. the entire family had gathered at the main house, those who lived in the outer buildings, those who lived farther in the swamp, everyone came for the dinner before the fight. every seat was filled. the kids had to be sent off to a smaller kitchen to eat there, just to make room.

then she sat at the head of the table, in her father's place. she listened to the chatter of familiar voices, looked at the familiar faces, watched small fights break out and dissolve into teasing, and knew with absolute certainty that tomorrow some of these chairs would be empty. guessing and calculating which ones made her colder and colder, until she was shivering, as if a clump of ice had grown in the pit of her stomach. finally cerise could take it no more and snuck out.

she just needed some peace and a little quiet. she started along the balcony, heading to the door that led to her favorite hiding spot.

steps followed her. maybe it was william . . . she turned.

aunt murid chased her.

figured. william snuck around like a fox. she'd seen very little of him. first, murid took him off, then richard and cerise rode out and climbed a pine, to get a better look at sene. at dinner william ended up in a corner, with gaston next to him. she barely recognized the boy with his hair shorn off. what the hell was urow thinking? gaston was family. what was done was done, but it still felt rotten.

cerise stopped. aunt murid stopped, too. cerise read hesitation in the older woman's posture and tensed. what now?

"your uncle hugh is a good man," aunt murid said softly.

well, that came out of nowhere. murid didn't speak of her younger brother, especially since he'd left for the broken about twelve years back. he'd visit at the house every few years for a week or two and then leave again. when cerise had gone to get the documents from him, he looked pretty much the same as she remembered him: fit, tall, muscular. his hair was an odd salt-and-pepper shade, but aside from that, he was pretty much a male version of aunt murid. but where murid was harsh, uncle hugh was mild and soft-spoken.

"i only saw him for about an hour," cerise admitted. "just to get the papers for grandpa's house. he looked well."

"i'm sure he did. come, i'll walk with you."

they strolled along the balcony.

"hugh was difficult as a child," murid said. "some things he just didn't understand. our parents and me, we tried our best to take care of him, but his mind just didn't work the same way. you had to spell things out for him. obvious things. hugh always liked dogs and other animals better than people. said they were simpler."

cerise nodded. where was this going?

"he wasn't mean," murid said. "he was kind. just odd in his way and very violent."

"violent? uncle hugh?" cerise tried to imagine the quiet man flying off the handle and couldn't.

aunt murid nodded. "sometimes he'd take offense to things, and you wouldn't even know why. and once he started fighting, he wouldn't stop. he would kill you, unless someone pulled him off." she stopped and leaned against the rail. "hugh wasn't like other people. he was born different and there was no help for it. it runs in our branch of the family, on my father's side. i don't have it and my dad didn't have it, but our grandfather did."

so uncle hugh was a crazy person and it was hereditary. cerise leaned on the rail next to murid. he never seemed crazy, but then she barely knew him. all she had to go on were childhood memories.

murid swallowed. "i want you to understand: if you were hugh's friend, he would take a bullet for you. and when he loved, he loved absolutely, with all his heart."

the older woman looked at the night-soaked cypresses. "when hugh was nineteen, he met a girl. georgina wallace. she was very pretty, and hugh was very handsome. so she took him for a ride. they saw stars together for a few weeks. then georgina decided that she was all funned out and broke the news: she was engaged to tom rook over in sicktree. hugh was her last fling before the wedding."

"ugh."

"hugh didn't understand. he loved her so much, and he couldn't imagine that she didn't love him. i tried to calm him down and to explain that sometimes things didn't turn out. i tried to explain that georgina lied, but he couldn't let it go. to him, she was everything. she accepted him, she made love to him. in his mind, that meant they belonged to each other forever. hugh thought she was his mate. his soul mate."

cold washed over cerise. "what happened?"

"hugh took off. the next morning they found tom rook and georgina, and tom's brother, cline. tom and georgina were torn to pieces. cline survived. he's crippled for life, but he survived. he said a huge gray dog broke into the house and ripped into them."

"hugh set one of our mastiffs onto them?"

"no." murid closed her eyes. "not a mastiff. cline never left the mire. all he knew were dogs. but i saw the tracks the animal left. it was a wolf. a big gray wolf."

"there are no wolves in the mire," cerise said.

"there was one that night."

cerise frowned. "what do you mean?"

murid looked at the swamp. "that night hugh left for the broken. there are a lot of louisianans from the weird here, and in the weird's louisiana they kill people like hugh. do you understand, ceri? they kill his kind. they strangle them at birth or drown them, like rabid mutts."

the realization hit cerise like a rock between her eyes. uncle hugh was a changeling.

it couldn't be. changelings were demonic things from scary slumber party stories. they were mad, murderous, evil things. there was a reason why the dukedom of louisiana killed them - they were too dangerous. they turned into wild animals, and they slaughtered and ate people. everything she'd heard about them made them out to be monsters.

no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't picture uncle hugh as a monster. uncle hugh was family. he built the wooden tree house where she used to play. he trained the dogs. he churned ice cream. he was calm and strong, and his eyes were kind and she'd never seen him angry.

"has he killed anyone else since?"

murid shook her head. "not unless the family asked him to."

"does father know?"

murid nodded.

there had to be a reason for this story. maybe her father made him leave. maybe murid saw this as a chance to bring her brother back.

"changeling or not, he is my uncle. he's welcome in the house anytime."

"he knows that. he's in the broken by his choice."

okay. "then why did you tell me this?"

"hugh is a very strong man." murid looked into the distance. "very good with a crossbow and a rifle. his reflexes are better honed, and he barely needs any time to aim at the target. death doesn't bother him at all. he accepts it as a fact and moves on."

william.

her heart hammered against her ribs. no. please, no. "uncle hugh is very fast, isn't he?"

aunt murid nodded.

"and his eyes glow in the dark?"

murid nodded again. "he could always tell me what was cooking when we were at the range, because he could smell it from the kitchen."

the range was a good ways from the house. far enough that if you were at the house and you needed to get the attention of somebody down there, you had to yell at the top of your lungs. cerise cleared her throat, trying to keep her voice even. "you took william down to the range with you today."

murid looked away at the swamp. "chicken with cumin and rice."

"i see." things made so much sense now. cerise bit her lip. william was a monster. the orphanage, the military, that wildness she sensed in him - everything made sense.

"you have to spell things out," murid said. "no games, no hints. you have to be very, very clear with him, cerise. be very careful and think before you act. he's dangerous. hugh didn't change shape often, but william does, because he knows how to hide it. he's been trained to fight and whoever trained him knew how to make the most of william's strengths. so far he's behaving himself, but if you're alone with him and you don't have a blade, you don't stand a chance. don't send him the wrong messages and don't get yourself raped. william may not even know it's wrong to force a woman."

her memory thrust the lake house before her. oh, he knew. he knew very well.

"if you let him, he'll love you forever and he won't know how to let go. make sure you truly want him before you take that plunge. and ..." murid hesitated. "your children . . . if you were to have any."

their children would be puppies. or kittens. or whatever william was.

"families aren't for people like me."

oh, dear gods. she finally found the man she wanted, after all this waiting, and he turned out to be a changeling. maybe she was cursed. "it can never be easy, can it?"

aunt murid leaned toward her. "i had my chance with a man. i didn't take it, because it was too hard and too complicated. look at me now. how so very happy i am, old and alone. fuck easy, ceri. if you love him, fight for him. nothing worth keeping is free in this world. if you don't love him, cut him loose. just don't take too long to decide. our future might be short."

she turned and walked away, into the gloom.

william padded through the night, following cerise's scent trail. he'd always paid close attention to female scents. some were smothered with perfume, some were tinted with whatever the woman had eaten last. some fragrances tantalized, others shouted, and a few cringed and proclaimed, "easy prey."

cerise smelled the way he imagined his woman would smell. clean, with a slight trace of shampoo from her hair, a touch of sweat, and a hint of something he couldn't quite describe, something healthy, dangerous, and exciting that primed his nerves.

mmmm, cerise.

he chased her scent down the balcony, around the house, separating it from murid's trail. the two women stopped here for a while, then murid left, but cerise remained, resting her hands on the rail and looking at something . . . he leaned over the rail. down below him mire pines stretched to scratch at the night sky. pale blossoms of maiden-bells bloomed between the roots, delicate like cups made of frosted glass. cerise stood here looking at the flowers. if she liked flowers, he would get them for her.

william leaped over the balcony's rail, landing in soft dirt. five minutes later, he climbed back up, with a handful of flowers in his hand, and followed cerise's scent. it led him to the back of the house. he turned the corner and ran into kaldar, carrying a bottle of green wine and two glasses.

gods damn it.

kaldar looked at his flowers. "nice touch. here." he thrust the bottle and glasses at him. william took them on reflex. kaldar pointed behind him. "now you're all set. small door, up the staircase."

he turned the corner and went off the way william had come.

crazy family. william looked at the bottle. why the hell not?

the door led him to a narrow staircase. he jogged up the steps into a large room. the floor was wood. bare rafters crossed over his head - the room must've been sectioned off from the rest of the attic. to the left, the wall opened into a narrow balcony. two soft chairs waited on the right. cerise curled in the left one, by a floor lamp, reading a book.

i found you.

she saw him and blinked, startled.

he knocked on the stair rail with the bottle.

"who is it?" she asked.

"it's me. can i come in?"

"it depends. if i don't let you in, will you huff and puff and blow my house down?"

she had no idea. "i'm more of a kick the door open and cut everyone inside to ribbons kind of wolf."

"i better let you in, then," she said. "i don't want to be cut to ribbons. is that wine for me?"

"yes."

william crossed the floor and handed her the thick bottle. the light of the lamp caught the wine inside, and it sparkled with deep emerald green.

"greenberry." cerise checked the label. "my favorite year, too. how did you know?"

he decided not to lie. "kaldar gave it to me."

she smiled and he had to hold himself back to keep from kissing her. "my cousin is trying so hard. it's not his fault - he's been trying to marry me off for years."

"why?"

"it's his job. he arranges the marriages for the family: haggles over the dowry, makes preparations for the weddings, that sort of thing." cerise looked at the flowers in his hand. "are those from kaldar, too?"

"no. i picked those."

her eyes shone. "for me?"

"for you." he offered her the flowers.

cerise reached for them. he caught her hand in his. his whole body snapped to attention, as if he'd awoken from a deep sleep because someone had fired a gun by his head. want.

she took the flowers and smelled them. "thank you."

"you're welcome."

he watched her pull the stems apart on her lap. she took three flowers, added a fourth, and wrapped its stem around the first three. "will you pour us some wine?"

yeah, because wine was exactly what he needed right now. william opened the bottle and poured the shimmering green into the two glasses. it smelled nice enough. he sipped it. nice, a bit sweet but nice. not as nice as she would taste, but he had to settle for the wine for now. "good."

"it's homemade." cerise kept weaving flowers together. "it's a family tradition. every fall we go to fisherman's tree to pick the berries, and then we make wine."

she sipped her wine, he drank his, and for a while they sat quietly next to each other. he wanted to reach over and touch her. she made him feel like a child made to sit on his hands. william drank more wine, feeling the warmth spread through him. maybe he should just grab her. if he did, she'd try to cut off his head right there. his beautiful, violent girl.

"why are you smiling?" she asked.

"because i thought of something funny."

cerise wove the last flower into her tangle. it looked like a large circle now. she picked it up and put it on her head.

oh, yeah. he would bring her more flowers and wine and anything else she wanted, until she liked him enough to stay with him.

"is this your place?" william asked to say something.

"yes. it's where i hide when i have a fight with someone."

he didn't remember her fighting with anyone. she sat at the table for a while and then slipped out quietly.

"who are you fighting with now?"

cerise got up and walked over to the wall. he followed her. pictures hung on the wall behind the glass. cerise touched one of the frames. a man and a woman stood by the pond, both young, almost kids. the man was a mar: lean, dark, tan. the woman was blond, soft, and slender. fragile. if she was his, william thought, he'd be worried about breaking her every time they touched.

"my parents," cerise murmured. "gustave and genevieve."

"your mother looks like a blueblood."

she glanced at him. "what makes you say that?"

"her hair is curled, and her eyebrows are plucked down to nothing."

cerise laughed softly. "i pluck my eyebrows. does that make me look like a blueblood?"

"yours still look natural. hers look odd." he grimaced. "she looks very well taken care of. like she never saw the sun."

"it's their wedding. my dad was eighteen, my mother was sixteen. she'd only been in the mire for a year. here loo-->>

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