The Legend Thief (24 page)

They laid Crystal on her stomach on a table next to her mother. Em had slipped away to warn the hunters about the arrival of the Harrow Wights, without telling Andrew who she really was. Sky had wondered at that: Hadn't Andrew ever seen a picture of his mom? But then, Sky supposed, any family rotten enough to lie about Nikola, to tell Andrew his father was dead rather than crazy, probably wasn't into family moments. Em, who had assumed the name of Juliet once again, had promised to return later to explain everything. Still not quite trusting her, Sky had kept the package.

"What in the world were you doing, Sky?" Mom demanded.

She rushed around the kitchen, grabbing bits of this and that: Jack seeds, knives,
a
small blowtorch.

Sky held a bag of ice against his face. Mom had thrown several weird pastes and gels at him and told him to smear it on his cuts, bruises, and burns. T-Bone, Andrew, and Hands were doing the same, smearing on the pastes and gels and icing themselves. They watched quietly as Mom gathered her supplies.

T-Bone was mostly burned and banged up like Sky, but Hands had taken a nasty knock to the head and still looked dazed. Andrew sat on a barstool a short distance away from the others. He stared at nothing, his brow creased in thought.

Sky wasn't sure what to do for Andrew, who had to suspect something about the mysterious woman who had fought beside them in the bowling alley and then run off with hardly a word. Em had chickened out, as far as Sky could tell. Was it Sky's place to tell Andrew about his mother? He honestly had no idea.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. "Helen?" Beau called out. "Helen? Are you home?''

"In the kitchen!"
Mom yelled as she sterilized the knives. "Herman should be along soon," Beau continued as he walked down the hall. "We're about as ready as we can be for Bedlam's army. I would've stayed, but there was a fire, and with Sky's track record ..."

Beau walked into the kitchen and spotted the beleaguered monster hunters, scorched, battered, and bleeding, and then he saw Crystal. "Oh ... oh no ..."

Beau strode to the table. "What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" Mom shouted. "Everyone get out of my way!"

Mom stepped to the table and began examining Crystal. She blanched as she probed the wound, and her face went whiter and whiter as the exam continued.

"We ran into Harrow Wights at the bowling alley," said Sky, his voice hollow.

Beau nodded as if he had expected as much. "Bedlam's army is nearly here."

"Where's Edward?" Mom cut in. "Crystal could use her father, and I'm sure Cass could use her husband. Did you find anything at her house?"

Mom gently turned Crystal onto her side. T-Bone and Hands stepped forward to hold her in place while Mom started pouring a thick substance down Crystal's throat.

"I'm afraid Crystal's father won't be coming," Beau said hesitantly.

Mom scowled.
"And why not?"

Beau was quiet for a moment.
"Because Edward died over two years ago."

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Silence filled the room.

"But then ... who's been taking care of Crystal?" Mom asked.

"No one," Beau replied.

"That's not possible," said Andrew, emerging from his stupor. "You're telling us that Crystal's been living
on her own
for over two years and
nobody has noticed?"

Beau nodded. "Has anyone actually seen Edward in the past two years?" Nobody spoke.

"Wait," said T-Bone. "What about the phone number at her house? She said she'd called his hotel today and left a message." Beau shook his head. ''I'm sorry. There is no phone number

I looked. It's not there. Edward
Bittlesworth
died over two years ago on an overseas assignment from his paper. Crystal had a letter of condolence tucked under her mattress, and little else of value in the empty house."

Sky glared at him; it couldn't be true. "You're lying."

''I'm sorry, Sky," said Beau.

Sky didn't say anything. He just stared at the thick layer of coppery metal stretching from Crystal's mid back to the base of her neck, where the skin was charred and pockmarked like the moon. Sky remembered
Em's
cryptic words at the bowling alley about keeping secrets and Crystal's evasions when they had offered to retrieve the phone number at her house. He thought of her baggy secondhand clothes and all the times he had seen her leave the lair early in the morning, never realizing that she had probably slept there.

She was the glue that held them together, and yet she was the most broken of all.

"Can you fix this?" Sky asked Mom, tears streaming from his eyes.

"''ll
do
what I can," Mom promised, her tone carrying a hopeless weight. "I can make her comfortable."

"How long does she have?" Sky croaked.

"It's hard to say," Mom replied. She carefully applied a thick gel to the metal on Crystal's back, which started to steam.
"A few hours, perhaps."

"A few hours . . . ,"Sky muttered in shock.

Mom flipped on the small blowtorch and started moving the flame back and forth across the gel.

Sky looked at Crystal, and then his eyes drifted to Cass. If she was really Bedlam and if what Hazzleweed had said was true...

He wiped the tears from his eyes. "Mom, do you know why someone would shoot Cass with Harksplitter?"

Mom dipped several sheets of what looked like orange paper into a blue liquid and placed them on Crystal. Even though Crystal was unconscious, Sky saw her body relax, and the worry lines on her forehead slipped away.

"We have our suspicions," Mom hedged, glancing at Beau. Sky waited, refusing to speak. He already knew the answer, but he needed confirmation.

Mom sighed and brushed her tears away. "Harksplitter was used against Edgewalkers during the wars. It was one of the few things we found that worked against them. Whoever shot Cass must have known the secrets of Harksplitter and believed that Cass was Bedlam."

"You say it like you were there, but the Edgewalker Wars happened centuries ago," Sky pointed out, catching the familiarity in her tone. "How old are you?"

Mom smiled. "It's impolite to ask a lady's age," she quipped evasively. "What is this about, Sky?"

Sky watched her as if he had never seen her before, and it occurred to him that he might not be the only one keeping secrets. "Is there anything that counteracts Harksplitter?"

Mom frowned. "Counteracts? I don't think that would be a good idea." Mom handed the blowtorch to Beau and showed him where to use it, and then she wiped off her hands and crossed to the refrigerator. Sky joined her as she sorted through various bottles and containers filled with strange botanical substances.

"Humor me," said Sky. "If Bedlam was really in there, and someone-say
an
Edgewalker- wanted to talk to him without allowing him to escape, and without getting trapped by the Harksplitter themselves, how could they do it?"

Mom stopped sorting and examined him as if he was one of her patients. "That's quite a question. If it was any other Edgewalker, I would say good luck, but with Bedlam ... He's not just an Edgewalker, he's Master of the Edge. It was rumored during the wars that even though Bedlam was trapped in his Chrysalis, his children could still occasionally reach him in the Edge, in what they called Edge Memories."

Sky inhaled sharply.

"Bedlam couldn't escape to another body- he couldn't actually walk the Edge himself," Mom continued. "But his children could call him to these Edge Memories and talk to him. It was quite a bother. I take it this isn't an academic question?"

"Not exactly," Sky replied. "Do you trust me?"

"Not in the slightest," said Mom. "But I love you. That will have to be good enough."

Sky grinned. He started to walk away, but Mom grabbed him and hugged him tightly.

"Don't do anything stupid, Sky." Mom pleaded.

"Of course I won't," said Sky, "I only do smart things." Mom released him with a final squeeze, and then she went back to her bottles, seemingly determined to avoid watching whatever he was about to do.

Sky walked back to Cass and sat next to her- close, but not too close. He pulled the barrow weed out of his nose, sniffing. Just last night Errand had shown him a nearby Edge Memory, one of the
manor
itself and Solomon's prison. It struck Sky as almost too convenient that Errand had shown him such a place just when he would need it. It made him wonder how much Errand knew about Bedlam and what Errand's role was in all this. Clearly Errand wanted some thing, and clearly he knew more than he had told Sky. But what was he after?

Sky forced the thoughts from his mind and focused, recalling how Errand had pulled him from his personal memory of Skull Valley into the Edge Memory of Exile. Sky studied the details of the event in his mind, remembering how he had felt and what Errand had done; he studied it until he thought he understood how it was done.

"Sky, what are you-" T-Bone started.

But at that moment Sky reached out with his senses. He got a quick impression of Bedlam lurking within Cass, and then Sky grabbed ahold and yanked Bedlam into the Edge Memory with him, doing it the same way Errand had.

Sky tumbled down and crashed in the woods where he had landed with
Errand .
He rolled to his feet and took in his surroundings, which hadn't changed in the slightest since last night. He saw the wall to Solomon's prison a short distance away, and the manor beyond.

"Sky Weathers," Bedlam hissed, his voice coming from everywhere at once.
"How nice of you to visit."

Sky felt his Eye of Legend grow cold. Bedlam was triggering it somehow, releasing Legend's power and will just as Morton had.

"I want to make a deal!" Sky managed through clenched teeth. Pain swelled within him. Black veins started to spread through his hand. Sky fought against it, struggling to push it back. He calmed himself-too much was on the line for him to fail. Crystal had nothing. He had to give her at least this after he had cost her so much.

As he calmed, the Hunter's Mark seemed to warm, and slowly the veins began to recede.

"A deal?
You hunters are like a murder of crows plucking one another's eyes until none can see. Why would I make a deal with a murder?"

"Not with the hunters," said Sky.
"Just with me!"

Everything went silent, and then Bedlam fell from the night like a comet and crashed directly in front of Sky. The ground exploded, throwing Sky backward. Before he could regain his feet, Bedlam grabbed his head and lifted him from the ground while Sky clung to Bedlam's arm. Sky could feel Bedlam trying to force his way into his mind, but the effort was weak. Sky pushed him out easily.

Bedlam chuckled. "Why keep me out, Sky? The two of us could make a wonderful team. Aren't you curious about all the lovely things I could teach you?"

"I don't have to keep you out," Sky spat. "You're stuck in Cass. You couldn't get in even if I let you, not until the Harksplitter wears off, or your body is freed. This is as far as you come unless you make a deal with me."

Bedlam growled and dropped Sky. "You are a pawn in this game, Sky, but you could be a king."

"The king's the worst piece on the board," Sky retorted.

"He just sits around until someone traps him. At least the pawn has the chance to reclaim a better piece."

"Only if he survives long enough to reach the far edge," said Bedlam. "And odds are not in your favor."

"Why do you hate us so much?" Sky asked.

"BECAUSE YOU BETRAYED ME!"
Bedlam shouted. "I, who helped
you
overthrow my father.
I, the first to join your cause against Legend.
I, who taught you my secrets only to have you hunt down my Edgewalkers, my children, and send them to oblivion simply to keep me bound! Your murder of crows is corrupt- betrayers!"