The Borderkind Read Online Free PDF

growing, transforming into a man. His wings suddenly spread out behind him, enormous, and then they were barely visible, just a trace of an image in the air.
    And then gone.
    Where the bird had been, there was now only the man. Blue Jay tossed back his hair, the feathers tied in it whipping in the breeze, and thrust his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans.
    “Well, that’s shit luck,” he said.
    Oliver might have laughed were it not for the utter gravity with which the words had been spoken. He glanced at Kitsune, who paid him no attention at all. She was scenting the air and studying the branches above, searching for any sign that there might be some other spy about.
    Oliver turned to Frost, only to find the winter man studying him as though he were a riddle that Frost could not sort out. Oliver didn’t much like the feeling.
    “So what now?” he asked.
    Frost glanced at Blue Jay. “We’d hoped that Twillig’s Gorge might be a refuge for us, at least for a time. Now, at best, we can rest there briefly before moving on. We’ve no idea who the Jaculus calls master, but the way it lit out of here upon being discovered, we can be sure it means us ill.”
    “Time to go, then,” Oliver said.
    Blue Jay frowned, glaring at the sky. “If Gong Gong had been here, the thing would have been dead, and its master none the wiser.”
    Kitsune lifted her hood, though they were deep in the shade of the woods. She hung her head slightly so that only her perfect mouth was visible beneath the fold of fur.
    “Yet Gong Gong
is
dead. And so shall we be, I think, if we don’t move now. I am putting my trust in you, Blue Jay, that this Gorge truly exists. And trust is hard to come by today.”
    “Isn’t it always?” the bird-man said, and then turned toward the river.
    Just ahead, the woods ended at a sheer cliff face and the Sorrowful River continued right through it, a stake through the heart, into a natural tunnel, perhaps some ancient cave system. The light of the sun extended only so far into the tunnel and then all was darkness. The idea of wading into that river and letting the current take him into the dark was not at all pleasant, but neither was the thought of remaining here and waiting for the Jaculus to return with more formidable associates.
    Still, Oliver stood and watched as Blue Jay went to the riverbank and stepped in without hesitation, water soaking into denim, making the legs of his jeans a darker blue. Oliver smiled wistfully. Trickster he might be, but Blue Jay was all right. He could easily have transformed back into a bird and flown through the tunnel, above the water.
    When he had waded in up to his hips, the river flowing around his waist, he paused and looked back, waiting in silence. Oliver glanced at Frost, saw that the winter man was watching Kitsune, and looked at her.
    She was still preoccupied with the trees, and he understood that she was faulting herself somehow for not having caught the Jaculus. It was not that she suspected the presence of other spies, but that she wished there were more, so that she might redeem herself.
    “It wasn’t your fault,” Oliver said.
    Kitsune glanced darkly at him and bared her tiny, sharp teeth. “Go on.”
    He was about to argue, but Frost touched his arm with icy fingers that sent a shock of cold through him, making his muscles ache. Oliver pulled away, but nodded and started for the water. At the edge he sat and removed his boots, tied the laces together and hung them around his neck, with his socks tucked inside. He debated the wisdom of this for a moment, knowing that the river bottom would likely be quite rocky, but even if he didn’t mind soaking-wet boots, they would actually make it difficult to walk, weighted down with water. Using the same logic, he untied the jacket from around his waist, wrapped the Sword of Hunyadi in it, and carried them over his shoulder as he stepped into the river.
    Oliver hesitated a moment. He slipped his hand into his