Liberty (Flash Gold, #5) by Lindsay Buroker Page A

possible
that Amelia had left explicit instructions that Kali was to be kept
away? If so, how could that be done? Even though Kali found mundane
engineering more interesting, she wished she understood more about
magic, its limitations specifically.
    “Maybe it woke up when I
triggered the first trap back there.” Cedar waved toward the woods
behind the cabin.
    “So I have you to blame
for being shot at?”
    “I told you I’m just a
tracker. It might not be too late to go back for the nose-whistling
criminal.”
    “Ha ha.” Kali took a deep
breath. “Can you find me a safe way into that cabin, Tracker
Cedar?”
    “I can find you
a
way in. Unfortunately, safety isn’t anything I can
promise you anymore.” He cast a wistful gaze toward the sky, and
Kali knew he was thinking of more than booby traps.
    • • • • •
    The inside of the cabin
was not what Cedar expected. After seeing that mechanical spider
stomp out, he had figured a whole laboratory would wait inside,
complete with the latest gadgets and creations from the twisted
mind of that Amelia woman. Instead, the dim interior matched the
exterior, with dead leaves littering the worn plank flooring and
mildew fuzzing a back wall. A breeze gusted through the two
glassless windows, tugging at tattered curtains that dangled from
rusty rods. Ants wandered across the floor, and some small animal
skittered about in the dust under a broken bed frame, the mattress
long gone. A dresser without drawers lay on its side next to a
table resting near a hearth, the aged bricks blackened by soot.
Several logs were stacked in a wood box beside to the fireplace,
and they were as covered with dust as everything else in the
cabin.
    “This is making my cave
workshop look palatial in comparison,” Kali muttered, standing in
the doorway.
    Cedar stood only a couple
of inches behind her, his revolver in one hand and the axe in the
other. He did not see anything that he was tempted to use either
on, but he could tell from the disturbed dust on the floor and a
few crushed leaves in the center of the cabin that someone wearing
shoes had been inside recently. The big spider had lacked
footwear.
    “Maybe she destroyed your
workshop out of jealousy,” he said.
    “There must be something
in here.” Kali eased inside, watching her step intently.
“Otherwise, why would she have bothered setting traps? And building
a giant spider to guard the place?”
    “Impending insanity?”
    Kali shook her head and
stepped carefully toward the table. Cedar used the haft of the axe
to thump at the knotty planks underfoot. Many cabins simply had
earthen floors. The fact that this one didn’t made him wonder if
there might be a root cellar. Amelia could have hidden much in such
a place. He pushed aside a moth-eaten bearskin rug with the head
still attached, thinking a trapdoor might lie underneath, but all
he found was a section of the floor less dusty than the rest.
    Kali swept her hand
across the table, knocking off a few small springs and screws. She
ticked her fingernail against a lantern perched on the corner.
“This doesn’t look as old as the rest of the cabin.”
    “Her work area, I
presume. That table looks sturdy enough that she could have
assembled a giant spider on it.”
    “Perhaps other things as
well.” Kali rapped her knuckles on the table. “I wonder if she
needed to create a detonator in order to blow up the flash gold.
I’ve found it to be full of easily accessible energy, and it never
proved as volatile as dynamite when I worked with it. I
experimented on it after my father first passed away. I applied
heat and flame, and the small pieces never blew up.” She sighed.
“It was a fine energy source. Maybe the most superior source in the
world. I wish my father had left the schematics. Or recipe.
Whatever alchemists use.”
    Cedar wasn’t sure whether
the world was ready for flash gold—he’d understood Amelia’s fears
when she had stated them, that such a powerful