[English] THE BURNING SKY

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“You cannot hide forever from Atlantis.”

She would be found one day, he meant, and must fight or die.

She wanted to muster her courage, but she might as well pluck diamonds out of thin air. Her feet felt as if they were dissolving; her lungs, as if they’d been filled with mercury.

“How exactly am I supposed to—defeat the Bane?”

“I am not sure. I have been reading about elemental magic for years, but I have yet to discover how to harness the power of a great elemental mage—and only by harnessing the power of a great elemental mage can one defeat the Bane, according to my mother.”

“Harnessing the power of a great elemental mage . . .” she echoed slowly. “You mean, as the Bane does.”

“No, not the way he does.”

“Then how?”

“I do not know yet.”

She was confused. “So you are going to experiment on me?”

“No, I am going to experiment with you, not on you. We are in this together.”

She wanted desperately to trust this boy who looked as if he’d been born under the wings of the Angels, beautifully unafraid. But they were not in this together. To help him achieve his goal of altering the course of history, she would have to give up her entire purpose of survival.

And great elemental mage or not, she was no great heroine, just an ordinary girl trembling in a pair of nonmage shoes that pinched slightly at the toes.

Her desire to impress him, however, still warred with her need to save herself. “Perhaps—I’m only supposed to help you in an advisory capacity.”

She was a coward, but better cowardly than dead.

He shook his head. “No, you are the most essential part.”

Each word fell on her like a knife. “But if I don’t know what to do and you don’t know what to do—”

“I will find out, eventually. In the meantime I will train you to better channel your powers. Potential is not enough; you must achieve mastery. Only then can you face the Bane.”

Her lips quivered. She could no longer deny the truth. “I don’t want to face the Bane.”

“No one does, but you cannot escape your destiny.”

Did she believe in destiny, she who shamelessly curried favor with a lowly village official, just so she could stay in one place until her qualifying exams? “I don’t have a destiny,” she said weakly.

“Maybe you did not learn about it until today, but you do and you always did.”

His voice was urgent, his gaze intense. Were she any kind of a dreamer, the force of his conviction would have carried her away. “I’m not this brave soul you think I am. I came with you because you offered sanctuary. I don’t have what it takes to shoulder what you ask.”

He was silent for a moment; something flickered in his eyes. “What of your guardian? You can rescue him on your own?”

His questions agonized her for nearly a full minute before she recognized them for what they were: manipulation. He was not above using her anxiety for Master Haywood to get his way.

Every last mage in pursuit of you seeks to abuse and exploit your powers.

Trust no one.

Why hadn’t she understood it sooner? For all the prince’s seeming majesty, he was monumentally ambitious and wanted her only as a means to his own ends.

Dismay spread unchecked in her heart. “This is beneath you, Your Highness. My guardian did not make his sacrifices so that I could throw away my life on a wild quest doomed to fail. He would be apoplectic if I allowed myself to be exploited this way.”

The prince’s jaw tightened. “I am not exploiting you. I have saved you two times, offered you as much security as you will find anywhere on this earth, and put myself at abysmal risk. It is a fair enough exchange to ask for some help from you for a good cause—for as worthy a cause as there ever was.”

Unlike her, he had not raised his voice. But he sounded defensive.

“So a steer should head willingly to slaughter because the farmer has fed and housed it? How many would make this bargain if they only knew what would happen to them in the end? You are asking me to give up everything for a cause that isn’t mine. I don’t want to be part of any revolution. I just want to live.”

“To live like this, never knowing what it is like to be free?” His voice was tight.

“I will know nothing when I’m dead!”

Her anger was all the more bitter because she had stood ready to place her faith and hope in him. To rely on him as her anchor in this new, turbulent life. And to repay his kindness to the utmost of her ability.

Only to be told that he wanted her to die for him.

Back in Archer Fairfax’s room, Iolanthe lifted the dull-red valise the prince had given her to carry as her own and placed it on the desk. Inside were boy’s clothes, unfamiliar-looking coins, a map of London, a map of the Eton-Windsor area, and a book called Bradshaw’s Monthly Railway Guide.

“Please reconsider,” said the prince.

She spun around sharply. She had no idea when he’d vaulted into the room.

He stood with his back against the wall, his expression blank. “You do not even know where to go.”

But she did. The prince had said that his school was not far from London. She needed to be back in London. Master Haywood had advised her to wait near the end portal for as long as possible, for the arrival of the memory keeper. The move had its risks. But she did not plan to go back inside the madwoman’s house. She could monitor the house from outside, a nearby rooftop, perhaps—

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“I would not even think about it.”

Her heart missed a beat, but she turned back to the valise, pocketed the coins, and pretended to check what else it contained.

“That woman in the attic knows who you are—or what you are, at least. She will have consulted other Exiles. There are informants among the Exiles. Atlantis will have the entire neighborhood under surveillance by now. The agents will strip the house of its protections for you to vault in, if you are desperate enough to try. Do it, and it will be the last anyone sees of you.”

She felt nauseous. “Britain is a large realm. My options are nearly endless. As you yourself said earlier, Atlantis, great as it is, cannot hope to locate me so easily in a land of millions.”

“You are not as anonymous as you think. Your jacket is part of the Eton uniform. It will mark you anywhere as an Eton boy. The natives will wonder why you roam about when you should be at school instead—and they will remember you.”

She broke into a sweat. She could reveal herself so easily, without even being aware of it. “All I have to do is to change.”

She exchanged the jacket for a brown one from the valise.

“If only it were so easy. In the countryside, where everyone knows one another, you will be too conspicuous. So you must go into cities, where anonymity is possible. But you do not know which parts of a city are safe for a well-dressed young man, and which will get you robbed and possibly beaten. And before you reassure me again how handy you are with your fists, how many grown men can you take on at once, without resorting to elemental powers?”

“If you aim to convince me that every place out there is dangerous for me,” she retorted, “you have not succeeded.”

But he was coming awfully close.

“Every place out there is dangerous for you. Have you not realized this yet?”

She wished he wouldn’t speak so quietly and reasonably. “More dangerous than here? You will lead me to my death.”

“I will lay down my life for you. Do you know anyone else who will do that?”

I will lay down my life for you. The words had a strange effect on her, a pain almost like a wasp sting to the heart. She shut the valise. “Can you promise me I will live? No? I thought not.”

He was quiet. Saddened. She had not perceived it earlier, but now she saw that there was always a trace of melancholy to him, a heavyheartedness that came of being entrusted with too great a burden.

“I’m sorry,” she said, unable to help herself.

He walked to the window and looked toward the darkening sky. His left hand tightened on the curtain. She could not be completely sure, but it seemed that he shivered.

“What is it?” she asked.

He remained silent for some more time. “The stars are out. They will be quite beautiful tonight.”

He turned around and came toward her, his wand raised. She took a step back, uncertain of his intentions. But he only tailored the brown jacket to fit her.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

“If you are going to be caught by Atlantis, you might as well look your best.”

She wanted to snort coolly, but could do nothing of the sort. She seemed to have a ball of sawdust in her throat.

“So . . . this is good-bye.”

“It does not need to be.”

She shook her head. “You took the risks for a reason. Since I can’t give you what you want, I shouldn’t put you at further risk.”

“Let me decide how much risk I am willing to bear,” he said softly.

This almost undid her altogether. If he would shelter her even when she would not help him . . .

No, she must not let herself become starry-eyed again. “I can’t stay, but thank you, in any case, for telling me the truth.”

A shadow darkened his eyes before his face quickly became unreadable. He placed a hand on her shoulder. For a moment she thought he would pull her in and kiss her, but he only drew the pad of his thumb across her forehead, a princely benediction.

“May Fortune walk with you,” he said, and let go of her.

CHAPTER 8

DÉJÀ VU.

It seemed only moments ago that Iolanthe last stood in the same spot behind Mrs. Dawlish’s house, looking up at Fairfax’s window. Except then she was going toward safety. Now she was leaving for unknown dangers.

There was no movement behind the curtain, but the light remained on, a golden rectangle of comfort and refuge. She ought to be off, but she kept watching the window, hoping for things she had no more right to expect.

If only she didn’t feel so small and alone out here, like a lost child, in desperate need of a helping hand.

The hotel suite was out of the question. The ruined barn, then. The memory of its leaky, muddy interiors did not appeal, but she closed her eyes and willed herself to traverse the distance.

The displacement did not happen. She tried again; still no use. The distance must be greater than her vaulting range. And since she didn’t know any places en route, she could not break the journey into smaller segments.

She kicked the nearest tree in frustration. Could her retreat be any more inept? She should have considered her course of action with much better care. Should have had an achievable destination in mind. And failing that, should have at least swiped the prince’s vaulting aid.

And put on a warmer jacket. Now that night had fallen, the temperature had taken a tumble. The brown jacket she had changed into was not quite thick enough to shield her from the chill. She hugged herself with her free hand.

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The cold also made her realize she was hungry. She’d hardly eaten anything this entire day; her stomach was emptier than a midnight street.

If nothing else, she had to find some food.

She took one last look at Fairfax’s brightly lit window. If something were to happen to her, would the prince feel a tug of loss?

She shivered. She told herself it was only the cold. Besides, she didn’t need to go back to a place she’d already been. She’d put the English coins from the valise into her pocket. By walking along the streets of Eton, she’d probably find an inn where she could buy something to eat and a bed for the night.

In the morning things wouldn’t look so dire.

She inhaled deeply, shifted her valise to her left hand, and headed for the street. But she’d barely taken two steps when something made her look up.

The sky was a deep, ****rnous blue. The prince was right: the stars were out, brilliant and countless. Leo. Virgo. Gemini. And there, Polaris, the North Star, anchoring the great celestial compass.

But what were those black dots high above, almost invisible against the darkness of the night? She squinted. Birds didn’t fly in a perfect diamond formation, did they?

The birds headed east and disappeared in the distance. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, however, another group approached from the west, again in a perfect diamond formation.

This time, as they passed overhead, three birds broke formation. They circled, descending as they did so, until she saw the dull metallic glint of their bellies.

They were not birds, but the infamous armored chariots of Atlantis, aerial vehicles that could convey a single visiting dignitary, or shower rains of death upon mutinous populations.13

What had the prince said? That once news of her arrival spread, Atlantis would have the madwoman’s entire district surrounded, on the chance that Iolanthe might return.

If this was Atlantis mobilizing, then the prince had, if anything, understated the ferocity of its response.

The rush of blood was loud in her ears. She dug frantically into every pocket for her wand. It wasn’t until she was almost in tears that she remembered she’d left it behind in the laboratory, after the prince advised her not to have anything on her person that might identify her as an escapee from a mage realm.

Now she was caught in the open without a wand.

She tried to reason with herself. Atlantis did not know her precise location—here in Britain she was but a single speck of sand on a mile-long beach. Besides, Atlantis sought a girl, and dozens of boys had failed to recognize her as one.

But the three armored chariots above her continued to descend. She scurried into a coppice of trees, her hands trembling, her heart careening.

Two hundred feet above the ground, the armored chariots stopped, suspended in air.

She gripped the nearest trunk for support.

A moment later, a cluster of mages at least a dozen strong appeared on the lawn behind Mrs. Dawlish’s house.

In hindsight, her reaction had been entirely predictable. Why would anyone want to embrace such a hopeless cause? Titus himself hated it with a passion, this albatross around his neck.

But he had been deluded by his own sentiments. His entire life had been defined by secrecy and subterfuge. With her he yearned for a true partnership, a rapport of trust, understanding, and good will—everything he had never experienced before.

Stupid, of course. But stupid did not mean he wanted it less badly.

He left the window and sat down on the spare chair, a sturdy Windsor with a thick, tufted cushion in gray-and-white-striped cloth. The chair he had selected himself, the fabric for the seat cushion likewise. He had also chosen the blue wallpaper and the white curtains. He knew very little of decor, but he had wanted to make the room calm and comforting, knowing that the events leading to Fairfax’s arrival at Eton were inevitably going to be traumatic.

Opposite him on the shelves were books he had collected with the express purpose of familiarizing Fairfax with the nonmage world: a handbook of Britain for foreigners, several almanacs and encyclopedias, a guide to Eton written by a former pupil, a volume on etiquette, another on rules for the most popular games and pastimes, among dozens of others.

So much thought, so much effort, so much futility.

He should have bent his mind to duplicity. He was the best actor of his generation, was he not? He could have said that he must protect her at whatever cost because she had been prophesied to be the love of his life. There, an easy, marvelous lie, perfect for deceiving a girl. She would have stayed, and he would have proceeded with her training, no further questions asked.

But she had wanted truth and he, in a fit of derangement, had wanted honesty and fair dealing. And truth, honesty, and fair dealing had brought him to this fine wreck.

He bolted out of the chair. That sound, what was it? He turned off the light and rushed to the window.

Bloody hell—as his classmates would say.

Bloody hell.

He vaulted for it.

One of the mages pointed in Iolanthe’s direction. They all loped toward the coppice.

She panted, the sound of her fear fracturing the silence.

Could she take on all the mages come to hunt her? Or was it better to vault back to the hotel and hope that fewer agents of Atlantis awaited her there? And did she dare throw all caution to the wind and call down a second bolt of lightning, if it should come to that?

Another mage materialized on the lawn, a woman in nonmage clothes. Iolanthe shrank farther inside the coppice. The woman strode purposefully toward the agents of Atlantis.

They spoke softly. Iolanthe could not make out their conversation, except to note that despite their low voices, they exchanged some heated words.

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At last the Atlantean agents vaulted away, probably back into the armored chariots. And the woman, with a final look around, also disappeared.

Someone tapped her on her shoulder. She leaped in sheer terror. But it was only the prince.

“They are gone for now. I am not sure if they will remain gone. Leave fast if you want to leave.”

Ask me to stay, just a few days, until the worst passes.

He did nothing of the sort. And why should he? She’d made it abundantly clear that nothing could induce her to stay.

“What happened just now?” she asked, her voice holding more or less even, as if she weren’t still petrified.

“A jurisdictional dispute.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “What does that mean?”

“It means that the mages from the chariots were dispatched by the Inquisitor. But Mrs. Han**** here has her orders directly from Atlantis’s Department of Overseas Administration, and she does not care for the Inquisitor’s minions barging in on her territory without express invitation. They knew it, which was why they tried to conceal themselves right here, where you are.”

Her heart pounded even more violently than before.

“Go,” he said.

She had no choice but to admit the obvious. “I don’t know where to go.”

He took her hand and placed it on his arm. The next moment they were on a brightly lit street, across from a long, pillared building with curved mansard roofs.

“Where are we?”

“Slough, a mile and a half north of Eton. That is the railway station.” He pointed at the long building. “You have a timetable in your bag and more than enough money to go anywhere. Take a steamer to the Americas if you want.”

He was angry with her, but he was still helping her. Somehow that made a future without him even bleaker. Her heart was full of strange pains she could not begin to name.

He turned her around. She now faced a squat two-story house. “That is an inn. You can buy your supper there and stay the night if you prefer to leave in the morning. Make sure you monitor what goes on outside and know the location of the rear exit.”

“Thank you,” she said, not quite looking him in the eye.

“And take this.”

He pressed a wand into her hand.

“But it’s yours.”

“Of course not—it is an unmarked spare. I cannot have my wand in your possession when you are captured.”

Not if, but when.

She raised her head. But he’d already disappeared.

The inn was small, but cheerfully lit and scrupulously clean. A fire blazed in the taproom. The aroma was of strong ale and hot stew.

Mrs. Needles often railed against the evils of an empty stomach: it sapped warmth, drained courage, and decimated clear thinking. Iolanthe had been cold, confused, and disheartened when she pushed open the doors of the inn. But now, with her supper laid out on the table before her—chunks of beef and carrots swimming in gravy, slices of freshly baked bread with a huge mound of butter, and the promise of a pudding to come later—she felt slightly more herself.

She had selected a table next to the window, within view of the back door, which led out to an alley. Upstairs a spare but decent room awaited her. And in front of her, the railway timetable. She had already circled the train—a very crude form of expe***ed highway, from what she could gather—she intended to take in the morning.

She reached for a slice of bread and slathered it with butter. At his resident house, the prince would soon also be sitting down *****pper. Would he think of her, as she thought of him? Or would he secretly rejoice, relieved not to have to take on the Bane?

Master Haywood would be pleased that she’d wisely turned away from the prince’s extravagant schemes to concentrate on her own survival. She stared at the bread in her hand, glistening with melting butter, and wondered whether the food offered to Master Haywood in the Inquisitory was as palatable. And would the agents of Atlantis do anything for him when symptoms of merixida withdrawal began? Or would they simply let him suffer?

“What are you thinking, you handsome lad?”

Iolanthe jumped. But it was only the barmaid, smiling at her.

Smiling flirtatiously.

“Ah . . . a brimming mug of ale, served by the prettiest girl in the room?”

The girl giggled. “I will fetch that ale for you.”

Iolanthe stared at the barmaid’s retreating back, wondering how to keep her away. She couldn’t afford even the possibility of a situation where someone might find out she wasn’t such a handsome lad after all.

The barmaid glanced over her shoulder and winked. Iolanthe hastily looked out the window. At home a hub of the expe***ed highways usually had more than one inn. Perhaps she’d see something else nearby.

Across the street, high above the railway station, hovered two armored chariots. On the ground, a team of agents—easy to distinguish from the startled English pedestrians by their uniform tunics—fanned out from the station. Several of them headed directly for the inn.

The fear that seized her made time itself stretch and dilate. The man reading a timetable under a streetlamp yawned, his mouth opening endlessly. The diner at the next table asked his mate to “Pass the salt,” each syllable as drawn out as pulled taffy. The mate, moving as if he were inside a vat of glue, set his fingers on a pewter dish with a small spoon inside and pushed it across.

With a loud thump, a great tankard of ale was plunked down before Iolanthe, the froth high and spilling. She jerked and glanced up at the barmaid, who winked again meaningfully. “Anything else for you, sir?”

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Her illusion of freedom crumbled.

She was not safe here. She was not safe anywhere. And she had no choices except between dying now or dying slightly later.

She threw a handful of coins beside her largely untouched supper and ran for the back door.

He was a bastard. Of course he was: he lied, cheated, and manipulated.

She would not like him very much when she realized what he had done.

It did not matter, Titus told himself. He did not walk this path for flowers and hugs. The only thing that mattered was that she should come back. The hollow feeling in his chest he ignored entirely.

He turned on the light in Fairfax’s room and waited. A quarter hour passed. And there she was, her face pale, her eyes wild.

“If you are looking for your hat, it is on the hook over there,” he said as casually as he could manage. “Pay me no mind; I am just here to forge a good-bye note from you.”

She dropped her valise, pulled out the chair at her desk, and sank into it, her face buried in her hands.

In the last few weeks of his mother’s life, she too had often sat like this, her face in her hands. Impatient with her anguish, he used to yank at her sleeve and demand that she play with him.

After her death, for months he could think of nothing but whether she would have still decided on the same course of action had he been different, had he patted her on the back and stroked her hair and brought her cups of tea.

He moved forward slowly, cautiously, as if the girl before him were a sleeping dragon.

Against his better judgment, he laid a hand on her shoulder.

She shook, as if caught in a nightmare.

He had always considered himself cold-blooded. Sangfroid was a trait highly prized by the House of Elberon. His grandfather had especially insisted on it: one was permitted to lose one’s life, but never one’s detachment.

Now, however, his detachment cracked. Somewhere inside him, he shook too, with the force of her fear, her confusion, and her vulnerability—an empathy that shocked him with its depth and enormity.

He yanked back his hand.

“They were there.” Her voice sounded ghostly, disembodied. “They were at the railway station. Two of those armored chariots in the air and—and agents were headed for the inn.”

Of course they had been there. He had told Mrs. Han**** that if Atlantis really thought the girl was nearby, they should watch the rail stations, since she would not know Britain well enough to vault far.

“Did you vault here directly from your dining table?”

“No, from the alley behind. I hope I left enough coins for supper—I was in too much of a hurry.”

“Now is hardly the time to worry about the innkeeper’s profit.”

“I know.” She turned her face toward the ceiling and blinked rapidly. He was shocked to realize that she was on the verge of tears. “It’s stupid. Of everything that happened today, I don’t know why this is the one thing that—”

She passed the base of her palm over her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

The thing to do now would be to pull her into his arms for a reassuring embrace, perhaps even to kiss her on her hair. Offer her the comfort she craved and convince her that she had made the right choice to return.

He could not do it. If anything, he took a step back.

She glanced up at him. “Can I still be Archer Fairfax?”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “You understand what you are to give in return?”

Her lips twisted. “Yes.”

“I require an oath.”

She exhaled slowly. “What do you want me to swear on?”

“Let me clarify. I require a blood oath.”14

She was on her feet. “What?”

“The only meaningful oath is one that can be enforced. Your life is not the only one at stake here.”

She trembled, but she met his gaze. “For a blood oath I want more. You will always tell me the truth. You will free my guardian. And we will make one and only one attempt on the Bane. Whether we succeed or fail, you will release me from this oath.”

As if there would ever be a second attempt.

“Granted,” he said.

He found a plate, set it on the desk, and aimed his wand at the plate. “Flamma viridis.”

A green flame flared. He opened his pocketknife, passed the blade through the fire, cut open the center of his left palm, and let three drops of blood fall on the flame. The fire crackled, turning a more brilliant emerald hue. He lowered the knife into the flame again and passed it to her. “Your turn.”

She winced, but copied his action. The fire devoured her blood and turned the color of a midnight forest. He gripped her still bleeding hand with his and plunged their joined hands directly into the cold, cold flame.

“Should either of us renege on the oath, this fire will spread in the veins of the oath breaker. It will not be so cool then.”

The fire abruptly turned a brilliant white and burned. She hissed. He sucked in a breath against the scalding pain.

Just as abruptly, the flame went out, leaving no trace of having ever been there. She pulled her hand back and examined it anxiously. But her skin was perfectly smooth and intact; even the self-inflicted wound at the center of her palm had disappeared.

“A little taste of what awaits the oath breaker,” he said, perhaps unnecessarily.

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t—”

Her voice trailed off.

The curtains were securely drawn. From where she stood, she could not see out. Yet she stared at the window, disbelief in her eyes. Her denial made the hollow feeling in his chest return with a vengeance. She still wanted to believe he was better than this.

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But it was inevitable. She was too sharp, and he had been too hurried to be subtle.

Her already pale face turned ashen, her jaw hardened, she scratched a nail down the center of her palm, where the cut had been.

“You saw them in the sky, didn’t you, the armored chariots? That was why you told me about the stars, so that I’d be sure to look up and see them.”

Her voice was unnaturally even. He thought of her thanking him for his honesty. She had to be thinking of the same thing, knowing that even as she spoke those words, he was already planning to betray her trust.

He said nothing.

“You couldn’t have had the decency to tell me that they were out there and that I should wait a quarter hour before venturing out?”

“Decency is not a virtue in a prince.”

She laughed bitterly. “The house in London, is it really surrounded by agents of Atlantis?”

He might have exaggerated the likelihood that Lady Wintervale would speak of her arrival to other Exiles. Lady Wintervale was inclined toward secrecy, not confessions.

“Did you also have something to do with the armored chariots at Slough, the ones that sent me scrambling back to you?”

He shrugged.

She laughed again. “So what then, exactly, is the difference between you and Atlantis?”

“I still gave you a choice. You came back here of your own will.”

“No, I came back here because you cornered me. You played fast and loose with my life. You—”

She fell back against the wall, her face contorted by pain.

“Thinking of reneging on the oath already?” He could only imagine the agony that slashed through her.

She looked as if she could scarcely breathe. Her voice was hoarse. “This cannot be a valid pact. Release me now!”

“No.”

Never.

She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, they were full of cold fury. “What kind of person are you, to live without honor or integrity?”

His nails dug into his palm. “Obviously, the kind chosen for what others are too decent to do.”

He wanted to come across as flippant, but instead he sounded harsh and angry.

She clenched her hand. “I liked you much, much better when I didn’t know you.”

It did not matter. He had what he wanted from her. What she thought of him was henceforth irrelevant.

He had to draw a deep breath before he could reply. “Your affection is not required in this endeavor, Fairfax, only your cooperation.”

She stared at him. Suddenly she was right before him. Her fist struck him hard low in the abdomen.

He grunted. The girl knew how to hurt someone.

“You bastard,” she snarled.

An irrelevant thought gripped him: he should have kissed her when he still had the chance.

He straightened with some effort. “Supper is in half an hour, Fairfax. And next time, tell me something I do not already know.”

CHAPTER 9

EVERY THOUGHT BROUGHT AGONY.

Iolanthe didn’t know when she collapsed on the floor, but it was as good a place as any *****ffer.

The pain was unlike any she’d ever known—messy and brutal, dirty, rusty blades scraping along her every nerve ending. She almost prayed for the clean blackness of suffocation.

It took her a long, long time to find ways to think that did not renew the torture. It was painless to picture the prince’s eventual wife cuckolding him with every attendant in the castle. It was also all right to imagine his children detesting him. And most satisfying of all, it did not hurt to envision the entire population of Delamer spitting on his casket, for his funeral to turn into a farce and a riot.

She didn’t need to be a historian to know that the House of Elberon had been in decline. No doubt he wanted to revive its fortunes and make his mark. No doubt he wanted to be the next great prince. She was but a pawn in his plan, just as for the Bane she was but a thing to be sucked dry and discarded.

She felt raw and depleted, as if she’d come through a terrible illness. She almost could not believe that when she’d awakened this day, her biggest concern had been Rosie Oakbluff’s wedding. That seemed years ago, a different lifetime altogether.

Holding on to the edge of the desk, she pulled herself upright.

Somehow this was not too unknown a place, being barely on her feet while the world reeled around her. In fact, there was an eerie familiarity to it: each time Master Haywood had lost his post, she’d thought they’d come to an abyss from which they’d never emerge.

Except this time, it really was the abyss, the end of life as she knew it.

What should she do?

As if to answer her question, her stomach grumbled—she’d been too nervous at tea and too distracted by her thoughts in the inn. She almost laughed. She was still alive, so she must eat—and downstairs supper awaited.

This she was accustomed to: carrying on no matter what; making the best of a terrible situation.

What else was there to do?

Titus knocked on her door and received no answer.

“You do not want supper?”

Still no answer.

He went down by himself. To his surprise, when he arrived outside the dining room, she was already there, deep in conversation with Wintervale. Or rather, Wintervale analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of rival houses’ cricket teams, and she listened attentively.

Wintervale must have said something funny. She threw back her head and laughed. The sight stopped Titus cold: she was terrifyingly pretty. He did not understand how Wintervale could stand so close and not realize a thing.

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Wintervale continued talking. She gazed upon him with a frank appreciation. The urge came upon Titus to smash Wintervale into a china cabinet. It was difficult to believe that he had known her only mere hours: she had already turned his life upside down.

He approached them. She gave him a cursory nod before returning her attention to Wintervale. Kashkari arrived beside Titus, and they spent a minute talking of the liquefaction of oxygen, a new nonmage scientific achievement about which Kashkari had just read in the papers.

The dining room’s door opened. With pushes and shoves, the boys entered, then settled themselves at two long tables, self-segregated by age. Mrs. Dawlish sat down at the head of the senior boys’ table, Mrs. Han****, the junior boys’ table.

“Will you say grace, Mrs. Han****?” Mrs. Dawlish asked.

At the mention of Mrs. Han****’s name, Fairfax, across the table from Titus, tensed. Titus could see that she wanted to turn around and have a good look at Mrs. Han****, but she was careful enough to imitate the other boys and bow her head instead.

“Our Heavenly Father,” began Mrs. Han****, “assist us in your boundless mercy as we embark on a new Half in this ancient and splendid school. Guide the boys to be industrious and fruitful in their studies. Keep them strong and healthy in body and mind. And may 1883 be the year you bless them at last with victories upon the cricket pitch—for Almighty Lord, you know how sorely we have been tried in Summer Halves past.”

The boys groaned and snickered. Mrs. Dawlish, half smiling herself, shushed them.

Fairfax raised her head, surprise written all over her face. Did she imagine that the agents of Atlantis could not be perfectly charming individuals? Mrs. Han**** was beloved in this house, almost more so than Mrs. Dawlish.

“We give our thanks for the bounty of this meal, O Lord,” continued Mrs. Han****. “For Mrs. Dawlish, our stalwart dame. Even for the boys, whom we love dearly but, if history is any indication, will wish to throttle with our bare hands before the week is out.”

More laughter.

“All the same we are overjoyed that all of our boys have returned safely to us, especially Fairfax. May he refrain from climbing trees this Half.”

Fairfax’s hands tightened on the table. She bowed her head again, as if to hide her unease at being singled out by an enemy.

“But above all other things may we attain the knowledge of thee, O Lord, and serve thee with every breath and every deed. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

“Amen,” echoed the boys.

Fried smelts, asparagus, and orange jelly were served—what must be strange food to Fairfax. She ate sparingly. Three minutes in*****pper, she dropped her napkin. She turned in her seat, picked up the napkin, and, as she straightened, finally glanced toward Mrs. Han****.

Mrs. Han**** was, in Titus’s opinion, a more attractive woman than she let on. She favored shapeless dresses in infinite varieties of dull brown and always kept her hair covered with a large white cap. But it was the buckteeth that really left a lasting impression—teeth that Titus did not believe to be naturally overlarge.

To his relief, Mrs. Han****, speaking with a boy on her left, did not appear to notice Fairfax’s attention. To his further relief, Fairfax did not stare long. In fact, did not stare at all. If Titus had not been specifically looking for it, he might not even have noticed that she had peeked at Mrs. Han****.

Fairfax resumed her non-eating, chewing a spear of asparagus as if it were a piece of firewood. Now Mrs. Han**** turned—and gazed at the back of Fairfax’s head.

Titus quickly looked down. His heart pounded. It was possible a woman would realize sooner that Fairfax was a girl. Did Mrs. Han**** already suspect something, or did she pay attention because Fairfax was nominally Titus’s best friend and must be kept under close watch?

“Would you pass me the salt?” Wintervale asked Fairfax.

The saltcellar was right next to Fairfax, a small pewter dish. But dishes from any self-respecting kitchen in the Domain would already be seasoned just right for each person at the table. Unless she helped with the cooking, she would not even know what salt looked like.

But before he could act, she reached out with perfect assurance, took a pinch of salt to sprinkle on her fried smelt, and handed the saltcellar to Wintervale.

Titus stared at her in astonishment. The look she returned was one of pure contempt.

Soon she and Wintervale were again chin-deep in cricket talk. Titus managed to carry on a cre***able conversation with Kashkari. But he could not concentrate, his awareness saturated with the sound of Fairfax and Wintervale relishing each other’s company.

That, and the more-than-occasional looks Mrs. Han**** cast their way.

The cricket talk did not stop at the end of supper, but continued in Fairfax’s room, a chat to which Titus was emphatically not invited.

He opened a cabinet next to his bed. Inside the cabinet was a late-model Hansen writing ball, a typewriter that resembled a mechanical porcupine, with keys arranged on a brass hemisphere. He loaded a sheet of paper into the semicylindrical frame beneath the hemisphere.

The keys began moving, driving the short pistons beneath them to form the words and sentences that made up Dalbert’s daily report to Titus.

The report, partly in shorthand, partly in code, would have made no sense to Titus’s schoolmates—or most mages, for that matter. But to Titus, a half page conveyed as much information as an entire English broadsheet.

Usually he was informed about the decisions of the government, but tonight there were no mentions of the regent or the prime minister. Instead Dalbert supplied what information he had gathered on Fairfax and her guardian.

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Haywood had been born on the largest of the Siren Isles, a picturesque archipelago southwest of mainland Domain. His father had been the owner of a commercial fishing fleet, his mother a fishery conservation expert. The couple had three children: Helena, who died in childhood, Hyperion, who ran away from home at an early age, and at last Horatio, the high-achieving offspring to make any parent proud.

The records of his education were typical enough for a gifted and ambitious young man, culminating in his admission to the Conservatory, where his brilliance stood out even among a brilliant crowd. At the end of his third year, his parents passed away in rapid succession, and he began to run with a fast set. There were numerous minor infractions on his record, though his academic success remained undiminished.

The wildness came to an abrupt end when he assumed guardianship of an eleven-month-old baby named Iolanthe Seabourne. The little orphan had been under the care of an elderly great-great-aunt. When the old woman became ill, she had contacted the person named next in the late Seabournes’ will to take charge of the girl.

Interestingly enough, the guardianship had not been without minor controversy. Another friend of the Seabournes’ had stepped forward and claimed that before the child had been born, the Seabournes had asked to put her name in their will, as the one to care for their child in the unlikely event of their demise.

The will was brought out. Haywood’s name was in it, hers was not, and that was the end of the matter.

Everything seemed fine for a while, but seven years ago, Haywood was caught match-fixing intercollegiate polo games. He was relegated to a position at the Institute of Archival Magic, where he plagiarized one of the better-known research papers in recent memory. After he lost that post, he found work teaching at a second-tier school. Still unchastened, he accepted bribes from pupils in exchange for better marks.

Outrageous actions on his part, yet the memory keeper had not intervened.

As for the girl, she was a registered Elemental Mage III, uncommon but still far less rare than an Elemental Mage IV, one who controlled all four elements. Judging by her academic record, she had no intention of becoming a street busker—the choice of many elemental mages these days, eating fire before tourists for a living.

And interestingly enough, the deeper Haywood got himself into trouble, the better her marks became and the more effusive the praise from her schoolmasters. A desirable trait, this, the ability *****bsume fear and frustration into a singular focus.

His door opened, and in charged Wintervale.

Titus crumpled the report and threw it into the grate. “We do not knock anymore?”

Wintervale grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the window. “What the hell are those?”

The armored chariots were still there, motionless in the night air.

“Atlantis’s aerial vehicles. They have been there since before supper.”

“Why are they here?”

“I told you I met the Inquisitor today—must have run afoul of her,” said Titus. “Go ahead. Throw a rock at them and start your revolution.”

“I would if I could throw a rock that high. Aren’t they worried about being seen?”

“Why should they be? If anything, the English will think the Germans are up to no good.”

Wintervale shook his head. “I’d better go check on my mother again.”

“Give her my best.”

Titus waited a minute, then left his room to knock on Fairfax’s door. “Titus.”

“Come in,” she said, to his surprise.

She was in a long nightshirt, sitting barefoot on her bed, her back against the wall, playing with fire. The fire was in the form of a Chinese puzzle ball, one openwork sphere nestled inside another, and yet again another.

“You should not play with fire,” he said.

“Neither should you.” She did not look up. “I assume you are here to discuss freeing my guardian?”

Her voice was even. There was an almost preternatural calm about her, as if she knew precisely what she wanted to do with him.

When he was nowhere as certain what to do with her.

“Are you?” she pressed the point.

He had to remind himself that having sworn a blood oath to always tell the truth, he could no longer lie to her—at least not when asked a direct question.

“I came to get my spare wand back and to discuss your training. But we can talk about your guardian, too.”

She pulled the wand out from under her mattress and tossed it at him. “So let’s talk about him.”

“I am going back to the Domain in a few days. While I am there, I will arrange a visit to the Inquisitory to see how he is getting along.”

“Why don’t you order him released?”

She had asked the question to needle him. He had no such powers, not even if he were of age. “My influence over the Inquisitor is severely limited.”

“What can you do then?”

“I need to first see whether he is still in rescuable shape—he may or may not be, depending on what the Inquisitor has done to him.”

“What do you define as not being in rescuable shape?”

“If his mind has been completely destroyed, I will not run the risk of physically removing him from the Inquisitory. You will have to accept that you have lost him.”

“And if he is still all right?”

“Then I will need to plan—my goal has been to stay out of the Inquisitory, not to get in.”

“You can find out what you need easily enough, can’t you?”

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“I can. But I would rather not be known to ask about it.”

“You don’t have anyone you can trust?”

He hesitated. “Not about you or any plans involving you—everyone has something to gain by betraying us.”

“I imagine a deceitful person such as you would see deceit everywhere,” she said, her voice sweet. “I can also imagine why no one would voluntarily risk anything for you.”

Her words pierced deep, like arrows from an English longbow.

Part of him wanted to shout that he longed for nothing more than trust and solidarity. But he could not deny the truth of her words. He was a creature of lies, his entire life defined by what others did not and could not know of him.

But things were supposed to be different with her—with Fairfax. They were to be comrades, their bond forged by shared dangers and a shared destiny. And now of all the people who despised him, she despised him the most.

“You see the difficulties involved in removing your guardian from the Inquisitory then,” he answered, hating how stiff he sounded. “That is, if he is found to be still sentient.”

“I will decide whether he still has enough mental capacity left to warrant a rescue.”

“And how will you do that?”

“I will accompany you to the Inquisitory. You must have ready means to transport me back to the Domain—otherwise where would you stow Fairfax during school holidays?”

“You do understand you could be walking into a trap, to enter the Inquisitory so baldly?”

“I will take that risk,” she said calmly.

He realized with a flash of insight that he was dealing with no ordinary girl. Of course, with her potential, she had never been ordinary. But the ability to manipulate the elements was an athletic gift—almost. Great elemental power did not always coincide with great presence of mind.

But this girl had that force of personality, that steeliness. At a time when a less hardy girl—or boy, for that matter—would have been wrecked by the calamity, or incoherently angry, she had decided to push back against him, and to take charge of as much of the situation as possible.

She would have made a formidable ally—and an equally formidable foe.

“All right,” he said. “We will go together.”

“Good,” she said. “Now what did you want to tell me about my training?”

“That we must begin soon—tomorrow morning, to be exact—and that you should expect it to be arduous.”

“Why so soon and why so arduous?”

“Because we do not have time. An elemental mage has control of as many elements in adulthood as she has at the end of adolescence. Are you still growing?”

“How can I know for certain?”

“Precisely. We have no time. Since today has been a difficult day, I will expect you at six o’clock in the morning. Day after tomorrow it moves to half past five. And then, five for the rest of the Half.”

She said nothing.

“It will be to your advantage to get up early. You do not want to use the lavatory when everyone else is there.”

Her lips thinned; she again said nothing. But the fire in her hand merged into a solid ball, and then a ball full of barbs. No doubt she wished to shove it down his throat.

“As for bathing, you might want to stay away from the communal baths. I will tell Benton you want hot water in your room.”

“How kind of you,” she murmured.

“My munificence knows no bounds. I also brought you something to eat.” He dropped a paper-wrapped package on her desk. She had not eaten much either at tea or at supper, and he did not imagine it would have been very different at the inn. “Good-night cake—eat it and you will have no trouble sleeping.”

The cake was for his insomnia. It would be a long night for him.

“Right,” she said. “So that I won’t have trouble waking up for the training.”

Abruptly she jerked, her shoulders bracing forward as if she had been punched in the stomach. Her fingers clawed into fists. The fireball turned the blue of pure flame.

“Thinking about how you will slack off during your training?”

The oath called for her to do her utmost.

She grimaced and straightened, saying nothing.

He could not afford to have her bottled up like this. Much better that she took it out on him periodically.

A thought occurred to him. “I know you want to punish me, so here is your permission. Do your worst.”

“I will only punish myself.”

“Not when you have my consent. Think about burning me to cinders every minute of the day, if it pleases you. And as long as you do not actually kill me, you can think and mete out whatever abuses you want.”

She snorted. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is that I am allowed to defend myself. You want to hurt me? You have to be good enough.”

She looked up at him for the first time, her eyes alight with speculation.

“Go ahead, try it.”

She hesitated a second, then her index finger moved in a circle. The fireball transformed into a firebird, shot high in the air, and swooped down at him.

“Fiat ventus.”

The firebird’s wings beat valiantly, but could not advance against the air current generated by his spell.

She snapped her finger and the firebird quadrupled in size: she took all the fire from the fireplace.

“Ignis remittatur.”

His spell sent the fire back to the grate.

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Her eyes narrowed. “And what would you do now, bring out the old shield charm again?”

The entire room was suddenly ablaze.

“Ignis suffocetur.” The fire went out, suffocated under the weight of the spell.

He flicked a nonexistent speck of ash from his sleeve. “There is more than one way to snap a wand, Fairfax.”

She had underestimated him.

He was cunning and ruthless. But she’d failed to perceive that he was also a mage of great ability. An elemental mage’s fire was not easy to divert by subtle magic, and yet he did it effortlessly—without even the aid of a wand.

You seem to have prepared a great deal for this. She’d had no idea how much. He was not a normal boy of sixteen, but a demi-demon in a school uniform.

“You are no match for me yet, Fairfax. But you will be, someday. And the more diligently you train, the sooner you can penalize me at will. Think about it: the fearful look in my eyes when I beg for mercy.”

She was being very adroitly maneuvered. He wanted her to slave for his goal, holding out his debasement as a carrot before her. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted only to—

She yanked sharply away from any thought of freedom.

“Please leave,” she said.

He pulled out his wand. “Ignis.”

A small fireball blazed into being. He waved it toward her. “Your fire, Fairfax. I will see you in the morning.”

CHAPTER 10

THE LAVATORY WAS NOT, THANKFULLY, as nasty a place as the prince had led Iolanthe to believe. Still, one look at the long urinal trough and she resolved to visit as infrequently as possible.

The corridor, like the rest of the house, had walls papered in ivy and roses. The lavatories and the baths occupied the northern end. Directly opposite the stair landing was a large common room. South of the common room were the individual rooms for the sixteen senior boys—fifteen senior boys and Iolanthe.

She and the prince occupied two adjacent rooms at the southern end of the floor. Across from their rooms was a smaller common room reserved for the house captain and his lieutenants. And just north of the prince’s room was the galley where the junior boys did some of the cooking for the senior boys’ afternoon tea. As a result, she and the prince were isolated from the rest of the floor.

As he’d intended, no doubt.

A seam of light shone underneath his door. Memories came unbidden: herself in the dark, looking up at the window of her room, yearning for the light. For him.

She reentered her room, closed the door, and dressed. The evening before, she’d disrobed with excruciating care, extricating the shirt studs, studying the attachment of the collar, and making sure she could duplicate the same knot with her necktie. She did not go to bed until she’d managed the serpens caudam mordens spell seven consecutive times.

No trouble with it this morning: the figurative serpent that was the binding cloth bit into itself and tightened to the limits of her endurance. The rest of the clothes went on easily enough. The necktie refused to look as crisply knotted as it had earlier, but it was acceptable.

When she was done, she checked her appearance in the mirror.

She’d always thought that if one looked carefully, it was possible to detect the cynicism beneath her sunny buoyancy. Now there was no need to look carefully at all. Mistrust and anger burned in her eyes.

She was not the same girl she had been twenty-four hours ago. And she never would be again.

The prince knelt before the grate, already dressed. At her entrance, he pulled a kettle from the fire.

“Did you sleep well?”

She shrugged.

He glanced at her, then bent to pour water into a teapot. For a moment he appeared strangely normal—young and sleep-tousled—and it made her acutely unhappy.

She looked away from him. Unlike her room, which had been carefully decorated to convey Archer Fairfax’s colonial upbringing, his was plain except for a flag on the wall, which featured a sable-and-argent coat of arms with a dragon, a phoenix, a griffin, and a unicorn occupying the quadrants.

“That is the flag of Saxe-Limburg.” He pointed to a map on the opposite wall. “You will find it as part of Prussia.”

A golden tack, embossed with the same heraldic designs as the coat of arms, marked a tiny squiggle of land. She walked past the map to the window, lifted the curtain a fraction of an inch, and looked up.

The armored chariots were gone.

“They left at quarter past two,” he said. “And they are probably not coming back—an order from Atlantis supersedes an order from the Inquisitor.”

She resented that he’d read her thoughts.

“Give me that, would you?” He pointed to a small, plain box on his desk.

She handed the box to him. She thought he’d open the box, but instead he put it away in a cabinet that contained plates, mugs, and foodstuff before handing her a cup of tea.

The tea was hot and fragrant. How did he learn to make a perfect cup? When he’d been a junior boy, had he too carried luggage, lit fires, and cooked for senior boys?

She refused to ask him any personal questions. They drank their tea in silence. He finished first and inspected her, while she pretended not to notice it.

“Good,” he said. “Except for the cuff links.”

He showed her what cuff links were on his own sleeves. Pesky things: she’d thought them part of the previous day’s shirt.

When she looked up from her cuffs, he was still studying her. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”