[English] THE BURNING SKY

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“You are to always tell me the truth.”

“The truth as it relates to our mission. I am not obliged to inform you of my every thought, just because you happen to ask.”

“You snake,” she said.

“What can I say? Prince Charming only exists in fairy tales. And speaking of fairy tales—”

From a bookshelf next to the window, he lifted a small stone bust, pulled out the volume beneath, and set it on his desk. The book looked very old. The leather binding, once probably a brilliant scarlet, had faded to a reddish brown. The gold embossing on the title had smudged away almost entirely, but she managed to make out the words A Book of Instructional Tales.

“This is the Crucible,” he said.

“What is a Crucible?”

“I will show you. Sit down.”

She did. He took a seat on the other side of the desk and placed his hand on the book.

“Now put your hand on the book.”

She followed his direction, half-reluctant, half-curious.

He was silent for more than a minute—must be quite the long password. Then he tapped the book with his wand. Her hand was suddenly numb to the elbow. Something yanked her forward. She opened her mouth to shout as the desk rose to meet her forehead with alarming speed.

She landed on her knees in tall grass. The prince offered her his hand, but she ignored him and pulled herself to her feet. All about her was a large meadow bathed in early morning light. At one end of the meadow, the beginning of rolling hills covered in a dense forest. At the other end, a good several miles away, a castle on a high knoll, its white walls tinted rose and gold by the sunrise.

“So it’s a portal, the Crucible.”

“That is not how it is used. Everything you see is an illusion.”15

“What do you mean, illusion?”

It could not be. She scooped her hand into the tall grass. Small, white, five-petaled flowers nodded in the morning breeze. The blades of grass were rough against her skin. And when she broke a blade and brought it to her nose, the smell was the fresh and mildly acrid scent of plant sap.

“It means none of this is real.”

A pair of long-tailed birds flew overhead, their feathers iridescent. A herd of cattle masticated near the edge of the meadow. Her hand was wet with dew. She shook her head: she could not accept that all this was make-believe.

“If you walk ten miles in any direction, you will find you can go no farther—as if this world is but a terrarium under a giant bell jar. Since we do not have time to walk ten miles . . .”

He led her a hundred yards to the north and pointed toward the eastern horizon. “That is Sleeping Beauty’s castle—you will battle dragons there someday. Do you see the second sun?”

The castle obscured most of the second sun, but an edge of it was visible, a pale circle in the sky, the same size and elevation as the sun, but two degrees farther south—no doubt put there to remind bumpkins like her that the Crucible was not real, after all.

“Think about it. Dreams are not real; but when you are inside a dream, it is real to you. The Crucible operates the same way. Except unlike dreams, it follows the physical and magical principles of the real world. Whatever works out there, works in here, and vice versa.”

She touched her face. Her skin felt no different than it did in the real world. “Where is my person then?”

“Our bodies are in my room, probably looking as if we are taking a nap, our heads down on the desk.”

This was extraordinary magic. “How did you get this book?”

“It is a family heirloom.”

He turned toward the castle, pointed his own wand at it, then tossed her a wand. “At the ready.”

“What did you just do?”

“Nothing.”

“You pointed your wand at the castle.”

“Oh, that. I cast a spell to break a window.”

“Why?”

“Habit. I used to have trouble getting into the castle because of the dragons. So I broke windows from outside to annoy them.”

“But that castle is three miles away. How can you break a window from this far?”

“Distance spell-casting. Use a far-seeing spell if you do not believe me.”

She did. With the far-seeing spell, the castle was almost close enough to touch—and all its windows perfectly intact. She was about to call him on his bluff when a window blew apart in a shower of glass shards. A low roar rumbled, followed by a huge plume of fire that came from somewhere near the castle gate.

She scowled. “Are you training to be an assassin? Who uses such spells?”

“My mother had a vision in which she saw me practicing them. So I learned them.”

“You should have your psyche examined. Most sixteen-year-old boys don’t follow Mama’s directions so slavishly.”

“Most mothers are not seers,” he answered simply. “Now, are you ready?”

“To do what?” She did not like the look on his face.

“You like flowers? Decapitentur flores. Eleventur.”

Thousands of white blossoms leaped into the air, impossibly pretty in the liquid light.

“Your training starts. En garde.” The prince raised his wand. “Ventus.”

A squall of flowers hit her with the force of thrown pebbles.

“Divert them,” said the prince.

She waved the wand in her hand and imagined parting the tide of flowers. All she got for her trouble was a greater battering. Annoyed, she sent out a plume of fire. Immediately, something much bigger smacked her on the upper arm.

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“What the—”

“Just cow dung. Now concentrate. I should not have to remind you this exercise is for air only.”

Just cow dung?

And what did he know about elemental magic? Elemental mages didn’t exercise. They either had an affinity for a particular element or they didn’t. She’d known from the earliest moment of awareness that she could manipulate fire, water, and earth. And she did so, if not effortlessly—earth always required some exertion—then at least easily enough.

She ducked as a particularly large cluster of flowers careened toward her. “You are going to poke my eyes out.”

“Do not let me.”

She sent a huge spray of water his way, only to have it all thrown back at her, followed by a cowpat that hit her solidly in the rib cage.

She hurled her wand at him.

He stepped aside. “You have a good arm. Maybe Wintervale will get his wish after all.”

She wiped her wet face with her hand. “What do you care?”

“I do not.”

Her wand flew back at her. Flowers continued to batter her. And they hurt where they hit. She did her best to push them all back at him and pockmark his smug face. But nothing happened.

His lips moved. Blades of grass, a forest of them, rose straight up. His lips moved again. The blades of grass turned in midair, to point their sharp ends at her.

Blood drained from her face. The flowers had only hurt. The blades of grass, with their sharply serrated edges, would shred her.

They sped toward her. Instinctively she threw up a wall of fire to burn them to cinders. He put out her fire. She called for fresh fire. He made a prison for it.

She commanded the ground about her to rise up into an earthen wall. He shattered the wall before it had reached a foot in height.

“This is not about thwarting me,” he said.

“Then don’t try to hurt me.”

“If you do not feel strongly about it, you will not be able to unblock whatever it is that makes you unable to command air.”

“Maybe I don’t want to unblock it. Not for you, you rat.”

The vivisection-by-dull-knife pain of the blood oath came back with a vengeance. She swayed with the intensity of it. But she would not humiliate herself before him by collapsing to the ground. She would not. She would remain standing and defiant.

The grass scratched her face as she fell.

She burned with the force of her anger.

Her hand, of its own will, rose. Her wand pointed to the sky; her mind issued the command.

Before Titus quite understood what she intended, he had already jabbed his wand above his head. “Praesidium maximum!”

He had tested this shield against fire, but never lightning.

The sound of the lightning striking his shield was like that of grinding glass. The force of it was bone-snapping. He could barely keep his arm raised, barely scrape together enough strength *****stain the shield, which gave away inch by inch beneath the brilliant onslaught that made dots dance in his vision.

He grunted with the strain of keeping his wand aloft. The muscles of his shoulders and arms screamed in pain. He wanted to shut his eyes against the unbearable light.

How could lightning that came out of nowhere go on and on? How much more could his shield take? He felt it in his humerus, the obliteration of the shield, the cracking and splintering, air returning to being just air, and no protection at all.

The shield split altogether. His heart rammed up his throat. But the lightning, too, had spent itself. The air sputtered with remnant electricity.

He had survived a lightning strike.

“You will need to do better,” he said—and hoped that his voice did not sound as limp as the rest of him felt. “When I went to Black Bastion, Helgira’s lightning killed me outright.”

She slowly came to her feet. “Helgira’s been dead thousands of years, if she ever lived.”

“Her tale is one of the training grounds in the Crucible—one of the more advanced ones.”

Her lips pulled tight. “You can die in the Crucible?”

“Of course.”

“With no consequences to your real person?”

“It is not pleasant. You die in the Crucible, and it will give you a deep aversion to going back to the scene of your death.”

“You are in the Crucible now.”

“True, but I have no plans to ever visit Black Bastion again. Someday, though, I might send you there for a battle royal against Helgira.”

She shrugged. “Just because you fear her doesn’t mean I will.”

Titus had not slept much the night before, waiting for the armored chariots to depart. As he stared at their barely visible metallic underbellies, he had gone over the events of the day again and again, knowing his actions had crossed a line—and knowing that he would have done exactly the same if he had to again.

At some point he had stopped defending himself. She was right: he was a villain who would stop at nothing to achieve his ends. And looking at her now, drenched, dirt-smeared, but unbowed, he realized had further to go yet.

If anyone could find a way to break a blood oath, she would. He must find some other way of holding her fast.

Or even better, find a way so that she would not wish to leave, even if she could.

But he could think of nothing—yet.

“That is enough for today,” he said, pocketing his wand. “Time for school.”

It was a sunny morning. Uniformed pupils exited resident houses in a steady stream. Along the way, junior boys clustered around various holes-in-the-wall—sock shops, the prince called them—buying coffee and freshly baked buns.

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He took her to a bigger place, not exactly a proper restaurant but an establishment with two interconnected dining rooms, catering exclusively to senior boys. She ate a buttered bun and observed—it never hurt to know who was popular, who had information to share, and whom to avoid.

But even as she assessed her new surroundings, she felt herself similarly appraised. This was not new. From the moment they met, the prince had watched her intensely—after all, he believed her to be the means to his impossible ends. But since their exit from the Crucible, his gaze had seemed more . . . personal.

“What do you want now, Your Highness?”

He raised a brow. “I already have you. Should I want anything else?”

She pushed away her empty plate. “You have that scheming look in your eyes.”

He turned the handle of his own coffee cup, from which he’d yet to take a sip. “That is terrible. I should only ever sport a condescending look. We never want to give the impression that I am capable of—or interested in—strategizing.”

“You’re fudging your answers, prince. I want the truth.”

The corners of his lips turned up barely perceptibly. “I was thinking of how to best hold on to you, my dear Fairfax who would leave me at the first opportunity.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Since when is a blood oath not enough to keep a mage enslaved?”

“You are right, of course. I should not doubt my own success.”

“Then why do you doubt your own success?”

He looked her in the eye. “Only because you are infinitely precious to me, Fairfax, and the loss of you would be devastating.”

He was speaking of her as a tool to be deployed against the Bane. She didn’t know why she should feel both a surge of heat and a ripple of pain in her heart.

She rose. “I’m finished here.”

The school was old, a collection of faded, crenellated redbrick buildings around a quadrangle, at the center of which stood a bronze statue of a man who must have once been someone important. The cobblestones of the courtyard had been worn smooth from centuries of shuffling feet. The window frames looked as if they could use another coat of paint—or perhaps some fresh lumber altogether.

“I expected something more elegant,” Iolanthe said. She’d attended grander, lovelier schools.

“Eton has a tendency to make do. They used to stuff seventy pupils in a broom cupboard and conduct class with the door open in winter.”

She could not understand. “Why this school? Why a nonmage school at all? Why not just stick you in the monastery and give you incompetent tutors?”

“The Bane has his own seer. Or had—I have not received intelligence on the seer in my lifetime. But apparently he once saw me attend Eton in a vision.”

The first principle in dealing with visions was that one never tampered with a future that had already been revealed.

“Destiny, then?”

“Oh, I am destiny’s darling.”

Something in his tone made her glance sharply at him. But before she could say anything, several boys came around and shook her hand.

“Heard you were back, Fairfax.”

“All healed, Fairfax?”

She grinned and answered the greetings, trying not to betray the fact that she had no idea who anyone was. The boys went on their way. The prince was listing their names for her to remember when she was jostled from behind.

“What the—”

Two beefy boys chortled to each other. “Look, it’s Fairfax,” said one of them. “His Highness has his bumboy back.”

Iolanthe’s jaw dropped. His Highness, however, was not the least bit flustered. “Is that any way to refer to my dearest friend, pretty as he is? Or perhaps you are just jealous, Trumper, since your own dearest friend is as hideous as a crushed turnip.”

So Trumper was the thick-necked one and Hogg the one with a broad, pale, and somewhat squashed-looking face.

“Who are you calling a crushed turnip, you limp-wristed, molly-coddled Prussian?” bellowed Hogg.

“You, you big, virile Englishman, of course,” said the prince. He placed his arm around Iolanthe’s shoulders. “Come, Fairfax, we are running late.”

“Who are they?” she asked when they were out of hearing.

“A pair of common bullies.”

“Are they alone in thinking that we share this particular relationship?”

“What do you care?”

“Of course I care. I have to live among these boys. The last thing I want is to be known as your . . . anything.”

“Nobody has to know, Fairfax,” he whispered. “It can be our little secret.”

The way he looked, between irony and wickedness, made something go awry inside her. “The unvarnished truth, if you would.”

He dropped his arm. “The general consensus is that you are my friend because you are poor and I am wealthy.”

“Well, that I can believe, since I’m sure no one wants to be your friend otherwise.”

He was silent. She hoped she’d injured his feelings—assuming he had feelings to injure in the first place.

“Friendship is untenable for people in our position,” he said, his tone smooth, almost nonchalant. “Either we suffer for it, or our friends suffer for it. Remember that, Fairfax, before you become best chums with everyone around.”

Early school, as the first class of the day was called, was taught by a master named Evanston, a frail, white-haired man who all but disappeared underneath his black master’s robe. As it was the beginning of the Half, Evanston started on a new work, Tristia, by a Roman poet named Ovid. To Iolanthe’s relief, her Latin was more than sufficient for the coursework.

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Early school was followed by chapel. After the religious service, which she found slow and mournful, the prince took her back to Mrs. Dawlish’s house, where, to her surprise, a hearty breakfast was laid out. The boys, many of whom she’d seen buying breakfast outside earlier, wolfed down a second one as if they’d been starving for three days.

After breakfast, they returned to classes—called divisions—until the midday meal back at Mrs. Dawlish’s. Mrs. Han****, who had not been there at breakfast, was now present. Again, it was she who said grace. This time she did not mention Fairfax by name, but Iolanthe still felt her sharp-eyed gaze.

She didn’t know what made her do it. At the end of the meal, when the boys were filing out, she broke rank and approached Mrs. Han****.

“My parents asked me to tell you, ma’am, that I’ll be less trouble this Half,” she said.

If Mrs. Han**** was taken aback by Iolanthe’s maneuver, she did not show it. She only chuckled. “Well, in that case, I hope you are listening to your parents.”

Iolanthe grinned, even though her palms were damp. “They are hoping so too. Good day, ma’am.”

The prince waited for her at the door. She was surprised to see his expression of sullen impatience—it was unlike his controlled, reticent person. He didn’t speak to her as they left the dining room.

But when they were outside Mrs. Dawlish’s house, he said softly, “Well done.”

She glanced at him. “Was that why you looked as if you’d like to hit me with something?”

“She would be that much more watchful of you if she believed our friendship to be genuine.” His lips curled slightly, a halfhearted sneer. “Much better that she sees me as an arrogant prick and you an opportunist.”

Friendship is untenable for people in our position.

She never wanted to feel sympathy for him. But she did, that moment.

Titus was curious to see her reaction to their afternoon divisions.

They had Latin again, conducted by a tutor named Frampton, a man with a big beak of a nose and fleshy lips. One rather expected Frampton to speak wetly, but he enunciated with nothing less than oratorical perfection as he lectured on Ovid’s banishment from Rome and read from Tristia.

Fairfax seemed mesmerized by Frampton’s master-thespian voice. Then she bit her lower lip, and Titus realized that she was not listening only to Frampton’s voice, but also to Ovid’s words of longing.

She too was now an Exile.

They were almost a quarter hour into the division before she saw Frampton for what he was. As he read, Frampton passed by her desk. She glanced up and seized in shock: the design on Frampton’s stickpin was a stylized whirlpool, the infamous Atlantean maelstrom. Immediately she bent her head and scribbled in her notebook, not looking at Frampton again until he had returned to the front of the classroom.

After dismissal, she all but shoved Titus into the cloister behind the quadrangle, her grip hard on his arm.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He is obvious. You would have to be blind not to see.”

“Are there agents who don’t wear the emblem?”

“What do you think?”

She inhaled. “How many?”

“I wish I knew. Then I would not need *****spect everyone.”

She pushed away from him. “I’m going to walk back by myself.”

“Enjoy your stroll.”

She turned to leave; then, as if she had remembered something, pivoted back to face him. “What else are you keeping from me?”

“How much can you handle knowing?”

Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.

Her eyes narrowed, but she left without further questions.

Iolanthe didn’t return to Mrs. Dawlish’s directly, but walked northeast, along the road before the school gate. To the left of the road was a large green field; to the right a high brick wall twice as tall as she.

Hawkers lined this wall. An old woman in a much-patched dress tried to sell Iolanthe a dormouse. A sun-browned man waved a tray of glistening sausages. Other hawkers peddled pies, pastries, fruits, and everything else that could be consumed without plates or silverware. Around each hawker, junior boys congregated like ants on a picnic, some buying, the rest salivating.

The normalcy of the scene only made Iolanthe feel more out of place. For these boys, this was their life. She was only passing through, pretending.

“Fairfax.”

Kashkari. She inhaled: Kashkari made her nervous. He seemed to be the rare person who asked a question and actually paid attention to the answer.

“Where are you going?” Kashkari asked as he crossed the street and came to stand next to her.

“Reacquainting myself with the lay of the land.”

“I don’t think that much has changed since you were here last. Ah, I see old Joby is back with his ha’penny sherbet drinks. Fancy one?”

Iolanthe shook her head. “The weather’s a bit cool for it.”

But she followed Kashkari to a gaunt-looking hawker. Kashkari bought a handful of toasted walnuts and held out his palm to her.

“Look, it’s Turban Boy and Bumboy together.”

Iolanthe whipped around. Trumper and Hogg.

“Bumboy, is Turban Boy your coolie now?” sniggered Trumper.

Her reputation obviously had not preceded her here. Few schoolchildren in any mage realm deliberately chose to provoke elemental mages, as by the time latter were old enough to attend school, they would have had years of con***ioning, directing their anger into physical, rather than magical, responses. And also because an elemental mage was almost never considered at fault, as long as the school hadn’t burned down at the end of a fight.

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Kashkari must have seen the belligerence in her face. “Ignore them. They feel more accomplished when you rise to the bait.”

“I hate to pass on good fisticuffs.” She took a few toasted walnuts from him. “But after you.”

The walnuts were sweet and crunchy. They walked on. Trumper and Hogg shouted insults and slurs for another minute before giving up.

“I was surprised you came back,” said Kashkari. “Word went around that you might depart with your parents to Bechuanaland.”

There were a number of Atlanteans in the Domain, especially in the bigger cities. But as far as Iolanthe knew, all of them, even the lowest clerks and guards, sent their children home for schooling. She had to assume the British weren’t that different.

“My parents might go back. But they want me to finish my education here.”

Kashkari nodded. So her answer was acceptable. She let out a breath.

“Do you miss Bechuanaland?”

What had she learned about the Kalahari Realm at school? It was the seat of a great civilization, its music, art, and literature much admired. Its legal system had been copied in many a mage realm around the world. And it was famous for the beauty of its gentlemen mages—this last, obviously, gleaned from somewhere other than geography lessons.

She popped a piece of walnut into her mouth to buy herself some time. “I do miss the weather when it gets too drizzly here. And of course the big-game hunting.”

“Are the natives friendly?”

She was beginning to perspire. She had to believe that if her nonexistent parents would return there, the situation could not be too dire. “No more hostile than they are elsewhere, I suppose.”

“In India the population isn’t always happy about the British presence. In my father’s youth, there was a great mutiny.”

How had he drawn her into a discussion about the political situation of the nonmage world, of which she had only the sketchiest of ideas? What she did know was that the mage realms of the subcontinent had also risen up against Atlantis, twice in the past forty years.

“An occupier should always consider itself despised,” she said. “Is there ever a population that is happy to be subjugated?”

Kashkari stopped midstride. She tensed. What had she said?

“You have very enlightened views,” he mused, “especially for someone who grew up in the colonies.”

Unsure whether she’d put her foot in her mouth, she decided to brazen it out. “That’s what I think.”

“You two! I’ve been looking for you.”

Iolanthe looked up, surprised to find herself only fifteen feet from Mrs. Dawlish’s front door.

Wintervale leaned out of his open window. “Change quickly. I’ve already rounded up the other lads. Time to play cricket.”

There was a book in Iolanthe’s room that gave the rules of popular games. The night before, she’d skimmed through the section on cricket. But she’d been so tired and distracted, nothing had made any sense.

“Come on,” said Kashkari.

She was doomed. It was one thing to nod and pretend to be engrossed as Wintervale pontificated on the game, quite another to pass herself off as an experienced cricketer. The moment she stepped on the pitch—that was what a playing ground was called, wasn’t it?—it would be obvious she had no idea what to do.

All too soon, she arrived upstairs. Wintervale was in the corridor, dressed in a light-colored shirt of sturdy material and similarly light-colored trousers.

“Hurry,” he said.

The prince was nowhere in sight. Kashkari was already shrugging out of his coat and waistcoat. Iolanthe had no choice but to also start unbuttoning, although she kept all her clothes firmly on until she was behind closed doors.

In her wardrobe she found garments similar to those worn by Wintervale. They fit her well, as did a pair of rugged brogues. When had the prince altered them? Never mind, she had more pressing concerns.

Wintervale knocked on her door. “What’s taking you so long, Fairfax?”

She opened the door a crack, her hand tight on the doorknob. “My trousers are ripped. I need to patch them. You go on, I’ll catch up with you.”

“Hanson is handy with a needle.” Wintervale pointed at a shorter boy behind him. “Want him to help?”

“Last time he helped me, he used my left testicle for a pincushion,” she said.

The boys in the passage laughed and left, stomping down the stairs like a herd of rhinoceros.

She slipped into Wintervale’s room to see the direction the boys went. Then she knocked on the prince’s door. No one answered. She opened the door to an empty room.

Where was he when she needed him?

She could pretend to fall victim to a sudden abdominal complaint, but what if Wintervale, or someone else in the house—Mrs. Han****, for instance—insisted on medical attention for her? The last thing she wanted was a scrutiny of her body.

She paced in the prince’s room, torn. If she didn’t go soon, Wintervale might send someone to fetch her—another undesirable outcome.

Had she the opportunity to spy on the game for some time, she might grasp its essence. But what if the playing field was entirely open, with nowhere for her to conceal herself?

There was no perfect solution. She’d better return to her room and study the rules of cricket again—if she could study with her heart hammering away—and then try to approach the pitch unobserved.

But as she stepped back into the corridor, Kashkari came out from his room.

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“Shall we go then?” he asked amiably.

She was caught.

CHAPTER 11

TITUS RAN.

He hated unanticipated events. The unanticipated should happen only to the unanticipating. It was not fair that he, who spent all his waking hours actively preparing for everything the future could lob at him, should be caught short like this.

Yet from the moment Fairfax burst into his life, he had lurched from one unforeseen event to the next. He should have told her to walk around with a limp, well enough to attend school but not eligible for sports.

It had come as a shock to him, his first Summer Half at Eton, hearing Fairfax discussed as a cricketer. But with the popular consensus already formed, it was too late for him to intervene and convince the other boys that Fairfax was instead a rower.

He had meant to give her a few surreptitious lessons in cricket, but there had not been time. And damn it, Wintervale was not supposed to call a practice today.

His lungs hurt, but he forced himself to run even faster. She had no idea what to do. She would flounder and betray her ignorance.

Wintervale might begin to question things. Of course he would not immediately conclude that Fairfax had never existed before yesterday, but it was dangerous to have anyone question anything.

When the individuals on the pitch became distinguishable, he saw that it was Kashkari bowling. Kashkari took a short run, wound his arm, and bowled. The ball flew fast, but Wintervale, at the crease, was ready for it. He knocked it low and straight, toward the exact middle of the gap between the mid-wicket fielder and the square-leg fielder.

It was a good hit. The ball would zip past the fielders and roll out of bounds, giving Wintervale’s team an automatic four runs.

A white blur: someone sprinting at tremendous speed. That someone dove to the grass. When he again stood straight, he lifted his hand to show that he had scooped the ball out of midair.

Fairfax! And by catching the ball before it had landed, she had dismissed Wintervale, one of the best batsmen in the entire school.

Wintervale emitted a jubilant shout. “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? All we needed was for Fairfax to come back.”

Titus belatedly realized that Wintervale was addressing him. He had stopped running at some point and was staring, agape. He gathered himself and shouted back, “One lucky catch does not a cricket prodigy make!”

This earned him a disdainful glance from Fairfax. For some reason, his heart beat even faster than a minute ago, when he had feared that his entire scheme would be going up in smoke.

The practice resumed. Not even two overs later—each over being a set of six balls bowled consecutively—she dismissed Sutherland by striking one of the bails above the stumps while he was still running.

Wintervale was beside himself. He had Fairfax replace Kashkari as the bowler and set Kashkari to bat. The moment the ball left Fairfax’s hand, everyone on the field knew that the team at last had the bowler they desperately needed: she threw with an astonishing velocity.

Kashkari, not expecting the ball to hurtle at him so swiftly, barely managed to hit it. A fielder near him quickly scooped up the ball, and Kashkari could not score any runs.

Wintervale shouted directions at Fairfax. “Higher!” “Lower!” “Put some spin to it.”

She spun the ball very decently for someone with such attack to her throw. Kashkari wiped his brow as she readied herself to bowl again.

“Take him out, Fairfax,” Titus heard himself yelling, enthused beyond what he had ever thought possible for cricket. “Take him out!”

She did, by knocking off one of the bails above the stumps of the wicket. The team roared with approval. Titus shook his head in amazement. She was gifted: fast, strong, and marvelously coordinated.

Of course she was. How could he have forgotten that elemental mages were almost invariably great athletes?

She turned around to face Titus, raised her right hand, and, with her forefinger and middle finger pressed together, passed her hand before her face.

It was a boasting gesture. But there were boasting gestures and there were boasting gestures. She had just told him to go bugger himself.

He laughed, then his laughter froze. Had Wintervale seen the gesture, by any chance? It was emphatically not one used in the nonmage world, at least not in this country.

No, Wintervale was behind her, thank goodness. She turned to shake hands with Kashkari, that most gracious of sportsmen.

The practice resumed. She continued to excel, so much so that when the teams switched sides and she took her turn at bat, she could laugh off her otherwise grievous mistake of using the wrong side of the bat—the side with the slight V in profile rather than the flat one—as the result of too much excitement.

They carried on until the college clock sounded for evening chapel. At which point every boy grabbed his equipment and broke into a run—lockup was in ten minutes.

It was a festive rush, the boys ribbing one another for mistakes made during practice. Fairfax wisely refrained—except to chortle when expected.

They were within sight of Mrs. Dawlish’s house when Wintervale suddenly exclaimed, “What the hell!”

Titus had already seen them. Fairfax glanced up. By the tightening of her expression, he knew she had spied the formation of armored chariots. They were almost invisible now, disappearing into the darkening eastern sky.

“What is it?” asked several of the boys.

Wintervale shook his head. “Never mind. Just the clouds. My eyes were playing a trick on me.”

“What did you think you saw?” Kashkari persisted.

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“Your sister kissing the chai-wallah,” said Wintervale.

Kashkari punched Wintervale in the arm. The other boys laughed, and that was the end of it.

Except for Fairfax. She had been both exhausted and exulted; now she looked only exhausted.

You will become accustomed to it, the prince had said to her.

She had not yet. The feeling of na**d vulnerability was an iron fist at her throat.

“Are you all right?” asked the prince. They’d made it back to Mrs. Dawlish’s before lockup. He’d slipped into her room with her.

She shrugged. At least she didn’t need to pretend with him—the boys had not dispersed immediately upon reaching the house, forcing her to maintain her cheery facade for another quarter hour.

“I lied,” he said softly. “The truth is you will never get used to it. The taste of fear always chokes.”

She flattened her lips. “That isn’t what I need to hear now. You should have kept lying.”

“Believe me, I would like to. Nothing sounds more unsettling than truth rolling off my tongue.” He put a kettle in the grate, opened her cupboard, lifted out a tin box, and pressed a piece of cake into her hand. “I had the foodstuff delivered today. Eat—you will be less afraid on a full stomach.”

She took a bite of the cake. She didn’t know whether it made her less afraid, but at least it was moist and buttery, everything a cake ought to be.

“How did you learn to play cricket so quickly?” he asked.

She had suggested to Kashkari that they run to catch up with the other boys. She then pretended, as they reached the pitch, *****ffer from a muscle cramp. That bought her time to sit on the sidelines. Watching the other boys, her hasty reading on cricket the evening before began to make sense. The terminology of cricket had confused her, but the game in play was a bat-and-ball game, and she was familiar with those.

She rested her hip against the edge of her desk and shrugged again. “It isn’t that hard.”

He flipped down her cot and took a seat, his back against the wall, his hands behind his head. “Lucky for us. Wintervale was convinced you were an exceptional player. That was the problem with my trick: the mind finds ways to fill a blank—and Archer Fairfax was a perfect blank.”

She almost didn’t hear what he was saying. The way he sat, all strong shoulders and long limbs—it was . . . distracting. “Is that why Kashkari thinks I’m going back to Bechuanaland with my parents?”

“That is the least alarming of misconceptions. You will be surprised what people thought of you. Last year there was a rumor going around that you had not hurt your leg at all, but had been sent away because you had impregnated a maid.”

“What?”

“I know,” said the prince with a straight face. “I was impressed by the extent of your virility.”

Then he smiled, overcome by the humor of the situation. Bright mischief lit his face and he was just a gorgeous boy, enjoying one hell of a joke.

It was a few seconds before she realized that, astounded by his transformation, she’d stopped chewing. She swallowed awkwardly. “Kashkari asked me a great number of questions.”

This sobered him. The smile, like a brief glimpse of the sun in rainy season, disappeared. “What kind of questions?”

She was almost relieved not to see his smile anymore. “He wanted to know what I thought of the relationship between the British Empire and lands under her influence abroad.”

“Ah.” He relaxed visibly. “Kashkari would want to know your opinions.”

“Why?”

The kettle sang. He rose, lifted it off its hook, poured boiling water into a teapot, and swished the teapot. “Kashkari has ambitions. He does not state it, but he wants to free India from British rule in his lifetime. Wintervale is sympathetic. I am known to be apolitical, so he is secure in the knowledge that at least I am not antagonistic toward his goals. But he is less sure about you.”

“Wouldn’t he have conjured Fairfax as someone more sympathetic to his views, the way Wintervale believes I’d help him win cricket games?”

He discarded the water from the warmed teapot, tossed in some tea leaves, and poured more boiling water on top. “Fairfax was born and brought up overseas. There are other such boys here at school, and they are the most fervent imperialists of all. Kashkari had no reason to think you would be different.”

He set aside the kettle and placed the lid on the teapot for the tea to steep. “So what did you think of the relationship between the empire and her colonies?”

She still couldn’t quite comprehend the sight of the Master of the Domain making tea—for her. “I said an empire shouldn’t be too surprised that her colonies are unhappy with their overlord.”

“And Kashkari was pleasantly surprised by your attitude, no doubt.”

“He thought my thinking very unusual.”

“It is. And do not broadcast it. The last thing we want is to have you labeled as a radical.”

“What is that?”

“Someone whose parents had better explain why their son thinks as he does. Imagine an Atlantean youth piping up at school and saying that Atlantis should let go of all the realms under its control. The reaction here probably would not be quite as extreme, but better not test it.”

She nodded—she saw the point.

He filled a teacup and brought it to her. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him so near. “Thank you, though you don’t need to ply me with food and drink all the time.”

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“You would do the same for the most important person in your life.”

She set down the teacup harder than she needed to. In the wake of that resounding thud, an uneasy silence spread—uneasy for her, at least, caught between the dark allure of his words and the harshness of her own common sense. And he was so close, she could smell the silver moss with which his clothes had been stored, the clean, crisp scent of it made just slightly peppery by the heat of his body.

“I need to go back to the laboratory,” he said, taking a step back. “Stay safe in my absence.”

From his laboratory, Titus returned to Mrs. Dawlish’s for supper, then to his own room to test the trial he planned for Fairfax. He emerged from the Crucible disoriented and nauseous, to knocks on his door.

Wintervale charged in. “What the hell is going on out there? Why are there armored chariots everywhere all of a sudden? Is there a war going on I haven’t heard about?”

Titus gulped down a glass of water. “No.”

“Then what? Something is going on.”

Wintervale’s family, even in exile, was well-connected. He would learn sooner or later. And if Titus lied to a direct question, it would appear as if he were hiding something.

“Atlantis is hunting for an elemental mage who brought down a bolt of lightning.”

“You mean, like Helgira?”

The name still made Titus squeamish. “You could say that.”

“That’s poppy****. No one can do that. What’s next? Mages riding comets?”

A burst of masculine laughter came from Fairfax’s room next door. Who else had become her friend now?

Friends, he mentally corrected himself, as more boys joined in the uproarious laughter.

“You know what I think?” Wintervale set two fingers under his chin. “I think it’s just an excuse for Atlantis to get rid of some Exiles they don’t like. I’d better tell my mother to be extra careful.”

“We can all stand to be a bit more careful.”

“You are right,” said Wintervale.

Now why could Fairfax not be more like Wintervale, respectful and willing to take advice?

“How is Lady Wintervale, by the way?” he asked.

“Gone to her spas. I hope they calm her down. I haven’t seen her so jumpy in a while.”

Wintervale left only when it was nearly lights-out. But Fairfax’s room, when Titus pushed open her door, was still full. She sat cross-legged on her bed, Sutherland next to her, Rogers and Cooper, two other boys from the house cricket squad, straddling chairs pulled up to the bed. They were playing cards.

“Come and help me, prince,” she said casually. “I’m terrible at cards.”

“He really is,” said Sutherland.

“Good thing I’m a brilliant athlete and handsome as a god,” she said, with that affable ****iness she did so astonishingly well.

The boys laughed and booed.

“Full of ourselves, aren’t we?” asked Rogers.

“My mother taught me false modesty is a sin,” she said, smirking.

Titus had cautioned her against making friends. But the sharp feeling in his heart was not concern, but a stab of envy. Even if his circumstances had allowed friends, he would not have had them so easily. There was something about him that discouraged contact, let alone intimacy.

“It is almost lights-out,” he said.

Cooper, always awed by Titus, immediately set down his cards. “Better get back to my room then.”

More reluctantly, Sutherland and Rogers followed.

As Titus closed the door behind them, she shuffled the cards. “You’re very good at dispersing a party, Your Highness. Must have taken you years of practice.”

“Incorrect—I was born this talented. But you, it must have taken you years to perfect your act.”

“You refer to my innate and splendid charm?”

“Your charm is about as innate as my truthfulness.”

She gathered the deck in her right hand. The cards flew out of her fingers and landed neatly in the palm of her left hand. “Did you have something to tell me?”

He had not come with any particular purpose. But as her question fell, his answer sprang readily, as if he had been mulling it over for a while. “I have been reading about your guardian. He has not made your life easy.”

“His own life was made impossibly difficult because of me.”

“Relax—I do not question his character. I only want to let you know that you took very good care of him. You have a good heart.”

Her glance, when it came, was as cold as a mountain stream. “I took care of him because I love him—and because I can never do as much for him as he has done for me by taking me in and giving me a home. Your compliments will not earn you greater devotion from my part. I will do as much as the blood oath stipulates and nothing more.”

Clever girl. She made him feel almost transparent.

“Good night, Your Highness.”

Grand, too, dismissing him as if he were a subject of hers, instead of the other way around.

He vaulted the few feet that separated them, kissed her on the cheek, and, before she could quite react, vaulted back to his place by the door. “Good night, Fairfax.”

CHAPTER 12

THE PRINCE WAS MANIPULATING HER, Iolanthe was sure. But to what goal? Did he think that telling her that she was infinitely precious to him, complimenting her on her good heart, or kissing her on the cheek would make her willingly embrace mortal danger for his sake?

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Nothing would make her willingly embrace mortal danger for his sake.

But still she tossed and turned for a long time before she fell asleep, the imprint of his cool lips a burn upon her cheek.

The next morning her training plunged her into a story called “Batea and the Flood,” where she had a grueling time holding back a swollen river. More grueling yet was an afternoon division called Greek Testament. Master Haywood had never quite understood her trouble with ancient Greek, pointing out that it was not much more morphologically complex than Latin. But whereas Latin she found no more difficult to master than fire, Greek had always felt like lifting mountains.

By the time she returned to Mrs. Dawlish’s house, she was ready to lie down for a few minutes in her room. But the prince wasn’t done with her.

“Come with me.”

“We already trained for the day.”

“Today is a shorter day at school. On those days, you will have an afternoon session, too.”

She said nothing as she followed him into his room.

“I know you are tired.” He closed the door behind him and directed a keep-away charm at it. “But I also know you are strong—far stronger than you, or perhaps even I, can comprehend.”

She did not feel strong, only trapped.

“Always remember,” he said, as he placed his hand on the Crucible, “that someday your strength will overturn the world as we know it.”

They landed in a part of the Crucible she hadn’t seen before: an apple orchard, the branches heavy with pink-and-white flowers, the air cool and sweet. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked toward the second sun, pale and barely there. She was peeved at the extra session and angry at everything else in her life, but she couldn’t quite help her fascination with the Crucible. It made her feel as if she were on a different world altogether.

“What story are we in?”

“‘The Greedy Beekeeper.’”

No wonder the buzz of bees echoed in her ears. “What happens in it?”

“You will see.”

She did not like that answer.

Side by side they walked deeper into the orchard. At one point a boulder jutted up from the ground. The prince leaped lightly on top and held out a hand toward her. She ignored him and made her own way across.

“It is only courtesy on my part, Fairfax. You need not worry that taking my hand will bind you more inextricably to me.”

“Perhaps not in any magical manner. But with you, Your Highness, there’s no such thing as simple courtesy. You extend a hand because you want something in return. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday you deem that your preme***ated kindnesses will add up to something.”

His response was a slight smile and an admiring gaze. Calculated, all calculated, she reminded herself. All the same, warmth pooled deep inside her.

They came to a clearing in the orchard. She frowned. “Is that a beehive?”

The hive was the familiar round, tapered shape of a skep, but it was three stories tall and measured at least twenty feet across at its base.

“That is the beekeeper’s house.”

He opened the door and ushered her in. The inside of the house, except for its shape, looked typical for a rustic dwelling: planked floors, unvarnished furniture, and honey-yellow curtains on the small windows.

He pushed a chest of drawers to the center of the house, set a chair on top of the chest, and climbed onto the chair to place something on a crossbeam.

“What’s that?”

“A piece of paper with the exit password for the Crucible. It will not respond to a summons, but will obey a breeze.”

He leaped down and, with the exstinctio spell, destroyed all the furniture. “The beekeeper keeps his bees in old-fashioned skeps. To get to the honey, he kills the bees each time. The bees have finally had enough.”

“And?” She was beginning to be nervous.

“And I wish we had met under different circumstances.” He pressed his spare wand into her hand. “Good luck.”

He left. She stared at the door for a minute before glancing up at the crossbeam again. It was at least twelve feet in the air, too high for her to jump. He’d left nothing that could give her a lift. And since one couldn’t vault in the Crucible, she’d have to do this either honestly or not at all.

She sighed, raised her face to the ceiling, and closed her eyes to concentrate.

Something wet and sticky splattered onto her face.

“What the—” She leaped back, her lids flying open.

A golden, viscous liquid dripped down from—everywhere. Every inch of the wall was now a honeycomb, each hexagon seeping honey.

Seeping turned into drizzling. Drizzling turned into pouring. Honey flowed down the wall. Thick ropes of it tumbled from the domed ceiling.

The only place that wasn’t directly assaulted was the exact spot where he’d placed the password—the house had an opening at the very center of the roof, which served as a chimney.

Puddles gathered. She stepped around them for the door. But the door had disappeared behind six inches of hard wax. The windows, when she ripped away the curtains, were similarly inaccessible.

If honey continued to inundate the room, she’d be submerged.

She cursed him. Of course he would think of something so nefarious. She cursed some more and implored the air in the room to cooperate. Please. Just this once.

The honey cascaded faster and faster, rising to her ankles, then to her knees, so thick she could barely move her feet. The aroma overwhelmed her, too sweet, too cloying. She stood under the beam for shelter. But still honey slimed her, plastering her hair to her head. She had to wipe it away from her brows so it wouldn’t get into her eyes. Even the wand had become coated, at once gluey and slippery.

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She wanted that password. How she wanted it. But air ignored her attempts to control it. Like shouting at the deaf, or waving her hands before the blind.

The honey was now waist-high. Her chest hurt with panic.

Perhaps she ought to move out from directly underneath the crossbeam. She’d be able to see the piece of paper, and perhaps that might help.

But when she tried to do so, she lost her footing avoiding a huge glob of honey falling toward her and listed sideways. Like a fly caught in tree sap, she couldn’t right herself. She was sucked downward—a horrifying sensation.

It occurred to her that she could drown in honey—and that this was precisely the brink toward which he meant to push her.

She flailed and sank deeper into the honey. Her toes hit the floor. She gasped, struggled upright, and dug her wand out of the honey. “I’m going to break your wand hand,” she shouted. “And your skull, too.”

The honey had risen as high as her chest, the pressure heavy against her sternum. She panted. A dribble of honey fell into her mouth. She’d thought she liked honey, but now its taste turned her stomach.

She spat and tried again to concentrate. She had never needed to concentrate for any of the other elements: her dealings with them were as straightforward as breathing. Wrestling with air was like—well, wrestling with air, struggling with an entity that could not be seen, let alone pinned down.

The honey swelled ever higher. Past her lips, creeping toward her nose. She tried to push herself up, to float. But she couldn’t kick her legs high enough to turn herself horizontal. Thrashing about—if her molasses-slow motion could be called thrashing—only pulled her deeper into the mire.

She could no longer breathe. Her lungs burned. Instinct forced her to open her mouth. Honey poured in. She coughed, the raw pain of honey going down her air pipe indescribable.

Only her hand was above the honey now. She waved her wand, livid and desperate. Had she done it? She could not open her eyes. Her lungs imploded.

The next moment all the honey was gone and she was surrounded by the clean weightlessness of air. She fell to the floor—the floor of the prince’s room—and panted, filling her lungs with the ineffable sweetness of oxygen.

Rationally, she knew she had never, not for a moment, been in real danger. And therefore there was no reason for her to shake and gasp with the relief of survival.

Which only made her loathe him more.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Her arm shot out, wrapped around his ankles, and yanked. He went down hard, hitting his shoulder on the corner of the table. She leaped on top of him and took a swing at his face. He raised his arm in defense. Her fist connected with his forearm, a solid smash that jarred her entire person.

She swung her other fist. He blocked her again. She lifted her knee, intending to drive it somewhere debilitating.

The next thing she knew he’d heaved her off his person. She immediately relaunched herself at him. He’d just got to his feet; she knocked him back down.

“That is enough, Fairfax.”

“I will tell you when it’s enough, you scum!” She slammed her elbow toward his teeth.

Foiled again.

She grunted in frustration and head-butted him. He caught her face in his hands. Since both his hands were busy, she finally landed a blow at his temple.

He winced—and retaliated by pulling her head down and kissing her.

Shock paralyzed her. The sensations were huge and electric, as if she had called a bolt of lightning upon her own head. He tasted angry, famished, and—

She leaped up, knocking over a chair. He remained on the floor, his eyes on her, eyes as hungry as his kiss. She swallowed. Her fist clenched, but she couldn’t quite hit him again.

He rose to his feet with a grimace. “I know how you feel. I was in there last night, in honey above my head.”

She stared at him.

“Why do you look so surprised? I said I would experiment with you, not on you. Everything I try on you, I try on myself first.”

Of course she was shocked. The idea that anyone would voluntarily subject himself *****ch torture . . .

He was suddenly at the door, listening.

“What is it?”

“Mrs. Han****. She is outside, talking to someone.”

A minute later—just enough time for him to do something about the cut at his temple and Iolanthe to right the fallen chair and a few other things knocked askew by their scuffle—a rap came on the door. The prince, with a tilt of his head, gestured for Iolanthe to open the door.

“Why me?”

“Because that is the nature of our friendship.”

She twisted her mouth and went.

Mrs. Han**** stood at the door, smiling. “Ah, Fairfax, I need to speak to you, too. I have a letter for you from your parents.”

It took Iolanthe a full second to grasp what Mrs. Han**** was saying. Fairfax’s nonexistent parents had sent a letter.

With slightly numb fingers she accepted the envelope. The paper inside was faintly lavender in color and smelled of attar of rose. The words were written in a pretty hand.

My dearest Archer,

Ever since you left for school, Sissy has not been feeling well. She must have become accustomed to your presence at home during your convalescence.

Will you be so kind as to come home this Saturday after class? Sissy will be thrilled to see you. And I am sure that will make her feel herself again in no time.

Love,

Mother

“My parents want me to go home on Saturday,” Iolanthe said to no one in particular. Where was she supposed to go? And who was behind this letter?