Author: Sherry Thomas JUST BEFORE THE START OF Summer Half, in April 1883, a very minor event took place at Eton College, that venerable and illustrious English public school for boys. A sixteen-year-old pupil named Archer Fairfax returned from a three-month absence, caused by a fractured femur, to resume his education. Almost every word in the preceding sentence is false. Archer Fairfax had not suffered a broken limb. He had never before set foot in Eton. His name was not Archer Fairfax. And he was not, in fact, even a he. This is the story of a girl who fooled a thousand boys, a boy who fooled an entire country, a partnership that would change the fate of realms, and a power to challenge the greatest tyrant the world had ever known.
The Burning Sky Page 1 PROLOGUE JUST BEFORE THE START OF Summer Half, in April 1883, a very minor event took place at Eton College, that venerable and illustrious English public school for boys. A sixteen-year-old pupil named Archer Fairfax returned from a three-month absence, caused by a fractured femur, to resume his education. Almost every word in the preceding sentence is false. Archer Fairfax had not suffered a broken limb. He had never before set foot in Eton. His name was not Archer Fairfax. And he was not, in fact, even a he. This is the story of a girl who fooled a thousand boys, a boy who fooled an entire country, a partnership that would change the fate of realms, and a power to challenge the greatest tyrant the world had ever known. Expect magic. CHAPTER 1 FIRE WAS EASY. In fact, there was nothing easier. They said that when an elemental mage called forth flame, she stole a little from every fire in the world. That would make Iolanthe Seabourne quite the thief, gathering millions of sparks into one great combustion. That flame she sculpted into a perfect sphere ten feet across, suspended above the rushing currents of the River Woe. She beckoned with her fingers. Streams of water shot up and arced over the fireball. Stray droplets gleamed briefly under the sun before falling into the flame, releasing sizzles of steam. Master Haywood, her guardian, used to love watching her play with fire. He had not been alone in his fascination. Everyone, from neighbors to classmates, had wanted her to show them how she made little fireballs dance upon her palm, the same way Iolanthe, as a child, had asked Master Haywood to wiggle his ears, clapping and laughing with delight. Master Haywood’s interest, however, had run far deeper. Unlike others who simply wished to be entertained, he’d challenge her to make intricate, difficult patterns and draw entire landscapes with filaments of fire. And he’d say, My, but that is beautiful, and shake his head with wonder—and sometimes, something that felt almost like unease. But before she could ask him what was the matter, he’d ruffle her hair and tell her he was taking her out for ices. There had been two years during which they’d had many, many cups of ices together, lumenberry for him and pinemelon for her, sitting by the window of Mrs. Hinderstone’s sweets shop on University Avenue, just a five-minute walk from their house on the campus of the Conservatory of Magical Arts and Sciences, the most prestigious institution of higher learning in the entire Domain. Iolanthe hadn’t had pinemelon ice in years, but she could still taste its tart, fresh tingle on her tongue. “My, but that is beautiful.” Iolanthe started. But the voice belonged to a woman—Mrs. Needles, in fact, who cooked and cleaned for Master Haywood three days a week here in Little Grind-on-Woe, about as far from the Conservatory as one could get without leaving the shores of the Domain. Not that Master Haywood earned enough to hire help anymore, but some housekeeping had been included as part of his compensation. Iolanthe dissipated the fireball still hovering in the air above the fast, white-foamed river. She didn’t mind juggling apple-sized handfuls of fire for the children, or providing a few garlands of dancing flames at Little Grind’s solstice ball, but it embarrassed her to display her abilities to this extent, with enough fire on hand to burn down the entire village. Unless you are actually performing at the Majestic Circus, Master Haywood had always urged her, think twice about exhibiting your powers. You never want to appear a braggart—or worse, a freak. She turned around and smiled at the housekeeper. “Thank you, Mrs. Needles. I was just practicing for the wedding.” “I had no idea you were such a mighty elemental mage, Miss Seabourne,” marveled Mrs. Needles. In the Old Millennia, when elemental mages decided the fate of realms, no one would have given Iolanthe’s middling powers a second glance. But these were the end days of elemental magic.1 Compared to the majority of elemental mages, who could barely call forth enough fire for a night-light—or enough water to wash their own hands—Iolanthe supposed her powers would indeed be considered mightier than average. “Mrs. Oakbluff and Rosie—and all their new in-laws—will be so impressed,” continued Mrs. Needles, setting down a small picnic basket. “And Master Haywood, of course. Has he seen your performance yet?” “He was the one who gave me the idea for the big fireball,” Iolanthe lied. The villagers might suspect Master Haywood to be a merixida addict who neglected his sixteen-year-old ward, but she refused to portray him as anything other than a most solicitous, attentive father figure. In the seven years since his troubles started, she’d developed a certain demeanor, a second personality that she wore like an exoskeleton. The Iolanthe who faced the public was a darling: a confident, outgoing girl who was also wonderfully sweet and helpful—the result of having been deeply cherished her entire life, of course. She had grown so accustomed to this exterior that she didn’t always remember what truly lay underneath. Nor did she particularly want to. Why fester in disillusion, bewilderment, and anger when she could float above and pretend to be this sunny, charming girl instead? “And how are you today, Mrs. Needles?” she turned the questioning around. Given a choice, most people preferred to talk about themselves. “How’s the hip?” “So much better, ever since you gave me that joint-easing ointment.” “That’s wonderful, but I can’t take all the credit. Master Haywood helped me make it—he’s always hovering about when I’ve a cauldron before me.”
The Burning Sky Page 2 Or perhaps he’d locked himself in his room for an entire day, ignoring Iolanthe’s knocks and the trays of food she’d left outside his door. But Mrs. Needles didn’t need to know that. No one needed to know that. “Oh, he’s lucky to have you, he is,” said Mrs. Needles. Iolanthe’s cheer faltered a little—did she ever fool anyone, in the end? But she remained resolutely in character. “For running a few errands now and then, maybe. But there are far easier ways of getting chores done than raising an elemental mage for it.” They chuckled over that, Mrs. Needles good-naturedly, Iolanthe doggedly. “Well, I brought you some lunch, miss.” Mrs. Needles nudged the picnic basket closer to Iolanthe. “Thank you, Mrs. Needles. And if you’d like to leave early today to get ready for the wedding, by all means, take as much time as you need.” That would get Mrs. Needles away from the house before Master Haywood awakened testy and disoriented from his merixida-induced stupor. Mrs. Needles placed a hand over her heart. “That’d be nice! I do love a wedding, and I want to look my best in front of all those fancy city folks.” Rosie Oakbluff’s wedding was to take place in Meadswell, the provincial capital sixty miles away. At the wedding, Iolanthe would light the path on which the bride and groom would walk arm in arm toward the altar. It was considered good luck for the lighting of the path to be performed by a friend of the bride rather than a hired elemental mage, and no one minded too much that Iolanthe was less a friend to the bride than someone trying to bribe the mother of the bride. “I will see you at the wedding,” she said to Mrs. Needles. Mrs. Needles waved, then vaulted, leaving behind a faint distortion in the air that quickly cleared. Iolanthe checked her watch—quarter to one in the afternoon. She was running behind. Not just for the wedding. She was at least half a term behind in her academic reading. Her clarifying potions kept failing. Every last spell from Archival Magic fought tooth and nail against her efforts at mastery. And the first round of qualifying exams for upper academies began in five weeks. Elemental magic was elder magic, a direct, primordial connection between the mage and the universe, needing no words or procedures as intermediaries. For millennia subtle magic had been the pale imitation, trying without coming close to matching the power and majesty of elemental magic. But at some point the tide had turned. Now subtle magic possessed the depth and flexibility to suit every need, and elemental magic was its clunky, primitive country cousin, ill-adapted to the demands of modern life. Who needed fire-wielding elemental mages when lighting, heating, and cooking were all done with much safer, much more convenient flameless magic these days? Without a sound education in subtle magic, elemental mages had pitifully few choices in careers: the circuses, the foundries, or the quarries, none of which appealed to Iolanthe. And without stellar results on the qualifying exams and the grants they’d bring, she would not be able to afford an upper academy education at all. She checked her watch again. She’d run through her routine for the lighting of the path one more time, then she needed to check on the light elixir in the schoolroom. A snap of her fingers brought a fresh sphere of fire five feet across. Another snap, the fireball doubled in diameter, a miniature sun rising against the steep, treeless cliffs of the opposite bank. Fire was such a pleasure. Power was such a pleasure. Would that she could bend Master Haywood to her will just as easily. She laced her fingers, then yanked them apart. The fireball separated into sixteen trails of flame, darting through the air like a school of fish, taking fast turns in unison. She clasped her palms together. The streams of fire formed again into a perfect sphere. A flick of her wrist had the fireball leap high in the air and spin, tossing out countless sparks. Now her hands pressed down, half submerging the fireball into the river, sending up a huge plume of hissing steam—there was a large reflecting pool at the wedding venue, and she planned to take full advantage of it. “Stop,” said a voice behind her. “Stop this moment.” She stilled in surprise. Master Haywood—he was up early. Dismissing the fire, she turned around. He used to be a handsome man, her guardian, golden and fit. No more. Limp hair hung about his pale face. Bags drooped under his eyes. His thin frame—he sometimes reminded her of a marionette—looked as if it might rattle apart with the least exertion. It never not hurt to see him like this, a shadow of his former self. But a part of her couldn’t help being thrilled that he had come to watch her rehearse. He hadn’t shown much interest in her in a long time. Perhaps she could also get him to help her on some of her coursework. He’d promised to homeschool her, but she’d had to teach herself, and she had so many unanswered questions. But first, “Afternoon. Have you had anything to eat?” He shouldn’t have vaulted on an empty stomach. “You cannot perform at the wedding,” he said. Her ears felt as if they’d been stung by bees. This was what he’d come to tell her? “I beg your pardon?” “Rosie Oakbluff is marrying into a family of collaborators.” The Greymoors of Meadswell were rumored to have turned in more than a hundred rebels during and after the January Uprising. Everyone knew that. “Yes, she is.” “I did not realize,” said Master Haywood. He leaned against a boulder, his face tired and tense. “I thought she was marrying a Greymore—from the clan of artists. Mrs. Needles corrected my mistake just now, and I cannot let agents of Atlantis see you manipulate the elements. They would take you away.”
The Burning Sky Page 3 Her eyes widened. What was he talking about? If Atlantis had a special interest in elemental mages, wouldn’t she have heard about it? Not a single elemental mage she knew had ever attracted Atlantis’s attention simply by being an elemental mage. “Every circus has a dozen mages who can do what I do. Why should Atlantis pay any mind to me?” “Because you are younger and have far more potential.” Two thousand years ago she would not have questioned him. Differences among realms then had been settled by wars of elemental magic. Good elemental mages had been highly prized, and great elemental mages, well, they’d been considered Angels incarnate. But that was two thousand years ago. “Potential for what?” “For greatness.” Iolanthe bit the inside of her lower lip. Merixida, in sufficient quantities, caused delusion and paranoia. But she’d always secretly adulterated Master Haywood’s homemade distillate with sugar syrup. Did he have a stash somewhere she didn’t know about? “I’d love to be a great elemental mage, but there hasn’t been a single Great for the last five hundred years anywhere on earth. And you forget that I can’t manipulate air—no one can be a Great without having control over all four elements.” Master Haywood shook his head. “That is not true.” “What is not true?” He did not answer her question, but only said, “You must listen to me. You will be in great danger if Atlantis becomes aware of your power.” Iolanthe had volunteered to light the path at the wedding. She could only imagine what the bride’s mother, Mrs. Oakbluff, would think were Iolanthe to suddenly announce, hours before the ceremony, that she had thought better of it. Her pocket watch throbbed. “Excuse me. I need to take the light elixir out of the cauldron.” She’d also volunteered to take care of the wedding illumination. Silver light elixir was the current craze; but a light elixir that emitted a true silver light without any tinge of blue was both difficult and time-consuming to make—and once mature, radiated for precisely seven hours. The entire enterprise was fraught with the possibility of failure. Iolanthe had started with five batches, and only one had survived the curing process. But the risk was worth it. The Oakbluffs wanted to show their much wealthier in-laws that they were capable of putting on an impressively elegant wedding, and a successful batch of silver light elixir went a long way toward achieving that goal. Iolanthe vaulted, hoping Master Haywood wouldn’t follow. It was spring holiday; the schoolroom was empty of pupils and their usual clutter. The equipment for the practicals was located at the far end, underneath a portrait of the prince. She uncovered the biggest cauldron and gave its contents a stir. The elixir stuck to the spatula, thick and opaque like a sky about to rain. Perfect. Three hours of cooling and it should begin to radiate. “Have you heard anything I said?” Master Haywood’s voice again came behind her. He didn’t sound angry, only weary. Her heart pinched as she unpacked the sterling ewer Mrs. Oakbluff had given her for the light elixir. She didn’t know why, but she’d always felt a nagging suspicion that she was somehow responsible for his condition—a suspicion that went deeper than mere guilt at not being able to take care of him as she would like to. “You should eat something. Your headaches get worse when you don’t eat on time.” “I don’t need to eat. I need you to listen.” He rarely sounded parental these days—she couldn’t remember the last time. She turned around. “I’m listening. But please remember, a claim as extraordinary as yours—that I’ll be in danger from Atlantis by doing something as commonplace as lighting a wedding path—needs extraordinary proof.” He was the one who’d introduced her to the concept that extraordinary claims needed extraordinary proofs. Such a sponge she’d been, soaking up every one of his words, giddy and proud to be the closest thing to a daughter to this eloquent, erudite man. That was before his mistakes and lies had cost him position after position, and the brilliant scholar once destined for greatness was now a village schoolmaster—one in danger of being sacked, at that. He shook his head. “I don’t need proof. All I need is to rescind my permission for you to go to Meadswell for the wedding.” The only reason she was going to Meadswell in the first place was to save his employment. Rumor was that parents who’d soured on his inattentiveness to their children were urging Mrs. Oakbluff, the village registrar, to dismiss him. Iolanthe hoped that by providing a spectacular lighting of the path, not to mention the silver light elixir, Mrs. Oakbluff might be persuaded to tilt her decision in Master Haywood’s favor. If even a remote village in desperate need of a schoolmaster wouldn’t retain him, who would? “You forget,” she reminded him. “The laws are very clear that when a ward turns sixteen, she no longer needs her guardian’s permission for her freedom of movement.” She could have left him more than six months ago. He pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a gulp. The sickly sweet scent of merixida wafted to her nostrils. She pretended not to notice, when she’d have preferred to yank the bottle from his hand and throw it out of a window. But they were no longer the kind of family whose members raged honestly at one another. Instead, they were strangers conducting themselves according to a peculiar set of rules: no reference to his addiction, no mention of the past, and no planning for any kind of a future.
The Burning Sky Page 4 “Then you will simply have to trust me,” he said, his voice heavy. “We must keep you safe. We must keep you away from the eyes and ears of Atlantis. Will you trust me, Iola? Please.” She wanted to. After all his lies—No, this is not match fixing. No, this is not plagiarism. No, these are not bribes—she still wanted to trust him the way she once had, implicitly, completely. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t.” She’d never before acknowledged openly that she had only herself to rely on. He recoiled and stared at her. Was he searching for the child who’d adored him unabashedly? Who would have followed him to the end of the world? That girl was still here, she wanted to tell him. If he would only pull himself together, she would gladly let him take care of her, for a change. He bowed his head. “Forgive me, Iolanthe.” This was not an answer she’d expected. Her breath quickened. Did he really mean to apologize for everything that had led her to lose faith in him? He moved all of a sudden, marching toward the cauldrons while unscrewing the cap of his flask. “What are you—” He poured all the merixida that remained in the flask into the light elixir on which she’d slaved for a fortnight. Then he turned around and pulled a mute, openmouthed Iolanthe into his arms and hugged her hard. “I have sworn to keep you safe, and I will.” By the time she comprehended what he’d done, he was already walking out of the schoolroom. “I will inform Mrs. Oakbluff that you will not be able to perform the lighting of the path this evening, because you are too ashamed that your light elixir failed.” Iolanthe stared at the ruined light elixir, a flat, mildew-green puddle without any hint of viscosity. Silver light elixir she’d promised Mrs. Oakbluff, but silver light elixir could not be had for love or money at the last minute. Despair swamped her, a bitter tide. Why did she try so hard? Why bother saving his post when no one else cared, least of all he himself? But she was too accustomed to brushing aside her self-pity and dealing with the aftermath of Master Haywood’s actions. Already she was at the bookshelves, pulling out titles that might help. The Novice Potionmaker did not deal with light elixirs. The Quick Solution: A Classroom Handbook to Potionmaking Mistakes provided only guidance for light elixirs that emitted a foul smell, solidified, or wouldn’t stop fizzing. The Potionmaster’s Guide to Common and Uncommon Draughts gave her a lengthy historical perspective and nothing else. In desperation she turned to The Complete Potion. Master Haywood loved The Complete Potion. She had no idea why—it was the world’s most pretentious doorstop. In the section on light elixirs, beyond the introductory paragraphs, the text was in cuneiform. She kept flipping the pages, hoping for something in Latin, which she read well, or Greek, which she could manage with a lexicon, if she had to. But the only passages not in cuneiform were in hieroglyphs. Then, all of a sudden, in the margins, a handwritten note she could read: There is no light elixir, however tainted, that cannot be revived by a thunderbolt. She blinked—and hastily tilted her head back: she had no idea there were tears in her eyes. And what kind of advice was this? Placing any elixir in a downpour would cause irreversible damage to the elixir, defeating any hope of repairing it. Unless . . . unless the writer of the note had meant something else, a summoned thunderbolt. Helgira the Merciless had wielded lightning. But Helgira was a folkloric character. Iolanthe had read all four volumes and twelve hundred pages of The Lives and Deeds of Great Elemental Mages. No real elemental mage, not even any of the Greats, had ever mastered lightning. There is no light elixir, however tainted, that cannot be revived by a thunderbolt. The author of those words certainly had no doubt it could be done. The swirls and dashes of the penmanship brimmed with a jaunty confidence. As she looked up, however, the prince in his portrait expressed nothing but disdain for her wild idea. She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a minute. Then she pulled on a pair of thick gloves and grabbed the cauldron. What did she have to lose? The prince was about to kiss Sleeping Beauty. He was tattered and sweaty, still bleeding from the wound on his arm. She, his reward for battling the dragons that guarded her castle, was pristine and beautiful—if blandly so. He walked toward her, his boots sinking ankle-deep in dust. All about the garret, in the gray light that filtered past the grime on the window, cobwebs hung as thick as theatrical curtains. He was the one who had put the details in the room. It had mattered to him, when he was thirteen, that the interior of the garret accurately reflect a century’s neglect. But now, three years later, he wished he had given Sleeping Beauty better dialogue instead. If only he knew what he wanted a girl to say to him. Or vice versa. He knelt down beside her bed. “Your Highness,” his valet’s voice echoed upon the stone walls. “You asked to be awakened at this time.” As he thought, he had taken too long with the dragons. He sighed. “And they lived happily ever after.” The prince did not believe in happily-ever-after, but that was the password to exit the Crucible. The fairy tale faded—Sleeping Beauty, garret, dust, and cobwebs. He closed his eyes before the nothingness. When he opened them again, he was back in his own chamber, sprawled on the bed, his hand atop a very old book of children’s tales.
The Burning Sky Page 5 His head was groggy. His right arm throbbed where the wyvern’s tail had sliced through. But the sensations of pain were only his mind playing tricks. Injuries sustained in the imaginary realm of the Crucible did not carry over to the real one. He sat up. His canary, in its jeweled cage, chittered. He pushed off the bed and passed his fingers over the bars of the bird’s prison. As he walked out to the balcony, he glanced at the grand, gilded clock in the corner of the chamber: fourteen minutes past two o’clock, the exact time mentioned in his mother’s vision—and therefore always the time he asked to be awakened from his seeming naps. In the real world, his home, built on a high spur of the Labyrinthine Mountains, was the most famous castle in all the mage realms, far grander and more beautiful than anything Sleeping Beauty ever occupied. The balcony commanded splendid views: ribbon-slender waterfalls cascading thousands of feet, blue foothills dotted by hundreds of snow-fed lakes, and in the distance, the fertile plains that were the breadbasket of his realm. But he barely noticed the view. The balcony made him tense, for it was here, or so it had been foretold, that he would come into his destiny. The beginning of the end, for his prophesied role was that of a mentor, a stepping-stone—the one who did not survive to the end of the quest. Behind him, his attendants gathered, feet shuffling, silk overrobes swishing. “Would you care for some refreshments, sire?” said Giltbrace, the head attendant, his voice oily. “No. Prepare for my departure.” “We thought Your Highness departed tomorrow morning.” “I changed my mind.” Half his attendants were in Atlantis’s pay. He inconvenienced them at every turn and changed his mind a great deal. It was necessary they believe him a capricious creature who cared for only himself. “Leave.” The attendants retreated to the edge of the balcony but kept watch. Outside of the prince’s bedchamber and bath, he was almost always watched. He scanned the horizon, waiting for—and dreading—this yet-to-transpire event that had already dictated the entire course of his life. Iolanthe chose the top of Sunset Cliff, a rock face several miles east of Little Grind-on-Woe. She and Master Haywood had been at the village for eight months, almost an entire academic year, yet the rugged terrain of the Midsouth March—deep gorges, precipitous slopes, and swift blue torrents—still took her breath away. For miles around, the village was the only outpost of civilization against an unbroken sweep of wild nature. Atop Sunset Cliff, the highest point in the vicinity, the villagers had erected a flagpole to fly the standard of the Domain. The sapphire banner streamed in the wind, the silver phoenix at its center gleaming under the sun. As Iolanthe knelt, her knee pressed into something cold and hard. Parting the grass around the base of the flagpole revealed a small bronze plaque set into the ground, bearing the inscription DUM SPIRO, SPERO. “While I breathe, I hope,” she murmured, translating to herself. Then she noticed the date on the plaque, 3 April 1021. The day that saw Baroness Sorren’s execution and Baron Wintervale’s exile—events that marked the end of the January Uprising, the first and only time the subjects of the Domain had taken up arms against the de facto rule of Atlantis. The flying of the banner was not in itself particularly remarkable—that, at least, Atlantis hadn’t outlawed yet. But the plaque commemorating the rebellion was an act of defiance here in this little-known corner of the Domain. She’d been six at the time of the uprising. Master Haywood had taken her and joined the exodus fleeing Delamer, the capital city. For weeks, they’d lived in a makeshift refugee camp on the far side of the Serpentine Hills. The grown-ups had whispered and fretted. The children had played with an almost frantic intensity. The return to normalcy had been abrupt and strange. No one talked about the repairs at the Conservatory to replace damaged roofs and toppled statues. No one talked about anything that had happened. The one time Iolanthe had run into a girl she’d met at the refugee camp, they’d waved awkwardly at each other and then turned away embarrassed, as if there had been something shameful in that interlude. In the years since, Atlantis had tightened its grip on the Domain, cutting off contact with the outside world and extending its reach of power via a vast network of open collaborators and secret spies inside the realm. From time to time, she heard rumors of trouble closer to home: the loss of an acquaintance’s livelihood on suspicion of activities unfavorable to the interests of Atlantis, the disappearance of a classmate’s relative into the Inquisitory, the sudden relocation of an entire family down the street to one of the more distant outlying islands of the Domain. There were also rumors of a new rebellion brewing. Thankfully, Master Haywood showed no interest. Atlantis was like the weather, or the lay of the land. One didn’t try to change anything; one coped, that was all. She lowered and folded the banner, setting it aside to avoid damage. For a moment she wondered whether she could truly endanger herself by putting on a display of fire and water. No, she didn’t believe it. During the first two years after Master Haywood had lost his professorship at the Conservatory, they’d lived next door to a family of small-time collaborators, and he had never objected to her showing fire tricks to the children. She nudged the cauldron so that its metal belly was snug against the pole, the better to absorb the jolt of the lightning. Then she measured fifty big strides away from the pole, for safety.
The Burning Sky Page 6 Just in case. That she was preparing for anything at all to happen amazed her. Yes, she was a fine elemental mage by current standards, but she was nothing compared to the Greats. What made her think she’d accomplish a feat unheard of except in legends? She gazed up at the cloudless sky and took a deep breath. She could not say why, but she knew in her gut that the anonymous advice in The Complete Potion was correct. She only needed the lightning. But how did one summon lightning? “Lightning!” she shouted, jabbing her index finger skyward. Nothing. Not that she’d expected anything on her first try, but still she was a little deflated. Perhaps visualization might help. She closed her eyes and pictured a bolt of sizzle connecting sky and earth. Again nothing. She pushed back the sleeves of her blouse and drew her wand from her pocket. Her heart pumped faster; she’d never before used her wand for elemental magic. A wand was an amplifier of a mage’s power; the greater the power, the greater the amplification. If she failed again, it would be a resounding failure. But if she should succeed . . . Her hand trembled as she raised the wand to point it directly overhead. She inhaled as deeply as she could. “Smite that cauldron, will you? I haven’t got all day!” The first gleam appeared extraordinarily high in the atmosphere, and seemingly a continent away. A line of white fire zipped across the arc of the sky, curving gracefully against that deep, cloudless blue. It plummeted toward her—searing, bright death. CHAPTER 2 A COLUMN OF PURE WHITE light, so distant it was barely more than a thread, so brilliant it nearly blinded the prince, burst into existence. He stood mute and amazed for an entire minute before something kicked him hard in the chest, the realization that this was the very sign for which he had waited half his life. His hand tightened into a fist: the prophecy had come true. He was not ready. He would never be ready. But ready or not, he acted. “Why do you look so awed?” He sneered at his attendants. “Are you yokels who have never seen a bolt of lightning in your lives?” “But, sire—” “Do not stand there. My departure does not ready itself.” Then, to Giltbrace specifically, “I am going to my study. Make sure I am not disturbed.” “Yes, sire.” His attendants had learned to leave him alone when he wished it—they did not enjoy being sent to clean the palace guards’ boots, haul kitchen slops, or rake out the stables. He counted on their attention returning immediately to the burning sky. A glance backward told him that they were indeed again riveted to the extraordinary, endless lightning. There were secret passages in the castle known only to the family. He was before the doors of his study in thirty seconds. Inside the study, he pulled out a tube from the center drawer of his desk and whistled into it. The sound would magnify as it traveled, eventually reaching his trusted steed in the stables. Next he drew an heirloom field glass from its display case. The field glass pinpointed the location of anything that could be sighted within its range—and its range extended to not only every corner of the Domain but a hundred miles beyond in any direction. His fingers shaking only slightly, he adjusted the knobs of the field glass to bring the lightning into sharper focus. It had struck far away, near the southern tip of the Labyrinthine Mountains. He grabbed a pair of riding gloves and a saddlebag from the lower drawers of the desk and murmured the necessary words. The next instant he was sliding down a smooth stone chute at a near vertical angle, the acceleration so dizzying he might as well be in free fall. He braced himself. Still, the impact of slamming onto Marble’s waiting back was like running into a wall. He swallowed a grunt of pain and groped in the dark for the handles mounted on the old girl’s shoulders. With his knees he nudged her forward. They were at the mouth of a hidden expedited way cut into the mountain. The moment the invisible boundary was crossed, they hurtled through a tunnel twelve feet in diameter—barely wide enough for Marble to fit through with her wings folded. The darkness was complete; the air pressed heavy and damp against his skin. They shot upward, so fast his eardrums popped and popped again. Then, a pinprick of light, which grew swiftly into a flood of sunshine, and they were out in the open, above an uninhabited peak well away from the castle. Marble opened her great wings and slid into a long swoop. The prince closed his eyes and called to mind what he had seen in the field glass: a village as ordinary as a sparrow, and about as small. It would have been preferable to vault alone. But vaulting such a great distance on visual cue, rather than personal memory, was an imprecise business. And he did not have the luxury of proceeding on foot once he reached his destination. He leaned forward and whispered into Marble’s ear. They vaulted. Iolanthe was flat on her back, blind, her face burning, her ears ringing like the bells on New Year’s Eve. She must still be alive then. Groaning, she rolled over, pushed onto her knees, and clamped her hands over her ears. After a while, she opened her eyes to a fuzzy spread of green cloth—her skirt. She raised her head a little and looked at her hand, which slowly swam into focus. There was a scratch but no blood. She sighed in relief. She’d feared that her ears had bled and that she’d find bits of brain on her palm. But the grass around her was brown. Strange, the moor atop the cliff had recently turned a boisterous green with the arrival of spring. Her gaze followed the expanse of withered grass and—
The Burning Sky Page 8 “That you have put yourself in terrible danger.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Now get inside.” The house exploded. Walls caved; debris hurtled. She screamed, threw herself down, and shielded her head with the satchel. Chunks of brick and plaster pummeled her everywhere else. When the chaos had died down a little, she looked around for Master Haywood. He was flat on the floor among the wreckage, bleeding from a head wound. She rushed to his side. “Are you all right, Master Haywood? Can you hear me?” His eyelids fluttered open. He looked at her, his gaze unfocused. “It’s me, Iolanthe. Are you all right?” “Why are you still here?” he shouted, struggling to his feet. “Get in the trunk! Get in!” He grabbed the satchel from her and tossed it into the trunk. She took a deep breath and hauled herself over the trunk’s high sides. He pulled on the lid. She held it open with the palm of her hand. “Wait, aren’t you coming w—” He crumpled to the floor. “Master Haywood!” Through the chalky air, a matronly figure advanced. Mrs. Oakbluff waved her wand. Master Haywood’s inert body went flying, landing with a thud in the next room and missing being impaled upon a broken beam by mere inches. Mrs. Oakbluff came at Iolanthe. Where had they vaulted? The village was not big, but it still had some forty, fifty dwellings of varying sizes. The villagers stopped what they were doing to gawk at Marble, her shadow gliding on rooftops and cobbled streets like a harbinger of doom. The prince assessed the situation. Were he the father or the guardian—who obviously understood the implications of what the girl had done—would he have already gone on the run? Unlikely. He would want to return to their home nearby, where he had a bag packed for just such an emergency and a swift means to safety. But where was home? The prince had zoomed past the small house that sat apart from the rest of the village when a movement caught his eye. He turned his head, hoping it was the man and the girl rematerializing. Only one mage, however, stood before the house—not the long-haired girl, but a squat woman. Disappointed, he continued his search. Only to see, a minute later, the same house shaking violently before collapsing on itself. He reined Marble as close to a full stop as he dared and vaulted for the now crooked front steps of the house. “What are you doing?” Iolanthe wanted to shout in indignation, but her voice was barely above a whimper. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Mrs. Oakbluff smiled, but her square face was without its usual rustic goodwill. “Did you know I once worked in demolition?” “You destroyed our house because I damaged the flagpole?” “No, because you resisted arrest. And I need the credit for your arrest, young lady—I’ve been in this wretched place too long.” Credit for her arrest, not Master Haywood’s. Mrs. Oakbluff, soon-to-be in-law of Atlantis’s staunchest collaborators in all of Midsouth March, clearly believed seizing Iolanthe would bring her special rewards. The fear that had been welling up in Iolanthe suddenly boiled over. She yanked on the lid of the trunk, but it refused to lower. “Oh, no, I’m not letting you go so easily,” said Mrs. Oakbluff. She raised her wand toward Iolanthe. Without thinking, Iolanthe reacted. A wall of fire roared toward Mrs. Oakbluff. The prince first secured the house with an impassable circle to keep out other intruders. The front door still stood more or less intact, but the wall around it had crumbled. He stepped over the debris strewn across the vestibule, and barely had time to duck as a tongue of fire roared in his direction. But the fire did not reach him. Instead it pivoted midair and shot back where it had come from. He followed it toward the back of the house and stopped in his tracks. A dozen trails of hissing, crackling flames, vicious as serpents, attacked the housebreaker, who frantically shouted shielding charms. The girl, now covered in plaster dust, stood in a tall trunk, her arms waving, her face a scowl of concentration. Some of the housebreaker’s shielding charms took. Behind their barricade, she pointed her wand at the girl. The prince raised his own wand. The housebreaker fell to the broken floor. The girl gawked at him a moment, raised both hands, and pushed them out. Fire hurtled toward him. “Fiat praesidium!” The air before him hardened to take the brunt of the fire. “Recall your flames. I am not here to harm you.” “Then leave.” With a turn of her wrists, the wall of flame reconfigured into a battering ram. Good thing he had fought so many dragons. “Aura circumvallet.” Air closed around the fire. She waved her hands, trying to make her fire obey her, but it remained contained. She snapped her finger to call forth more fire. “Omnis ignis unus,” he murmured. All fire is one fire. The new burst of flame she wanted materialized inside the prison he had already made. He approached the trunk. Sunlight slanted through the broken walls into the room, sparkling where it caught specks of plaster in the air. One particular ray lit a thin streak of blood at her temple. She yanked at the trunk lid. He set his own hand against it. “I am not here to harm you,” he repeated. “Come with me. I will get you to safety.” She glowered. “Come with you? I don’t even know who . . .” Her voice trailed off; her head jerked with recognition. He was Titus VII, the Master of the Domain.2 His profile adorned the coins of the realm. His portraits hung in schools and public buildings—even though he was not yet of age and would not rule in his own right for another seventeen months.
The Burning Sky Page 9 “Your Highness, forgive my discourtesy.” Her hand loosened its grip on the trunk’s lid; her gaze, however, remained on guard. “Are you here at Atlantis’s behest?” So she knew from which quarter danger came. “No,” he answered. “The Inquisitor would have to step over my dead body to get to you.” The girl swallowed. “The Inquisitor wants me?” “Badly.” “Why?” “I will tell you later. We need to go.” “Where?” He appreciated her wariness: better wary than naive. But this was no time for detailed answers. Each passing second diminished their chances of getting out unseen. “The mountains, for now. Tomorrow I will take you out of the Domain.” “But I can’t leave my guardian behind. He—” Too late. Overhead Marble emitted a high, keening call: she had sighted the Inquisitor. He untwisted the pendant he wore around his neck and pressed its lower half into her hand. “I will find you. Now go.” “But what about Master—” He pushed her down and slammed the trunk shut. The moment the trunk closed, its bottom dropped out from underneath Iolanthe. She fell into utter darkness, flailing. CHAPTER 3 THERE WAS NO TIME TO bring down Marble. Titus had two choices: he could let the Inquisitor see Marble, catch her, and realize that Titus’s personal steed was loose in the vicinity; or he could vault onto the beast, with the latter in midflight. It was stupid to vault onto a moving object. It was suicidal when the moving object was two hundred feet in the air. But if his presence was to be deduced no matter what, then he preferred to be caught flying, which would allow him to claim that he had never set foot on the ground. He sighted Marble, sucked in a deep breath, and vaulted where he hoped she would be. He rematerialized in thin air, with nothing under him. His heart stopped. A fraction of a second later, he crashed onto something hard—Marble’s back. Relief tore through him. But there was no time to indulge in the shaking exhaustion of having cheated death. He was too far aft. Shouting at Marble to keep steady, he scrambled forward along her smooth spine, even as he pointed his wand at the house to erase the impassable circle. Already there had been a cluster of villagers gathered outside the circle, discussing among themselves whether they ought to go in. The removal of the circle lifted all such inhibitions. The villagers rushed into the house. Titus had no sooner grabbed the reins than the Inquisitor and her entourage arrived. A moment later, her second in command raised a formal hail. Titus took his time descending, applying miscellaneous cleaning spells to his person as he did so: it would defeat the purpose of his stunt to appear before the Inquisitor with the detritus of the house still clinging to him. There was an open field behind the house. Marble’s wings swept close to the ground, forcing the Inquisitor’s retainers to throw themselves down, lest they be impaled by the spikes that protruded from the front of those wings—natural spikes that Titus’s grooms had polished into stiletto-sharp points. Marble was now on her feet, but Titus did not dismount: the Inquisitor, in a deliberate slight, was not yet present to receive him. He took out two apples from the saddlebag, tossed one to Marble, and took a bite of the other. His heart, which had not yet slowed to normal, began to beat faster again. The Inquisitor was an extractor of secrets, and he had too many of them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Inquisitor emerge from the rear door of the house. Marble hissed—of course a beast as intelligent as Marble would hate the Inquisitor. Titus kept on eating the apple—at a leisurely pace—and dismounted only after he tossed aside the core. The Inquisitor bowed. Appearances were still kept—Atlantis enjoyed pretending that it was not a tyrant, but merely first among equals. Therefore Titus, despite not having a dram of real power, reigned nevertheless as the Master of the Domain; and the Inquisitor, a representative of Atlantis, was officially of no more importance than any other ambassador from any other realm. “Madam Inquisitor, an unexpected pleasure,” he addressed her. His palms perspired, but he kept his tone haughty. His was a lineage that stretched back a thousand years to Titus the Great, unifier of the Domain and one of the greatest mages to ever wield a wand. The Inquisitor’s parents had been, if he was not mistaken, traders of antique goods—and not necessarily genuine ones. Ancestry was an indicator of little importance when it came to a mage’s individual abilities—archmages often came from families of otherwise middling accomplishment. But ancestry mattered to the average mage, and it especially mattered to the Inquisitor, though she was no average mage. Titus reminded her as often as he could that he was a vain, self-important boy who would have been nothing and no one had he not been born into the once-illustrious House of Elberon. “Unexpected indeed, Your Highness,” replied the Inquisitor. “The Midsouth March is remote from your usual haunts.” She was in her early forties, pale, with thin, red lips, almost invisible eyebrows, and eerily colorless eyes. He had first received her at age eight and had been frightened of her ever since. He forced himself to hold her gaze. “I saw the sustained lightning from the castle and had to have a look, naturally.” “You arrived fast. How did you locate the precise spot of the lightning so quickly?”
The Burning Sky Page 10 Her tone was even, but her eyes bore into his. He blamed his mother. By all means the Inquisitor should believe in Titus’s frivolousness, but for the fact that the late Princess Ariadne too had once been deemed docile—and had proved anything but. “My grandfather’s field glass, of course.” “Of course,” said the Inquisitor. “Your Highness’s vaulting range is commendable.” “It runs in the family, but you are correct that mine is particularly extensive.” His immodest self-congratulation brought a twitch to the Inquisitor’s face. Fortunately for him, the ability to vault was considered analogous to the ability to sing: a talent that had no bearing on a mage’s capacity for subtle magic. “What do you think of the person who brought down the lightning bolt?” asked the Inquisitor. “A person brought down the lightning?” He rolled his eyes. “Have you been reading too many children’s tales?” “It is elemental magic, Your Highness.” “Rubbish. The elements are fire, air, water, and earth. Lightning is none of them.” “One could say lightning is the marriage of fire and air.” “One could say mud is the marriage of water and earth,” he said dismissively. The Inquisitor’s jaw tightened. A bead of sweat rolled down Titus’s back. He played a perilous game. There was a fine line between irritating the Inquisitor and angering her outright. He set his tone slightly less pompous. “And what is Atlantis’s interest in all this, Madam Inquisitor?” “Atlantis is interested in all unusual phenomena, Your Highness.” “What have your people discovered about this unusual phenomenon?” The Inquisitor had come out of the house. So she would have seen the interior already. “Not very much.” He began to walk toward the house. “Your Highness, I advise against it. The house is structurally unstable.” “If it is not too unstable for you, it is not too unstable for me,” he said blithely. Besides, he had no choice. In his earlier hurry to get out, he had not had time to remove all traces he might have left behind. He must go back in and walk about, in case his previous set of boot prints had not been sufficiently trampled by the villagers. The January Uprising had failed for many different reasons, not the least of which was that its leaders had not been nearly meticulous enough. He could not afford to make the same mistakes. The Inquisitor in tow, he strolled through the house. Except for the number of books, there was nothing remarkable about it. The Inquisitor’s agents swarmed, checking walls and floors, pulling open drawers and cabinets. Nearly half a dozen agents crowded around the trunk, which, thankfully, seemed to be a one-time portal that kept its destination to itself. On the front lawn, guarded by more agents, the girl’s guardian and the housebreaker were laid out, both still unconscious. “Are they dead?” he asked. “No, they are both very much alive.” “They need medical attention, in that case.” “Which they will receive in due time—at the Inquisitory.” “They are my subjects. Why are they being taken to the Inquisitory?” He made sure he sounded peevish, concerned not so much about his subjects but about his own lack of power. “We merely wish to question them, Your Highness. Representatives of the Crown are welcome at any time to see them while they remain in our care,” said the Inquisitor. No representatives of the Crown had been allowed into the Inquisitory in a decade. “And may I call on you this evening, Your Highness,” continued the Inquisitor, “to discuss what you have seen?” Another drop of sweat crept down Titus’s spine. So she did suspect him—of something. “I have already mentioned everything I saw. Besides, my holidays have ended. I return to school later today.” “I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow morning.” “And I thought I was quite at liberty to come and go as I wish, as I am the master of all I survey,” he snapped. They were there in her eyes, the atrocities she wanted to commit, to reduce him to a witless imbecile. She would not. The pleasure she would derive from destroying him was not worth the trouble it would incite, given that he was, after all, the Master of the Domain. Or so Titus told himself. The Inquisitor smiled. He hated her smiles almost more than her stares. “Of course you may shape your itinerary as you wish, Your Highness,” she said. He had been let go. He tried not to exhale too loudly in relief. When they were once again on the field behind the house, she bowed. He remounted Marble. Marble spread her wings and pushed off the ground. But even after they were airborne, he still felt the Inquisitor’s unwavering gaze on his back. This was no instantaneous transportation. Iolanthe kept dropping. She screamed for a while and stopped when she realized that no air rushed past her to indicate speed. She might as well have been suspended in place, only thinking that she was falling because there was nothing underneath her. Suddenly there was. She thudded onto her bottom and grunted with the skeleton-jarring impact. It remained pitch-black. Her hands touched soft things that smelled of dust and faded lavender—folded clothes. Digging beneath the clothes, she found a lining of smooth, stretched leather. The solid material under the leather was probably wood. Wary of making any unnecessary sounds, she did not knock to find out.
The Burning Sky Page 11 She continued to explore her new surroundings. Action kept fear—and jumbled emotions—at bay. If she tried to make sense of the events of the afternoon, she might howl in bewilderment. And if she thought about Master Haywood, she’d crumble from panic. Or pure guilt. He had not been deluded by merixida. He had not even exaggerated. And she had chosen not to believe him. Leather-covered walls rose shoulder-height about her, ending in a padded, tufted leather ceiling: she was inside another trunk. The trunk seemed tightly closed. She decided to risk a flicker of fire. It shed a dim, coppery light that illuminated a sturdy latch below the seam of the lid. The implication of the latch was discomfiting: it was for her to keep the trunk shut. To either side of the latch was a round disc of wood, one marked with an eye, the other, an ear. Reconnoitering was clearly recommended. She extinguished the fire in her palm—its light might give her away—and felt for the discs. The first one she found was the ear hole, which conveyed only silence. She moved to the peephole but likewise saw nothing. The room that contained her trunk was as dark as the bottom of the ocean, without even the telltale nimbus of light around a curtained window. Wherever she was, she seemed to be completely alone. She found and released the latch. Placing her palms against the lid of the trunk, she applied a gentle pressure. The lid moved a fraction of an inch and stopped. She pushed harder and heard a metallic scrape, but the lid did not lift any higher. Frowning, she put the latch back and tried again. This time, the lid moved not at all. So the latch in place prevented the trunk from opening. What had caused the trunk to open only a crack after the latch had been released? The tips of her fingers turned cold. The trunk was secured from the outside. A second vault in such a short time unsettled even a steed as disciplined as Marble. She screeched as they materialized above the Labyrinthine Mountains, her eyes shut tight in distress. Titus had to yank the reins with all his strength to avoid crashing into a peak that suddenly reared in their path—the constant motion of the mountains meant that even one as familiar with them as he must always take care. “Shhhhhh,” he murmured, his own heart pounding hard at the near miss. “Shhhhh, old girl. It is all right.” He guided her higher, clear of any summits that might decide to sprout additional spurs. She obeyed his commands, her prodigious muscles contracting with each rise of her wings. Beneath him, the Domain stretched in all directions, the Labyrinthine Mountains bisecting the island like the plated spine ridge of a prehistoric monster. To either side of the great mountain range, the countryside was a fresh, luminous green dotted by the pinks and creams of orchards in bloom. You are the steward of this land and its people now, Titus, Prince Gaius, his grandfather, had said on his deathbed. Do not fail them as I did. Do not fail your mother as I did. Had he known then what he knew now, he would have told the old bastard, You chose to put your own interests above that of this land and its people. You chose to fail my mother. I hope you suffer long and hard where you are going. Quite the family, the House of Elberon. Since the Inquisitor already knew he had visited the location of the lightning strike, there was no more need to be stealthy. As the castle came into sight, he wheeled Marble directly toward the landing arch at the top. Marble cried plaintively at his dismount. He gave the rubbery skin of her wing a quick caress. “I will have the grooms take you for more exercise. Go now, my love.” Strong winds buffeted the pinnacle of the castle. Titus fought his way inside and sprinted down two flights of stairs into his apartment. He greeted the usual huddle of attendants with a snarled, “Am I ready to depart yet?” and waved away those still foolhardy enough to follow him. The apartment was vast. Even with the aid of secret passages, it still took him another minute to emerge in the globe room, where a representation of the Earth, fourteen feet across, hovered in midair. With a swish of his wand, doors shut, drapes drew, and a dense fog rose from the floor. Only the air between the globe and his person remained transparent. Carefully, he touched the half pendant he still wore to the globe. His fingers brushed against something hot and grainy—the Kalahari Desert, probably. A pulse passed between the pendant and the globe. He drew back and looked up. A bright red dot appeared on the globe, a thousand miles east northeast of where he stood—and very much in the middle of a nonmage realm. To limit the influence of Exiles,3 Atlantis had placed a chokehold on travel between mage realms and nonmage realms. Most portals would have been rendered useless. The girl’s trunk must employ startlingly unusual magic—or someone had made sure a loophole had been left open for it. She could have been taken anywhere. But Fortune smiled upon him today, and her current location was within twenty-five miles of his school. With luck, he would find her in the next hour. Waving away the fog, he summoned Dalbert, his valet and personal spymaster. He must leave immediately, before the Inquisitor put more agents on his tail. “Your Highness.” Dalbert appeared at the door, a middle-aged man whose round, pleasant face hid a ferocious talent for intelligence gathering. He had supplied facts and rumors to Titus in a timely and discreet manner for the past eight years, keeping his master apprised of everything that went on in the Domain and around the world while looking after Titus’s personal comforts. The prince, however, had never taken Dalbert into his confidence.
The Burning Sky Page 12 “There is a train getting into Slough in twenty minutes. I plan to be on it. Make it happen.” “Yes, sire. And, sire, Prince Alectus and Lady Callista await below. They request an audience with Your Highness.” The regent and his mistress resided in Delamer, the capital, and rarely called upon Titus’s mountain keep. Titus swore under his breath. “Show them into the throne room—and have Woodkin exercise Marble.” Dalbert hurried off. Titus took himself two levels below, shrugging into a day coat as he went. He rarely entered the throne room except on the most public of occasions—it was ridiculous for him, essentially a puppet, to be in a room meant to symbolize the justness and might of his position. But today he wished to get rid of his visitors fast, and the throne room discouraged small talk. The ceiling of the throne room rose fifty feet on two rows of white marble pillars. The obsidian throne was set upon a waist-high dais. Titus walked past it to the arched windows. Beneath him was a drop of a thousand feet to a ravine cut by a blue, glacier-fed river. Beyond, purple peaks shifted like slow waves. Alectus and Lady Callista appeared on two of the four low pedestals that transported audience seekers from the reception room to the throne room. Alectus was the youngest brother of Titus’s grandfather, a handsome, morally flexible man of fifty-eight. Lady Callista was a beauty witch—the greatest beauty witch of her generation. Of the last three hundred years, it had been argued.4 She was on the brink of forty. Unlike many other beauty witches, she had not resorted to questionable magic to keep herself looking half her age. Instead, she had aged gracefully, allowing a few wrinkles to spread here and there while maintaining her sway over legions of hearts. Ever since Alectus had been appointed regent, she had been his mistress. Some whispered that Alectus had even proposed to her, but she had declined. She was the capital’s leading hostess, its arbiter of style, a generous patron of the arts—and an agent of Atlantis. Alectus bowed. Lady Callista curtsied. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” asked Titus, offering neither seats nor refreshment. His bluntness surprised Alectus, who looked toward his mistress: Alectus had no appetite for confrontation, or any kind of unpleasantness. Lady Callista smiled. It was said that to this day, love letters arrived for her by the wheelbarrowful. There was a great deal of skill in her smile, a smile meant to make a boy who had done nothing with his life feel accomplished and remarkable—virile, even. Titus felt only revulsion—she was most likely the one who had betrayed his mother, informing the Inquisitor of the latter’s secret participation in the January Uprising. “We received a note from the Inquisitor,” she said, her voice a dulcet murmur. “Her Excellency is concerned that she doesn’t see enough of you. She’s quite fond of you, Your Highness.” Titus rolled his eyes. “She is getting above herself. What do I care whether she is fond of me? She was a nobody before the Bane plucked her out of obscurity.” “But now she is the Inquisitor, and can cause much unpleasantness.” “Why would she do that? Does she wish to incite a new uprising?” At the word “uprising,” Lady Callista’s smile faltered slightly, but she was quickly all warmth and concern again. “Your Highness, of course she does not want that. Once you come of age, the two of you will see a great deal of each other. She hopes for a respectful, productive, and mutually beneficial association.” “I appreciate your diplomacy,” he said, “but there is no use gilding a turd. I cannot stand that upstart, and she is jealous and resentful of me. Save me the time and tell me what she really wants.” Alectus choked at Titus’s language. Alectus never had problems being deferential to the Inquisitor. He was ill suited to wield power himself, but he yearned toward it as a vine reaches for a higher branch. And parasite that he was, he was probably happier the more powers the Inquisitor concentrated onto herself. Lady Callista’s next smile was strained. Had the Inquisitor been nasty to her? Usually Lady Callista’s smiles were entirely effortless. “The Inquisitor would like to speak to you about what you saw this afternoon.” “I saw nothing—I already told her.” “Nevertheless, she believes that with her help, you might remember more.” “Will I still be continent when I emerge from her ‘help’?” The Inquisitor’s methods were widely feared. “I’m sure she would treat you with utmost courtesy and consideration, sire.” Titus assessed his situation. He must leave without delay. Yet the Inquisitor must also be placated somehow. “Your spring gala is to take place in a few days. I will attend as the guest of honor. You may invite the Inquisitor. I will grant her a brief audience during the course of the evening.” He made appearances at various state and charitable functions during the year, usually those involving children and young people. A gala was not quite the same thing, but he would stir curiosity, not controversy. Lady Callista opened her mouth. Titus preempted her. “I trust you are grateful that I will take the trouble.” It was time she remembered that he was still her sovereign. “Of course,” she murmured, conjuring another smile. Now they were down to mere formalities before he dismissed them. “Is there anything else that requires my attention?”
The Burning Sky Page 13 “My choice of a new overrobe for the gala,” said Alectus, jolly now that his task had been discharged by his mistress. “I cannot make up my mind, and Lady Callista claims to be far too busy.” “Thousands of details need to be seen to before the gala,” said Lady Callista, in her you-silly-man-but-of-course-I-love-you-madly tone. “Close your eyes and make a random selection,” Titus said, forcing himself not to sound too impatient. “Indeed, indeed,” Alectus agreed, “as good a method as any.” “I wish you both a good day,” said Titus, his jaw hurting with the strain of remaining civil. Alectus bowed. Lady Callista curtsied. They stepped on the pedestals and disappeared to the reception room below. Titus let out a breath. He glanced at his watch: still ten minutes to make the train. But Lady Callista reappeared, looking suitably apologetic. “I beg your pardon, sire, I seem to have left my fan behind. Ah, there it is.” What did she want now? “Do you know what curious news I just heard, sire?” she asked. “That by the bolt of lightning you saw, a great elemental mage has revealed herself—a girl of about your age.” Of course she would ask him about the girl—what good minion of the Inquisitor’s would not? He acted bored. “Should I care?” “She could be very important, this girl.” “To whom?” “Atlantis does not expend its wherewithal on needless concerns. If the Inquisitor is after the girl, she must be valuable in some way.” “And why are you telling me this, my lady?” Lady Callista approached him and placed a hand on his arm. This close she smelled of the subtle yet potent fragrance of narcissus. “Does it not concern you, sire, that the Inquisitor is halfway to finding this possibly very significant young woman?” Very few of his subjects touched him without express permission. Lady Callista dared take the liberty because she had once been Princess Ariadne’s dearest friend. Her touch was warm and maternal, her person present and interested in a way that his perpetually preoccupied mother had never been. Titus yanked away. “Madam, if you seek someone to stand up to the Inquisitor, you are looking at quite the wrong man. I am the heir of a princely house well past its hour of glory. That is burden enough. I am not going to spearhead some quixotic cause for which I have neither the desire nor the talent.” Lady Callista laughed softly. “Don’t be silly, sire. I’m looking for nothing of the sort. My goodness, why should I want anything to destabilize the current situation, which favors me so?” She walked backward until she was on the pedestal and curtsied again. “However, should you ever decide to spearhead a quixotic cause, sire, you must let me know. Stability does grow tedious after a while.” CHAPTER 4 A CURIOUS VEHICLE OCCUPIED THE highest garret of the castle: a black-lacquered private rail coach. Inside, the walls of the coach were covered in sky-blue silk. A pair of padded chairs were upholstered in cream brocade. A porcelain tea service, with steam curling from the spout of the teapot, sat on a side table. Canary cage in hand, Titus entered the rail coach, the link to his other life. He could almost smell the coal burning at the heart of the yet-distant steam engine, feel the rumble of the wheels on the tracks. Dalbert brought his luggage, then closed the door of the coach. “Something to drink for the journey, sire?” “Thank you, but hardly necessary.” Dalbert glanced at his watch. “Brace yourself, sire.” He pulled a large lever. The coach shook. The next moment it was no longer in placid storage in the castle’s uppermost reach, but a thousand miles away on English soil, part of a train that had departed from Mansion House station, London, three quarters of an hour before. “Slough in five minutes, sire.” “Thank you, Dalbert.” Titus rose from his seat to stand before the window. Outside it drizzled—another wet English spring. The land was green and foggy, the train’s motions rhythmic, almost hypnotic. How strange that when he had first arrived in this nonmage realm, he had hated everything about it—the sooty, offensive smells, the flavorless food, the inexplicable customs. Yet now, after nearly four years at his nonmage school, this world had become a refuge, a place to escape, as far as escape was possible, from the oppression of Atlantis. And the oppression of his destiny. Two shrill steam blasts announced the train’s arrival in Slough. Dalbert pulled down the window shades and handed Titus his satchel. “May Fortune walk with you, sire.” “May Fortune heed your wish,” replied Titus. Dalbert bowed. Titus inclined his head—and vaulted. None of the opening spells Iolanthe knew worked. She did not have power over wood. Water was useless here, as was fire. She could keep herself safe from fire, but were she to set the trunk aflame, either from inside or outside, she’d still succumb to smoke inhalation. Unless someone freed her, she was stuck. She didn’t often give in to panic, but she could feel hysteria rising in her lungs, squeezing out air, squeezing out everything but the need to start screaming and never stop. She forced her mind to go blank instead, to breathe slowly and try for a measure of calm. The Inquisitor wants me? Badly. The Inquisitor was the Bane’s de facto viceroy to the Domain. Once, when Iolanthe had been much younger, she’d asked Master Haywood why mages were so afraid of the Inquisitor. His answer she’d never forgotten: Because sometimes fear is the only appropriate response.
The Burning Sky Page 14 She shuddered. If only she’d listened to Master Haywood. Then the light elixir would have been safe—and she’d never have brought down the lightning. She dropped her face into her hands. Something cold and heavy pressed into the space between her brows: the pendant the prince had given her before he shoved her on her way. A new smidgen of fire revealed the pendant to be a half oval made of a gleaming silver-white metal, with faint tracery on its surface. At first it remained icy to the touch—proximity to her fire made no difference. Then, for no reason she could discern, it warmed to room temperature. The prince’s presence had to be one of the most puzzling aspects of the day, second only to Master Haywood’s anguished ignorance. Master Haywood had known that she should be kept away from the prying eyes of Atlantis. He had prepared a satchel in the event of an emergency evacuation. How could he not know then where she was going or what was in the satchel? The satchel! She shoved the pendant into her pocket, called for more fire—taking care that it didn’t come near her hair or her clothes—and searched inside the satchel. Her fingers encountered fabric, leather, a silky pouch with jingling coins, and at last, an envelope. The envelope contained a letter. My dearest Iolanthe, I have just come from your room. You are a week short of your second birthday, sleeping with a sweet gusto under the singing blanket that was still crooning softly to you as I closed the door behind me. I want a secure, uneventful future for you. It fills me with dread to think of you someday reading this letter, still a child, yet utterly alone, as you must be. (I can’t help but wonder how your power would have manifested itself. By causing the Delamer River to flow in reverse? Or shearing the air of a sunny day into a cyclone?) Nightly I pray that we will never come to it. But it has been agreed that for the sake of everyone’s safety, I will give up my knowledge of certain events to a memory keeper. After tomorrow, I will only know that I must guard the extent of your powers from the notice of Atlantis, and that if I were to fail, to distance you from immediate harm. You no doubt crave explanations. Yet explanations I dare not set down in writing, for fear that this letter falls into the wrong hands, despite all my precautions. Only remember this: keep away from any and all agents of Atlantis. Every last mage in pursuit of you seeks to abuse and exploit your powers. Trust no one. Trust no one, that is, except the memory keeper. She will find you. And she will protect you to her dying breath. To help her, remain where you are for as long as you can—I have been assured that the end-portal will be kept at a secure location. But by all means use caution. You cannot be careful enough. And whatever you do, do not repeat the action that brought you to Atlantis’s notice in the first place. Be careful, Iolanthe. Be careful. But do not despair. Help will reach you. I want nothing more than to take you into my arms and assure you that all will be well. But I can only pray ardently that Fortune walks with you, that you discover hitherto unimagined strength in yourself and encounter unexpected friends along this perilous path that you must now tread. All my love, Horatio P.S. I have applied an Irreproducible Charm to you. No one can capture your likeness—and therefore Atlantis will not be able to disseminate your image. P.P.S. Do not worry about me. How could she not worry about him? The Inquisitor would be furious when she realized that he’d deliberately given up his memories to foil her. And if— A thump in the floor—a vibration that shot up Iolanthe’s spine—scattered her thoughts. She shoved the letter back into the satchel and extinguished her fire. For a moment she could hear nothing, and then it came again, the thump. Her fingers closed around her wand. She lifted the disc covering the peephole. Part of the floor lifted. A trapdoor—she was in an attic. Light wafted up from the opening, illuminating crates, chests, and shelves upon which crowded ranks and rows of dusty curiosities. The trapdoor rose farther, accompanied by a squeak of the hinge. A lantern made its way into the attic, followed by a woman with a wand. She raised the lantern. It glowed brighter and brighter, rivaling the blinding brilliance of noonday. Iolanthe squinted against the glare. The woman was about forty and quite lovely: deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, and wide lips. Her hair was very fair, almost white in the eye-watering light, swept up to the top of her head. Her pale-blue gown was of a fashion Iolanthe had never seen. It buttoned all the way to her chin and cinched to a tiny handspan at the waist, with tight sleeves that ended below her elbows in swishes of lace. Who was the woman? Was she, by happy chance, the memory keeper who should find Iolanthe? “So, you are finally here,” the woman said, speaking as if through clenched teeth. Iolanthe’s stomach dropped. The woman’s tone was grim, hostile even. The woman pointed her wand at the trunk. Things snapped and clanked to the floor. Locks? No, chains. Iolanthe could see thick metal links from the peephole. “Aperi,” said the woman, using the simplest opening spell now that the restraints had been removed. Some deep-seated instinct made Iolanthe clutch at the latch. She had not moved three times in seven years without learning a thing or two about reading people: whoever this woman was, she did not mean well. The latch twitched against Iolanthe’s hand, but she kept it in place. “Aperi,” the woman repeated.
The Burning Sky Page 15 Again the latch fidgeted. The woman frowned. “Aperi maxime.” This time the latch twisted and bucked like a caught animal bent on escape. Iolanthe’s fingers hurt with the strain of keeping it from disengaging. At last the latch stilled. But she barely caught a breath before the woman called, “Frangare!” Frangare was a mason’s spell, used for cleaving boulders in two. The trunk must have been protected: it did not crack open, not even the smallest of fractures. “Frangare!” the woman cried again. “Frangare! Frangare! Frangare!” Iolanthe’s fingers were icy with fear. The trunk remained intact. But for how much longer? She tried to vault—and moved not an inch: no self-respecting mage dwellings allowed vaulting within its perimeters.5 The woman set down the lantern and clutched the bodice of her dress, as if exhausted. “I forgot,” she said slowly. “He made the trunk indestructible so I could not get rid of it.” So there was a man about. Could he help Iolanthe? “On his deathbed he asked me to swear a blood oath that I would protect you as I would my own child, from the moment I first saw you,” the woman said softly. Then she laughed, a sound that chilled Iolanthe’s blood. “He wanted much, did he not?” The woman lifted her head; her face was cold and blank, her eyes burning with fervor. “For you he gave up his honor,” she said. “For you he destroyed us all.” Who was this madwoman? And why had anyone believed this house to be a secure location? The woman raised her wand. The chains slammed back into place around the trunk. Her lips moved silently, as if she were praying. Iolanthe held her breath. For a long minute, nothing seemed to happen. Then the ends of her hair fluttered. The trunk was shut, she herself was still—how could air move? Yet it moved. In only one direction: out of the trunk. The woman intended to suffocate Iolanthe right in the trunk. And air was the only element over which Iolanthe had no control whatsoever. Titus’s pendant had warmed appreciably as he reached England. It had warmed further after he materialized in London. Many Exiles from the Domain, accustomed to the urban life of Delamer, had chosen to settle in London, the closest thing Britain had to an equivalent. The girl had likely arrived at the home of an Exile. The city was in the throes of one of its infamous fogs. He saw well enough with his fog glasses, but no one on the ground could spot him on his flying carpet. Flying carpets were once the fastest, most comfortable, and most luxurious mode of travel. In this age of expedited channels, however, they had become antiques, much admired but little used. Titus’s carpet, measuring four feet in length, two in width, and barely a quarter of an inch in thickness, was actually a toy—and not meant for any child to ride on, but for dolls. He flew over the town house of Rosemary Alhambra, the Exiles’ leader, but the pendant did not react further. Next he tried the house of the Heathmoors, considered the most powerful mages among the Exiles—still nothing. He was on his way to the home of Alhambra’s lieutenant when the pendant heated abruptly. He had just passed Hyde Park Corner. The only mage family who lived nearby were the Wintervales. Surely not. No one in their right mind would entrust this girl to Lady Wintervale. But as he circled above the Wintervale house, the pendant grew so hot he had to pull it outside his shirt so it would not scald his skin. Wintervale House was one of the most tightly secured private dwellings Titus knew. Fortunately—most fortunately—Leander Wintervale, the son of the house, was Titus’s schoolmate, and there was a way to access the house from the former’s room at school. Titus landed on a nearby roof, took off his fog glasses, and rolled the carpet into a tight bundle to carry under his arm. From there he vaulted to his resident house at school. Specifically, into Archer Fairfax’s perennially unoccupied room. A glance out of Fairfax’s window showed Wintervale and Mohandas Kashkari, an Indian boy and Wintervale’s good friend, behind the house. The rain had reduced to a mist. Kashkari, the calmer of the two, stood in place; Wintervale paced around him, talking and gesticulating. Excellent—now Titus did not need to devise a way to get Wintervale away from his room. He opened Fairfax’s door a fraction of an inch and peered out. Many of the boys had returned. A cluster stood talking at the far end of the passage. But they decided to go to Atkins’ to buy some foodstuff and stomped down the stairs. Once the corridor was empty, Titus dropped the flying carpet on the floor of his own room—after much tinkering he had fortified it enough to carry his weight, but the combined weight of both himself and the girl would keep the carpet grounded. Next he slipped into Wintervale’s room four doors down, squeezed inside Wintervale’s narrow wardrobe, and closed the door. “Fidus et audax.” He opened the wardrobe again to step into Wintervale’s room at the family’s London town house. The corridor outside was empty. He made for the stairs. Descending turned the pendant cooler. Ascending, hotter. He sprinted up the steps. There was still air in the trunk; it whished softly as it left. But breathing already felt like heaving a boulder with her lungs. Soon the madwoman would have Iolanthe sealed in a vacuum. Her fingers shook. She looked out of the peephole, searching frantically for something she could use to help herself. There! On a shelf in the recesses of the attic, among dusty metal instruments, stood one lone statuette of stone.
The Burning Sky Page 16 She could not manipulate ceramic—cooking the earth changed its properties—but she did have power over stone. She elevated the statuette. It hovered a few inches above the shelf. She swung her arm. The statuette smashed into the back of the woman’s head. The woman cried. Her wand clattered to the floor. She did not, however, lose consciousness as Iolanthe had hoped, but only stumbled until she banged into crates piled against the wall. Iolanthe hesitated. Should she attack the woman again in the latter’s weakened state? But the woman already had her wand back in her hand. “Exstinguare.” The stone statuette turned into dust. “Now what are you going to use?” said the woman, with a chilling smile. Suddenly the air inside the trunk was so thin Iolanthe became light-headed. It felt as if someone had pushed her face into wet cement. Try as she did, she could not draw a single breath. Faintly, very faintly, she became aware that something burned against her left thigh. Then everything went black. As he arrived below the open trapdoor, Titus heard Lady Wintervale speaking. “What have you done?” Her voice was low yet frantic. “Never again, remember? You were never, never to kill again.” A blade of fear plunged into Titus’s heart. Lady Wintervale’s paranoia ran deep, and her sanity was not always reliable. Was he too late? He wrapped a muffling spell about the rickety steps and climbed up. The moment he had Lady Wintervale in view, he pointed his wand. Tempus congelet, he mouthed, not wanting her to hear his voice before the time-freeze spell took effect. If the spell took effect. He had never used it in the real world. Lady Wintervale stilled. He darted past her to the trunk. “Are you there? Are you all right?” The trunk was as silent as a coffin. He swore. The chains did not respond to the first few spells he tried. He swore again. If he had more time, he could coax the chains. But there was no time: the time-freeze spell lasted three minutes at most. And the girl, if she was still alive, must be let out right away. He looked about. There was nothing he could use. A moment later, however, he saw that the chains did not go around the trunk all the way, but were instead fastened to plates bolted to the side of the trunk. And the magic that anchored the plates to the trunk was ordinary enough that a stronger-than-usual unfastening cant did the trick. He flung back the chains, but the trunk lid lifted only a fraction of an inch. What more obstacles stood in his way? “Aperi.” The sound of something unlatching. He hoisted up the lid. The girl was slumped over, her face invisible beneath her still-wild hair. His mind went blank. She could not possibly be dead. Could she? Reaching inside, he lifted a limp wrist and searched for a pulse. His heart thudded as he encountered a feeble throb in her vein. “Revisce!” No reaction. “Revisce forte!” Her entire person shuddered. Her head slowly rose. Her eyes opened. “Highness,” she mumbled. He was weak with relief. But again, no time to indulge. “Hold still, I will get you out. Omnia interiora vos elevate.” Everything in the trunk floated: the girl, who gasped and thrashed to find herself airborne; her wand; her satchel; and a great many items of clothing that must have been packed before the trunk was closed the first time. Not a single piece of clothing was nonmage. If the trunk had been entrusted to the Wintervales, it would have been before their exile. He caught the girl, her wand, and her satchel, and let everything else fall back into the trunk. A quick swish closed the trunk. An undo spell set the plates and the chains back into place. Then he was easing the two of them out the trapdoor, with an “Omnia deleantur” tossed behind him to erase his footprints and any other traces he might have left in the dust of the attic. “Did she hurt you?” he asked at the first stair landing. “She siphoned all the air from the trunk.” He looked down at the girl in his arms. Her breathing was labored, but she hung on to her composure remarkably well for someone who had just endured an attempt on her life—or perhaps she was simply too breathless for hysteria. “Why did she want to kill me?” she rasped. “I do not know. But she is disturbed—she lost her father and her sister in the uprising. Her husband also died young.” Back in Wintervale’s room two stories below, he sat her on the bed and opened the opposite window. Fog rushed in. “What’s that smell?” “London.” “London, England?” He was glad that she had some knowledge of nonmage geography. “Yes. Here. Let me—” The unmistakable sound of someone arriving in the wardrobe. Lady Wintervale must have come out of the time freeze, found the trunk empty, and summoned her son. Titus shut the window, yanked the girl off the bed, and pushed her flat against the wall in the blind spot behind the wardrobe. She had the sense to keep still and silent. The wardrobe opened. Wintervale leaped down. Titus’s heart imploded: the girl’s satchel was in plain sight under the windowsill—he had set it down earlier to open the window. But Wintervale paid no attention to the contents of his room and rushed out to the corridor. Titus allowed himself a moment to calm down. “Hurry.” The window was set deep in the facade of the house. He reopened the window and lifted the girl to the ledge. Next, her satchel in hand, he climbed out, closed the window, and latched it with a locking charm.
The Burning Sky Page 17 The fog was pervasive. She was lost in the thick, mustard-colored miasma. He felt for her but only came across a tumble of her hair. “Where is your hand?” She placed her hand in his, her fingers cold but steady. “I didn’t expect you’d really come.” He exhaled. “Then you do not know me very well.” He vaulted them both. CHAPTER 5 VAULTING HAD NEVER BEEN A problem for Iolanthe before, whether on her own or hitching along with someone else. But this particular vault was like being crushed between two boulders. She shut her eyes and swallowed a scream of pain. At the other end, she stumbled. The prince caught her. “I am sorry. I knew vaulting might be difficult for you just now, but I had to get you to safety right away.” He shouldn’t apologize. If they were safe, then nothing else mattered. They were in some sort of an anteroom. There was a mirror, a console table, two doors, and nothing else. He pointed his wand at the door in front of them. It opened silently, revealing a room beyond with dark-red wallpaper, pale-yellow chairs, and a large, empty grate, before which stood a wrought-iron screen with curling vines and clusters of grapes. He lifted her again and carried her to a reclining chaise. “I might have a remedy for you,” he said, setting her down. He crossed the room to another door. “Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.” I will either find a way or make one. The door opened. He walked into a room lined with drawers and shelves as far as she could see, shelves holding books, shelves holding vials, jars, and bottles, shelves holding instruments both familiar and exotic. A caged canary sat upon a long table at the center of the room. Also on the table were two valises, one brown, the second a dull red. He disappeared briefly from her sight. She heard the sound of drawers opening and closing. He returned, sat down next to her, and cradled her head in the crook of his arm. The bitter tang of the fog clung to the wool of his jacket. “That fog,” she mumbled, “is it natural?” It had been thick enough to cut with a knife, alarmingly yellow in color, and foul like pig swill. “There is no magic behind it, but it is not entirely natural either—a consequence of Britain’s industrialization. Here: this is to relieve the effects of vaulting.” The prince held a vial with a fine midnight-blue powder inside. He took her by the chin, his fingers warm and strong, and tipped the blue powder into her mouth. The flavor reminded her of seawater. “There is no counter-remedy for suffocation, exactly, but this is good for your general well-being.” He held out a second vial. The wellness remedy, silver-gray granules, tasted unexpectedly of oranges. “Thank you, Your Highness,” she murmured. He was already walking away, back into the room full of shelves. “What is that room, sire?” she asked. “My laboratory,” he answered, opening a drawer. “What do you do there, if I may ask?” “What anyone does in a laboratory—potions, distillations, elixirs, things of that sort.” She conducted practicals at the village school for Master Haywood—practicals, in one form or another, were compulsory until a pupil reached fourteen. But it wasn’t as if mages made their own potions at home. Commercial distilleries and potion manufacturers adequately supplied their needs. In fact, many households didn’t even possess the necessary implements to make the recipes she taught. Was it just princely eccentricity that had him equip an entire laboratory for himself, or was it something else? The prince came out of the laboratory and closed the door behind him. He was tall and lean—not thin, but tightly built. When she first saw him in her collapsed house, he’d had on a plain blue tunic and dark trousers tucked into knee-high boots. Simple country attire, nothing like the elaborate state robes he donned for his official portraits. Now he wore a black jacket with a hunter-green waistcoat, black trousers, and shoes of highly polished black leather—the jacket was more formfitting than the tunics men wore in the Domain, the trousers, less so. Her gaze returned to his face. Official portraits were notoriously unreliable. But in this case, the pictures hadn’t lied. He was handsome—dark hair, deep eyes, and high cheekbones. In his portraits he always sneered. She had once remarked to a classmate that he came across as mean-spirited, the kind of boy who would not only tell a girl she looked like a bumpkin but deliberately spill a drink on her. In person he appeared less cynical. There was a freshness to his features, an appealing boyishness, and—as far as she could see—no malice at all. Their eyes met. Her stomach fluttered. Without a word, he opened the door behind him again. But instead of the laboratory, he walked into what appeared to be a bathroom. “What happened to the laboratory, sire?” Sound of water running. “That is a folded space, not part of this hotel suite.” “Is that where we are, in a hotel?” She’d thought, for some reason, that they were at one of his lesser estates, a hunting lodge or a summer cabin. The sound of even more water running. “We are less than two miles from where you were when you came out of the trunk.” “We are still in London?” “Very much so.” Now that he mentioned it, she saw that real flame—rather than light elixir—shone behind the frosted glass mantles of the wall sconces. She’d have noticed sooner had she been less preoccupied.
The Burning Sky Page 18 He emerged from the bath with a towel. Crouching before her, he pressed the damp towel against her temple. “Oww!” “Sorry. The blood is a bit caked on by now. But you should not need more than a good cleaning.” She endured the discomfort. “Your Highness, will you please tell me what’s going on?” Why was she here? Why was he here? Why was the sky falling today of all days? “Later. I would be remiss as your host if I did not offer you the use of a tub first.” She’d forgotten the state she must be in, dirty and battered. “Your bath is filling as we speak. You will be all right in there by yourself?” He’d asked a perfectly legitimate question, given that he’d had to carry her a great deal of late. But all the same, what a thing to ask. “And if I’m not all right, sire?” She immediately regretted her question. It was far too cheeky. And before her sovereign, no less. She might not have received much parental guidance of late, but she still liked to think of herself as better brought up than that. He tapped his fingers against the armrest of the chaise. “Then I suppose I will have to watch over you.” There was no inflection to his tone; not even a flicker of anything in his expression. Yet the air between them drew taut. She heated. “Now, will you be all right—or will you not?” asked the prince. She became aware for the first time that his eyes were blue gray, the color of distant hills. Now she had no choice but to brazen it out. “I’m sure I will be fine,” she answered. “But should I need you, sire, please don’t hesitate.” The gaze of her sovereign swept over her. She’d seen that look of interest from boys. But his was so swift that she wasn’t quite certain she hadn’t imagined it. Then he inclined his head, all pomp and formality. “I am at your service, madam.” Even without the caked blood, when Iolanthe finally caught sight of herself in a mirror, she still flinched. She looked awful, her face filthy and scratched, her hair coated in dust and bits of plaster, her once-white blouse the color of an old rag. At least she was safe. Master Haywood . . . Her heart tightened. Her intuition had been exactly right: it had been on her account that everything had gone wrong for him. She washed quickly. Afterward, she dressed in the change of clothes the prince had supplied—slippers, undergarments, a blue flannel shirt, and a pair of matching trousers, everything for a boy four inches taller and a stone and a half heavier. When she came out of the bath, her battered clothes in a bundle in her hand, there was a tray of food waiting in the parlor and a fire in the grate. So it really was true, fireplaces were not mere decorations in the nonmage world. The prince looked at her oddly, as if seeing her for the first time. “Have we met before? You look . . . familiar.” Every year there were children selected to meet him, but she’d never been among the chosen. “No, we haven’t, sire. I’d have remembered.” “I could have sworn . . .” “You are probably thinking of someone else, sire.” She extended her hand. “Here’s your pendant.” “Thank you.” The prince shook his head, as if to clear it. He pointed at her clothes. “If you do not mind, we need to destroy them—I would prefer as little evidence of your mage origins lying about as possible. Same with the contents of the satchel. Is there anything you particularly wish to keep?” A reminder that she wasn’t quite as safe as she would like to be. She didn’t know how the prince remained so calm. But she was grateful for his aplomb—it made her less afraid. He motioned her to sit down and handed her the satchel. Master Haywood’s letter she set aside. Digging through the clothes, she found the pouch of coins she’d felt earlier—pure Cathay gold, acceptable tender in every mage realm. “I think there is a false bottom,” she said, feeling along the linings, her fingers discerning the shape of something cylindrical. The prince produced a spell that neatly removed the cover of the false bottom to reveal a hidden tube. He astounded her—not so much the spell, though it was deft, but his demeanor. Had he been an orphan who’d had to fend for himself from the youngest age, perhaps she would not be surprised at his maturity and helpfulness. But his must have been the most privileged upbringing in all the Domain; yet here he was, always thinking one step ahead, always anticipating her needs. “Thank you, sire,” she said. Could he detect the admiration in her voice? She did, and it embarrassed her. Hurriedly she reached for the tube, which contained her rolled-up birth chart—she recognized the elaborate painted night sky at the top of the scroll. She put the letter, the pouch of coins, and the birth chart back into the satchel. He scooped up everything else. “May I ask why you called down the lightning today?” I needed to keep my guardian employed and a roof over our heads. “I was trying to correct a batch of light elixir. I found in my guardian’s copy of The Complete Potion a note that said a bolt of lightning could right any light elixir, no matter how badly tainted.” He walked toward the fireplace, his arms full. “Who wrote that note?” “I don’t know, sire.” He tossed her discards into the grate. “Extinguamini. Tollamini.” Her things turned to dust. The dust rose in a column up the flue. The prince braced his elbow on the mantel and waited for all the evidence of destruction to depart. He was all long, elegant lines and—
The Burning Sky Page 19 She realized she was staring at him, in a way she could not remember ever looking at anyone else. Hastily she dropped her gaze. “It is bizarre that anyone would counsel that,” he said. “Lightning plays no role in potion making. How old is that copy of The Complete Potion?” “I’m not sure, sire. My guardian always had it.” He returned to the door of the laboratory, repeated the password, and went inside. “Mine is a first edition. It was published during the Millennium Year.” The Millennium Year celebrated one thousand years of the House of Elberon—his house. It was currently Year of the Domain 1031, which meant the copy in Little Grind was at most thirty-one years old. She’d thought the book much older. “Do we need to find out who wrote the note, sire?” We. Her use of the word further embarrassed her. She was assuming a great deal of common purpose with her sovereign. “I doubt we would be able to, even if we tried,” said the prince. “Are you well enough to eat something?” “I think so.” Her stomach had settled down and she was famished, having not touched a bite of the luncheon Mrs. Needles had brought her. He poured her a cup of tea. “What is your name?” It so surprised her that he did not already know that she forgot to thank him for the tea. “Seabourne, sire. Iolanthe Seabourne.” “Pleased to meet you, Miss Seabourne.” “Long may Fortune uphold your banner, sire.” That was what a subject said upon meeting the Master of the Domain. But perhaps she also ought to kneel. Most likely she should curtsy. As if he read her thoughts, the prince said, “Do not worry about niceties. And no need to keep calling me ‘sire.’ We are not in the Domain, and no one will chastise us for not observing court etiquette.” So . . . he is also gracious. Enough. She didn’t even know what had happened to Master Haywood, and here she was, very close to hero-worshipping someone she’d barely met. “Thank you, sire—I mean, thank you. And may I impose upon you to tell me, Your Highness, what happened to my guardian after I left?” “He is in the Inquisitor’s custody now,” said the prince, sitting down opposite her. Even the pleasure of his nearness could not dilute her dismay. “So the Inquisitor did come?” “Not even half a minute after you left.” She clasped her hands together. That she was in real danger still shocked her. “You have not touched your tea, Miss Seabourne. Cream or sugar?” Usually she liked her tea full of sugar and cream, but such a rich beverage no longer appealed. She took a sip of the black tea. The prince pushed a plate of sandwiches in her direction. “Eat. Hiding from the Inquisitor is hard work. You need to keep up your strength.” She took a bite of the sandwich—it had an unexpectedly curried taste. “So the Inquisitor wants me.” “More precisely, the Bane wants you.”6 She recoiled. She couldn’t recall when or where she’d first learned of the Bane, whose official title was Lord High Commander of the Great Realm of New Atlantis. Unlike the Inquisitor, whom people did talk about, if in hushed whispers, regarding the Bane there was a conspicuous silence. “What does the Bane want me for?” “For your powers,” said the prince. It was the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to her. “But the Bane is already the most powerful mage on earth.” “And he would like to remain so—which is only possible with you,” said the prince. “You are crushing your sandwich, by the way.” She willed her stiff fingers to unclench. “How? How do I have anything to do with the Bane remaining powerful?” “Do you know how old he is?” She shook her head and raised her teacup to her lips. She needed something to wash down the sandwich in her mouth, which had become a dry paste she couldn’t quite swallow. “Close to two hundred. Possibly more.” She stared at him, the tea forgotten. “Can anyone live that long?” “Not by natural means. Agents of Atlantis watch all the realms under their control for unusually powerful elemental mages. When they locate such a mage, he or she is secretly shipped to Atlantis, never to be heard from again. I am ignorant of how exactly the Bane makes use of those elemental mages, but I do not doubt that he does make use of them.” If she clutched her teacup any harder, the handle would break. She set it down. “What precisely is the definition of an unusually powerful elemental mage? I have no control over air.” The prince leaned forward in his chair. “Are you sure? When was the last time you tried to manipulate air?” She frowned: she couldn’t remember. “Someone tried to kill me by removing all the air from the end portal. If I had any affinity for air, I’d have stopped it, wouldn’t I?” It became his turn to frown. “Were you not born on either the thirteenth or fourteenth of November 1866—I mean, Year of the Domain 1014?” “No, I was born earlier, in September.” Her birthday was a day after his, in fact. It had been fun, when she’d been small, to pretend that the festivities surrounding his birthday had been for her also. “Show me your birth chart.” A birth chart plotted the precise alignment of stars and planets at the moment of a mage’s birth. It was once a crucial document, for everything from the choice of school to the choice of mate: the stars must align. In recent years it had become fashionable in places like Delamer to break with tradition and leave one’s birth chart to molder. But not so in Little Grind. When Iolanthe had volunteered to contribute the fire hazards for the village’s annual obstacle course run last autumn, her chart, along with those of all the participants, had been requisitioned to determine the most auspicious date on which to hold the competition.
The Burning Sky Page 20 As she dug the cylindrical container out of the mostly empty satchel, it occurred to her that if she had used her birth chart only months ago, then it could not possibly be in the satchel, the contents of which hadn’t been disturbed in more than a decade. She’d unrolled only the top six inches of the birth chart earlier, when she’d checked to see that it was a birth chart. Fully unfurled, the three-foot-long chart had no name at the center, only the time of birth, five minutes past two o’clock in the morning on the fourteenth of November, YD 1014. Something gonged in her ears. “But I was born in September. I’ve seen my chart before—many times—and it’s not this one.” “And yet this is the one that had been packed, for when the truth came out and you were forced to leave,” said the prince. “Are you saying that my guardian counterfeited the other? Why?” “There was a meteor storm that night. Stars fell like rain. Seers from every realm on earth predicted the birth of a great elemental mage. Were I your guardian, I would have most certainly not let it be known that you were born on that night.” She’d read about that night, when one could not see the sky for all the golden streaks of plummeting stars. “You think I’m that great elemental mage?” she asked, barely able to hear her own voice. She couldn’t be. She wanted no part of what was happening now. “Until you, there has never been anyone who can command lightning.” “But lightning is useless. I almost killed myself when I called it down.” “The Bane just might know what to do with such power,” said the prince. She didn’t know why the idea should make her more frightened than she was already, but it did. “It has been an exhausting day for you. Take some rest,” the prince suggested. “I must go now, but I will return in a few hours to check on you.” Go? He was leaving her all alone? “Are you going back to the Domain?” She sounded weak and afraid to her own ears. “I am going to my school.” “I thought you were educated at the castle.” More precisely, at a monastic lodge farther up the Labyrinthine Mountains that was used only for a young prince or princess’s education, or so Iolanthe had learned at school. “No, I attend an English school not far from London.” She couldn’t have heard him right. “You can’t be serious.” “I am. The Bane wished it.” “But you are our prince. You are supposed to be one of our better mages. You won’t get any proper training at such a school.” “You understand the Bane’s purpose perfectly,” he said lightly. She was appalled. “I can’t believe the regent didn’t object. Or the prime minister.” His eyes were clear and direct. “You overestimate the courage of those in power. They are often more interested in holding on to that power than in doing anything worthwhile with it.” He did not sound bitter, only matter-of-fact. How had he handled it, the utter insult of having the Bane dictate his movements, when he was, on paper at least, the Bane’s peer in power and privilege? “So . . . what should I do while you are at school?” “I was hoping to take you to school with me, but it is a boys’ school.” He shrugged. “We will make new plans.” He couldn’t have been more cordial about it, but she had the distinct sensation it did not please him to have to make new plans. “I can come with you. I went to a girls’ school for a while, and every term I had the male lead role in the school play. My voice is low, and I do a good imitation of the way a boy walks and talks.” She’d acquitted herself so well some of her classmates’ parents had thought a boy had been brought in to act the part. “Not to mention I can fight.” Unlike most magelings, who were taught to refrain from violence, elemental magelings were actively encouraged to use their fists—far better they punched someone than set the latter on fire.7 “I am sure you can knock boys out left and right. And I am sure you are perfectly proficient on stage. But playing a boy for a few hours each term is quite different from playing one twenty-four hours a day, day after day, to an audience of agents.” “I beg your pardon?” “There are agents of Atlantis at my school,” he said. “I am watched.” She gripped the armrests of her chair. “You live under Atlantis’s surveillance?” Somehow she’d thought he must be exempt from it. “I am better off at school than at home—the castle is riddled with the Inquisitor’s informants—but that is no help to us now.” She could not imagine the life he led. “You are safer here,” he continued. “The vestibule is accessible by the hotel staff—that is where we vaulted in—but the rest of the suite is protected by anti-intrusion spells.” Anti-intrusion spells were no guarantee of safety—her house in Little Grind had had its share of those. “You are entirely anonymous,” he further reassured her. “Atlantis, great as it is, cannot hope to locate you so easily in a city of millions. And should anything alarm you, go into the laboratory and wait. You already know the password; the countersign is the first paragraph on page ten of the book on the demilune table.”8 She would prefer that he quit school to stand guard beside her. If he should be wrong, if Atlantis proved quicker and cleverer than he believed, she would be all too easy a target. He had to stay with her. She’d reason with him—beg him, if she must. Bar the door with her person.
