Текст книги "The Burning Sky"

Автор книги: Sherry Thomas

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

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

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

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

“Shall we go then?” he asked amiably.

She was caught.

CHAPTER 11

TITUS RAN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He thought my thinking very unusual.”

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

“What is that?”

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

She nodded—she saw the point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then what? Somethingis going on.”

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

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

“You mean, like Helgira?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You are right,” said Wintervale.

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

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

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

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

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

“He really is,” said Sutherland.

“Good thing I’m a brilliant athlete andhandsome as a god,” she said it with that affable cockiness she did so astonishingly well.

The boys laughed and booed.

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

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

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

“It is almost lights-out,” he said.

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

More reluctantly, Sutherland and Rogers followed.

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

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

“You refer to my innate and splendid charm?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clever girl. She made him feel almost transparent.

“Good night, Your Highness.”

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

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

CHAPTER 12

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

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

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

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

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

“Come with me.”

“We already trained for the day.”

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

She said nothing as she followed him into his room.

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

She did not feel strong, only trapped.

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

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

“What story are we in?”

“‘The Greedy Beekeeper.’”

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

“You will see.”

She did not like that answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That is the beekeeper’s house.”

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

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

“What’s that?”

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

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

“And?” She was beginning to be nervous.

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

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

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

Something wet and sticky splattered onto her face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which only made her loathe him more.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

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

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

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

“That is enough, Fairfax.”

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

Foiled again.

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

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

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

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

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

She stared at him.

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

Of course she was shocked. The idea that anyone would voluntarily subject himself to such torture . . .

He was suddenly at the door, listening.

“What is it?”

“Mrs. Hancock. She is outside, talking to someone.”

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

“Why me?”

“Because that is the nature of our friendship.”

She twisted her mouth and went.

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

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

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

My dearest Archer,

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

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

Love,

Mother

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

“Yes, they also sent a letter to Mrs. Dawlish to that effect,” answered Mrs. Hancock. “You may take a short leave, if you wish.”

“Bother,” said Iolanthe. “Sissy was perfectly fine when I left. I’ll bet she’s only pretending.”

That seemed like something a boy of sixteen who’d been stuck home for three months with his little sister might say.

“Then stay here,” said the prince. “Besides, you are supposed to help me with my critical paper Saturday.”

He sounded enormously peevish.

“I’m afraid you won’t have time Saturday for your critical paper, Your Highness,” said Mrs. Hancock. “The embassy has requested leave for you too. There is a function they would like you to attend.”

“God’s teeth, why do they insist on this charade? I rule nothing, isn’t that punishment enough? Why must I attend their functions and be paraded around?”

“Come, prince, how terrible can it be?” Iolanthe said, playing the part of the affable friend. “There will be champagne and ladies.”

The prince released his bed and plunked himself down on it. “That shows how much youknow, Fairfax.”

She knew he was playacting, but still she shot him an irate glance. Mrs. Hancock’s sharp eyes took it all in—no doubt exactly as the prince intended.

Iolanthe mustered a smile for Mrs. Hancock. “I’m sure by tomorrow His Highness will be in a more receptive mood. Thank you for coming all the way to give me my letter, ma’am.”

“Oh, it was nothing at all, Fairfax. And good day to you too, Your Highness.”

After she left, neither of them spoke for a while.

Then the prince slowly let out a breath. “Saturday evening I meet with the Inquisitor.”