Текст книги "The Burning Sky"

Автор книги: Sherry Thomas

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CHAPTER 18

IOLANTHE WOKE UP HISSING WITH pain. Her fingers felt as if they had swollen to three times their normal size, her skin about to burst from the pressure.

But they appearedno different. She stared at her hands in puzzlement. When she closed her hands, her knuckles protested. She opened and closed her hands a few more times. The discomfort went away rather rapidly, leaving her bewildered.

“What is the matter?” asked the prince from where he lay, his voice rough with sleep.

“You’re awake. How is your head? Want me to find you some breakfast?”

“No breakfast, thank you. And my head is terrible, but that is par for the course. What is the matter with you?”

“I’m not sure. My hands hurt a minute ago, but not anymore. Is it a side effect of transmogrification?”

“No, but it might be a side effect of your breaking the otherwise spell, though.”

“What otherwise spell?”

“The one that was laid on you earlier, to make you believe you couldn’t manipulate air.”

“Maybe I was just late developing it.”

He shook his head. “I read your guardian’s letter to you and—”

She cocked a brow. She had never offered him the letter to read.

“Well, you already know I am unscrupulous.”

She sighed. “Go on.”

“These are his exact words. ‘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?’ Which tells me that you did have power over air as a toddler.”

“But I thought you couldn’t apply an otherwise spell when the subject already knows about something.”

“Power over air is the easiest to disguise. You cannot explain away the sudden appearance of fire or water, or stones flying off a wall. But movement of air can always be blamed on a breeze from the window. And this way he could pass you off as an elemental mage III—much less noticeable.”

“I still don’t see why my hands should hurt now, after I broke through the otherwise spell, if that’s what it was.”

“Do something with air. Make the curtain flutter.”

She tried, but the curtain moved only the tiniest bit. “I don’t understand. I swung the entire chandelier last night.”

“Now you are no longer in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. An otherwise spell is not easy to cast off completely, when it has controlled you for so long. But you are already much further along than you used to be—the pain is likely a physical manifestation of the potential you have unlocked struggling against what is left of the otherwise spell.”

She tried again to flutter the curtain; the result was not much more impressive. It was disheartening. She’d thought her control over air would be easy and absolute from this point onward. “So what do I do now?”

“Train harder. All of elemental magic is mind over matter. You must keep pushing yourself.” He sat up and winced in pain. “We all must keep pushing ourselves.”

Mrs. Hancock’s smile was as pleasant as ever, her day dress as brown and sacklike. “Your Highness, if you would follow me to my parlor.”

Titus braced a hand on the banister—she had caught him as he was going up the stairs. “What is it with you Atlanteans? Can you not see I have a pounding headache?”

He was not lying: the inside of his skull felt like a nonmage demolition,all crowbars and sledgehammers. He was also feeble from hunger, having had nothing more than a cup of tea since his Inquisition.

“I wouldn’t dream of disturbing Your Highness unless it was of vital importance,” said Mrs. Hancock serenely.

“Who wants to see me?”

“The Acting Inquisitor, sir.”

“Who the hell is the Acting Inquisitor?”

“His name is Baslan.”

Baslan was not usually referred to as Acting Inquisitor, but as vice-proconsul or something of the sort. Titus rubbed his temples. “Is the Master of the Domain not important enough for the Bane’s lackey now? I have to see the lackey’s lackey?”

“You are ever so gracious, Your Highness,” murmured Mrs. Hancock, as she reached out and straightened a frame of embroidered iris that had been knocked askew by a careless boy.

She led the way to an austere parlor of bare floor and unpadded chairs, and not a petal or stem of the printed flowers beloved by Mrs. Dawlish. Baslan’s spectral image—a piece of Atlantean magic that the Domain’s archmages had yet to duplicate—paced in Mrs. Hancock’s parlor, heedless of walls and furniture.

He snapped to at Titus’s entrance. Titus plopped himself into the nearest seat and shaded his eyes with his hand—the sunlight streaming in from Mrs. Hancock’s window burned like acid on his retinas. “What do you want?”

“I need an account of Your Highness’s actions last night inside the Inquisition chamber.”

A question that did not involve Miss Buttercup in any conceivable manner was not one Titus had expected. “ Myactions? Bleeding from all major orifices and suffering horrific damage to my vision, my hearing, and my cognitive abilities.”

“You seem remarkably healthy for all the inflictions you listed,” said Baslan.

Titus coughed. He turned his face to the side and spat blood all over Mrs. Hancock’s skirts—a good trick if he did say so himself. Mrs. Hancock squealed—at last a genuine reaction—and waved her wand madly to get rid of the stains.

He glared at Baslan. “What did you say?”

Baslan looked baffled. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“The Acting Inquisitor need not hesitate,” said Mrs. Hancock. “If His Highness doesn’t already know what happened, he will very soon.”

Baslan still wavered.

Titus made as if to rise. “You have wasted enough of my time.”

“The Inquisitor has been unconscious since last night.” Baslan’s voice was shrill. “I demand to know what you did to her.”

Titus knew that mind mages abhorred disruptions during a probe, but he’d had no idea a disruption could be thatcatastrophic. Or was it because what Fairfax had thought of as dainty light spheres had not been so dainty? What if one such light sphere falling from a great height would have given the Inquisitor a concussion even under normal circumstances?

“Her mind is gone?” he asked, knowing that was too good to be true.

“Her mind is not gone,” Baslan snarled. “She is only temporarily incapacitated.”

“That is too bad. It would have been justice from the Angels for all the minds she has destroyed.”

Baslan clenched his hand, restraining himself with difficulty. “You will tell me what you did to Madam Inquisitor.”

Titus looked at him aslant. “So thatwas the reason you sent Lady Callista to the castle last night. And here I thought she was at last beginning to care about my health.”

And thatwas why they had tried to prevent him from leaving. Not because they wanted to strip him of his canary, but because the physicians needed to know what had caused the Inquisitor’s unconsciousness before they could formulate a treatment.

He smirked and pulled out his wand, adorned with seven diamond-inlaid crowns along its length. “This is Validus, the wand that once belonged to Titus the Great. I know Atlanteans are culturally isolated and largely unaware of histories beyond their own, but I trust that you, Acting Inquisitor, must have heard of Titus the Great.”

Baslan’s lips thinned. “I am aware of who he was.”

“Titus the Great left behind a unified Domain. But to his family, he also left behind the Titus Benediction, a tremendous protection allied to the power of Validus, which would let no harm come to the heir of the House of Elberon.”

He tapped the wand twice against his palm. Mrs. Hancock rose to her feet, Baslan took a step backward, both staring at the light now emanating from the seven crowns.

“Yes, you behold one of the last of the blade wands. An unsheathed blade wand is one of the most powerful objects around. And Validus unsheathed invokes the Titus Benediction—which I did before I fell unconscious. After that, all the might the Inquisitor aimed at breaking me would have deflected onto herself.”

Baslan was still staring at Validus as Titus sheathed it. Titus pulled himself to his feet. With all the hauteur he could muster—not a great deal as he could scarcely remain upright—he sneered at the Atlanteans.

“And that is why you do not trifle with the Master of the Domain.”

Iolanthe put her arm around him as he was about to start up the stairs.

His reaction was a low growl. “I told you not to come back until I gave you the all clear.”

He was pale, and there were drops of blood on his sleeve. Even knowing the blood for the trick it was, her heart still flinched. “You might have needed help.”

“Did I not also tell you never to worry about me?”

Stupid, stubborn boy. “If I hadn’t interfered earlier, you’d be a drooling imbecile by now. So shut up and let me make my own decisions.”

He almost smiled. “That does not sound right. I am the brains of the operation. You are only supposed to provide the muscle.”

She wanted to touch his cheek, but did no such thing. “When there is enough muscle, it develops a mind of its own.”

Birmingham, the house captain, bounded down the stairs. “What’s the matter, Titus? You look like you are about to give up the ghost.”

It still jarred Iolanthe to hear the prince called by his name. She almost snarled at Birmingham to not be so familiar. “Bad oysters at the diplomatic reception,” she said instead.

Birmingham sucked in a breath. “Those can be deadly. You’d better hope the danger is past.”

“I think I am going to puke again,” the prince mumbled.

“Hurry. I’ll secure you a chamber pot.” She’d found one in the hotel. The prince had to explain to her what the object was for. The very idea of it. “Toodles, Birmingham.”

Once they were in his room, she borrowed his wand and flicked it. There came the unmistakable sound of someone dry-heaving.

The prince winced, though he looked impressed at the same time. “What was that?”

“Learned it from a pupil in Little Grind. This was how she convinced her mother not to give her turnips at supper anymore.” She set a sound circle and gave the wand back to him. “Now you lie down.”

“I need to see what intelligence Dalbert might have sent.”

“Lie down. I’ll do it for you.”

“I—”

“If Dalbert sends intelligence, I need to know how to receive it. Remember, you won’t always be here.”

You can live forever for me.The wistfulness in those words, the calm acceptance of what could not be changed. There was no glory for him in chasing after the impossible, no reward beyond a promise kept.

“Must you remind me?” He stretched himself out on his bed. “Put a piece of paper under the machine in that cabinet by my desk.”

She had no trouble finding the somewhat porcupine-like device and successfully placed the paper on the domed tray beneath on her second try. The device clacked. When it stopped, she removed the paper and brought it to him.

“What news might Dalbert have? And what did Mrs. Hancock do with you? Did she ask that you produce Miss Buttercup?”

“No one asked about Miss Buttercup.” He took the report from her hand and scanned it. A little color returned to his face. “So it istrue: the Inquisitor remains unconscious.”

“She is?”

“Has been since last night.”

“From what I did?”

“From what you did, except they thought I was responsible for it, so I gave them a fairy tale about the powers of my wand.”

He was still looking at the report, oblivious to what he’d just said. She suppressed an urge to giggle. “Did they believe you? All boys tell such tales about their wands.”

He glanced up, his eyes first blank, then lit with mischief. “Maybe they do, but Iactually possess a superior wand—the finest of its kind, no less. The sort of fireworks my wand can produce will leave any girl breathless.”

They both burst out laughing. His entire aspect was transformed, like a desert come to life after a rainstorm. She had to turn away, her eyes filling with abrupt tears.

You can live forever for me.

She looked out the window, her back to him. It was a sunny afternoon. The small meadow behind the house hopped with junior boys at their various games, balls, sticks, and a kite three of the boys were trying to set aloft.

A life simple, peaceful, and bucolic all around him—and he would have only ever gazed upon it as if through a looking glass.

“Won’t the regent contradict your account?” she heard herself carrying on the discussion, as if their present danger were the only thing that mattered. “Your wand is a family heirloom. If it has special powers, he’d know about it too, wouldn’t he?”

“All Alectus can say is that he does not know. He will be the first to admit there is a store of knowledge that is only passed down the direct line of inheritance.”

“So we’re safe as long as the Inquisitor remains unconscious?”

“It would seem.”

“What happens when she wakes up?”

“Something will give.”

She turned around. “What will give?”

“Time will tell,” he said, with a calm that was not resignation, but a fierce will. “We assume the worst and prepare accordingly.”

The room was hung with crimson curtains and deep-blue tapestries. Vases of gilded ice roses bloomed almost to the painted ceiling. At the center of the far wall, under a triple archivolt, Princess Aglaia occupied her bejeweled throne.

Each classroom in the teaching cantos of the Crucible had been decorated in the taste of the ruling prince or princess who created it. Princess Aglaia, Titus’s great-grandmother, had liked dramatic uses of color and ostentation. Princess Aglaia had also been one of the most learned heirs of the House of Elberon.

Titus took a seat on a low stool before the throne. “I seek your knowledge, Your Highness.”

Princess Aglaia stroked the fat Persian cat in her lap. “How may I help?”

“I would like to know whether a mage can have a vision—as a seer—for the first time when he is sixteen years of age.”

The spectacle of the wyverns and the armored chariots weaving in the sky, menacing and purposeful, no longer burst upon his mind as vividly as it had at first. But it still came, faded and blurred around the edges.

Princess Aglaia set an index finger against her cheek. “It would be highly unusual, but not unheard of. When the first vision occurs after the onset of adolescence, however, it is usually followed by a quick succession of additional visions—every hour, if not more frequent. Has your mage experienced that?”

“No.” He had undergone nothing of the sort. “What if the first vision took place in a situation of great distress? Would that make additional visions less likely?”

“Describe the situation of great distress.”

“A no-holds-barred Inquisition in full progress.”

The cat purred. Princess Aglaia scratched it between the ears, looking thoughtful. “Curious. I am not certain a vision can happen when the mind is under such duress. And how did the mage in question emerge from a no-holds-barred Inquisition with enough lucidity to recall the vision?”

“The Inquisition was interrupted.”

“When?”

“Quite possibly at the time of the vision, if not soon afterward.”

“Ah,” said Princess Aglaia. “Now it makes sense.”

“How so?”

“I do not believe your mage had a vision at all. What he had was a rupture view. You see”—Princess Aglaia leaned forward, eager to share her erudition—“mind mages are a curious breed. You cannot simply pay mind mages to do your dirty work. They have to wantto take part. The talents of mind mages are inborn, but the power they achieve is directly proportional to their dedication to a cause.”

The Inquisitor was certainly fanatically devoted to the Bane.

“Mind mages fear interruption during their work for two reasons. One, their fully extended mind is quite vulnerable to permanent damage. Two, the thoughts they use to whip themselves into a frenzy of power might become visible as a rupture view. Your mage did not have a glimpse of the future, but instead a picture of the inner workings of the mind mage.”

This was a most unexpected revelation. But Titus’s thrill lasted only a second. “Does the rupture view happen only one way, or is it mutual?”

“It is most assuredly mutual. There have been instances when a mind mage’s master chose to interrupt an Inquisition deliberately, when he believed the mind mage might not be strong enough to break the subject, in order to obtain a rupture view.”

Which meant the Inquisitor, when she regained consciousness, would have the image of Princess Ariadne and the canary imprinted in her mind. She would need no time to find out that Princess Ariadne had never owned a canary in her life.

And then she would remember that she and Titus had not been entirely alone in the Inquisition Chamber.

It was only Kashkari, Wintervale, and Iolanthe for tea.

“His Highness is still puking?” asked Wintervale.

“Not anymore,” said Iolanthe. “All the same, he doesn’t want to smell fried sausages. He’ll have a few water wafers in his room.”

Wintervale gestured at the spread of food on his desk. “Well then, tuck in.”

“How was your trip home, Fairfax?” asked Kashkari. “And will your family come for the Fourth of June?”

Iolanthe took a sip of tea, buying herself a few seconds to think. At least she knew for certain her family would not be coming for the Fourth of June, whatever that was. “They start for Bechuanaland this week, actually. And you, gentlemen, how is life away from home?”

“I am always in favor of life away from home,” answered Wintervale with a sigh.

“What do you do on holidays then?”

“Wait for school to begin again.”

What did one say to something like that? “Is it as bad for you, Kashkari?”

“No, I miss home—a round trip to India takes six weeks, so it’s only during the summer that I get to see my family. I wish I didn’t have to attend school so far away.”

“Why didyou decide to attend school so far from home?” She’d seen a few other Indian boys in uniform, so at least he wasn’t the only one.

“The astrologer said I should.”

“Astrologer?”

Kashkari nodded. “We have these complicated charts drawn up when we are born. For every major decision in life, we consult the astrologer—preferably the one who drew up the chart—and he tells us the auspicious and sometimes the necessary paths to take.”

It sounded remarkably like what mages did with their birth charts. “So you are not here because you want to be, but because it was in the stars.”

“One doesn’t argue with what has been preordained.”

Something in Kashkari’s voice reminded her of the prince’s, when the latter spoke of the futility of trying to escape one’s destiny.

Wintervale reached for a piece of sausage. “I think you put too much stock in the stars.”

His elbow knocked over his tea mug. They all leaped up. Kashkari reached for a towel next to Wintervale’s washstand. Iolanthe lifted a stack of books out of the way.

Behind the books stood a small, framed picture—a family portrait, a man, a woman, and a young boy between them. Iolanthe nearly dropped the books. The boy was obviously Wintervale nine or ten years ago. His father looked vaguely familiar, but his mother’s face she recognized instantly.

The madwoman who’d tried to suffocate her in the portal trunk.

“Your family?” she asked, hoping her tone wasn’t too sharp.

“Except my father is no more. And my mother hasn’t been the same since he died.”

That was one way of saying his mother was a murderous lunatic. “Is that why you don’t like holidays?”

“She’s actually all right most of the time. I just never know when she won’t be.” Wintervale took the towel from Kashkari and wiped away the spilled tea. He tossed aside the towel, poured more tea for himself, and sat down. “I think we should do something about your bowling technique, Fairfax. You’ve great attack, but your arm and shoulder don’t quite align as they should.”

Through Titus’s half-open door, the din of thirty-some boys at leisure washed in wave by wave: boots and brogues stomping up and down the stairs; junior boys hauling trays of dirty dishes, plates and silverware jangling; the house officers, in their common room across the passage, debating the differences between the Eton football game and the Winchester football game.

He sat on his bed, his back against the wall. The Crucible lay open on his lap, and a stranger’s face stared at him. If he had ever doubted the efficacy of the Irreproducible Charm that had been cast on Fairfax, here was his proof. He was usually competent with pen and ink, but the rendering he had attempted of her face was outright unrecognizable.

He tapped his wand against the page. The ink lifted from the illustration in a swirl and returned to the reservoir of his fountain pen. Sleeping Beauty now lay on her bed without a face, amidst all the details of dust and cobweb he had added over the years. He tapped his wand again, and her original features returned, pretty and insipid.

A rap at his door. He looked up to see Fairfax closing the door behind her. She pointed at the wand in his hand. He set a sound circle.

“When were you going to tell me that the woman who tried to kill me is Wintervale’s mother?”

He enjoyed the sight of her on the warpath, her eyes narrowed with indignation—a girl who emanated power with her very presence.

“I did not want your views of Wintervale, who is perfectly sane, colored by what you think of his mother.”

“What would have happened if I were to run into her?”

“You would not. She does not come to school, and none of us are ever invited to visit her house. Besides, even if you do, she has no idea what you look like.”

She was far from mollified. “Is this something you would have wanted to know, were you in my place?”

“Yes,” he had to admit.

“Then extend me the same courtesy.”

He sighed. It was difficult for him, having so long held everything close to the chest, to share all his secrets and hard-won intelligence. But she had a point—and not everything needed to wait until he was dead.

“Besides, you give me too little credit if you think I am going to judge a boy by his mother. If I can bring myself to see you in a sympathetic light, Wintervale has nothing to fear.”

Warmth crept up the back of his neck. “You see me in a sympathetic light?”

She drew back and cast him a scornful look. “Sometimes. Not now.”

He patted the bed. “Come here. Let me change your mind.”

She made a face. “With more fairy tales of your wand’s powers?”

He smiled. Her arrival might have turned over the hourglass on what remained of his life, but before she came, he never smiled. Or laughed.

“You are still my subject, so sit down on the command of your sovereign. He will show you his domain.”

He taught her how to get in and navigate the Crucible by herself—not only the practice cantos, but also the teaching cantos, which she hadn’t even known existed.

The teaching cantos was a small palace built of pale-pink marble, with clear, wide windows and deeply receded loggias. Inside, a double-return staircase led to a gallery that encircled the soaring reception hall. Along the gallery marched doors of different sizes, colors, and ornateness.

The first one they came to was black and glassy, an entire slab of obsidian that glittered with grape-sized diamonds arranged in constellations.

“This is Titus the Third’s classroom.”

“Titus the Third himself is inside?”

Titus III ranked as one of the most remarkable rulers of the House of Elberon, alongside Titus the Great and Hesperia the Magnificent.

“A record and a likeness of him. He was the one who constructed the Crucible, so his is the first classroom.”

Next to the obsidian door was a plaque that that bore Titus III’s name. And beneath that, a list of topics that stretched all the way to the floor.

“He was an expert on all those subjects?”

“Most of them—he was a learned man. But his knowledge was for his time.” The prince tapped on the list, and a bramble of annotations spread over the original engraved letters.

Iolanthe peered closer. On the subject of Potions, a number of comments had been left.

Archaic recipes. Go to Apollonia II for simpler, more effective recipes.—Tiberius.

Do not go to Apollonia II for recipes unless you intend to pluck eyes out of live animals. Titus IV—I know, shocking—has a number of very reliable recipes.—Aglaia.

Aglaia has adapted Titus IV’s recipes to more modern tools and processing methods.—Gaius.

“So this is how you have been educated in subtle magic, by your ancestors.”

“Many of whom were capable mages, though only a few are also good teachers.”

The gallery turned. And turned again. She stopped paying attention to the individual doors and studied the boy next to her. He looked slightly less ravaged, though he still walked hesitantly, as if worried about his balance.

And everything would only become more difficult.

This was why he wanted her to love him, because love was the only force that could compel himonto this path—and hold him to it.

There came a prickling sensation in her heart, a weight with thorns.

They were approaching the stairs again. The last two doors belonged to Prince Gaius and Prince Titus VII, respectively. “Your mother doesn’t have a place here?”

“She was never on the throne. Only a ruling prince or princess is allotted a spot in the teaching cantos.”

Prince Gaius’s door, a gigantic block of basalt thickly studded with fist-sized rubies, bore an unmistakable resemblance to that of Titus III’s—except everything had been done on a showier scale. On his plaque, he listed one of his areas of expertise as Atlantis. “Have you spent much time here?”

The prince cast an icy look at his grandfather’s door. “I do not call on him.”

Sometimes he was sixteen years old. And sometimes he was a thousand, as cold and proud as the dynasty that had spawned him.

She tapped on the door of hisclassroom. “And what do you teach?”

Next to Prince Gaius’s, his door was almost laughably plain—and looked exactly the same as the door to his room in Mrs. Dawlish’s house. “I teach survival—for you. When I am gone, this is where you will come if you still have questions.”

Suddenly she understood the dread in her heart. If the prophecy of his death had been properly interpreted, it would mean he had very little time left. A year, perhaps. A year and half at best. How would it feel to push open that door, knowing he was gone, to speak with “a record and a likeness” of him?

She made herself say something sensible. “Would you mind if I asked your grandfather a few questions—in case he knew something about Atlantis that could help us free Master Haywood?”

“Go ahead. Although—”

“What is it?”

He didn’t quite look at her. “I think you should first consult the Oracle of Still Waters.”

A flagstone-paved path led out from behind the pink marble palace, flanked on either side by tall, stately trees with bark that was almost silky to the touch. Pale-blue flowers drifted down from the boughs, twirling like tiny umbrellas.

Iolanthe caught one of the blue flowers. “Are we still in the teaching cantos?”

The prince nodded. “In the practice cantos, every time you leave, it is as if you have never been there. But the Oracle will advise you only once in your lifetime, and until her story was moved to the teaching cantos, where there is continuity, my ancestors could never get any meaningful answers from her.”

“And she will only help you to help someone else, right?”

“Right—and she can see through you. When I pretended that I want to help the Bane remain in power, she laughed. When I said I wanted to protect my people, she laughed again. And when I asked how I could help you get to me, she told me to mind my own business, because you had no interest in my schemes.”

He could joke about it now, but she wondered how the Oracle’s blunt, unhelpful answers must have struck him when he desperately needed guidance and assurance.

The path led them to a clearing. The Oracle, at the center of a clearing, was not a pond, as Iolanthe had thought, but a round pool six foot across built of fine, creamy marble. The water was as beautiful as the light elixir she’d made with her lightning.

“Lean over the edge and look at your reflection,” said the prince.

As she did so, the water ruffled. A pleasant, feminine voice greeted her. “Iolanthe Seabourne, welcome.”

Iolanthe drew back in surprise. “How do you know my name, Oracle?”

The water danced, as if laughing. “I wouldn’t be any good if I didn’t know who had come to ask for my help.”

“Then you also know why I have come.”

“But there is more than one person you wish to help.”

Iolanthe glanced behind her shoulder. The prince stood at the edge of the clearing, out of earshot.

“Think carefully. I can help you only once.”

She rubbed her thumb along the raised rim. “Then help me help the one who needs it the most.”

The pool stilled to an almost mirrorlike smoothness. Not a ripple distorted Iolanthe’s reflection. All at once her reflection disappeared, as did the reflection of the cloudless sky above. The surface of the water turned ink dark and swelled like a rising tide.

The Oracle’s voice turned deep, rough. “You will best help him by seeking aid from the faithful and bold. And from the scorpion.”

“What do you mean?” But of course, one was not supposed to ask oracles such questions.

The pool turned clear again. Water receded from the edge, hissing with steam. The marble beneath her hand, cool to the touch a minute ago, was now hot, as if it had been in the sun for hours.

“As for your guardian, he will not long remain in the custody of the Inquisitor,” said the Oracle, her voice low. “Good-bye, Iolanthe Seabourne.”

They had entered the Crucible sitting a respectable distance apart on the bed. But Titus opened his eyes to find her head on his shoulder, his hand holding hers on the cover of the book.

He did not immediately release her hand. He should, but somehow he remained exactly as he was. His breath came in shallow, almost ragged. Her hair brushed against his jaw, as if she were tilting her face to look at him.

A hot urge pulsed through his veins. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. If he counted to five, and she still did not move . . .

Four seconds. Five sec—

Her fingers tightened around his. But the next moment she was already rising and walking away. At the opposite wall, she turned around and crossed her feet insouciantly at the ankles, as if nothing had happened. Nothing hadhappened, but almost five seconds was an awfully long time to teeter on the brink.