Текст книги "The Burning Sky"

Автор книги: Sherry Thomas

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

CHAPTER 7

AFTER RUNNING THE GAUNTLET OF handshakes, backslaps, and general greet-and-insults, Iolanthe hoped for a moment to breathe. But it was not to be.

“Benton!” Wintervale called. “Take Fairfax’s bag to his room. And make sure you light a good fire there. Fairfax, come with us for tea.”

A smallish boy, wearing not a tailed coat but one that stopped at the waist, whisked the valise away.

“Work him hard.” Wintervale smiled at her. He was as tall as the prince, blond and strapping, almost spinning in place with nervous energy. “Benton hasn’t done much in your absence.”

She didn’t ask why she had to work Benton hard—the prince would explain everything later. She only grinned at Wintervale. “I’ll make him regret that I ever came back.”

Before Little Grind, Master Haywood had taught at a school for boys. Each evening, after sports practice, a group of them would walk past Iolanthe’s window, chatting loudly. She’d paid particular attention to the most popular boy, carefully noting his cheerful swagger and good-natured insults.

Now she was acting the part of that happy, affably cocky boy.

The prince, walking a pace before her, turned his head and slanted her an approving look. Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t think he was the kind to approve easily.

Entering Wintervale’s room, however, stopped her dead. On his windowsill bloomed a sizable weathervine—terribly useful for knowing when an umbrella would be required for the day.

Only it couldn’t be a weathervine, could it? The weathervine was a mage plant. What was it doing in—

The prince put his arm about her shoulder. “Forgot what Wintervale’s room looks like?”

She let him ease her inside, knowing that she shouldn’t have stopped to gawk. “I was just wondering whether the walls were always so green.”

“No, they weren’t,” said Wintervale. “I changed the wallpaper just before the end of the last Half.”

“You are lucky—and good,” the prince whispered in her ear.

His breath against her skin sent a jolt of heat through her entire person. She couldn’t quite look at him.

The room was soon filled to capacity. Two small boys crouched before the fire, one making tea, the other scrambling eggs with surprising expertise. A third delivered buttered toast and baked beans.

She observed the goings-on carefully: the young boys, no question about it, acted as minions to the older boys.

Benton, who’d earlier been tasked with taking her valise to her room, now returned with a plate of still sizzling sausages.

“You didn’t burn them again, did you, Benton?” Wintervale asked.

“I almost never burn them,” Benton responded indignantly.

Wintervale poked Iolanthe with his elbow. “The new boys, they do get so ornery by the third Half.”

His elbow rammed a very tender spot in her chest. She would always be proud that she only sucked in a breath in reaction. “They’ll learn their places yet.”

She walked to the plant and fingered its soft, ferny leaves. A weathervine, no doubt about it. “Did you always have this?”

“I raised it from a seedling,” Wintervale answered. “It was probably only three inches tall when you went home with the broken limb.”

Perhaps the prince gave one to him? “It doesn’t seem as if I’ve been gone quite that long.”

“How was Somerset?” Kashkari asked.

Somerset? Instinctively she moved closer to the prince, as if his proximity made her less likely to make mistakes. “You mean Shropshire?”

The prince, who’d taken a place on Wintervale’s bed, gave her another approving look.

Acacia Lucas, one of Master Haywood’s pupils in Little Grind, had been quite keen to marry the prince. One day, during a practical under Iolanthe’s supervision, Acacia had pointed at his portrait and whispered to her friend, He has the face of an Angel. Iolanthe had looked up at the prince’s coldly haughty features and snorted to herself.

Acacia was not entirely right—or entirely wrong. He was nothing like a sublimated Angel. But a sublunary one, perhaps: the dangerous kind that made those gazing upon them see only what they wished to see.

She saw a stalwart protector. But was that what he truly was, or merely what she desperately wanted? As much as she did not wish to, somewhere deep inside she understood that he had not risked everything purely out of the goodness of his heart.

“Sorry, is it Shropshire?” Kashkari shook his head. “How was Shropshire then?”

He had straight blue-black hair, olive skin, intelligent eyes, and an elegant, if slightly forlorn mouth—an outstandingly handsome boy.

“Cold and wet for the most part,” said Iolanthe, figuring that was always an acceptable weather for spring on a North Atlantic island. And then, remembering herself, “But of course I spent all of my time inside, driving our housekeeper batty.”

“How was Derbyshire?” the prince asked Kashkari, moving the topic away from Archer Fairfax.

Iolanthe let out the breath she’d been holding. The prince had shown remarkable foresight in making Fairfax someone who’d spent most of his life abroad: it could be used to excuse his lack of knowledge concerning Britain. But it was the barest piece of luck that she’d remembered his mention of Shropshire. No matter how unfamiliar with England an expatriate was, he should still know where he lived.

“I wish there were enough time between terms for me to go back to Hyderabad. Derbyshire is beautiful, but life in a country house becomes repetitive after a while,” Kashkari replied.

“Good thing you are back in school now,” said the prince.

“True, school is more unpredictable.”

“Is that so? School is predictable for me, and I like it that way,” said Wintervale. “We should have a toast. To school, may it always be what we want it to be.”

Tea was ready. Wintervale shooed out the young lackeys and poured tea for his guests. They clinked their teacups. “To dear old school.”

Tea at home was usually accompanied by a few bites of pastry. But here tea—the table was laden with eggs, sausages, beans, and toast—constituted a meal on its own. Iolanthe hoped this meant that the boys would concentrate on their food. Any more questions and she was bound to betray herself.

“Make sure you eat enough,” said Wintervale. “We need you ready for cricket.”

What cricket? Grasshopper? “Ah—I’m as ready as I will ever be.”

“Excellent,” said Wintervale. “We are in desperate need of a superior bowler.”

A what? At least Wintervale did not expect her to define what a bowler was. He only extended his hand to her. “To a season to remember.”

She shook his hand. “A season to remember.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Kashkari.

The prince did not look nearly as thrilled. What exactly had she committed herself to with that handshake? But before she could pull him aside and ask, Kashkari had another question for her.

“I don’t know why, Fairfax,” he said, “but I have a hard time remembering how you broke your leg.”

Her stomach plunged. How did she fudge a question like that?

“He—,” Wintervale and the prince said at the same time.

“Go ahead,” the prince said to Wintervale.

She drank from her cup, trying not to appear too obviously relieved. Of course the prince would take care of her.

“He climbed the tree at the edge of our playing field and fell off,” Wintervale answered. “The prince had to carry him back here. Didn’t you, Your Highness?”

“I did,” said the prince, “with Fairfax crying like a girl all the way.”

Oh, she did, did she? “If I wept, it was only because you were so pitiful. I weigh barely nine stone. But you’d think I were an elephant the way Your Highness moaned. ‘Oh, Fairfax, I cannot take another step.’ ‘Oh, Fairfax, my legs are turning into pudding.’ ‘Oh, Fairfax, my knees are buckling. And you are crushing my delicate toes.’”

Kashkari and Wintervale chuckled.

“My back is still hurting to this day,” said the prince. “And you weighed as much as the Rock of Gibraltar.”

Their exchange was almost flirtatious. But she could not help notice that in the midst of the general jollity, he remained apart—had she never met him she’d have considered him moody. She wondered why he was utterly alone when he was among mates.

Her, of course, she realized with a start. Shewas the reason. She was his great secret.

And now they were in this secret together.

She flashed him a smile. “What are friends for, prince?”

“I am sorry I did not have the time to tell you that Wintervale is an Exile,” Titus said. “He is an elemental mage, in fact, but any nonmage with a match can produce a more impressive flame than he.”

They stood some distance from the house, near the banks of the brown and silent Thames. Titus had rowed on the river for years. The repetition, the perspiration, and the good, clean exhaustion quieted his mind beautifully.

Eton was not always a pleasant place: many boys had a difficult time finding their place in the hierarchy, and there were senior boys who roundly abused their powers. But for him, the school, with its drafty classrooms, its grueling sports, its thousand boys—and even its agents of Atlantis—was the closest thing to normalcy he had ever known.

“Are there other mages here?” she asked.

The day was fleeing. And so were the clouds, leaving behind a clear sky that had turned a deep twilight blue, except for the western horizon, still glowing with the last embers of sunset.

“Besides Wintervale, only the agents of Atlantis.”

She had been almost giddy with relief upon leaving Wintervale’s room, but this reminder of Atlantis’s omnipresence sobered her mood. Her eyes lowered. Her shoulders hunched. She seemed to grow smaller before his eyes.

“Afraid?”

“Yes.”

“You will become accustomed to it.” Not true at all. He never had, but learned to carry on in spite of it.

She took a deep breath, snapped a leaf from a weeping willow, and rolled it into a green tube in her hand. Her fingers were slender and delicate—very much a girl’s.

“Wintervale calls you ‘Your Highness’ and nobody bats an eye. Do they all know who you are?”

“Wintervale does. But to everyone else, I am a minor Germanic princeling from the House of Saxe-Limburg.”

“Is there such a house?”

“No, but anyone who has ever heard of the name will find it on a map and in history books as a principality of Prussia—the regent’s mage-in-chief made sure of it.”

“That is a highly illegal otherwise spell, it is not?”

“Then do not tell anybody that is also how I made a place for Archer Fairfax here.”

This earned him a long glance from her, half-approving, half-disquieted.

At the edge of the river they stopped. The water was a dark ripple, with a few daubs of reddish gold.

“The Thames,” he said. “We row on it, those of us who do not play cricket. “

He thought she might ask what exactly cricket was, but she only nodded slowly.

“Across the river is Windsor Castle, one of the English queen’s homes,” he added.

She looked south for a moment at the ramparts that dominated the skyline. He had the distinct feeling that she was only half listening to him.

“Is there something on your mind?” he asked.

She glanced at him again, reluctant admiration in her eyes. He rarely cared what others thought of him. But with this girl who observed him carefully and unobtrusively, who was as perceptive as she was capable . . .

“We spoke of my guardian earlier, did we not?”

Her decision to confide in him pleased him—and turned him oddly anxious. “We did, at the hotel.”

She dropped the willow leaf into the river; it swirled in a small eddy. “For the past several years I have been frustrated with him. He had been a scholar of great promise. But then he made one terrible mistake after another and became a nobody in the middle of nowhere.

“I learned today that, fourteen years ago, to keep me safe, he gave up certain crucial memories of his past to a memory keeper. Since then he has lived without knowing the events that brought him to where he was.”

Titus could scarcely imagine how the man had managed for so many years. It was the current medical consensus that memory escrow was eminently unsuitable for the long term. After a few years the mind started to hunt for the missing memories. They became an obsession.

“That was probably the reason he turned to merixida,” she went on. “Now that I think about it, all those choices that cost him his career and even his respectability—he must have been trying, however subconsciously, to force the memory keeper to intervene.”

She picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it with a flick of her wrist. The pebble skipped four times on the surface of the river before disappearing beneath the currents. She watched the river a moment longer, then squared her shoulders and stood taller, as if she had come to an important decision.

“My case is different, of course. I’m in full possession of my memories. But like him, I’m in the dark. And I don’t want to be.”

“Am I keeping you in the dark?”

She bit her lower lip. “Please don’t mistake me. I am enormously grateful for everything you’ve done. Were I a better person, I’d let myself be guided by gratitude and only gratitude. But I have to ask, why? Why have you placed yourself at such risk? Why do you defy the Inquisitor? Why are you involved at all?”

She was embarrassed to be asking these questions—her foot scuffed the soft ground of the bank, as fidgety as he had ever seen her. But all the same, her voice was wary.

The exchange he would ask for had always seemed fair and simple to him. He kept the elemental mage safe; and in return, the elemental mage lent him the great powers he needed. But would shesee it that way?

Perhaps he needed to use her guardian as a bargaining chip: she could not infiltrate the Inquisitory on her own. Neither could he, but she did not know that.

He, however, did know. He was a liar by necessity, but could he lie to her, knowing that he was very possibly asking for her life in return?

That he did not answer immediately discomfited her. She ran her hand through her hair, only to pull her fingers back in surprise, as if she had forgotten that most of her hair had been shorn and destroyed.

She shook her head slightly, her eyes wistful. He stared at her, this girl who would never again be safe anywhere.

No, he would not lie, not to her. Going forward, it would be the two of them against the world, an alliance that would define what remained of his days on this earth.

And be his only chance for something true and meaningful.

For a minute Iolanthe thought the prince would not tell her anything at all. Then he made a double impassable circle around them.

One did not make a double impassable circle unless one absolutely did not want to be overheard. The breeze coming off the river suddenly felt raw.

The prince gazed across the water at a narrow strip of an island. His profile was familiar—it graced every coin of the realm—yet she couldn’t look away. Handsome boys she’d met before. He was more than handsome; he was striking. And there was a nobility to his bearing that had little to do with his bloodline and everything to do with the sense of purpose he radiated.

“I am going to bring down the Bane.”

His quiet words brushed over her and departed on a chill wind. She shivered and waited for him to tell her that it was a joke—since he did have a sense of humor.

He met her eyes squarely, his gaze unwavering.

This was mad. He might as well bring down the Labyrinthine Mountains—it would be easier. The Bane was invincible. Untouchable.

“Why?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Because that is what I am meant to do.”

Despite her incredulity—or perhaps because of it—she found his conviction awe-inspiring.

“How—how do you know that is what you are meant to do?”

“My mother told me so.”

When people talked about Princess Ariadne, it was usually to speculate on the mysterious liaison that had produced the prince. No one could recall another instance in the whole history of the House of Elberon when a ruling prince’s paternity remained unknown.

“Was your mother a seer?”

“She was.” What was the emotion underlying his reply? Anger, resignation, sadness—or a mix of all three? “At her wish, it was never revealed to the public.”

True seers were few and far between. “What did she prophesy that has come true?”

Without bending down he had a pebble in hand. He weighed it. “Twenty-five years ago, she and my grandfather received a delegation of Atlantean youth. There was a girl of seventeen who was not a delegate, but a mere assistant. My mother pointed out the girl to my grandfather and said that one day the girl would be the most powerful person in the Domain.”

“The Inquisitor?”

He tossed the pebble. It skipped far. “The Inquisitor.”

That was scarily impressive. “What else?”

“She knew the exact date of Baroness Sorren’s funeral, years before the baroness even took up the charge against Atlantis.”

This unnerved Iolanthe. No wonder Princess Ariadne hadn’t wanted it known that she was a seer, if funeral dates were the sort of things she foresaw.

The prince skipped another pebble. “She also said that it was on my balcony that I would first learn of your existence. And so it was.”

A flicker of hope ignited in Iolanthe’s heart. “And she said that you would bring down the Bane?”

He did not answer immediately.

“Did she or did she not?”

“She said that I must be the one to try, to set things into motion.”

“That’s not a guarantee of success, is it?”

“No. But we will never accomplish anything worthwhile in life if we require the guarantee of success at the onset.”

His audacity took her breath away. Compared to him, she had lived on the smallest scale, concerned only with the well-being of herself and Master Haywood. While he, who could have led a life of unimaginable luxury and privilege, was willing to give it all up for the sake of the greater good.

“What is my part in your plan?”

“I need you,” he said simply. “Only with a great elemental mage by my side will I have a prayer of a chance.”

When she’d been a child, enthralled by her reading of The Lives and Deeds of Great Elemental Mages, she’d wondered what it would be like for her own powers to grow to such fearsome immensity, to hold the fate of entire realms in the palm of her hand. Listening to him, she felt a stirring of that old excitement, that electric charge of limitless possibilities.

“Are you really sure I am that great elemental mage?”

His gaze was unwavering. “Yes.”

If he was convinced, and Atlantis too, and Master Haywood so much so as to give up his memories—she supposed they could not all be wrong. “So . . . how will we bring down the Bane?”

“We will have to pit ourselves against him someday.”

She felt dizzy. Surely they could find some clever way of defeating the Bane from a distance.

“Face-to-face?” Her voice quavered.

“Yes.”

The froth of imagined valor in her heart dissipated, leaving behind only dregs of stark fear.

But the prince thought so highly of her. And risked so much. She’d hate for him be disappointed in her. She’d hate for herto be disappointed in her. In the four Great Adventuresand all seven Grand Epics, books she’d cherished as a child, this was the moment the protagonist rose to the occasion and embarked on the legendary journey. No one in the stories ever said, Thank you, but no thank you, this really isn’t for me.

Yet this really wasn’t for her. Thoughts of heroics might stir her soul for a minute, but no more than that. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the Bane, let alone take part in some sort of match to the death.

If she were dead, she’d never become a professor at the Conservatory and live on that beautiful campus again.

Besides, the Domain had long been under the shadow of Atlantis. She was used to the idea. She had no burning desire to topple the Bane and no wish—unless it was to free Master Haywood—to ever cross paths with the Inquisitor.

“I thought—I thought I was here to hide,” she said, hating how feeble she sounded.

“You cannot hide forever from Atlantis.”

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

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

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

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

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

“No, not the way he does.”

“Then how?”

“I do not know yet.”

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

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

She wanted desperately to trust this boy who looked as if he’d been born under the wings of the Angels, beautifully unafraid. But they were notin this together. To help him achieve his goal of altering the course of history, she would have to give up her entire purpose of survival.

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

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

She was a coward, but better cowardly than dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trust no one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I will know nothing when I’m dead!”

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

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

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

“Please reconsider,” said the prince.

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

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

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

“I would not even think about it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he was coming awfully close.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What is it?” she asked.

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

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

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

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

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

“So . . . this is good-bye.”

“It does not need to be.”

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

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

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

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

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

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