Текст книги "The Burning Sky"

Автор книги: Sherry Thomas

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

CHAPTER 8

DÉJÀ VU.

It seemed only moments ago that Iolanthe last stood in the same spot behind Mrs. Dawlish’s house, looking up at Fairfax’s window. Except then she was going toward safety. Now she was leaving for unknown dangers.

There was no movement behind the curtain, but the light remained on, a golden rectangle of comfort and refuge. She ought to be off, but she kept watching the window, hoping for things she had no more right to expect.

If only she didn’t feel so small and alone out here, like a lost child, in desperate need of a helping hand.

The hotel suite was out of the question. The ruined barn then. The memory of its leaky, muddy interiors did not appeal, but she closed her eyes and willed herself to traverse the distance.

The displacement did not happen. She tried again, still no use. The distance must be greater than her vaulting range. And since she didn’t know any places en route, she could not break the journey into smaller segments.

She kicked the nearest tree in frustration. Could her retreat be any more inept? She should have considered her course of action with much better care. Should have had an achievable destination in mind. And failing that, should have at least swiped the prince’s vaulting aid.

And put on a warmer jacket. Now that night had fallen, the temperature had taken a tumble. The brown jacket she had changed into was not quite thick enough to shield her from the chill. She hugged herself with her free hand.

The cold also made her realize she was hungry. She’d hardly eaten anything this entire day; her stomach was emptier than a midnight street.

If nothing else, she had to find some food.

She took one last look at Fairfax’s brightly lit window. If something were to happen to her, would the prince feel a tug of loss?

She shivered. She told herself it was only the cold. Besides, she didn’t need to go back to a place she’d already been. She’d put the English coins from the valise into her pocket. By walking along the streets of Eton, she’d probably find an inn where she could buy something to eat and a bed for the night.

In the morning things wouldn’t look so dire.

She inhaled deeply, shifted her valise to her left hand, and headed for the street. But she’d barely taken two steps when something made her look up.

The sky was a deep, cavernous blue. The prince was right: the stars were out, brilliant and countless. Leo. Virgo. Gemini. And there, Polaris, the North Star, anchoring the great celestial compass.

But what were those black dots high above, almost invisible against the darkness of the night? She squinted. Birds didn’t fly in a perfect diamond formation, did they?

The birds headed east and disappeared in the distance. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, however, another group approached from the west, again in a perfect diamond formation.

This time, as they passed overhead, three birds broke formation. They circled, descending as they did so, until she saw the dull metallic glint of their bellies.

They were not birds, but the infamous armored chariots of Atlantis, aerial vehicles that could convey a single visiting dignitary, or shower rains of death upon mutinous populations.

What had the prince said? That once news of her arrival spread, Atlantis would have the madwoman’s entire district surrounded, on the chance that Iolanthe might return.

If this was Atlantis mobilizing, then the prince had, if anything, understated the ferocity of its response.

The rush of blood was loud in her ears. She dug frantically into every pocket for her wand. It wasn’t until she was almost in tears that she remembered she’d left it behind in the laboratory, after the prince advised her not to have anything on her person that might identify her as an escapee from a mage realm.

Now she was caught in the open without a wand.

She tried to reason with herself. Atlantis did not know her precise location—here in Britain she was but a single speck of sand on a mile-long beach. Besides, Atlantis sought a girl, and dozens of boys had failed to recognize her as one.

But the three armored chariots above her continued to descend. She scurried into a coppice of trees, her hands trembling, her heart careening.

Two hundred feet above the ground, the armored chariots stopped, suspended in air.

She gripped the nearest trunk for support.

A moment later, a cluster of mages at least a dozen strong appeared on the lawn behind Mrs. Dawlish’s house.

In hindsight, her reaction had been entirely predictable. Why would anyone want to embrace such a hopeless cause? Titus himself hated it with a passion, this albatross around his neck.

But he had been deluded by his own sentiments. His entire life had been defined by secrecy and subterfuge. With her he yearned for a true partnership, a rapport of trust, understanding, and good will—everything he had never experienced before.

Stupid, of course. But stupid did not mean he wanted it less badly.

He left the window and sat down on the spare chair, a sturdy Windsor with a thick, tufted cushion in gray-and-white-striped cloth. The chair he had selected himself, the fabric for the seat cushion likewise. He had also chosen the blue wallpaper and the white curtains. He knew very little of decor, but he had wanted to make the room calm and comforting, knowing that the events leading to Fairfax’s arrival at Eton were inevitably going to be traumatic.

Opposite him on the shelves were books he had collected with the express purpose of familiarizing Fairfax with the nonmage world: a handbook of Britain for foreigners, several almanacs and encyclopedias, a guide to Eton written by a former pupil, a volume on etiquette, another on rules for the most popular games and pastimes, among dozens of others.

So much thought, so much effort, so much futility.

He should have bent his mind to duplicity. He was the best actor of his generation, was he not? He could have said that he must protect her at whatever cost because she had been prophesied to be the love of his life. There, an easy, marvelous lie, perfect for deceiving a girl. She would have stayed, and he would have proceeded with her training, no further questions asked.

But she had wanted truth and he, in a fit of derangement, had wanted honesty and fair dealing. And truth, honesty, and fair dealing had brought him to this fine wreck.

He bolted out of the chair. That sound, what was it? He turned off the light and rushed to the window.

Bloody hell—as his classmates would say.

Bloody hell.

He vaulted for it.

One of the mages pointed in Iolanthe’s direction. They all loped toward the coppice.

She panted, the sound of her fear fracturing the silence.

Could she take on all the mages come to hunt her? Or was it better to vault back to the hotel and hope that fewer agents of Atlantis awaited her there? And did she dare throw all caution to the wind and call down a second bolt of lightning, if it should come to that?

Another mage materialized on the lawn, a woman in nonmage clothes. Iolanthe shrank farther inside the coppice. The woman strode purposefully toward the agents of Atlantis.

They spoke softly. Iolanthe could not make out their conversation, except to note that despite their low voices, they exchanged some heated words.

At last the Atlantean agents vaulted away, probably back into the armored chariots. And the woman, with a final look around, also disappeared.

Someone tapped her on her shoulder. She leaped in sheer terror. But it was only the prince.

“They are gone for now. I am not sure if they will remain gone. Leave fast if you want to leave.”

Ask me to stay, just a few days, until the worst passes.

He did nothing of the sort. And why should he? She’d made it abundantly clear that nothing could induce her to stay.

“What happened just now?” she asked, her voice holding more or less even, as if she hadn’t been petrified.

“A jurisdictional dispute.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “What does that mean?”

“It means that the mages from the chariots were dispatched by the Inquisitor. But Mrs. Hancock here has her orders directly from Atlantis’s Department of Overseas Administration, and she does not care for the Inquisitor’s minions barging in on her territory without express invitation. They know it, which was why they tried to conceal themselves right here, where you are.”

Her heart pounded even more violently than before.

“Go,” he said.

She had no choice but to admit the obvious. “I don’t know where to go.”

He took her hand and placed it on his arm. The next moment they were on a brightly lit street, across from a long, pillared building with curved mansard roofs.

“Where are we?”

“Slough, a mile and a half north of Eton. That is the railway station.” He pointed at the long building. “You have a timetable in your bag and more than enough money to go anywhere. Take a steamer to the Americas if you want.”

He was angry with her, but he was still helping her. Somehow that made a future without him even bleaker. Her heart was full of strange pains she could not begin to name.

He turned her around. She now faced a squat two-story house. “That is an inn. You can buy your supper there and stay the night if you prefer to leave in the morning. Make sure you monitor what goes on outside and know the location of the rear exit.”

“Thank you,” she said, not quite looking him in the eye.

“And take this.”

He pressed a wand into her hand.

“But it’s yours.”

“Of course not—it is an unmarked spare. I cannot have my wand in your possession when you are captured.”

Not if, but when.

She raised her head. But he’d already disappeared.

The inn was small, but cheerfully lit and scrupulously clean. A fire blazed in the taproom. The aroma was of strong ale and hot stew.

Mrs. Needles often railed against the evils of an empty stomach: it sapped warmth, drained courage, and decimated clear thinking. Iolanthe had been cold, confused, and disheartened when she pushed open the doors of the inn. But now, with her supper laid out on the table before her—chunks of beef and carrots swimming in gravy, slices of freshly baked bread with a huge mound of butter, and the promise of a pudding to come later—she felt slightly more herself.

She had selected a table next to the window, within view of the back door, which led out to an alley. Upstairs a spare but decent room awaited her. And in front of her, the railway timetable. She had already circled the train—a very crude form of expedited highway, from what she could gather—she intended to take in the morning.

She reached for a slice of bread and slathered it with butter. At his residence house, the prince would soon also be sitting down to supper. Would he think of her, as she thought of him? Or would he secretly rejoice, relieved not to have to take on the Bane?

Master Haywood would be pleased that she’d wisely turned away from the prince’s extravagant schemes to concentrate on her own survival. She stared at the bread in her hand, glistening with melting butter, and wondered whether the food offered to Master Haywood in the Inquisitory was as palatable. And would the agents of Atlantis do anything for him when symptoms of merixida withdrawal began? Or would they simply let him suffer?

“What are you thinking, you handsome lad?”

Iolanthe jumped. But it was only the barmaid, smiling at her.

Smiling flirtatiously.

“Ah . . . a brimming mug of ale, served by the prettiest girl in the room?”

The girl giggled. “I will fetch that ale for you.”

Iolanthe stared at the barmaid’s retreating back, wondering how to keep her away. She couldn’t afford even the possibility of a situation where someone might find out she wasn’t such a handsome ladafter all.

The barmaid glanced over her shoulder and winked. Iolanthe hastily looked out the window. At home a hub of the expedited highways usually had more than one inn. Perhaps she’d see something else nearby.

Across the street, high above the railway station, hovered two armored chariots. On the ground, a team of agents—easy to distinguish from the startled English pedestrians by their uniform tunics—fanned out from the station. Several of them headed directly for the inn.

The fear that seized her made time itself stretch and dilate. The man reading a timetable under a streetlamp yawned, his mouth opening endlessly. The diner at the next table asked his mate to “Pass the salt,” each syllable as drawn out as pulled taffy. The mate, moving as if he were inside a vat of glue, set his fingers on a pewter dish with a small spoon inside and pushed it across.

With a loud thump, a great tankard of ale was plunked down before Iolanthe, the froth high and spilling. She jerked and glanced up at the barmaid, who winked again meaningfully. “Anything else for you, sir?”

Her illusion of freedom crumbled.

She was not safe here. She was not safe anywhere. And she had no choices except between dying now or dying slightly later.

She threw a handful of coins beside her largely untouched supper and ran for the back door.

He was a bastard. Of course he was: he lied, cheated, and manipulated.

She would not like him very much when she realized what he had done.

It did not matter, Titus told himself. He did not walk this path for flowers and hugs. The only thing that mattered was that she should come back. The hollow feeling in his chest he ignored entirely.

He turned on the light in Fairfax’s room and waited. A quarter hour passed. And there she was, her face pale, her eyes wild.

“If you are looking for your hat, it is on the hook over there,” he said as casually as he could manage. “Pay me no mind; I am just here to forge a good-bye note from you.”

She dropped her valise, pulled out the chair at her desk, and sank into it, her face buried in her hands.

In the last few weeks of his mother’s life, she too had often sat like this, her face in her hands. Impatient with her anguish, he used to yank at her sleeve and demand that she play with him.

After her death, for months he could think of nothing but whether she would have still decided on the same course of action had he been different, had he patted her on the back and stroked her hair and brought her cups of tea.

He moved forward slowly, cautiously, as if the girl before him were a sleeping dragon.

Against his better judgment, he laid a hand on her shoulder.

She shook, as if caught in a nightmare.

He had always considered himself cold-blooded. Sangfroid was a trait highly prized by the House of Elberon. His grandfather had especially insisted on it: one was permitted to lose one’s life, but never one’s detachment.

Now, however, his detachment cracked. Somewhere inside him, he shook too, with the force of her fear, her confusion, and her vulnerability—an empathy that shocked him with its depth and enormity.

He yanked back his hand.

“They were there.” Her voice sounded ghostly, disembodied. “They were at the railway station. Two of those armored chariots in the air and—and agents were headed for the inn.”

Of course they had been there. He had told Mrs. Hancock that if Atlantis really thought the girl was nearby, they should watch the rail stations, since she would not know Britain well enough to vault far.

“Did you vault here directly from your dining table?”

“No, from the alley behind. I hope I left enough coins for supper—I was in too much of a hurry.”

“Now is hardly the time to worry about the innkeeper’s profit.”

“I know.” She turned her face toward the ceiling and blinked rapidly. He was shocked to realize that she was on the verge of tears. “It’s stupid. Of everything that happened today, I don’t know why this is the one thing that—”

She passed the base of her palm over her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

The thing to do now would be to pull her into his arms for a reassuring embrace, perhaps even to kiss her on her hair. Offer her the comfort she craved and convince her that she had made the right choice to return.

He could not do it. If anything, he took a step back.

She glanced up at him. “Can I still be Archer Fairfax?”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “You understand what you are to give in return?”

Her lips twisted. “Yes.”

“I require an oath.”

This took her aback. She exhaled slowly. “What do you want me to swear on?”

“Let me clarify. I require a blood oath.”

She was on her feet. “What?”

“The only meaningful oath is one that can be enforced. Your life is not the only one at stake here.”

She trembled, but she met his gaze. “For a blood oath I want more. You will always tell me the truth. You will free my guardian. And we will make one and only one attempt on the Bane. Whether we succeed or fail, you will release me from this oath.”

As if there would ever be a second attempt.

“Granted,” he said.

He found a plate, set it on the desk, and aimed his wand at the plate. “Flamma viridis.”

A green flame flared. He opened his pocketknife, passed the blade through the fire, cut open the center of his left palm, and let three drops of blood fall on the flame. The fire crackled, turning a more brilliant emerald hue. He lowered the knife into the flame again and passed it to her. “Your turn.”

She winced, but copied his action. The fire devoured her blood and turned the color of a midnight forest. He gripped her still bleeding hand with his and plunged their joined hands directly into the cold, cold flame.

“Should either of us renege on the oath, this fire will spread in the veins of the oath breaker. It will not be so cool then.”

The fire abruptly turned a brilliant white and burned. She hissed. He sucked in a breath against the scalding pain.

Just as abruptly, the flame went out, leaving no trace of having ever been there. She pulled her hand back and examined it anxiously. But her skin was perfectly smooth and intact; even the self-inflicted wound at the center of her palm had disappeared.

“A little taste of what awaits the oath breaker,” he said, perhaps unnecessarily.

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t—”

Her voice trailed off.

The curtains were securely drawn. From where she stood, she could not see out. Yet she stared at the window, disbelief in her eyes. Her denial made the hollow feeling in his chest return with a vengeance. She still wanted to believe he was better than this.

But it was inevitable. She was too sharp, and he had been too hurried to be subtle.

Her already pale face turned ashen, her jaw hardened, she scratched a nail down the center of her palm, where the cut had been.

“You saw them in the sky, didn’t you, the armored chariots? That was why you told me about the stars, so that I’d be sure to look up and see them.”

Her voice was unnaturally even. He thought of her thanking him for his honesty. She had to be thinking of the same thing, knowing that even as she spoke those words, he was already planning to betray her trust.

He said nothing.

“You couldn’t have had the decency to tell me that they were directly overhead and that I should wait a quarter hour before venturing out?”

“Decency is not a virtue in a prince.”

She laughed bitterly. “The house in London, is it really surrounded by agents of Atlantis?”

He might have exaggerated the likelihood that Lady Wintervale would speak of her arrival to other Exiles. Lady’s Wintervale was inclined toward secrecy, not confessions.

“Did you also have something to do with the armored chariots at Slough, the ones that sent me scrambling back to you?”

He shrugged.

She laughed again. “So what then, exactly, is the difference between you and Atlantis?”

“I still gave you a choice. You came back here of your own will.”

“No, I came back here because you cornered me. You played fast and loose with my life. You—”

She fell back against the wall, her face contorted by pain.

“Thinking of reneging on the oath already?” He could only imagine the agony that slashed through her.

She looked as if she could scarcely breathe. Her voice was hoarse. “This cannot be a valid pact. Release me now!”

“No.”

Never.

She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, they were full of cold fury. “What kind of person are you, to live without honor or integrity?”

His nails dug into his palm. “Obviously, the kind chosen for what others are too decent to do.”

He wanted to come across as flippant, but instead he sounded harsh and angry.

She clenched her hand. “I liked you much, much better when I didn’t know you.”

It did not matter. He had what he wanted from her. What she thought of him was henceforth irrelevant.

He had to draw a deep breath before he could reply. “Your affection is not required in this endeavor, Fairfax, only your cooperation.”

She stared at him. Suddenly she was right before him. Her fist struck him hard low in the abdomen.

He grunted. The girl knew how to hurt someone.

“You bastard,” she snarled.

An irrelevant thought gripped him: he should have kissed her when he still had the chance.

He straightened with some effort. “Supper is in half an hour, Fairfax. And next time, tell me something I do not already know.”