A Darker Shade of Magic (29 page)

Kell and Lila stood frozen in front of him, only a few short strides separating them.

“I’m in no mood for games,” warned Holland, his usual calm now flecked by annoyance. When neither Kell nor Lila moved, he sighed and drew a silver pocket watch from his cloak. Kell recognized it as the one Lila had left behind for Barron. He felt her stiffen against him as Holland tossed the timepiece in their direction; it bounced along the blackened street, skidding to a stop at the edge of the inn’s charred remains. From here Kell could see that it was stained with blood.

“He died because of you,” said Holland, addressing Lila. “Because you ran. You were a coward. Are you still?”

Lila struggled to get free of Kell’s arms, but he held her there with all his strength, pinning her against his chest. He felt tears slide over his hand at her mouth, but he didn’t let go. “No,” he said breathlessly into her ear. “Not here. Not like this.”

Holland sighed. “You will die a coward’s death, Delilah Bard.” He drew a curved blade from beneath his cloak. “When this is over,” he said, “you will both wish you had come out.”

He lifted his empty hand, and a wind caught up the ashes of the ruined inn, whipping them into the air overhead. Kell looked up at the cloud of it above them and said a prayer under his breath.

“Last chance,” said Holland.

When he was met by silence, he lowered his hand, and the ash began to fall. And Kell saw what would happen. It would drift down, and settle on the veil, exposing them, and Holland would be upon them both in an instant. Kell’s mind spun as his grip tightened on the stone, and he was about to summon its power again when the ash met their veil … and passed through.

It sank straight through the impossible cloth, and then through them, as though they were not there. As though they were not real. The crease between Holland’s two-toned eyes deepened as the last of the ash settled back to the ruins, and Kell took a (very small) measure of comfort from the
Antari
’s frustration. He may be able to
sense
them, but he could not
see
them.

Finally, when the wind was gone and the ground lay still, and Kell and Lila remained concealed by the power of the stone, Holland’s certainty faltered. He sheathed the curved blade and took a step back, turned, and strode away, cloak billowing behind him.

The moment he was gone, Kell’s grip on Lila loosened, and she wrenched free of him and the spell and shot forward to the silver watch on the street.

“Lila,” he called.

She didn’t seem to hear him, and he didn’t know if it was because she’d abandoned their protective shroud or because her world had narrowed to the size and shape of a small bloodied watch. He watched her sink to one knee and take up the timepiece with shaking fingers.

He went to Lila’s side and brought his hand to her shoulder, or tried, but it went straight through. So he was right. The veil didn’t simply make them invisible. It made them incorporeal.

“Reveal me,” he ordered the stone. Energy rippled through him, and a moment later, the veil dissolved. Kell marveled a moment at how easy it had been as he knelt beside her—the magic had come effortlessly—but this was the first time it had willingly undone itself. They could not afford to stay there, exposed, so Kell took her arm and silently summoned the magic to conceal them once more. It obeyed, the shadow veil settling again over them both.

Lila shook under his touch, and he wanted to tell her it was all right, that Holland might have taken the timepiece and left Barron’s life, but he did not want to lie. Holland was many things—most of them well hidden—but he was not sentimental. If he had ever been compassionate, or at least merciful, Athos had bled it out of him long ago, carved it out along with his soul.

No, Holland was ruthless.

And Barron was dead.

“Lila,” said Kell gently. “I’m sorry.”

Her fingers curled tightly around the timepiece as she rose to her feet. Kell rose with her, and even though she would not look him in the eye, he could see the anger and pain written in the lines of her face.

“When this is over,” she said, tucking the watch into a fold of her cloak. “I want to be the one to slit his throat.” And then she straightened and let out a small, shuddering breath. “Now,” she said, “which way to Fletcher?”

I

Booth was beginning to fall apart.

In this grim grey London, the drunkard’s body hadn’t lasted long at all—much to the displeasure of the thing burning its way through him. It wasn’t the magic’s fault; there was so little to hold on to here, so little to feed on. The people had only a candle’s light of life inside them, not the fire to which the darkness was accustomed. So little heat, so easily extinguished. The moment he got inside, he burned them up to nothing, blood and bone to husk and ash in no time at all.

Booth’s black eyes drifted down to his charred fingers. With such poor kindling, he couldn’t seem to spread, couldn’t last long in any body.

Not for lack of trying. After all, he’d left a trail of discarded shells along the docks.

Burned through the place they all called Southwark in a mere hour.

But his current body—the one he’d taken in the tavern alley—was now coming undone. The black stain across his shirtfront pulsed, trying to keep the last of the life from bleeding out. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stabbed the drunkard first, but it seemed the fastest way in.

But the failing shell and the lack of prospects had left him with a predicament. He appeared to be rotting.

Bits of skin flaked off with every step. The people in the street looked at him and moved away, out of reach, as if whatever was eating him was contagious. Which, of course, it was. Magic was a truly beautiful disease. But only when the hosts were strong enough. Pure enough. The people here were not.

He walked on through the city—shuffled, hobbled, really, at this point—the power in this shell only embers now, and quickly cooling.

And in his desperation, he found himself drawn on—drawn
back
—to the place where he had started: the Stone’s Throw. He wondered at the pull of the odd little tavern. It was a flicker of warmth in the cold, dead city. A glimmer of light, of life, of magic.

If he could get there, he might find a fire yet.

He was so consumed by the need to reach the tavern that he did not notice the man standing by its door, nor the carriage fast approaching as he stepped off the curb and into the street.

* * *

Edward Archibald Tuttle stood outside the Stone’s Throw, frowning at the time.

It should be open by now, but the bolts were still thrown, the windows shuttered, and everything within seemed strangely still. He checked his pocket watch. It was after noon. How odd.
Suspicious
, he thought.
Nefarious, even.
His mind spun over the possibilities, all of them dark.

His family insisted that he had too vivid an imagination, but he held that the rest of the world simply lacked the sight, the sense for magic, which he, obviously, possessed. Or at least endeavored to possess. Or, truly, had begun to fear he would never possess, had begun to think (though he would not admit it) did not exist.

Until he found the traveler. The renowned magician known only as Kell.

That single—and singular—meeting had rekindled his belief, stoked the fires hotter than they had ever been.

And so Edward had done as he was told, and returned to the Stone’s Throw in hopes of finding the magician a second time and receiving his promised bag of earth. To that end, he had come yesterday, and to that end, he would come again tomorrow, and the next, until the illustrious figure returned.

While he waited, Ned—for that was what his friends and family called him—spun stories in his head, trying to imagine how the eventual meeting would take shape, how it would unfold. The details changed, but the end remained the same: in every version, the magician Kell would tip his head and consider Ned with his black eye.

“Edward Archibald Tuttle,” he’d say, “May I call you Ned?”

“All my friends do.”

“Well, Ned, I see something special in you. …”

He’d then insist upon being Ned’s mentor, or even better, his partner. After that, the fantasy usually devolved into praise.

Ned had been playing out yet another of these daydreams while he stood on the steps of the Stone’s Throw, waiting. His pockets were weighed with trinkets and coins, anything the magician might want in exchange for his prize. But the magician had not come, and the tavern was all locked up, and Ned—after whispering something that was equal parts spell and prayer and nonsense and trying unsuccessfully to will the bolt from its place—was about to pause his pursuit for the moment and go pass a few hours in an open establishment, when he heard a crash behind him in the street.

Horses whinnied and wheels clattered to a halt. Several crates of apples tumbling out of a cart as the driver pulled back sharply on the reins. He looked more frightened than his horses.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ned, striding over.

“Bloody hell,” the driver was saying. “I’ve hit him. I’ve hit someone.”

Ned looked around. “I don’t think you’ve hit anything.”

“Is he under the cart?” went on the driver. “Oh God. I didn’t see him.”

But when he knelt to inspect the space beneath the carriage, the spokes of its wheels, Ned saw nothing but a stretch of soot—it was, strangely enough, vaguely person-shaped—across the stones, already blowing away. One small mound seemed to move, but then it crumbled inward and was gone.
Strange
, he thought with a frown.
Ominous.
He held his breath and reached out toward the smear of charcoal dust, expecting it to spring to life. His fingers met the ash and … nothing happened. He rubbed the soot between his thumb and forefinger, disappointed.

“Nothing there, sir,” he said, getting to his feet.

“I swear,” said the driver. “There was someone here. Right here.”

“Must have been mistaken.”

The driver shook his head, mumbling, then climbed down from the cart and reloaded the crates, looking under the cart a few more times, just in case.

Ned held his fingers up to the light, wondering at the soot. He had felt something—or
thought
he had—a prickle of warmth, but the feeling had quickly faded to nothing. He sniffed the soot once and sneezed roundly, then wiped the ash on his pant leg and wandered off down the street.

II