A Darker Shade of Magic (40 page)

By the time Gen’s boots approached the palace, the stairs were crowded with worried guests. The thing inside Gen’s armor turned its black eyes up at the dancing lights and jostling bodies. It wasn’t the mayhem that drew him there. It was the scent. Someone had used strong magic, beautiful magic, and he meant to find out who.

He set off up the stairs, pressing past the flustered guests. No one seemed to notice that his armor was rent, peeled back over the heart, a stain like black wax across his front. Nor did they notice the blood—Parrish’s blood—splashed across the metal.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he drew a deep breath and smiled; the night hung heavy with panic and power, the energy filling his lungs, stoking him like coals. He could smell the magic now. He could
taste
it.

And he was hungry.

He’d chosen his latest shell quite well; the guards, in their commotion, let him pass. It wasn’t until he was inside, through the flower-lined antechamber and striding across the emptied ballroom, that a helmeted figure stopped him.

“Gen,” demanded the guard, “where have you …” But the words died in the guard’s throat when he saw the man’s eyes.
“Mas aven—”

The oath was cut off by Gen’s sword, sliding through armor and between ribs. The guard dragged in a single, shuddering breath and tried to cry out, but the sword cut sideways and up, and the air died in his throat. Easing the body down, the thing wearing Gen’s skin resheathed his weapon and removed the guard’s helmet, sliding it over his own head. When he pulled the visor down, his black eyes were nothing but a glint through the metal slit.

Footsteps sounded through the palace, and shouted orders echoed overhead. He straightened. The air was full of blood and magic, and he went to find its source.

* * *

The stone still sang in Kell’s hand, but not quite the way it had before. Now the melody, the thrum of power, seemed to be singing
in
his bones instead of over them. Every moment, he felt it in his heartbeat and in his head. With it came a strange quiet, a calm, one he trusted even less than the initial surge of power. The calm told him everything would be well. It cooed and soothed and steadied his heart and made Kell forget that anything was wrong, made him forget that he was holding the stone at all. That was the worst part. It was bound to his hand, and yet it hung at the outside of his senses; he had to fight to remember it was there with him.
Inside
of him. Every time he remembered, it was like waking from a dream, full of panic and fear, only to be dragged down into sleep again. In those brief moments of clarity, he wanted to claw free, break or tear or cut the stone from his skin. But he didn’t, because competing with that urge to cast it off was the equal, opposite desire to hold it close, to cling to its warmth as if he were dying of cold. He
needed
its strength. Now more than ever.

Kell didn’t want Lila to see how scared he was, but he thought she saw it anyway.

They had woven back toward the city center, the streets mostly deserted on this side of the river, but had yet to cross any of the bridges that arced back and forth over the Isle. It was too dangerous, too exposed. Especially since, halfway there, Kell’s face had reappeared on the scrying boards that lined the streets.

Only this time, instead of saying:

MISSING

It now said:

WANTED

For
treason, murder
, and
abduction
.

Kell’s chest tightened at the accusations, and he held fast to the fact that Rhy was safe—as safe as he could possibly be. His fingers went to the brand over his heart; if he focused, he could feel the echo of Rhy’s heartbeat, the pulse a fraction of time after his own.

He looked around, trying to picture the streets not only as they were here, but as they would be in White London, superimposing the images in his mind.

“This will have to do,” he said.

Where they stood now, at the mouth of an alley across from a string of ships—Lila had surveyed them with an appraising eye—they would stand before a bridge in the next city. A bridge that led to a street that ended at the walls of the White Castle. As they’d walked, Kell had described to Lila the dangers of the other London, from its twin rulers to its starving, power-hungry populace. And then he had described the castle and the bones of his plan, because bones were all he had right now.

Bones and hope. Hope that they would make it, that he would be able to hold on to himself long enough to beat Athos and retrieve the second half of the stone and then—

Kell closed his eyes and took a low, steadying breath.
One adventure at a time.
Lila’s words echoed in his mind.

“What are we waiting for?”

Lila was leaning against the wall. She tapped the bricks. “Come on, Kell. Door time.” And her casual air, her defiant energy, the way, even now, she didn’t seem concerned or afraid, only
excited
him, gave him strength.

The gash across his palm, though now partially obscured by the black stone, was still fresh. He touched the cut with his finger and drew a mark on the brick wall in front of them. Lila took his hand, palm to palm with the stone singing between them, and offered him the white rook, and he brought it to the blood on the wall, swallowing his nerves.

“As Travars,”
he commanded, and the world softened and darkened around them as they stepped forward and through the newly hewn doorway.

Or at least, that’s how it should have happened.

But halfway through the stride, a force jarred Kell backward, tearing Lila’s hand from his as it ripped him out of the place between worlds and back onto the hard stone street of Red London. Kell blinked up at the night, dazed, and then realized he was not alone. Someone was standing over him. At first, the figure was no more than a shadow, rolling up his sleeves. And then Kell saw the silver circle glittering at his collar.

Holland looked down at him and frowned.

“Leaving so soon?”

IV

Lila’s black boots landed on the pale street. Her head spun a little from the sudden change, and she steadied herself against the wall. She heard the sound of Kell’s steps behind her.

“Well, that’s an improvement,” she said, turning. “At least we’re in the same place this—”

But he wasn’t there.

She was standing on the curb in front of a bridge, the White Castle rising in the distance across the river, which was neither grey nor red, but a pearly, half-frozen stretch of water, shining dully in the thickening night. Lanterns along the river burned with a pale blue fire that cast the world in a strange, colorless way, and Lila, in her crisp black clothes, stood out as much a light in the dark.

Something shone near her feet, and she looked down to find the white rook on the ground, its pale surface still dotted with Kell’s blood. But no Kell. She picked up the token and pocketed it, trying to swallow her rising nerves.

Nearby, a starved dog was watching her with empty eyes.

And then, quickly, Lila became aware of other eyes. In windows and doorways, and in the shadows between pools of sickly light. Her hand went to the knife with the metal knuckles.

“Kell?” she called out under her breath, but there was no answer. Maybe it was like last time. Maybe they’d simply been separated, and he was making his way toward her now. Maybe, but Lila had felt the strange pull as they stepped through, had felt his hand vanish from hers too soon.

Footsteps echoed, and she turned in a slow circle but saw no one.

Kell had warned her of this world—he’d called it
dangerous
—but so much of Lila’s own world had fit that term, so she hadn’t given it much stock. After all, he’d grown up in a palace and she’d grown up on the streets, and Lila thought she knew a good bit more about bad alleys and worse men than Kell. Now, standing here, alone, Lila was beginning to think she hadn’t given him enough credit. Anyone—even a highborn—could see the danger here. Could smell it. Death and ash and winter air.

She shivered. Not only from cold, but from fear. A simple bone-deep sense of
wrong.
It was like looking into Holland’s black eye. For the first time, Lila wished she had more than knives and the Flintlock.

“Övos norevjk,”
came a voice to her right, and she spun to see a man, bald, every inch of exposed skin, from the crown of his head down to his fingers, covered in tattoos. Whatever he was speaking, it didn’t sound like Arnesian. It was gruff and guttural, and even though she didn’t know the words, she could grasp the tone, and she didn’t like it.

“Tovach ös mostevna,”
said another, appearing to her left, his skin like parchment.

The first man chuckled. The second
tsk
ed.

Lila pulled the knife free. “Stay back,” she ordered, hoping her gesture would make up for any language barrier.

The men exchanged a look and then withdrew their own jagged weapons.

A cold breeze cut through, and Lila fought down a shiver. The men broke into rotting grins. She lowered her knife. And then, in one smooth move, she drew the pistol from her belt, raised it, and shot the first man between the eyes. He went down like a sack of stones, and Lila smiled before she realized how loud the gunshot sounded. She hadn’t noticed how quiet the city was until the shot rang out, the blast carrying down the streets. All around them, doors began to open. Shadows moved. Whispers and murmurs came from corners of the street—first one, then two, then half a dozen.

The second man, the one with papery skin, looked at the dead one, and then at Lila. He started talking again in a low threatening growl, and Lila was glad she didn’t speak his tongue. She didn’t want to know what he was saying.

Slivers of dark energy crackled through the air around the man’s blade. She could feel people moving behind her, the shadows taking shape into people, gaunt and grey.

Come on, Kell
, she thought as she raised the gun again.
Where are you?

V

“Let me pass,” said Kell.

Holland only raised a brow.

“Please,” said Kell. “I can end this.”

“Can you?” challenged Holland. “I do not think you have it in you.” His gaze went to Kell’s hand, the dark magic twining around it. “I warned you, magic is not about balance. It is about dominance. You control it, or it controls you.”