All That Burns (27 page)

“Did you know? About Anabelle?”

There’s a flicker, a movement behind that wall of a face. His voice is brittle and ice. “I did not know she would see. I’m sorry if I caused any discomfort.”

Discomfort
. Such a prim, proper word. So distant from the realities of angels torn from ceilings and a soul scalped raw. So delicate for the collapse I just witnessed.

“She lost control of her magic,” I say. “She almost brought the palace down on our heads.”

The Ad-hene stares at his feet. “I had not suspected she would be so angry.”

The tracks shudder. Somewhere in the tunnel’s far deep a train begins to howl.

“Angry?” I echo his final word. “Kieran, you broke her heart.”

He looks up, his eyes wide, swallowing the light. For a glimpse of a moment they appear like silvered glass: transparent, oh-so-breakable. His jaw shuts and his lips go thin.

The train is drawing closer. It feels like the earth itself is shifting under my feet.

“We should go,” he says finally.

Maybe it’s the tightness of the tunnels. Or the heavy growl of the tracks. Or maybe it’s because Kieran has stepped closer, filling all my senses with his brooding face, but my head is buzzing again.

I think of the runes which cut through my reflection. They should only be a few more steps away. And now there’s more than enough light to see by. I’ve let myself get distracted again.

I look back at the walls. The Ad-hene’s light stretches on, shows how the tunnel curves round, like some ancient coiling serpent.

“I think I saw some runes from the train,” I tell him. “They should be just around this bend.”

Kieran blinks, his lips draw even tighter.

I turn and start walking again. Follow the iron slant of the tracks which quake under my feet.

“Do you have a death wish?” His words echo. Loud and hard. “There’s a train coming. You’re walking straight toward it.”

Crunch, crunch, crunch.
I keep walking. Away.

All of a sudden Kieran jumps in front of me, landing with the grace of the supernatural. As if all those steps I just took brought me nowhere at all.

“Get out of my way,” I say.

“Emrys, you have to turn around.” Those gray eyes flash at me. I see the clench of his jaw growing, all rigid sculpt under his powder skin. “It’s not safe.”

“I’ve faced worse than a train.” I keep walking forward. But he doesn’t move.

I stop, just a breath away from his skin. His arms are crossed, his scar dimming under the cover of his unmarked flesh.

“Don’t be foolish,” he says. “Don’t throw your life away.”

And suddenly I realize this conversation isn’t about finding the runes anymore. Maybe it never was.

“You said you understood, but you don’t know a thing
about love.” I’m screaming now, trying to make myself heard over the train’s growing roar. “Because if you did you’d know why I have to do this. You would know why I could never be with you. . . .”

Kieran’s face twists, almost as if he’s in pain. There’s a tempest behind his eyes. His arm streaks out—as fast and bright as a fork of lightning—grabs me by the wrist.

I don’t feel the prickles anymore. It’s anger which swells hot through my veins.

“Don’t touch me!” My words are all hiss, but that doesn’t stop Kieran’s fingers from wrapping tight.

The roar is overwhelming now. Pebbles and debris start raining down, so much like Anabelle’s angel dust. The tunnel walls behind the Ad-hene edge with a glow that’s not his. The headlamp of the train is tearing through the earth, straight toward us.

And—in the moment between moments—I see the runes. Only a few steps ahead: chalked white over the sign of a second service door.

The Ad-hene flings me across his back like a sack of flour, flashes down the tracks. Away from the runes and the train. Even with all his swiftness we reach the first service door with only seconds to spare.

We barrel in just as the train sings by: a whiplash
of windows, dull steel, and commuters. Kieran’s face is flushed; the gust of the passing cars whips through his curls. I stand with my back tight against the wall. The train is here and gone in the space of seven heartbeats, leaving the tunnel just as hollowed and dark as before.

It’s not until the rush of its wheels is past that I realize how much I’m shaking. From fear, anger, or both. Adrenaline is thick in my veins, but even with that I know I never could’ve run as fast as Kieran just did. Not in this mortal form.

“Thank you,” I manage.

Kieran doesn’t say anything. His eyes are as hard and blank as the tiles he’s staring down.

“Maybe there is—was—something between us. But it doesn’t matter. It never mattered.” I will not be Guinevere. I will not flip wrong. I will not watch this kingdom burn.

“I understand.” There’s pain—so base, so primal—in his voice. It catches me off guard, betrays all the stone of his features.

“Maybe I was never meant to meet Richard. But I did. Maybe I was never meant to be a
faagailagh
. But I am.” I keep looking past him, into the pitch-black rectangle of the open service door. “Loving Richard has changed me.
I’m not who I was before. I’ll never be that Emrys again, even if I did get my magic back. Maybe it’s not who I was made to be, but it’s who I chose to be. And I can’t give that up. I can’t let him go. I won’t.”

My words are loud, steady, strong. They fly out of the door, into the tunnels and echo back to me. I know they are the truth.

The life I want more is Richard.

“Not all of us can be as strong as you,” he says slowly. “Even when it comes to loving someone.”

After tasting the desperation in Kieran’s kiss I expected more fight out of him, more—anything. But the Ad-hene just stares at the tiles, eyes and face vacant, as if he’s a wax figure on display in Madame Tussauds.

I try to change the subject. “There were runes back there. Etched straight across a service door, almost like a blocking spell. We should go back and look before the next train.”

This information seems to bring Kieran to life, at least a bit. He shifts, blocks the way to the door. “No. It’s too dangerous. The runes could be another trap, like the desk. Besides, we know who wrote them.”

The man who’s somewhere above us. The man who
will soon be sitting at Kensington Palace’s banquet table across from Anabelle, hands wrapped around a glass, raising it to his lips.

“Anabelle still means to go through with the banquet,” I tell him.

Kieran shuts his eyes. His head pushes against the wall, black curls smoke up and out on the tiles; it looks as though his own dark soul is trying to pull out of his body. “You’re going to let Belle put herself in that danger? Risk her life?”

“I’m not
letting
her do anything. I might have been able to talk her out of it before . . .” I let the rest go understood. “But Anabelle wants to do this. And I have to help her.”

“So you’re not going to reclaim your magic? Even if this plan could get Richard killed?” The guilt—the paper-cut nicks Kieran’s words are so good at—weaves around me. Choke and doubt.

Is it worth his death?
My insides start to gasp.

And a response, spoken in Richard’s brass bell voice:
I don’t need your magic, I need you.
It’s what he said to me on the Winfreds’ yacht. Just before I jumped onto the Kelpie. How had I forgotten?

I will not be Guinevere. I will not abandon my king when he needs me most. If there’s a chance, even a
chance
I can find Richard without magic . . . I have to take it. “I have to go back to the palace.”

“If there’s ever a soul I’ve met who can fight fate and win, it’s you, Emrys Léoflic.” The Ad-hene says this with his eyes still closed, his face wrenched tight. If I really wanted to, I could dash past him, back into the tunnels. But Kieran’s right: it could be a trap, and I can’t risk things going badly. Not when we’re only a few hours away from seizing the largest piece to this puzzle.

I’ve found my course. And now I must stay it.

D
espite my fears, Kensington Palace still stands.

Yet even if the palace had crumbled to dust, Anabelle’s banquet would go on. The dinner is set up in the Orangery, a slender building off the edge of the garden, where Queen Anne once held many teas and dinners of her own. Its walls are all windows—swallowing the evening light and bathing the room in a hot amber shine, preserving the delicate balance of this moment. Before we slip the drink into Julian Forsythe’s hands.

Kieran and I are sheathed in his veiling spell, tucked in opposite corners of the room, away from the path of the serving staff. I know Anabelle can see us, but she does everything in her power not to look our way. She watches out the window instead, waiting for guests. As the light outside dims, I can see her face more clearly in the glass. Composed and perfect. In the space of hours Anabelle has pulled together two impossible things: a dinner party this lavish and herself.

We watch her, waiting for the ice of her expression to slip. For one of the many panes of glass to crack and shatter. But things stay whole. At least on the outside.

The princess was right: she’s good at controlling things.

Guests start filing in—names from Anabelle’s small, select list. The only one I recognize is Queen Cecilia, who walks almost hand in hand with Jensen, as if terrified to leave his side.

And then, the guest of honor.

The sun is gone by the time Julian Forsythe strides down the gravel path. The only light left comes from the torches which line the way, and the glow of the Orangery’s windows. These catch his eyes, make them electric.

Elaine is with him this time, her frail frame swallowed in a coat of blinding white fur. Her skin is almost as pale, set off only by the sleek dark of her hair and eyes. The only spot of color on her is the bright scarlet swathe of her lipstick.

The doorman offers to take her coat, but Elaine shakes her head, shrugging the fur even farther over her bony shoulders.

“My wife has a chill,” Julian says, guiding his wife into the Orangery with a wide sweep of his arm. “She’ll keep it on, as long as Her Highness approves.”

I frown, thinking of the tightness of his knuckles in that photo, the bruises I imagined. I wonder how deep they go under those layers of fur. Elaine’s dewy eyes are wide, almost skittish as they take in the room. Something like fear passes behind them, quivering under her thin red smile as she greets the princess.

It will all be over soon,
I want to tell her.
You’ll never have to see this monster again.

“This is
your
dinner,” Anabelle says in her sweetest voice. “Can I get you anything to drink? A Pimm’s Cup perhaps? I heard it was your favorite during your Oxford days.”

“Did you?” Julian’s eyebrows fly up. “That was ages ago. . . . The stories of your past have a way of catching up with you, don’t they?”

“He doesn’t drink anymore.” The prim and prick of Elaine’s voice suddenly reminds me of why I disliked her so much on the yacht. “He needs a clear head for his job.”

“Prudent.” Anabelle’s face stays ice. “I suppose if there’s anything these past few months have taught us it’s that our government’s leaders must be ready for anything.”

Elaine Forsythe nods. “It’s a dangerous world. I’m just glad men like Julian are taking a stand.”

“Someone must,” Richard’s mother joins the conversation. “Lord Winfred is just as blinded by these creatures as Richard and Anabelle once were. Thank goodness your motion of no confidence passed, Mr. Forsythe. With you as prime minister we can finally do something.”

“I’m not prime minister yet, Your Majesty,” Julian reminds her.

“But you will be. After the election tomorrow,” Queen Cecilia says without a doubt. “And once you are we’ll take more extreme actions to protect our city and find my son.”

Anabelle clears her throat. “The first course should be arriving shortly. I think you should enjoy it, Mr. Forsythe. Oysters fresh from Whitstable, where you grew up.”

“Ah! How thoughtful.” Julian Forsythe’s smile is stunted as he leads Elaine to the table. Her coat blends in with the white of the back wall, the crisp blank of the tablecloth. If it weren’t for the color in her hair and lips, she’d disappear altogether.

Dinner begins. Attendants bring out silver platters, trailing mouthwatering scents as they make their way around the table. I stand in my corner, still as death, watching Julian Forsythe. That wilted grin stays on his face while he wields his utensils as delicately as a calligrapher’s pen. A silver goblet of water gleams by his right
hand—shimmering full of the drugs we need him to take. Every muscle in my body keeps winding tight as I wait for him to take a sip.

He doesn’t drink.

Anabelle watches the glass too. By the second course her smile is shorter, fading.

When the third course arrives Anabelle’s smile vanishes altogether. From where I stand I see her hands wringing under the table. Knuckles knotting into knuckles.

I move to Kieran’s corner, dodging trays of stuffed wild mushrooms and glazed Cornish game hens. The Ad-hene’s expression is brooding, his signature stone stare taking everything in: the queue of diners, the muted flower arrangements, the china plates full of extravagant food.

I’m so close to him our arms are nearly touching. The prickle hasn’t returned. Not since I shouted it away in those tunnels. Banished it like a demon.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“Wait until the moment is right,” he says this without looking away. I follow his stare.

Anabelle sits close. Even from such a short distance away I have trouble picking out any flaws. Her perfect summer-gold hair, her skin soft under the light of the
table’s candelabras. The dress she’s wearing tonight is silvery; it glows under the candlelight like the Ad-hene’s scars.

I look back at Kieran, see the princess’s form in miniature, shining through the iron of his eyes.

“Do you think she really loved me?” His question is quiet, but it hangs heavy. I try to make sense of it. Why he’s asking. Why it matters. Why he speaks in past tense, as if the end has already been written.