All That Burns (35 page)

Her words whisk—airy and light—in my head. It takes me a moment to pull them all together, find their meaning. “You want me to lead the Guard? But I’m still mortal.”

“If we are truly to be united, these things should not matter,” the Faery queen says. “You’re a strong leader, Lady Emrys. They’ll need your guidance if they’re to piece
the Palace of Westminster back together.”

Richard blinks, surprised. “You can do that?”

“All things can be made whole with time,” Titania tells him. “We will take these ashes and rise. Build a new kingdom. Just as you promised your people we would.”

“You mean to fix it with mending spells.” I think of the vase Anabelle sprayed to pieces in Windsor’s ballroom. How I pulled its few dozen shards back together with a single spell.

But it will take more than a few spells to fix Morgaine’s utter destruction: stones shattered into millions of dust particles, ashes spread to all corners of sea and sky. “It’ll have to be done stone by stone. That could take months, years to rebuild.”

The Faery queen’s gaze silvers over the bunker’s damage: Ink stains. Blood drops. Dust-covered royals. Daunted Frithemaeg. A hurting heart. A ruined wall.

Titania looks back to me.

“Then we must get to work,” she says.

M
y sleep is dark. Dreamless. It fills my night hours, spills into the days. The five moon scars on my arm stay closed and Guinevere does not return. Her face is lost to the mists. Swallowed by a Labyrinth which can never be unlocked, now that the Ad-hene are dead.

Most mornings I wake up with Richard by my side. Our fingers are usually entwined, as if we’re terrified to let each other go even in sleep. So many times we keep holding on, our fingers wrapped like stubborn vines, soaking in the morning light, staving off the day as long as we can. Days of fresh integration laws, rebuilding plans, training ourselves in new magic, whipping the Guard into shape. The responsibilities are as endless as before.

But now we are armed to face them. With our trowels and our swords. Our magic and our love.

This morning Richard stays asleep and I let him lie. My eyes are still half-dazzled when I shuffle into Buckingham Palace’s dining room. I don’t notice Anabelle until
I’ve already taken a seat. She sits across the table, sipping a cup of tea. While I’m still wiping unseemly crust from my face, she’s already pinned and painted. Hair and makeup ever flawless.

“Morning.”

Anabelle has been staying here at Buckingham ever since Phoenix Night (a title the newspapers coined). Yet the princess has made herself scarce, keeping away from us and the press. Appearing only for meals and the blood magic training sessions we’ve started in the garden.

“Sleep well?” I ask.

“I’m trying.” She’s looking down at her tea, running a finger around the rim of her cup.

“Well, that’s something,” I offer.

Silence.

“I could use some help packing for my holiday in the Highlands,” I try again.

She nods. But not in the way I’d like.

Lawton brings a tray to the table. Its edges brim with my usual: a full English breakfast, black coffee, and the morning’s headlines. I clear my throat and look at the headlines.
JULIAN FORSYTHE JAILED FOR ATTEMPTED REGICIDE
cozies up next to
WINFRED REINSTATED PRIME MINISTER
and
RESTORATION OF THE PALACE
OF WESTMINSTER SCHEDULED TO BEGIN NEXT WEEK
.

It’s been nice, having the press on our side. It keeps my appetite up as I tuck into the plate of sausage, eggs, tomatoes, beans, and toast. Eggs first this morning, I decide, and stab a fork into the over-easy yolk. Gold pours like feelings all across my plate just as Anabelle speaks.

“Richard told me everything that happened in the tunnels. About what Kieran did.”

I watch the egg bleed out, until my plate is swimming in yellow.

“His true self did shine through. In the end. He gave his life to keep you safe. He saved us all.” I tell this to my beans and toast. But these next words—these next three words—I cannot say them to the broiled tomato, which suddenly reminds me of a pulped heart.

I look up. The light of a cloudless, morning sky drips down Anabelle’s face, as rich as the egg yolk. Bringing out every part of her beauty. Her torn.

For a moment I’m afraid to say. I’m afraid the roof will cave in again.

But I think of how the roof has always held above our heads. The windows stay unshattered. The spells Anabelle performs in our garden sessions are as solid as she is.

She needs to know. She’s strong enough to know.

“He loved you.” I say this and her face starts slipping. Along with the light. Tears—smoky with mascara ink—creep and well at the ledges of her high cheekbones. Gray as the clouds which have suddenly crowded the window.

“That makes it so much worse,” she whispers. Tears keep rolling to the end of her chin. The storm outside breaks open.

Snow. Real snow. Not rain or hail or paint chips. It floats, twirls, spins past the windowpanes—as graceful as dandelion seeds. Death and life and beautiful: a cold crown over Anabelle’s bent silhouette.

She sniffs, wipes the wet from her face. But the snow outside keeps falling, new tears and
what if
s dew Anabelle’s eyelashes.

“It’s silly, really,” she says. “I only knew him for a few days.”

I reach across the table and grab her hand, where the rune scabs are still healing on her wrist. “It’s not silly. It’s real. It’s okay to let yourself hurt.”

Anabelle’s eyes meet mine. Her tendons and bones flutter under the cup of my palm. Outside the storm howls: white, white, white. So I can see nothing else.

“He never said good-bye.” Her words are ghost thin,
as pale as the world outside the window. “He promised he would.”

I hold her hand tight, but it’s not enough. So I leave my plate, come to her side of the table, so she doesn’t have to be alone.

We sit together. Her tears flow into my shoulder and the snow piles in drifts against the window. Sky’s sorrow and winter’s heart—covering everything.

A few minutes pass and Richard comes swinging into the dining room like the first child awake on Christmas morning. “Did you see? There’s a bloody blizzard outside! In November! Oh—”

He spots his sister—curled in my arms—and stops short.

Anabelle peels her face out of my shoulder. Smeared and wet and raw.
Sniff, sniff
, wipe. The flakes outside grow smaller. Sun starts to peek through lacework clouds, frostwork windows.

Richard comes and sits in the chair beside us. He places a hand on Anabelle’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, sis.”

“I’m not,” she says with a voice of rust and nails. “We wouldn’t be here if . . . if it wasn’t for him.”

Kieran fought his fate so that we could be here to live
through ours. I look across the princess’s shaking shoulders, meet Richard’s eyes. They’re a strange mix of fresh, sad, and serious.

Richard leans in to hug his sister, so she’s crammed between us. “Whatever you need, Belle. We’re here.”

“It will pass. In time.” Anabelle straightens up and wipes her face again. The sun burns strong through the clouds—gray wisps away, bursts into a dazzling white—and I know she’s right.

Richard squints out the bright, bright windowpanes. “You’ve just made some schoolchildren rather happy.”

Anabelle turns, seeing the snowfall for the first time. The after-storm light gleams on her wet face. A glow which reminds me of the Ad-henes’ scars. She takes in the unmarked white with a laugh twisted into a cry. “But—what about our training session in the garden?”

The hours in the garden are just as much for my instruction as for the royals’. Learning how to use Richard’s blood magic as my own is a frustrating process. The spells don’t always work the same—many times it feels as if I’m trying to mold fine china out of Play-Doh. But slowly I’m getting a handle on it. Anabelle and Richard are too.

“It’s just a bit of snow.” I look out into that wide stretch of white. “But we could practice inside if you’d like. I think we’re safe enough now!”

The princess shakes her head and eyes her brother. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that Christmas you ambushed me with snowballs at Balmoral Castle.”

Richard raises his eyebrows. “Is that a challenge I hear?”

Anabelle stands. Seeds of a smile pocket the corners of her lips. “Little did you know I’ve been working on my snowball-throwing arm for years! I will have my revenge!”

She says this as she runs, tears for the door. Her hair streams gold behind her, lashing free, the same way it did that dawn on the boat. When her brother was lost and she stayed strong. When Kieran first saw her and fate’s course changed.

“Outside it is.” Richard looks at me. “Care to join in our epic battle?”

I follow the siblings onto Buckingham’s portico. The new cold of the air catches me and I pause on the final step, watching Anabelle and Richard tumble through the snow. Make their marks.

I stand here and think of Kieran. Sitting under the
dawn on that boat, with sorrow in his voice and a spark in his eye.

It is behind us now. We can only look forward. Hope for better things.

And we will. She will.

Ice and cold explode across my neck. Stinging like a spell. A swear slips from my lips as I try to shake off the pain of the snowball—now fluff and dew across my blouse.

Anabelle stands several meters away, dusting her palms off. “You made it too easy, Emrys!”

Across from her Richard is laughing, packing snow into his hands. Ready for a fight.

I jump off the step, into the snow. Into the fray.

T
he Highlands have always been beautiful—hills rolling like songs, fog balleting over black waters, ruddy skies which catch the sun’s fierce and spread it over wide wilderness—but now it feels like a dream. Its slopes are unmoored; violet crests of stone rise from the valley’s evening shadow. The setting sun flares amber over the hills, lining them so their edges shine like new copper.

It feels like a dream, yet Richard and I are both very, very awake. Hiking from our lochside cabin to where the hills reach their highest note.

I breathe deep. Fill my lungs with the clean, almost-snow silver of the air.

“We could’ve tried flying up, you know.” Richard lets out a huff and leans against a boulder that’s twice his size.

“I think we could use a bit more practice before we risk levitating ourselves hundreds of meters off the ground. It’s a long fall.” I look back down at the valley we’ve risen
from. Our cabin is as small as a biscuit crumb by the spilled-tea loch. “Besides, I’ve never actually hiked up a mountain before.”

“Glad I could give you a new experience.” He laughs.

“You’ve given me plenty of those.” I smile at him.

“I hope the majority of them were more pleasant.” Richard’s skin is glowing in the last efforts of the sun. He wipes his face, looks up the rocky trail. “We’re almost there. Trust me, it’ll be worth the climb.”

Beautiful, hard things always are.

We stand by a bend, where the path wraps around the hill. I can’t see what lies ahead, but I know. I can already hear the music.

I reach out and take Richard’s hand. His fingers are cool, like the air around us, like the traces of last week’s snow which lurk in the boulder’s crevices. Autumn—the dying season—is nearly gone. Winter is ready to sweep over in sheets of gray and freeze.

Before I might have been cold. But holding Richard’s hand sends a fresh swell of blood magic through my veins. Swirling heat and life.

“We
will
try flying,” I promise him. “When we’re ready.”

“I can’t wait.” He pulls me forward. We conquer the last few steps together.

It’s everything I imagined and more.

We’re at the top of the world. Standing on the crest of the tallest peak. Everywhere I turn the land is on fire, painted by the sun’s tangerine rays. We stand in the middle of a castle’s ruins. Its broken walls rise and fall like a diving Kelpie’s back. Faery lights are stuck in the crevices, shining their phosphorescent glow on to the real vision. Dinner for two, still steaming. Strawberries and beef Wellington. On another table sits Richard’s turntable. A familiar song is pulling from the speakers, echoing long past us. Into the hills.

Richard pulls me over to the table, reaches out to the candelabra centerpiece. Its candles stand proud, unlit.

“Aile.”
He summons the fire, like I taught him. In the fashion of the Ad-hene.

I watch the flames dance across his hand, drip from his fingers like lava, all the way to the candles’ wicks. Behind me the sun dips low. The shadows of the valleys rise, spread up the hills, and plume into the sky. Far, far off, just above the crest of a hill, the first star peeks through.

Richard walks up beside me, slides his arm around my
waist. His palm is still hot, tingling from the lick of those flames. “I know it’s not so much a surprise . . .”

“Surprises are overrated,” I tell him, thinking of all the ugly twists of the past month. “I’ve had quite enough of them to last me a good long while. It’s nice to have a bit of stability. Dependability.”

“I really thought we were gone. Otherwise I would’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“We
were
gone.” I keep staring at first star. It has the same silver glare as Kieran’s scar. The same hint of hope.

I don’t think I’ll ever look at Polaris the same way again.

Richard’s thoughts must be straying along the same paths. “Do you think Morgaine will find a way out of the tunnels?”

I find his hand on my waist, hug it tighter against me. It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times over. Every time I see a sewer drain or pass an Underground entrance, a chill washes up my spine. She’s down there, somewhere. Looping, plotting, raging. Walking in never-ending circles, calling out for the Ad-hene who no longer exist.

“No. She’s trapped.” I say this to the valley shadows which are growing, spreading. The stars blooming on the far horizon. “Besides, even if she does find a way out, we’ll
be more than ready for her. Our magic is getting stronger every day.” I think of our training sessions, how every day the spells come more easily, the magic flows and binds us closer together. A magic so strong that the Fae still depend on it for sustenance. Once we master it we’ll be able to gather the world at our fingertips.