The Burning Sky (10 page)

But he was coming awfully close.

“Every place out there
is
dangerous for you. Have you not realized this yet?”

She wished he wouldn't speak so quietly and reasonably. “More dangerous than here? You will lead me to my death.”

“I will lay down my life for you. Do you know anyone else who will do that?”

I will lay down my life for you.
The words had a strange effect on her, a pain almost like a wasp sting to the heart. She shut the valise. “Can you promise me I will live? No? I thought not.”

He was quiet. Saddened. She had not perceived it earlier, but now she saw that there was always a trace of melancholy to him, a heavyheartedness that came of being entrusted with too great a burden.

“I'm sorry,” she said, unable to help herself.

He walked to the window and looked toward the darkening sky. His left hand tightened on the curtain. She could not be completely sure, but it seemed that he shivered.

“What is it?” she asked.

He remained silent for some more time. “The stars are out. They will be quite beautiful tonight.”

He turned around and came toward her, his wand raised. She took a step back, uncertain of his intentions. But he only tailored the brown jacket to fit her.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

“If you are going to be caught by Atlantis, you might as well look your best.”

She wanted to snort coolly, but could do nothing of the sort. She seemed to have a ball of sawdust in her throat.

“So . . . this is good-bye.”

“It does not need to be.”

She shook her head. “You took the risks for a reason. Since I can't give you what you want, I shouldn't put you at further risk.”

“Let me decide how much risk I am willing to bear,” he said softly.

This almost undid her altogether. If he would shelter her even when she would not help him . . .

No, she must not let herself become starry-eyed again. “I can't stay, but thank you, in any case, for telling me the truth.”

A shadow darkened his eyes before his face quickly became unreadable. He placed a hand on her shoulder. For a moment she thought he would pull her in and kiss her, but he only drew the pad of his thumb across her forehead, a princely benediction.

“May Fortune walk with you,” he said, and let go of her.

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.
¹³

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 weren't still 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 knew 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 resident 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
lad
after 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.”