The Burning Sky (13 page)

“You are in the Crucible now.”

“True, but I have no plans to ever visit Black Bastion again. Someday, though, I might send you there for a battle royal against Helgira.”

She shrugged. “Just because you fear her doesn't mean I will.”

Titus had not slept much the night before, waiting for the armored chariots to depart. As he stared at their barely visible metallic underbellies, he had gone over the events of the day again and again, knowing his actions had crossed a line—and knowing that he would have done exactly the same if he had to again.

At some point he had stopped defending himself. She was right: he was a villain who would stop at nothing to achieve his ends. And looking at her now, drenched, dirt-smeared, but unbowed, he realized had further to go yet.

If anyone could find a way to break a blood oath, she would. He must find some other way of holding her fast.

Or even better, find a way so that she would not wish to leave, even if she could.

But he could think of nothing—yet.

“That is enough for today,” he said, pocketing his wand. “Time for school.”

 

It was a sunny morning. Uniformed pupils exited resident houses in a steady stream. Along the way, junior boys clustered around various holes-in-the-wall—sock shops, the prince called them—buying coffee and freshly baked buns.

He took her to a bigger place, not exactly a proper restaurant but an establishment with two interconnected dining rooms, catering exclusively to senior boys. She ate a buttered bun and observed—it never hurt to know who was popular, who had information to share, and whom to avoid.

But even as she assessed her new surroundings, she felt herself similarly appraised. This was not new. From the moment they met, the prince had watched her intensely—after all, he believed her to be the means to his impossible ends. But since their exit from the Crucible, his gaze had seemed more . . . personal.

“What do you want now, Your Highness?”

He raised a brow. “I already have you. Should I want anything else?”

She pushed away her empty plate. “You have that scheming look in your eyes.”

He turned the handle of his own coffee cup, from which he'd yet to take a sip. “That is terrible. I should only ever sport a condescending look. We never want to give the impression that I am capable of—or interested in—strategizing.”

“You're fudging your answers, prince. I want the truth.”

The corners of his lips turned up barely perceptibly. “I was thinking of how to best hold on to you, my dear Fairfax who would leave me at the first opportunity.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Since when is a blood oath not enough to keep a mage enslaved?”

“You are right, of course. I should not doubt my own success.”

“Then why do you doubt your own success?”

He looked her in the eye. “Only because you are infinitely precious to me, Fairfax, and the loss of you would be devastating.”

He was speaking of her as a tool to be deployed against the Bane. She didn't know why she should feel both a surge of heat and a ripple of pain in her heart.

She rose. “I'm finished here.”

 

The school was old, a collection of faded, crenellated redbrick buildings around a quadrangle, at the center of which stood a bronze statue of a man who must have once been someone important. The cobblestones of the courtyard had been worn smooth from centuries of shuffling feet. The window frames looked as if they could use another coat of paint—or perhaps some fresh lumber altogether.

“I expected something more elegant,” Iolanthe said. She'd attended grander, lovelier schools.

“Eton has a tendency to make do. They used to stuff seventy pupils in a broom cupboard and conduct class with the door open in winter.”

She could not understand. “Why this school? Why a nonmage school at all? Why not just stick you in the monastery and give you incompetent tutors?”

“The Bane has his own seer. Or had—I have not received intelligence on the seer in my lifetime. But apparently he once saw me attend Eton in a vision.”

The first principle in dealing with visions was that one never tampered with a future that had already been revealed.

“Destiny, then?”

“Oh, I am destiny's darling.”

Something in his tone made her glance sharply at him. But before she could say anything, several boys came around and shook her hand.

“Heard you were back, Fairfax.”

“All healed, Fairfax?”

She grinned and answered the greetings, trying not to betray the fact that she had no idea who anyone was. The boys went on their way. The prince was listing their names for her to remember when she was jostled from behind.

“What the—”

Two beefy boys chortled to each other. “Look, it's Fairfax,” said one of them. “His Highness has his bumboy back.”

Iolanthe's jaw dropped. His Highness, however, was not the least bit flustered. “Is that any way to refer to my dearest friend, pretty as he is? Or perhaps you are just jealous, Trumper, since your own dearest friend is as hideous as a crushed turnip.”

So Trumper was the thick-necked one and Hogg the one with a broad, pale, and somewhat squashed-looking face.

“Who are you calling a crushed turnip, you limp-wristed, molly-coddled Prussian?” bellowed Hogg.

“You, you big, virile Englishman, of course,” said the prince. He placed his arm around Iolanthe's shoulders. “Come, Fairfax, we are running late.”

“Who are they?” she asked when they were out of hearing.

“A pair of common bullies.”

“Are they alone in thinking that we share this particular relationship?”

“What do you care?”

“Of course I care. I have to live among these boys. The last thing I want is to be known as your . . . anything.”

“Nobody has to know, Fairfax,” he whispered. “It can be our little secret.”

The way he looked, between irony and wickedness, made something go awry inside her. “The unvarnished truth, if you would.”

He dropped his arm. “The general consensus is that you are my friend because you are poor and I am wealthy.”

“Well, that I can believe, since I'm sure no one wants to be your friend otherwise.”

He was silent. She hoped she'd injured his feelings—assuming he had feelings to injure in the first place.

“Friendship is untenable for people in our position,” he said, his tone smooth, almost nonchalant. “Either we suffer for it, or our friends suffer for it. Remember that, Fairfax, before you become best chums with everyone around.”

 

Early school, as the first class of the day was called, was taught by a master named Evanston, a frail, white-haired man who all but disappeared underneath his black master's robe. As it was the beginning of the Half, Evanston started on a new work,
Tristia
, by a Roman poet named Ovid. To Iolanthe's relief, her Latin was more than sufficient for the coursework.

Early school was followed by chapel. After the religious service, which she found slow and mournful, the prince took her back to Mrs. Dawlish's house, where, to her surprise, a hearty breakfast was laid out. The boys, many of whom she'd seen buying breakfast outside earlier, wolfed down a second one as if they'd been starving for three days.

After breakfast, they returned to classes—called divisions—until the midday meal back at Mrs. Dawlish's. Mrs. Hancock, who had not been there at breakfast, was now present. Again, it was she who said grace. This time she did not mention Fairfax by name, but Iolanthe still felt her sharp-eyed gaze.

She didn't know what made her do it. At the end of the meal, when the boys were filing out, she broke rank and approached Mrs. Hancock.

“My parents asked me to tell you, ma'am, that I'll be less trouble this Half,” she said.

If Mrs. Hancock was taken aback by Iolanthe's maneuver, she did not show it. She only chuckled. “Well, in that case, I hope you are listening to your parents.”

Iolanthe grinned, even though her palms were damp. “They are hoping so too. Good day, ma'am.”

The prince waited for her at the door. She was surprised to see his expression of sullen impatience—it was unlike his controlled, reticent person. He didn't speak to her as they left the dining room.

But when they were outside Mrs. Dawlish's house, he said softly, “Well done.”

She glanced at him. “Was that why you looked as if you'd like to hit me with something?”

“She would be that much more watchful of you if she believed our friendship to be genuine.” His lips curled slightly, a halfhearted sneer. “Much better that she sees me as an arrogant prick and you an opportunist.”

Friendship is untenable for people in our position.

She never wanted to feel sympathy for him. But she did, that moment.

 

Titus was curious to see her reaction to their afternoon divisions.

They had Latin again, conducted by a tutor named Frampton, a man with a big beak of a nose and fleshy lips. One rather expected Frampton to speak wetly, but he enunciated with nothing less than oratorical perfection as he lectured on Ovid's banishment from Rome and read from
Tristia
.

Fairfax seemed mesmerized by Frampton's master-thespian voice. Then she bit her lower lip, and Titus realized that she was not listening only to Frampton's voice, but also to Ovid's words of longing.

She too was now an Exile.

They were almost a quarter hour into the division before she saw Frampton for what he was. As he read, Frampton passed by her desk. She glanced up and seized in shock: the design on Frampton's stickpin was a stylized whirlpool, the infamous Atlantean maelstrom. Immediately she bent her head and scribbled in her notebook, not looking at Frampton again until he had returned to the front of the classroom.

After dismissal, she all but shoved Titus into the cloister behind the quadrangle, her grip hard on his arm.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“He is obvious. You would have to be blind not to see.”

“Are there agents who don't wear the emblem?”

“What do you think?”

She inhaled. “How many?”

“I wish I knew. Then I would not need to suspect everyone.”

She pushed away from him. “I'm going to walk back by myself.”

“Enjoy your stroll.”

She turned to leave; then, as if she had remembered something, pivoted back to face him. “What else are you keeping from me?”

“How much can you handle knowing?”

Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.

Her eyes narrowed, but she left without further questions.

 

Iolanthe didn't return to Mrs. Dawlish's directly, but walked northeast, along the road before the school gate. To the left of the road was a large green field; to the right a high brick wall twice as tall as she.

Hawkers lined this wall. An old woman in a much-patched dress tried to sell Iolanthe a dormouse. A sun-browned man waved a tray of glistening sausages. Other hawkers peddled pies, pastries, fruits, and everything else that could be consumed without plates or silverware. Around each hawker, junior boys congregated like ants on a picnic, some buying, the rest salivating.

The normalcy of the scene only made Iolanthe feel more out of place. For these boys, this
was
their life. She was only passing through, pretending.

“Fairfax.”

Kashkari. She inhaled: Kashkari made her nervous. He seemed to be the rare person who asked a question and actually paid attention to the answer.

“Where are you going?” Kashkari asked as he crossed the street and came to stand next to her.

“Reacquainting myself with the lay of the land.”

“I don't think that much has changed since you were here last. Ah, I see old Joby is back with his ha'penny sherbet drinks. Fancy one?”

Iolanthe shook her head. “The weather's a bit cool for it.”

But she followed Kashkari to a gaunt-looking hawker. Kashkari bought a handful of toasted walnuts and held out his palm to her.

“Look, it's Turban Boy and Bumboy together.”

Iolanthe whipped around. Trumper and Hogg.

“Bumboy, is Turban Boy your coolie now?” sniggered Trumper.

Her reputation obviously had not preceded her here. Few schoolchildren in any mage realm deliberately chose to provoke elemental mages, as by the time latter were old enough to attend school, they would have had years of conditioning, directing their anger into physical, rather than magical, responses. And also because an elemental mage was almost never considered at fault, as long as the school hadn't burned down at the end of a fight.

Kashkari must have seen the belligerence in her face. “Ignore them. They feel more accomplished when you rise to the bait.”

“I hate to pass on good fisticuffs.” She took a few toasted walnuts from him. “But after you.”

The walnuts were sweet and crunchy. They walked on. Trumper and Hogg shouted insults and slurs for another minute before giving up.

“I was surprised you came back,” said Kashkari. “Word went around that you might depart with your parents to Bechuanaland.”

There were a number of Atlanteans in the Domain, especially in the bigger cities. But as far as Iolanthe knew, all of them, even the lowest clerks and guards, sent their children home for schooling. She had to assume the British weren't that different.

“My parents might go back. But they want me to finish my education here.”

Kashkari nodded. So her answer was acceptable. She let out a breath.

“Do you miss Bechuanaland?”

What had she learned about the Kalahari Realm at school? It was the seat of a great civilization, its music, art, and literature much admired. Its legal system had been copied in many a mage realm around the world. And it was famous for the beauty of its gentlemen mages—this last, obviously, gleaned from somewhere other than geography lessons.