A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  The boards beneath her creaked, and Holland tensed in his sleep. Lila held her breath, hovering for an instant before she crossed the narrow space and reached out and—

  Holland shot forward, his fingers vising around her wrist. Pain shot up Lila’s arm. There was no electricity, no magic, only skin on skin and the grind of bones.

  His eyes were feverish as they found hers in the dark.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” The words hissed out like wind through a crack.

  Lila pulled free. “You were having a bad dream,” she snapped, rubbing her wrist. “I was going to wake you up.”

  His eyes flicked to the knife in her other hand. She’d forgotten it was there. She forced herself to sheath it.

  Now that he was awake, Holland’s face was a mask of calm, his stress betrayed only by the rivulet of sweat that slid down his temple, tracing a slow line along cheek and jaw. But his eyes followed her as she retreated to the doorway.

  “What?” she said, crossing her arms. “Afraid I’ll kill you in your sleep?”

  “No.”

  Lila watched him. “I haven’t forgotten what you did.”

  At that, Holland closed his eyes. “Neither have I.”

  She hovered, unsure what to say, what to do, tethered by the inability to do either. She had a feeling Holland wasn’t trying to sleep, wasn’t trying to dismiss her, either. He was giving her a chance to attack him, testing her resolve not to do it.

  It was tempting—and yet somehow it wasn’t, and that angered her more than anything. Lila huffed and turned to go.

  “I did save your life,” he said softly.

  She hesitated, turned back. “It was one time.”

  The slight arching of one brow, the only movement in his face. “Tell me, Delilah, how many times will it take?”

  She shook her head in disgust. “The man in the Stone’s Throw,” she said. “The one with the watch. The one whose throat you cut, he didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Most people don’t,” said Holland calmly.

  “Did you ever consider sparing his life?”

  “No.”

  “Did you even hesitate before you killed him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” she snarled, the air trembling with her anger.

  Holland held her gaze. “Because it was easier.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Because if I stopped I would think, and if I thought, I would remember, and if I remembered, I would—” He swallowed, the smallest rise in his throat. “No, I did not hesitate. I cut his throat, and added his death to the ones I count every day when I wake.” His eyes hardened on her. “Now tell me, Delilah, how many lives have you ended? Do you know the number?”

  Lila started to answer, then stopped.

  The truth—the infuriating, maddening, sickening truth—was that she didn’t.

  * * *

  Lila stormed back to her own cabin.

  She wanted to sleep, wanted to fight, wanted to quell the fear and anger rising in her throat like a scream. Wanted to banish Holland’s words, carve out the memory of the knife between her ribs, smother the terrible instant that reckless energy of danger turned to cold fear.

  She wanted to forget.

  Kell was halfway to his feet, coat in one hand, when she came in.

  Wanted to feel …

  “There you are,” he said, his hair mussed from sleep. “I was just coming to look for—”

  Lila caught him by the shoulders and pressed her mouth against his.

  “—you,” he finished, the word nothing but a breath between her lips.

  … This.

  Kell returned the kiss. Deepened it. That current of magic like a spark across her lips.

  And then his arms were folding around her, and in that small gesture, she understood, felt it down to her bones, that draw, not the electric pulse of power but the thing beneath it, the weight she’d never understood. In a world where everything rocked and swayed and fell away, this was solid ground.

  Safe.

  Her heart was beating hard against her ribs, some primal part of her saying run, and she was running, just not away. She was tired of running away. So she was running into Kell.

  And he caught her.

  His coat fell to the floor, and then they were half stepping, half stumbling back through the tiny room. They missed the bed, but found the wall—it wasn’t that far—and when Lila’s back met the hull of the ship, the whole thing seemed to rock beneath them, pressing Kell’s body into hers.

  She gasped, less from the sudden weight than from the sense of him against her, one leg between hers.

  Her hand slid beneath his shirt with all the practiced grace of a thief. But this time she wanted him to feel her touch, her palms gliding over his ribs and around his back, fingertips digging into his shoulder blades.

  “Lila,” he rasped into her ear as the ship righted, swung the other way, and they tumbled back onto the cot. She pulled his body down with hers, and he caught himself on his elbows, hovering over her. His lashes were strands of copper around his black and blue eyes. She’d never noticed before. She reached up and brushed the hair out of his face. It was soft—feathery—where the rest of him was sharp. His cheekbone scraped against her palm. His hips cut into hers. Their bodies sparked against each other, the energy electric across their skin.

  “Kell,” she said, the word something between a whisper and a gasp.

  And then the door burst open.

  Alucard stood in the doorway, soaking wet, as if he’d just been dumped in the sea, or the sea had been dumped over him. “Stop fucking with the ship.”

  Kell and Lila stared at him in stunned silence, and then burst into laughter as the door slammed shut.

  They fell back against the cot, the laughter trailing off, only to rise again out of the silence full force. Lila laughed until her body ached, and even when she thought she was done, the sound came on like hiccups.

  “Hush,” Kell whispered in her hair, and that nearly set her off again as she rolled toward him on the narrow cot, squeezing in so she wouldn’t fall off. He made room, one arm beneath his head and the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her in against him.

  He smelled like roses.

  She remembered thinking that, the first time they met, and even now, with the salty sea and the damp wood of the ship, she could smell it, the faint, fresh garden scent that was his magic.

  “Teach me the words,” she whispered.

  “Hm?” he asked sleepily.

  “The blood spells.” She propped her head on her hand. “I want to know them.”

  Kell sighed in mock exhaustion. “Now?”

  “Yes, now.” She rolled onto her back, eyes trained on the wooden ceiling. “What happened in Rosenal—I don’t plan on letting it happen again. Ever.”

  Kell lifted himself onto one elbow above her. He looked down at her for a long, searching moment, and then a mischievous grin flickered across his face.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll teach you.”

  His copper lashes sank low over his two-toned eyes. “There’s As Travars, to travel between worlds.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know that one.”

  He lowered himself a fraction, bringing his lips to her ear.

  “And As Tascen,” he continued, breath warm. “To move within a world.”

  She felt a shiver of pleasure as his lips brushed her jaw. “And As Hasari,” he murmured. “To heal.”

  His mouth found hers, stealing a kiss before he said, “As Staro. To seal.” And she would have let him linger there, but his mouth continued downward.

  “As Pyrata.”

  A breath against the base of her throat.

  “To burn.”

  His hands sliding beneath the fabric of her shirt.

  “As Anasae.”

  A blossom of heat between her breasts.

  “To dispel.”

  Above her navel.

  “As Ste
no.”

  One hand unlacing the ties of her slacks.

  “To break.”

  Guiding them off.

  “As Orense.”

  His teeth skimming her hip bone.

  “To open…”

  Kell’s mouth came to rest between her legs, and she arched against him, fingers tangling in his auburn curls as heat rolled through her. Sweat prickled across her skin. She blazed inside, and her breath grew ragged, one hand clenched in the sheets over her head as something like magic rose inside her, a tide that swelled and swelled until she couldn’t hold it in.

  “Kell,” she moaned as his kiss deepened. Her whole body trembled with the power, and when she finally let go, it crashed down in a wave at once electric and sublime.

  Lila collapsed back against the sheets with something between a laugh and a sigh, the whole cabin buzzing in the aftermath, the sheets singed where she’d gripped them.

  Kell rose, fitting himself beside her once again.

  “Was that a good enough lesson?” he asked, his own breath still uneven.

  Lila grinned, and then rolled on top of him, straddling his waist. His eyes widened, his chest rising and falling beneath her. “Well,” she said, guiding his hands over his head. “Let’s see if I remember it all.”

  * * *

  They lay pressed together in the narrow cot, Kell’s arm looped around her. The heat of the moment was gone, replaced by a pleasant, steady warmth. His shirt was open, and she brought her fingertips to the scar over his heart, tracing the circles absently until his eyes drifted shut.

  Lila knew she wouldn’t sleep. Not like this, body to body in the bed.

  She usually slept with her back to a wall.

  Usually slept with a knife on her knee.

  Usually slept alone.

  But soon, the ship was quiet, the small skiff rocking gently on the current, and Kell’s breathing was low and even, his pulse a lulling beat against her skin, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, Lila fell well, and truly, and soundly, asleep.

  V

  “Sanct,” muttered Alucard, “it’s getting worse.”

  He spit Ilo’s latest batch of dawn coffee over the side of the ship. Jasta called out from the wheel, her words lost on the breeze, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up to see the Going Waters take shape on the horizon.

  First only a specter, and then, slowly, a ship.

  When he’d first set out for Maris’s infamous vessel, he’d done so expecting to find something like the port of Sasenroche or London’s night market, only set at sea. Is Feras Stras was neither. It was indeed a ship—or rather, several, growing together like coral atop the crisp blue sea. Squares of canvas stretched here and dipped there, turning the network of decks and masts into something that resembled a nest of tents.

  The whole thing looked unstable, a house of cards waiting to fall, swaying and bobbing in the winter breeze. It had the worn air of something that had lasted a very long time, that only grew, not torn down and rebuilt by whim or by wind, but added to in layers like paint.

  But there was a strange elegance to the madness, an order to the chaos, made more severe by the quiet shrouding the ship. There were no shouts from any of the decks. No layered voices echoing on the breeze. The whole affair sat silently atop the waves, a ramshackle estate bathing in the sun.

  It had been nearly two years since Alucard had last seen Maris’s craft, and the sight of it still left him strangely awed.

  Bard appeared beside him at the rail.

  She let out a low whistle, her eyes wide with the same hungry light.

  A low boat was already drawn up beside the floating market, and as the Ghost slowed, Alucard could make out a man, skeletal thin and leathered by the sun and the sea, being escorted from Maris’s ship.

  “Wait!” he was saying. “I paid my due. Let me keep looking. I’ll find something else!”

  But the men on his arms seemed oblivious to his pleas and protestations as they heaved him bodily overboard. He fell several feet before landing on the deck of his own small craft, groaning in pain.

  “A word of advice,” said Alucard lightly. “When Maris says leave, you leave.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Bard. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  It wasn’t a comforting notion. As far as he could see, she only had one kind of behavior, and it usually ended with several dead bodies.

  In Jasta’s hands, the Ghost slowed, drawing up beside the Ferase Stras. A plank was shifted into place between the Ghost and the brim of the floating market, which led onto a covered platform with a simple wooden door. They crossed the plank one at a time, Jasta in the front, then Lila and Kell, with Alucard bringing up the rear. After an hour’s disagreement, the decision was made to leave Holland behind with Hastra and Lenos.

  The remaining Antari was cuffed again, but some silent accord must have been struck between Holland and Kell, because he’d been granted freedom to move aboard the ship—Alucard had walked into the galley that morning and seen the magician sitting at the narrow table holding a cup of tea. Now Holland stood on the deck, leaning against the mast in the shadow of the mainsail, arms crossed as much as his chains would allow, head tipped toward the sky.

  “Do we knock?” asked Lila, grinning at Alucard, but before she could reach out and rap her knuckles on the door, it swung open and a man stepped forward, dressed in trim white clothes. That, more than anything, made the scene surreal. Life at sea was a painting done primarily in muted shades—the sun and salt leached color, the sweat and grime wore whites to grey. Yet the man stood in the midst of the sea spray and mid-morning light, spotless in his milk-colored slacks and spotless tunic.

  On his head, the man wore something between a headscarf and a helm. It circled his head and swept down over his brow and across his high cheeks. The gap between showed his eyes, which were the lightest shade of brown, fringed by long black lashes. He was lovely. Had always been lovely.

  At the sight of Alucard, the figure cocked his head. “Didn’t I just get rid of you?”

  “Good to see you, too, Katros,” he said cheerfully.

  The man’s gaze swept past Alucard to the others, pausing an instant on each before he held out a tan hand. “Your tokens.”

  They gave them up: Jasta, a small metal sphere full of holes that whistled and whispered; Kell, a Grey London coin; Lila, a silver watch; and Alucard, the vial of dreamsquick he’d picked up at Rosenal. Katros vanished behind the door, and the four stood in silence on the platform for several long minutes before he returned to let them in.

  Kell passed through the door first, vanishing into the shadowed space beyond, followed by Bard with her brisk, soundless step, and then Jasta—but as the captain of the Ghost started forward, Katros blocked her way.

  “Not this time, Jasta,” he said evenly.

  The woman scowled. “Why not?”

  Katros shrugged. “Maris chooses.”

  “My gift was good.”

  “Perhaps,” was all he said.

  Jasta let out something that might have been a curse, or merely a growl, too low for Alucard to parse. They were roughly the same size, she and Katros, even counting the helm, and Alucard wondered what would happen if she tried to force her way through. He doubted it would end well for any of them, so he was relieved when she threw up her hands and skulked back onto the Ghost.

  Katros turned toward him, a wry smile nocked like an arrow on his lips. “Alucard,” he said, weighing the captain with those light eyes. And then, at last, “Come in.”

  VI

  Kell stepped into the room, and drew up short.

  He’d expected a contradiction of space, an interior as strange and mysterious as the ship’s facade.

  Instead, he found a room roughly the same size of Alucard’s cabin aboard the Night Spire, though far more cluttered. Cabinets bulged with trinkets, cases brimmed with books, and massive chests hugged every wall, some locked and others ope
n (and one trembling as if something inside was both alive and wanted to get out). There were no windows, and with so much clutter, Kell would have expected the room to smell stuffy, moth-eaten, but he was surprised to find the air crisp and clear, the only scent a faint but pleasant one, like old paper.

  A broad table sat in the center of the room with a large white hound—though really it looked less like a dog and more like a pile of books shoved under a shaggy rug—snoring gently beneath it.

  And there, behind the table, sat Maris.

  The king of the floating market, who turned out to be a queen.

  Maris was old, old as anyone Kell had ever seen, her skin dark even by Arnesian standards, its surface cracked into a hundred lines like tree bark. But like the sentry at the door, her clothing—a crisp white tunic laced to the throat—lacked even the smallest crease. Her long silver hair was pulled back off her weathered face and spilled between her shoulders in a narrow sheet of metal. She wore silver in both ears, and on both hands, one of which held their tokens while the other curled its bony fingers around the silver head of a cane.

  And around her neck—along with three or four other silver chains—hung the Inheritor. It was the size of a small scroll, just as Tieren had said, not a cylinder exactly, but a thing of six or eight sides—he couldn’t tell from here—all short and flat and shaped to form a column, each facet intricately patterned and its base tapered to a spindle’s point.

  When they were all there—all save Jasta, who’d apparently been turned back—Maris cleared her throat.

  “A pocket watch. A coin. And a vial of sugar.” Her voice held none of the frailty of age—it was rich and low and scornful. “I must admit, I’m disappointed.”

  Her gaze lifted, revealing eyes the color of sand. “The watch isn’t even spelled, though I do suppose that’s half the charm. And is this blood? Well, that’s the other half for you. Though I do enjoy an object with a story. As for the coin, yes, I can tell it’s not from here, but rather worn out, isn’t it? As for the dreamsquick, Captain Emery, at least you remembered, needless as it is two years after the point. But I must say, I expected more from two Antari magicians and the victor of the Essen Tasch—yes, I know, word does travel quickly, and Alucard, I suppose I owe you a congratulations, though I doubt you’ve had much time to celebrate, what with the shadows looming over London.”