The Burning Sky tet-1

by Shelly Thomas

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Her arm shot out, wrapped around his ankles, and yanked. He went down hard, hitting his shoulder on the corner of the table. She leaped on top of him and took a swing at his face. He raised his arm in defense. Her fist connected with his forearm, a solid smash that jarred her entire person.

  She swung her other fist. He blocked her again. She lifted her knee, intending to drive it somewhere debilitating.

  The next thing she knew he’d heaved her off his person. She immediately relaunched herself at him. He’d just got to his feet; she knocked him back down.

  “That is enough, Fairfax.”

  “I will tell you when it’s enough, you scum!” She slammed her elbow toward his teeth.

  Foiled again.

  She grunted in frustration and head-butted him. He caught her face in his hands. Since both his hands were busy, she finally landed a blow at his temple.

  He winced—and retaliated by pulling her head down and kissing her.

  Shock paralyzed her. The sensations were huge and electric, as if she had called a bolt of lightning upon her own head. He tasted angry, famished, and—

  She leaped up, knocking over a chair. He remained on the floor, his eyes on her, eyes as hungry as his kiss. She swallowed. Her fist clenched, but she couldn’t quite hit him again.

  He rose to his feet with a grimace. “I know how you feel. I was in there last night, in honey above my head.”

  She stared at him.

  “Why do you look so surprised? I said I would experiment with you, not on you. Everything I try on you, I try on myself first.”

  Of course she was shocked. The idea that anyone would voluntarily subject himself to such torture . . .

  He was suddenly at the door, listening.

  “What is it?”

  “Mrs. Hancock. She is outside, talking to someone.”

  A minute later—just enough time for him to do something about the cut at his temple and Iolanthe to right the fallen chair and a few other things knocked askew by their scuffle—a rap came on the door. The prince, with a tilt of his head, gestured for Iolanthe to open the door.

  “Why me?”

  “Because that is the nature of our friendship.”

  She twisted her mouth and went.

  Mrs. Hancock stood at the door, smiling. “Ah, Fairfax, I need to speak to you too. I have a letter for you from your parents.”

  It took Iolanthe a full second to grasp what Mrs. Hancock was saying. Fairfax’s nonexistent parents had sent a letter.

  With slightly numb fingers she accepted the envelope. The paper inside was faintly lavender in color and smelled of attar of rose. The words were written in a pretty hand.

  My dearest Archer,

  Ever since you left for school, Sissy has not been feeling well. She must have become accustomed to your presence at home during your convalescence.

  Will you be so kind as to come home this Saturday after class? Sissy will be thrilled to see you. And I am sure that will make her feel herself again in no time.

  Love,

  Mother

  “My parents want me to go home on Saturday,” Iolanthe said to no one in particular. Where was she supposed to go? And who was behind this letter?

  “Yes, they also sent a letter to Mrs. Dawlish to that effect,” answered Mrs. Hancock. “You may take a short leave, if you wish.”

  “Bother,” said Iolanthe. “Sissy was perfectly fine when I left. I’ll bet she’s only pretending.”

  That seemed like something a boy of sixteen who’d been stuck home for three months with his little sister might say.

  “Then stay here,” said the prince. “Besides, you are supposed to help me with my critical paper Saturday.”

  He sounded enormously peevish.

  “I’m afraid you won’t have time Saturday for your critical paper, Your Highness,” said Mrs. Hancock. “The embassy has requested leave for you too. There is a function they would like you to attend.”

  “God’s teeth, why do they insist on this charade? I rule nothing, isn’t that punishment enough? Why must I attend their functions and be paraded around?”

  “Come, prince, how terrible can it be?” Iolanthe said, playing the part of the affable friend. “There will be champagne and ladies.”

  The prince released his bed and plunked himself down on it. “That shows how much you know, Fairfax.”

  She knew he was playacting, but still she shot him an irate glance. Mrs. Hancock’s sharp eyes took it all in—no doubt exactly as the prince intended.

  Iolanthe mustered a smile for Mrs. Hancock. “I’m sure by tomorrow His Highness will be in a more receptive mood. Thank you for coming all the way to give me my letter, ma’am.”

  “Oh, it was nothing at all, Fairfax. And good day to you too, Your Highness.”

  After she left, neither of them spoke for a while.

  Then the prince slowly let out a breath. “Saturday evening I meet with the Inquisitor.”

  CHAPTER 13

  IOLANTHE AND THE PRINCE UNDERTOOK a battery of test vaults and determined that she had a solo range of twenty-seven miles, enough to cover the distance between London and Eton in one vault.

  Saturday afternoon, to keep up the pretense of heading home to Shropshire, she took the train to London. From there she vaulted to a broom cupboard at school, where the prince waited.

  “Anyone following you?”

  She shook her head.

  The prince gave her a dose of vaulting aid. “Let us go then.”

  Their first vault took them to a musty-smelling, cramped space not very different from the broom cupboard they’d left behind.

  “Where are we?”

  “Somewhere inside the bell tower of a cathedral in Birmingham. Let me know if you need a few minutes.”

  She shook her head, determined not to show any weakness. She lasted two more such vaults before her head spun. It didn’t matter where she was now—another long-disused room by the look of it. She leaned against the wall and fought her nausea.

  He checked her pulse, his fingers warm and light on her wrist. Then he gave her a powder as sweet as pure sugar.

  “What is it?” she mumbled.

  “Something that will make my kisses taste like chocolate.”

  Until now, neither of them had referred to the kiss. She had been trying not to remember it—the imminent meeting with the Inquisitor meant she would finally see Master Haywood, and that was plenty to occupy her mind.

  But she had relived the kiss. And every time she had, lightning had shot through her.

  I wish we had met under different circumstances, he’d said.

  Did he wish daily—hourly—that he’d been born someone else, and not burdened with this crushing purpose? She would, but she could not tell about him. His true emotions were buried at the depth of an ocean trench, undetectable to anyone but himself.

  “Your kisses will only ever taste like wet dog.”

  “Know a lot about that, do you?” he said amicably.

  What kind of person are you, to live without honor or integrity?

  Obviously, the kind chosen for what others are too decent to do.

  She signaled that she was ready to vault again. After two more vaults, despite the remedy, her head pounded in agony.

  He helped her sit down. “Put your head between your knees.”

  “Why are you still standing?” she asked, grumpily envious, her eyes half-closed.

  They were outdoors. The grass beneath her was soft and green, the air cool and moist, with the distinct, salty tang of the sea.

  “You might be handsome as a god, but I vault like one.”

  She wished she had the energy to glower at him, even though she felt strangely like smiling. “Where are we?”

  “Cape Wrath, Scotland.”

  “Where is that?”

  “The very north of Britain, five hundred some miles from Eton.”

  No wonder she felt so awful. Five h
undred miles was generally considered the upper limit on daily vaulting range. For them to have come so far in less than a quarter of an hour was something marvelous—and possibly fatal.

  She lifted her face. They were on a craggy headland overlooking a gray, restless sea. The wind was so strong she had to remove her hat. Her short hair blew about wildly.

  He crouched down, held her chin between his fingers, and peered into her eyes. She knew he was only checking the size of her pupils, but the act was still overwhelmingly intimate, one long locked gaze.

  If she weren’t careful, she might delude herself into believing that she could see all the way into his soul.

  She drew back from his hand. “Where is the entrance to your laboratory?”

  “Over there.” He tilted his head toward a lighthouse in the distance.

  She came to her feet with a wobble. “What are we waiting for?”

  The last time they were both in his laboratory, she still had her hair, and her opinion had not yet turned against him. Titus did not miss her hair, but he did miss the way she had looked at him, full of trust and reliance.

  She lifted a hand and touched a jar of pearls. Her face was tilted up—he remembered putting on her necktie and brushing the underside of her chin. He remembered the sensation of heat rushing along his nerves, the softness of her skin.

  She turned around. “Where’s your canary?” she asked, pointing at the unoccupied birdcage.

  He pretended to stir the potion before him. “I sold it at the songbird market in London. It was a prop; I do not need it when I am at school.”

  “A prop for what?”

  He handed her the potion. It had matured well, the alarming purple goo of the night before now oatmeal-like in color and smelling pleasantly of nutmeg. “For you.”

  She eyed the potion warily. “You aren’t trying to turn me into a canary, are you? Human transmogrification spells are hugely unstable, not to mention dangerous to the subject.”

  “I have a workable transmogrification spell.”

  “Tested on yourself too?”

  “Of course.”

  The glance she cast him—he had experienced a great deal of her displeasure of late, but this time she was not angry or averse. Instead she looked . . . pained, almost.

  “Are you all right? I promise you it is safe. You know I would never let any harm come to you and—”

  “I’m fine.” She took the potion from him and drained it. “Why am I not a canary yet?”

  He poured a vial of bright red powder into a glass of water. The water turned vermilion, then clear again. “You need to also drink this.”

  She did. Then she glanced at the empty birdcage. “Is it going to be painful?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could have lied here, too.” She smiled slightly, not looking at him. “I’m ready.”

  He pulled out his wand and pointed it at her. “Verte in avem.”

  The transformation was sudden and wrenching. He knew it well, having gone through it five times. She flailed. He caught her. A moment later he was holding only a bundle of clothes.

  A canary, chirping, almost wailing, streaked about the room, its wings flapping madly.

  “Come to me, Fairfax.”

  She flew straight into him. He barely caught her.

  She lay still and stunned in his palms. He passed his fingers over her wings. “You did well, nothing broken. The first time I tried this, I gave myself a concussion and fractured my elbow.”

  He placed her in the spare cage, atop of layers of clean newspaper. “Rest for a few minutes, then we need to go.”

  He went around the room gathering what he needed. She wobbled toward the water cup.

  “Drink the water if you are thirsty, but do not eat anything from the feed cup. You may look like a bird, but you are not one. You cannot fly very well, and you most certainly cannot digest raw seeds.”

  She dipped her beak into the water, drank, and hopped around a little more in her cage.

  The door of the cage was still open. He held out his hand. “Come here.”

  Her little bird head cocked to one side, looking almost as suspicious as her human self. But she hopped onto his palm. He raised her to his lips and kissed the top of her downy head.

  “It will be you and me against the world, Fairfax,” he murmured. “You and me.”

  Dalbert was on time, as always.

  “Your Highness.” Dalbert bowed from the waist.

  He held open the door of the private rail coach. Titus nodded, gave his satchel to the valet, and mounted the steps into the coach with the cage in his hand.

  Dalbert brought Titus a glass of hippocras and tipped some waterose seeds into Fairfax’s feed cup.

  “Hullo there, Miss Buttercup.”

  Titus watched her. She dipped her beak into the feed cup and took out a seed. But when Dalbert had smiled in satisfaction and turned to putter elsewhere in the coach, she dropped the seed back into the feed cup.

  Titus breathed again. All the literature had insisted that a mage in a transmogrified state clearly understands language and instructions, but this was the first time he had been able to test the claim for himself.

  The train’s whistle shrieked. Its wheels ground against the tracks. They were on their way.

  They remained on the rails for only a few minutes. The prince used the time to throw on a tunic and change into a pair of knee-high boots. Then Iolanthe was no longer looking at the English countryside, but at distant mountain peaks.

  Which turned out not to be real mountain peaks, but a large mural that adorned the circular room in which the private rail coach now stood.

  The prince rose from his seat. In her current size, he appeared immense, his hand the size of a door. He lifted her cage and alit, followed by his manservant.

  A set of heavy, tall double doors swung open. She’d anticipated a great room of some sort on the other side, but it was only the stairwell, lit by sconces that emitted a remarkably pure white light.

  They descended a long flight of circular stairs—the rail coach was parked at the top of a tower. Another set of doors opened, and they walked down a wide corridor with open arches that looked out to a garden terrace that hung several hundred feet above the courtyard below.

  The corridor turned, split, turned again. Now there were attendants everywhere, bowing and scraping as the prince walked by. They went up a few steps, passed a library, an indoor garden with a sculpture fountain in the middle, and a large aviary filled with birds of all descriptions.

  When they finally entered the prince’s apartment, she found it rather sparsely furnished—Master Haywood had a more impressive parlor when he was still at the university. Or so Iolanthe thought, until her gaze landed on the tri-panel screen before the window. Inside each translucent panel, silver-azure butterflies fluttered. As she watched, one butterfly’s color changed into a vibrant yellow, another to a delicate shade of violet, and yet a third an intricate pattern of green and black.

  The butterflies must be made from blue argent, a priceless elixir sensitive to the least changes in the heat and intensity of the sun. The prince paid no attention at all to his incalculably precious screen, but charged past. In the next room she caught a glimpse of an enormous vase of ice roses, their pale blue petals like blown glass. The room after that housed a spinning globe. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a thunderstorm going on somewhere in the tropics, with tiny flashes of lightning. The prince ducked under the moon as he marched on.

  In his bedchamber he stopped to pull off his boots; then they were in an enormous bathroom that boasted a tub carved out of a single block of amethyst, with fittings and claw-feet of pure gold. Steam curled above the tub, petals and herbs floated atop the water—she smelled orange blossom and mint.

  She used to relish long soaks. It had been one of the most enjoyable applications of her elemental power, a gentle fire beneath the tub to keep the water at a constant temperature, while she made elabor
ate, fanciful sculptures with water droplets in the air.

  The prince set her down and dismissed his valet. The latter left with a bow and closed the door. Leaning against the wall, the prince pulled off his stockings. As he walked toward the amethyst tub, he yanked his shirt over his head.

  He was lean and tightly sinewed. Her little bird heart thudded.

  He glanced at her, his lips curved in not quite a smile. The next thing she knew, his shirt had flown through the air and landed on the cage, blocking her view toward the bathtub.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. I am shy.”

  She chirped indignantly. It was not as if she would have continued to watch him disrobe beyond a certain point.

  “I know you would rather inspect my superlative form, but may I recommend admiring the tapestry behind you instead?” continued the prince. “It is a depiction of Hesperia the Magnificent destroying the Usurper’s stronghold. Rumpelstiltskin himself wove the tapestry. Do you know the nonmages have turned him into a villain in their tales? Poor fellow, they have him forcing some poor innocent to spin gold from straw.”

  A splash of water, then a sigh as he settled himself in the tub.

  She closed her eyes, the absurdity of the situation momentarily overwhelming her. She was a bird in a cage. The prince was stark naked not six feet from her. And the saintly Rumpelstiltskin, who had willed his life’s savings to help indigent children, slandered as a greedy boor.

  He sighed again. “Why am I talking to you? You will not remember anything from your time spent in bird form.” He paused. “I have just answered my own question.

  “Do you know what I did one time? I decided to record my time in bird form. In Morse code—a nonmage means of transmitting messages, with dots and dashes to represent letters. I had it all planned: I would use my beak to punch small holes in the paper to represent a dot, and make scratches with my claw for dashes.

  “Except when I came to, the sheet of paper was in shreds. So much for that idea.” He was silent for a moment. “And you will draw a similar blank come tomorrow.”

  Did this mean he was about to tell her something he wouldn’t normally? Her ears perked—figuratively, since her ears were now feather-covered holes in the sides of her head.