Academy of Falling Kingdoms Box Set

by Marisa Mills

  Glowing sigils and runes, drawn in golden ink, ran down the side of her neck and shoulders, and formed a crown that shimmered across her forehead. I knew mage healing was powerful, I’d watched Dorian vanish the cuts on my fingers the first time he took me from the Scraps, but Jessa’s injuries seemed much graver. Francesca said she’d fractured her vertebrae. What if Jessa never walked again? I bit the inside of my cheek and fidgeted with my hands.

  For a long time, I sat there, just staring.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do,” I asked softly. “No blood magic or other spell?”

  There isn’t, Lucian replied. I never learned to heal.

  I felt so helpless. Why did people keep getting hurt around me? In the Scraps, pain was just a way of life. Everyone got hurt, eventually. But now the few mages I cared about were getting hurt as well. As ridiculous as it sounded, the common element between nearly all the attacks, was me. And if this was about me somehow, I should be the one in Jessa’s condition.

  No one should be hurting you either, Lucian said.

  I’d prefer that to someone hurting my friends, who’d done nothing wrong. Everything seemed to be so far above my head. Who was behind the attacks? How were the demons getting free? The Council and the nobility already had their hands full trying to track down the rogue mage. What could I possibly do that everyone else hadn’t already tried? Maybe it would have been better if I stayed in the Scraps, where I belonged.

  I heard someone breathing behind me and spun to find a dark figure, holding a gleaming sword loosely in one hand. I jumped at the sound of Dorian’s voice.

  “What a disobedient child.”

  With a sigh, he sat on the bed beside me. There wasn’t a drop of water on him, but I wasn’t sure if that was because he hadn’t gone into the lake or by some sort of magic. Dorian had enchanted clothing that kept rain away. Maybe it worked on lake water, too. My attention fixed on the familiar, decorative handle of the weapon.

  “You found it,” I said.

  He nodded and passed it to me. I laid the weapon across my thighs and traced my thumb over the familiar crossguard.

  “You realize, of course, that watching her isn’t going to magically improve her condition,” Dorian said quietly. “It’s only going to make you feel bad.”

  “I can’t just lay around and do nothing. She’s my friend.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to make friends,” Dorian said.

  Maybe I had said that once.

  “For what it’s worth, I understand,” Dorian said. “It’s difficult to see the people you care about in pain. But you need your rest. Why don’t I escort you back to your bed?”

  “I’ll go back to bed in the morning,” I said.

  “I’ll see that you do.”

  I frowned at him in the near darkness.

  “You’re just…going to stay awake all night? Here?”

  “I don’t sleep anyway,” Dorian said. “The ghosts in my estate keep me awake, remember?” He smiled, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. Instead, the corners creased with tiredness, and for the first time since I’d met him, he looked old.

  Sitting beside him was awkward and made me fidget. We watched as the morning light slowly crept down the walls, washing away the shadows. At some point I felt Lucian quietly shift into the sword and curl up to nap like a cat in a basket. Every once in a while, I felt Dorian’s eyes on me, studying my features. It was a blessing when Francisca arrived and turned his attention away. Without a word, she sat beside him and waited. The sun rose, lightening the horizon. The infirmary was on the third floor, and the large glass windows looked straight out past the Academy grounds. Behind the fence was the central square of Reverie city. The crystal tipped towers and gold domes shone in the rising sun like molten lava.

  “Back to bed,” Dorian said finally.

  I stood unsteadily.

  “Do you need me to carry you?” Dorian asked.

  “No,” I replied. “I can manage.”

  And very slowly, I did. It seemed to take forever, but I finally reached my bed. Frederick was gone, he must have left when Dorian got back. I steeled myself for the pain as I clambered into bed, taking the sword with me. Francisca waited by the door, giving us a moment alone.

  “We’re heading back out,” Dorian said, “before I have to deal with Du Lac again. If you need anything, let me know. I’ll have my seamstress send you some things. You’ll need clothing for the springtime. And some new dresses, I’d imagine.” He smiled slyly. Did he know I’d been throwing away the dresses Francisca had packed for me?

  “Wait,” I said. “What…what is this now?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I’m not…” I trailed off and glanced around to see if anyone might be nearby. “I’m not working for you anymore. But I’m still here. What is this now? You said the longer we continue this deception, the more likely I am to be caught. And now…”

  “Now, it’s something else,” Dorian said.

  I waited for elaboration, but he offered none.

  “What do you get by me being here longer? Why am I still here at all?”

  “We’ll say that I know a few things you don’t and leave it at that,” Dorian said.

  “We can’t leave it at that. That doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “I know it doesn’t,” he replied.

  Want me to bite him? Lucian asked.

  Not unless biting Dorian was going to make him give me a straight answer for once. And I seriously doubted that was going to happen.

  “How about this then; stay close to the prince. There’s been something going on since you returned to Reverie. King Gregory and his sons still haven’t returned to the palace, and that can only mean they think they’ll find something here at the Academy. Alexander might know more than he’s telling. Let me know if anything happens. And stay alive, that’s an order. Good luck, little mage.”

  I held my breath as Dorian left the room. He wanted me to spy on Alexander, and thought Viviane or her mother might be trying to kill me. It sounded ridiculous; when I got to Reverie I was nobody, just a Lower Realms thief that had to fake her way through the entrance exam.

  Somehow, I’d become embroiled in the political machinations between the nobles, the royal family, and the Council. I realized with a sinking suspicion what Dorian wanted from me. He was using me as bait.

  Fourteen

  KING GREGORY HAD GONE BACK to the royal palace, but he’d left a contingent of soldiers in his place. They guarded the halls and entry ways, solemn and rigid like toy soldiers. I wondered if they were low level mages, and how they ended up in the king’s army. I knew there hadn’t been any real fighting for decades, apart from some gang rivalry in the Scraps, and even then the mages tended to leave the Lower Realms to govern themselves with their own brand of justice.

  After being released from the infirmary, I spent hours in the library, trying to find out more about the Rosewood family history. When Dorian first brought me to Reverie, I thought he was just trying to recoup his gambling losses. Now I knew it was something more. It couldn’t just be about the money. I was still valuable to him somehow, but he hadn’t asked me to steal anything else. I knew his family had been entrusted with a portion of the kingdom’s enchanted objects for safekeeping, and that Nick and Gwen had destroyed some of it, freeing demons in the forests below. Was that what Dorian was looking for? What if the king asked for it back, and Dorian had to tell him his family had lost it?

  I drifted through my classes, barely paying attention to our lessons, which rarely seemed relevant. After school I visited Jessa, although she was usually asleep. Still, I sat beside her for hours, reading books and watching over her. I’d planned the same for the weekend, but as I headed downstairs, Tatiana bolted in front of me. Viviane was a half-step behind her, which was bizarre. I didn’t think they spent much time together. I’d only seen them interact once before, whe
n a bunch of the girls had gotten together and gone to a tavern.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A kidnapping,” Tatiana replied, grabbing my wrist.

  She pulled me after her. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “We’re going to see my father!” Tatiana declared.

  “But why?”

  “Because you need to get away from the Academy and do something,” Tatiana said, grinning. “We talked about it in class, remember?”

  Only vaguely.

  “Tatiana asked Frederick where you were, and he thought it’d be a great idea for me to come along, too,” Viviane said, sounding far from enthused.

  “You don’t have to, Viv,” Tatiana said.

  “No, but he’s sure to interrogate me about this later,” Viviane replied. “Ugh. He’s been suffocating me since he came here.”

  We met Alexander by the Academy entrance. He smiled at me sheepishly. I hadn’t spoken to him in days. I wasn’t exactly avoiding him, I just had too many feelings I wasn’t ready to deal with. But his smile suddenly brought everything back into sharp relief, and I felt a flutter of wings in my stomach. The sun lightened his hair like a golden halo, and the bright blue sky and fluffy white clouds behind him stole away the gloomy veil I’d been wrapped. For the first time in days, I felt excitement flare in my chest.

  “Did you all plan this?” I asked, falling into step next to Alexander.

  “You’ve been holed up in the library for days,” he shrugged. “I thought you could use some fresh air.” He waited until the others were up ahead, slowing until we were alone.

  “Also,” he said quietly, “I’ve been thinking about what you said at the lake. The quakes, the demons attacks, Tatiana. Maybe her father knows something we don’t. I checked, and he went to school with Nick and Gwen. It’s a long shot, but maybe we’ll learn something. Anyway, it doesn’t hurt and I thought the exercise might be good for you.”

  I wasn’t sure what we’d find, but it was refreshing to be outside of the Academy walls for a change. My ribs still ached, but it wasn’t an unbearable pain. Everyone was moving very slowly, doubtlessly trying to accommodate me.

  Reverie was as bustling as always. It was a clear, sunny day in late winter, and even though there was still a slight chill in the air, the heavy coats and furs were gone, replaced with light and breezy fabrics, like the chiffon dress I’d gotten in Argent. We walked through the shops and turned down a long, winding side alley until we arrived at part of the city I’d never seen before. This must be a residential area. Rows of small houses and cottages, each with a little garden protected by decorative crystal and iron fences. The houses themselves weren’t the white or crystal that most buildings in Reverie were, though; they were made from a dark, hardwood on a foundation of large bricks.

  Tatiana pushed a fence open and walked up the steps to one of the houses. It was a strange creature and looked like it’d been built from four different buildings, all in competing styles. My knowledge of Reverie’s architecture wasn’t great, but even I could tell that those white, crystalline columns didn’t belong with the red-brown stone or the delicate, blue spirals decorating the glass windows. An aging sign declared this place to be a bookstore.

  As Tatiana opened the door, a chime sounded through the shop.

  “Hello, Father!” Tatiana announced. “I brought friends from school!”

  My nose tingled at the smell of dust and old paper. There were shelves and shelves of books in all different colors, many of them with cracking spines and fading gold filigree around the edges. Tatiana led the way past them and to the back of the store. A man popped up from behind a desk, with a massive red beard, streaked with white. I tried not to stare, but it was hard. Most of the men I’d seen in Reverie were clean-shaven. He pushed aside a stack of books, disturbing the shaggy gray cat from its perch. The animal glared at him, stretched, then jumped off the desk and coiled around my ankle.

  “Tati! What a pleasant—Your Royal Highness!” The man swept into a bow. “What an honor to have you visit my little shop! I am Oberon, proud purveyor of this fine place!”

  “At ease,” Alexander said, looking vaguely embarrassed. “I’ve determined to spend a year forgoing my royal privileges, so there’s really no need to bow.”

  “Oh, well! Still, I’m happy to welcome you.” His round glasses made his eyes comically large. I noticed the green eyes he shared with Tatiana, the dark scar that stretched down his cheek and disappeared into his thick hair, and his thin, freckled nose. The inside of the shop was cozy, and I realized I felt safer surrounded by four walls and people I knew. I reached down and stroked the cat, and it purred gently under my fingers.

  “Father,” Tatiana said, clearing her throat, “I was hoping you might be able to show my friend Wynter some of the old manuscripts you’ve been working on.”

  “Anything about the last war,” Alexander added. “Or the creation of the Council.”

  “Wonderful! Follow me! Tati, you’ll manage the front, won’t you?”

  “Sure,” Tatiana said, squeezing my hand. “I hope you find it interesting.”

  I had no doubt I would. Oberon waved us back, and I filed in behind Alexander and Viviane. Behind the storefront, there was a small room filled to the brim with books, scattered in piles and boxes. I imagined Oberon as a dragon who hoarded books rather than gold and treasure. Amidst the chaos, there was a slightly more organized desk, covered in papers and pens.

  “This place is probably infested with rodents,” Alexander whispered, wrinkling his nose.

  Viviane grimaced, but I smiled at their discomfort. In the Scraps, rats were food. I was surprised they even had vermin in Reverie.

  Oberon combed through the shelves, selecting a stack of volumes until they reached his chin. He pushed aside several piles of parchment and set the pile of books on the desk with a victorious grin.

  “This should get you started. Most of my books are much older, of course, I even have some that date from the flood and the creation of Reverie. That’s my passion. Still, you won’t find many of these in the Academy library. The mages don’t like to delve too deeply into their own roots.”

  “What’s this?” Viviane asked, as Alexander and I flipped through the books. She was staring at a large map of some kind pinned to the wall, covered in sigils.

  “My most precious discovery,” Oberon said, standing beside her with a gleam in his eye. “A map of Reverie. Only this one actually shows what’s beneath.”

  “Beneath what?” Alexander asked, stepping closer.

  “Beneath everything.”

  I moved closer, staring at the map. I recognized Argent and the Scraps, the forest. Above it, Reverie with its crystal towers. But instead of the land mass of the floating island being shaded out roughly as it had been in other maps, this one showed an open space deep below the city. It looked like a vault of some kind, and was nearly as large as the city itself. Rows of tall pillars were interspersed with something that looked mechanical; some kind of device made of gears with strange symbols on them. In the center of the map, a red X had been drawn roughly over a tall doorway with an angular arc.

  Alexander ran a hand through his hair. I’d expected something aged, but this paper looked relatively recent. Though the paper was yellowed, the red-brown scrawling of charcoal was clearly visible.

  “Don’t you see, this is the secret to everything,” Oberon breathed. “How we float, and why we’re falling.”

  Alexander scoffed and Tatiana looked mildly embarrassed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s an engine,” Oberon replied. “It works to keep Reverie afloat. The other kingdoms have similar contraptions. At least, I know Aubade does.”

  “I thought magic held Reverie in the sky,” Viviane said.

  “In a sense, it does,” Oberon replied. “This machine is powered by captive demons. I haven’t seen the chamber myself, but I’m sure it exists.”r />
  “That can’t be true,” Alexander said. “I would know.”

  “Charged crystals weaken over time,” Oberon said, speaking quickly as if he expected to be cut off. “They’ve been keeping Reverie afloat for centuries with their powers, but now the sigils are weakening, and some of the demons are starting to escape. The only solution is to replace the demons—which isn’t a viable solution—or—”

  “Why isn’t that a viable solution?” Alexander asked.

  Aside from the incredibly obvious ethical problem? Lucian asked bitterly.

  “The chamber is locked,” Oberon said. “Sealed shut. And the technology has been lost. Mages know how to capture and trap demons who are already in this realm, but few remember how to access their dimension. Even if we could get inside, we’d need thousands of charged crystals.”

  “So you haven’t even seen this,” Alexander said, sweeping his hand towards the parchment. “You just—you expect me to believe that Reverie has been powered by demons, and my father failed to mention it?”

  “Your father knows more than you think,” Oberon said with a touch of bitterness. “Please, you have to speak to him. We only have years left—maybe months.”

  “You said there was another solution?” Viviane asked. “What happens if the sigils aren’t recharged?”

  “Then Reverie will fall. Everything will be destroyed, both above, and below. No one will survive.”

  A hushed silence fell over us as we considered the implications. I studied the map, and the notes scrawled into the margins. Something was familiar about the handwriting.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “A friend of mine in school drew it. He’s the only one to go inside for centuries.”

  “What, how? I thought you said it was locked?” Viviane asked.

  “He’s the one who locked it,” Oberon said.

  “What was his name?” I asked. A tremor rushed over my skin, anticipating the answer.

  “Nicholas Armenia.”

  ***

  I shared a look with Alexander, and Oberon’s green eyes darted to me.