The Burning Sky

by Shelly Thomas

  He collected the shorn hair, deposited it in the unlit fireplace, and destroyed it. From the chest of drawers he brought out the items of an Eton boy’s uniform.

  “You have prepared for everything.”

  “Hardly. If I had any foresight at all, I’d have prepared for a girl.”

  The vision of his death had mentioned a boy by his side, lamenting his passing. Such was the peril of visions—they must be interpreted by the seer and were therefore subject to human errors. In this case a short-haired girl had been mistaken for a boy. And despite all Titus’s preparations, he now found himself swimming in uncertainty.

  He knocked on what looked like wall cabinets and a narrow bed flipped down, startling her. From the sheet he ripped a long white strip of linen, hemmed it with a quick spell, and handed it to her.

  “For . . . resizing your person,” he said as he rehemmed the sheet with another spell.

  How else to describe something meant to bind her chest?

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

  “Once you are ready, the clothes aren’t that tricky,” he spoke briskly to cover his own embarrassment. And to think, this was only the beginning of the complications of bringing a girl to an all-boys school. “The shirt studs go into the buttonholes. Everything else is as you would expect.”

  He turned around to give her privacy. Behind him came the soft shushing of her disrobing. There was no reason for his pulse to accelerate. Nothing at all was going to happen, and he would henceforth treat her as another boy. In fact, for her safety and his, he would not even think of her as anything but Archer Fairfax, school chum.

  All the same, his pulse raced, as if he’d just sprinted the length of a playing field.

  Then he glanced up and saw her reflection in the small mirror on the door. She stood with her back to him, naked to the top of her pajama trousers, her head bent, puzzling over her binding cloth. The contour of her slender neck, the smoothness of her back, the tapering of her waist—he jerked his head away and stared at the spare chair.

  After what seemed an eternity—an eternity during which he forgot all about what the agents of Atlantis would think of his continued absence—she asked, “How should I hold it in place, the binding cloth?”

  “Say serpens caudam mordens. It is a simple spell—no need for a wand.”

  “Not even for the first time?”

  “No.”

  “All right then.” She did not sound convinced. “Serpens caudam mordens.”

  A long moment of silence. He had by now completely memorized the form of the lyre-shaped slat on the back of the spare chair.

  “Serpens caudam mordens,” she said again. “It’s not working.”

  There was no time for her to keep trying. He took a deep breath and turned around. She was now facing him, holding on to the ends of the binding cloth that she had wrapped about her chest. His lowered his gaze: above the too-loose pajama trousers, her waist indented sharply; her navel was deep and perfectly round.

  He was going to step closer to her, but now he changed his mind. Remaining precisely where he was, he said, “Serpens caudam mordens.”

  The cloth visibly tautened. She emitted a muffled grunt. “Thank you. That’s perfect.”

  She had not flattened to anything resembling a plane. “Once more,” he said.

  “No, no more. I can barely breathe.”

  “You are sure it is tight enough?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  He should not, but his eyes again dipped to her navel. He realized what he was doing and looked up, only to see her flush. She had caught him staring.

  He turned away to examine the chair some more. “Move and make sure it stays in place.”

  The next time she called him, she already had on the white shirt and the black trousers he had handed her. As expected, the clothes did not fit her. He set to work with an assortment of spells. The shirt needed its sleeves shortened and the width of the shoulders taken in. For the trousers he nipped the waist and raised the cuffs three inches—he had acquired everything big, as it was much easier to make clothing smaller than the other way around.

  “If all else fails, you can always find employment as a tailor,” she murmured while he knelt on one knee before her, making sure the trouser cuffs were even.

  “You should see my lacework,” he said. “As fine as a spiderweb.”

  Above him she laughed softly. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

  “Not often,” he said, with more candor than usual.

  Perhaps he would not need to lie to her, the way he lied to everyone else.

  He rose to his feet. The waistcoat came with straps on the back and was easily enough cinched to fit her. The jacket required its armholes shrunk, the bagginess at the shoulders and the middle taken in.

  But that was not the end of it. The shirt needed its collar attached and the necktie had to be fastened. Because she had no experience with either, he put them on for her.

  They stood nose to nose, so close he could see the small pulse at her throat. The clothes smelled of the lavender sachets he had put in Fairfax’s drawers. Her breath brushed against the tops of his fingers.

  As he pulled her necktie into shape, his knuckles grazed the underside of her chin. She bit her lower lip. Something in him shifted out of place: his concentration.

  He took two steps back. “Let me get your shoes.”

  “How much practice with tailoring spells have you had?” she asked.

  “Hundreds of hours.” And half again as much on cobbling. He made a pair of too-big black leather oxfords fit her and handed her a derby hat. “Here in England you never go anywhere without headgear.”

  Did she pass for a boy? He was not entirely confident. But assumption was a powerful thing, especially such a big-belief assumption.

  She examined herself in the mirror on the door, adjusting the angle of her hat. Suddenly she swiveled around.

  “What is it?”

  She opened her mouth, only to press her lips together again. “Never mind.”

  But he knew what she had realized. That he could have watched her undress in the mirror. They stared at each other. She dropped her eyes and turned her attention back to the mirror.

  He walked to the window, parted the curtains a sliver, and looked out. The clouds had begun to dissipate. A few rays of pallid sunlight reached the small meadow behind the house. There were no boys or house staff about—it was near teatime, and everyone must have returned inside.

  She came to stand next to him.

  “Vault out from here to behind those trees,” he instructed. “Then come through the front door of the house. I will meet you in the entry hall.”

  He did not want her out of his sight. But there was nothing for it: Fairfax’s return had to be seen as an event entirely unrelated to the disappearance of one Iolanthe Seabourne. If he produced Fairfax from nowhere, they would both look more suspicious to agents of Atlantis.

  “And the other boys will know who I am?”

  “When they hear me say your name they will.” He turned toward her. “I know it is my fault you are here. But please be convincing as a boy—or I will have prepared in vain.”

  She glanced at him, her gaze half-admiring, half-mystified. “You have prepared a great deal.”

  You have no idea. “And therefore you will not fail me.”

  It was as much a prayer as it was a command.

  Mrs. Dawlish’s house was built of weathered red brick, the outlines neat and solid. Above the ground floor, behind a window at the southern end, stood the prince, watching her.

  Had he also watched her when she had stripped down nearly to her skin? Was it her imagination or had he looked at her differently afterward? The underside of her chin, where he’d accidentally brushed her, scorched anew at the thought.

  He raised his hand in a silent salute and disappeared. All at once she felt exposed. She’d thought her former life precarious; she’d had no idea how shel
tered she’d been, protected at an impossible cost to Master Haywood.

  She must remain safe, if only so that his sacrifice would not be in vain.

  It had rained earlier in this place—everything was soaked. A watery light shone on the damp landscape. In the distance she could make out a grander building than the rest—the school? Farther away, in a different direction, the hulking shadows of what looked to be a squat castle.

  She didn’t seem to be in a city—there was too much tree and grass and sky. Nor did she seem to be in isolated countryside. There were other houses. Carriages clattered down a nearby street, carriages drawn by—were they?—she squinted—yes, horses.

  Real horses, without wings or a horn on the forehead, their hooves clacking wetly. She couldn’t help smiling slightly, reminded of the picture books she’d loved as a child, stories of nonmage children who had nothing but their wits, their swords, and their loyal horses to accompany them on their adventures.

  The carriages were black and closed, some with curtains drawn. The pedestrians in blacks, browns, and drab blues were entirely preoccupied with their own affairs, with no idea that a fugitive was among them, pursued with the full might of the greatest empire on the face of the earth.

  The thought was almost comforting: at least no one paid her any attention.

  A breeze almost made off with her hat; she clamped it down and began walking. Her new clothes did not move well—too many layers, the cut restrictive, the material inelastic. And without her hair, her head felt oddly light, nearly weightless.

  Gingerly, and trying not to look like a foreigner, she stepped onto the sidewalk, only to be immediately accosted by a grimy boy of indeterminate age, waving pieces of printed paper in the air.

  She leaped back, primed to run the other way.

  “More details from John Brown’s funeral! You want to know about ’em, guv?”

  “Ah . . .” Did she?

  “Read all about Her Majesty’s sorrow. Read it for a penny.”

  She found her breath. A newspaper, that was what the boy was waving—newspapers in the Domain hadn’t used actual paper for a very long time.

  “Sorry. Never cared for the man,” she said truthfully.

  The boy shrugged and continued peddling his wares down the narrow street, which was squeezed in by tightly packed brick houses with steep, pitched roofs.

  She came to a stop before the front door of Mrs. Dawlish’s house, black and unassuming beneath an arched doorway. There, she’d made it. Now she only had to pass herself off as a boy. For the foreseeable future.

  And under the watchful eyes of Atlantis.

  Titus changed into his school uniform in his own room. As he stepped out into the passage, Wintervale’s door opened.

  “When did you get here?” asked Wintervale, surprised.

  “A while ago,” said Titus. “I have been in my room.”

  “Why didn’t you join Kashkari and myself?”

  “I was in a foul mood—ran into the Inquisitor today. You do not look too pleased either. What is the matter?”

  “My mother. I had to go back home just now.”

  Titus asked the obvious. “Does she not usually leave for Aix-les-Bains as soon as you return here?”

  “Baden-Baden this time, but she hasn’t left yet. I found her in the attic in a state. She kept saying she’d killed someone and that this time there would be no forgiveness from the Angels. I checked the house from top to bottom: nothing. If she had truly killed someone, you’d think I’d have found a corpse.”

  It was not easy being Lady Wintervale’s son. She was not consistently insane. But at times she came close enough.

  “Is she still at home?”

  “She’s gone to stay with my aunt.” Wintervale knocked the back of his head against the wall behind him. “Atlantis did this to her. When are you going to lead us to overthrow them?”

  Titus shrugged. “You will have to organize the revolt, cousin. If I could, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Lying to Lady Callista and the Inquisitor was a perennial necessity—Titus took pride in rarely speaking a true word before those two. But lying to his second cousin, equally necessary, had always bothered him. He wished Wintervale weren’t so trusting.

  “Why do you think I’m trying to get into Sandhurst?” said Wintervale. “The British fight lots of wars. Maybe there is something to be learned from them.”

  Titus also wished Lady Wintervale had not adamantly adhered to the tradition of having a child from one of the Domain’s grandest families study alongside the heir of the House of Elberon. Lady Callista had been his mother’s companion—look how well that had turned out.

  “Try not to get yourself killed in one of Britain’s colonial wars,” he told Wintervale. “It would be the ultimate irony.”

  “Do I hear mentions of colonial wars?” said Kashkari, joining them, dapper in his impeccably turned-out uniform and sleek black hair. “Is your stomachache gone, Wintervale? You look better.”

  “I’m fine now,” said Wintervale.

  Lady Wintervale’s unpredictable mental state and penchant for relying on her only child meant that Wintervale often had to invent sudden pains to go back to his room—or clear his room—to use the wardrobe portal.

  “Do the two of you want some tea?” Wintervale issued his usual invitation.

  “Why not?” said Kashkari.

  “I will join you in a minute. I think I saw Fairfax from my window. Let me go down to make sure it is really him.”

  “Fairfax!” exclaimed Wintervale. “Are you sure?”

  “But your window doesn’t face the street. How did you see him?” asked Kashkari.

  “He was walking across the grass. Who knows? Maybe he wants to refamiliarize himself with everything.”

  “About time,” said Wintervale. “We need him to play.”

  “He still does not feel the strength in his leg,” said Titus, moving toward the stairs. The otherwise charm he had created before he first stepped into the school was fairly watertight: no one doubted that Fairfax existed. All the same, he had better reach the ground floor soon. The boys would not recognize her as Fairfax unless someone said the name aloud; and only Titus could do that. “Who knows whether he will still be any good at sports after an injury like that?”

  Wintervale’s other passion, besides returning the barony of Wintervale to its former glory, was cricket. He had convinced himself—and a fair number of other boys—that Archer Fairfax was the veriest cricket prodigy whose return would propel the house team to the school cup.

  “Strange. He’s been gone only three months, and already I can’t remember what he looks like,” said Wintervale.

  “Lucky you,” said Titus. “Fairfax is one of the most ferociously ugly blokes I have ever met.”

  Kashkari chuckled, catching up with Titus on the steps down. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “Please do.”

  Mrs. Dawlish’s house, despite its overwhelming majority of male occupants, had been decorated to suit Mrs. Dawlish’s tastes. The wallpaper in the stairwell was rose-and-ivy. Frames of embroidered daisies and hyacinths hung on every wall.

  The stairs led down to the entry hall, with poppy-chintz-covered chairs and green muslin curtains. A vase of orange tulips nodded on the console table beneath an antique mirror—a boy was required to examine himself in the mirror before he left the house, lest his appearance disgrace Mrs. Dawlish.

  Titus was two steps above the newel post when Fairfax came into the entry hall, a slim, tall-enough figure in the distinctive tailed jacket of an Eton senior boy. Immediately he was appalled by his abysmal judgment. She did not look like a boy at all. She was much, much too pretty: her eyes, wide-set and long-lashed; her skin, needlessly smooth; her lips, red and full and all but shouting girlishness.

  She saw him and smiled in relief. The smile was the worst yet: it brought out deep dimples he had not even suspected she possessed.

  Dread engulfed him. Any moment n
ow someone was going to shout, What is a girl doing here? And since everyone knew Fairfax as his closest friend, it would take no time for the agents stationed at Eton to put two and two together and conclude that there was far more than just cross-dressing going on.

  “Fairfax,” he heard himself speak—his voice almost did not quiver. “We thought you were never coming back.”

  Almost immediately Kashkari said, “My goodness, it is you, Fairfax!”

  “Welcome back, Fairfax!” hollered Wintervale.

  With the repetition of her name, other boys swarmed out of the woodwork and took up the chorus of “Look, Fairfax is back!”

  At the sight of so many boys, her smile disintegrated. She did not say anything, but looked from face to face, her hand tightening upon the handle of the valise. Titus could not breathe. For eight years he had lived in a state of slow-simmering panic. But he’d never known what real terror was until this moment. He had always depended on himself; now everything depended on her.

  Come on, Fairfax, he implored under his breath. But he knew it. It was too much. She was going to drop the valise and bolt. All hell would break loose, eight years of work would circle the drain, and his mother would have died for nothing.

  She cleared her throat and beamed, a smug, lopsided grin. “It’s good to see all your ugly faces again.”

  Her voice. Lurching from one emergency to another, he had paid no mind. Now he truly heard it for the first time: rich, low-pitched, and slightly gravelly.

  But it was her grin, rather than her voice, that steadied his heartbeat. There was no mistaking the cockiness of that grin, absolutely the expression of a sixteen-year-old boy who had never known the taste of defeat.

  Wintervale bounced down the rest of the steps and shook her hand. “You haven’t changed a bit, Fairfax, as charming as His Highness here. No wonder you two were always thick as thieves.”

  Her brow lifted at the way Wintervale addressed Titus. Wintervale knew who Titus was, but to the rest of the school, Titus was a minor Continental prince.