The Burning Sky

by Shelly Thomas

“His family came?” Iolanthe was alarmed. He hadn’t mentioned anything.

  “What?” cried Wintervale at the same time. He, too, knew that there was no such thing as the traveling court of Saxe-Limburg. Or Saxe-Limburg altogether.

  “Just a great-uncle, but what a dame he brought,” said Sutherland. He turned to Birmingham. “Did they ever say whether Helen of Troy is the great-uncle’s wife?”

  “I’ll wager she’s just his mistress—Europeans.” Birmingham remembered himself and turned to Wintervale, who, like the prince, was also said to be from a small European principality. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” said Wintervale, still looking flabbergasted.

  “Let’s go, gentlemen,” said Sutherland. “It took us a while to find you. His Highness must be getting impatient.”

  Titus’s skin crawled.

  The Inquisitor was not conducting an Inquisition—the sheer size of the crowd presented an obstacle to a mind mage wishing to examine one particular mind in detail. But sitting next to her was still nerve-racking. Half a dozen of her minions had their eyes trained on him, making sure that he did not attempt anything that might impede their quest.

  But all that he could have endured if Fairfax were somewhere in Siberia. Instead she must be on her way to him, escorted by Sutherland and Birmingham.

  The day grew warmer; his shirt stuck to his back. Human nature being what it was, the line of people waiting to be presented to the court of Saxe-Limburg had grown exponentially, boys and Old Etonians making up connections to Titus, hoping to get closer to the once-in-a-generation beauty that was Lady Callista. The sisters and mothers—didn’t English women usually pay no mind to Continental princelings? Yet they stood patiently in the queue, their white parasols like so many pearls on a string.

  Unfortunately, the length of the line would not matter when Fairfax arrived. She would be instantly swept to the front.

  If his heart pounded any harder it was going to crack one of his ribs.

  Was that Cooper back at the head of the line again? Had he not already been presented? This was fun for Cooper. The ostentation-loving dunce was having a ball.

  Titus wanted to throttle him.

  Or—perhaps he could make use of the idiot.

  As Cooper bowed before Lady Callista again, Titus called out loudly, “What are you doing here, Nettle Oakbluff? And you too, Haywood. Does the Inquisitory give holidays to its detainees now?”

  Then he sneered at Cooper. “Stop being such a useless twit, Cooper. You are taking someone else’s place. Scram. No, wait. Go find Birmingham and Sutherland. Why are they not back yet? They are insulting me with their incompetence.”

  Sutherland could not stop talking of Lady Callista’s beauty. Birmingham was unimpressed with Sutherland’s effusiveness.

  “I won’t deny she is beautiful, but she must be our mothers’ age and probably more.”

  “So what?” Iolanthe said, giving Sutherland a nudge. “As long as she is not my mother.”

  “Exactly.” Sutherland laughed. “Fairfax here is a man after my own heart. Although I do wish they hadn’t sat her next to that witch. That woman makes the soles of my feet cold.”

  Iolanthe almost came to a standstill. That woman. “You mean the prince’s wet nurse?”

  Birmingham and Sutherland snickered.

  “A rock would give milk before she does,” said Birmingham.

  “My balls would have permanently shriveled if I’d had to drink from her teats,” declared Sutherland.

  Iolanthe approximated the sound of chuckling. The Inquisitor. When had she recovered? And what was she doing at such a public forum, receiving the prince’s friends, no less? Could she take a sledgehammer to his mind when there were thousands of people swirling around?

  Cooper barreled into sight. “Ah, there you are. I’ve been tasked to find you.”

  “Did Frampton send you too?” Birmingham sounded none too pleased at this implied snub against his competence.

  “No, the prince himself sent me,” said Cooper proudly.

  Iolanthe’s alarm instantly tripled. The prince never did anything without a reason. He must be well aware that Sutherland and Birmingham had already been dispatched. Why Cooper in addition?

  “Quite the day for you, Cooper,” she said. “You’ve always liked him being princely.”

  “Words cannot describe how grand he has been. The man was born to lord over others.”

  Birmingham snorted.

  “Did anyone else come from the court of Saxe-Limburg besides his great-uncle, the beautiful lady, and the hair-raising lady?” Iolanthe asked.

  “Yes, hordes of lackeys.” Cooper thought about it. Iolanthe could almost hear the gears of his brain rattling. “Maybe not all of them are servants. The prince addressed two of them by name and said something like, ‘When did the transitory let out its detainees?’ You reckon some of them could be political prisoners?”

  “You idiot.” Birmingham had had enough of Cooper’s prattling. “Who would bring political prisoners to a school function? And what in the world is a transitory, anyway?”

  “I’m just telling you what he said.”

  Iolanthe could not hear anything else over the roar in her head. This was the prince’s message: Master Haywood and Mrs. Oakbluff had been brought to Eton to identify her. And the moment her disguise was stripped, she would be taken away.

  Run! bellowed her voice of self-preservation. Vault somewhere. Anywhere. Get away.

  But what would happen to him if she ran? Should his closest chum disappear from the face of the earth just as witnesses arrived to identify Iolanthe Seabourne, even Prince Alectus might be able to put two and two together. It would be back to the Inquisitory with him. And this time, there would be no one to intervene when the Inquisitor began cutting through his mind.

  Unless—

  No. The very idea was insane.

  But she had to. She had no other choice. There was no one else to help her.

  “Ahhh!” she cried, and cupped her abdomen with both hands.

  “What is it?” said the boys simultaneously.

  “My stomach. I shouldn’t have had that ginger beer. I’ll bet that hag made it out of ditch water.”

  “Run for the lavatory,” Birmingham advised. “When ginger beer turns on you, it turns on you hard.”

  “Want me to come with you?” Cooper asked cheerfully.

  “And do what? Wipe my arse? You are the prince’s personal envoy, so you’ve got to personally take my message to him. Tell him I’ll be along as soon as I’ve had my rendezvous with the crapper.”

  She started running before she’d finished speaking.

  Only to barrel into Trumper and Hogg a minute later, blocking her way.

  “Oh, look who doesn’t have any friends or cricket bats today?” said Trumper.

  Hogg sneered, smashing one fist against the palm of his other hand. “You can kiss your pretty face good-bye, Fairfax. After we’re done with you today, you’ll look like chopped liver.”

  She swore—and punched Trumper in the stomach. He howled. Hogg threw himself at her and closed his arm around her throat in a chokehold. She rammed her elbow into his kidney. He yelped in pain and stumbled back. To Trumper, again joining the fray, she delivered a knee to the groin. Trumper emitted a high-pitched shriek and collapsed in a heap.

  She ran again and ducked into an empty alley between two houses. Hands braced against the rough brick wall behind her back, she vaulted.

  Only to open her eyes and find that she hadn’t moved an inch.

  Her destination was within her vaulting range. There was no reason she should have failed. She tried again. And again. And again.

  To no avail.

  Atlantis had turned the entire school into a no-vaulting zone.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  CHAPTER 22

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p; IOLANTHE SPRINTED.

  If Kashkari had been telling the truth—and she had no reason to doubt him—then Atlantis had not only established a no-vaulting zone, but also made sure that one would not be able to simply walk out.

  But not all no-vaulting zones were created equal. Permanent ones, like the one the prince had established in his room, took tremendous time and effort. A completely new, and most likely temporary, no-vaulting zone sometimes had areas of incomplete denial that could be exploited—or so she’d recently learned in the teaching cantos.

  She did not stop until she was before the wardrobe in Wintervale’s room. Paired portals, unless specifically allowed, did not work inside a no-vaulting zone. When one was inside and the other out, however, they were sometimes overlooked by a first-iteration no-vaulting zone, especially one that covered such a huge area.

  She opened the wardrobe, pushed Wintervale’s coats aside, squeezed in. and closed the door. But when she opened the door again, she was still in Wintervale’s room at Mrs. Dawlish’s.

  Her fingertips shook.

  Unless . . . unless the portal had a password. Most didn’t: the magic undergirding portals and that which governed the use of passwords were not terribly compatible. But the prince had definitely used one for the bathtub portals connecting the castle to the monastery.

  But how was she to find out the password now? The prince was out of reach. And were she to set out to search for Wintervale, there was every chance she’d be seen and brought to the Inquisitor before she could come back and use the portal.

  She perspired—it was dark and stuffy inside the wardrobe. Her lungs felt as if they were about to collapse. Her hands, braced on either side of her person, barely kept her upright.

  Like a bright flare at night, the Oracle’s counsel came to her. You will best help him by seeking aid from the faithful and bold. She’d thought of those words daily, and never had they made any sense.

  Now they did.

  “Fidus et audax,” she said, Latin for “faithful and bold.”

  And this time, when she opened the door of the wardrobe, she was in Wintervale’s house in London.

  Iolanthe stepped down. The dark-blue wallpaper and the rich Oriental carpet both looked unfamiliar—she’d remembered very little of the decor. The space behind the wardrobe, where the prince had shoved her when Wintervale came at his mother’s summons, was tiny. She and the prince must have been pressed together like a pair of shirts going through a clothes wringer.

  But the window and its deep ledge looked exactly right—except she’d thought it faced the street, when in fact it overlooked a small garden in the rear of the house.

  The corridor outside was thickly carpeted, the walls covered in a pale-gold silk. There were several other bedrooms on the floor, but they were all empty.

  “Lee, is that you?” came a feminine voice behind her. “What is the matter? Why are you home?”

  The madwoman. Wintervale kept insisting she was only sometimes mad. Iolanthe prayed that today was one of her more lucid days.

  She slowly turned around, her hands held up, palms out. Wintervale’s mother was in another tightly cinched English dress. And for all that she’d spent the spring in a spa town, she did not appear rejuvenated: her eyes were sunken, her cheeks hollow, her skin as thin and fragile as eggshells.

  The moment she realized it was not her son standing before her, however, her gaze turned feral. She pointed her wand at Iolanthe. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “I am the one you swore a blood oath to protect, from the moment you saw me” Iolanthe pushed the words past her rapidly closing throat. “Last time I was here, you tried to kill me. This time, you will help me.”

  The corner of the madwoman’s eye twitched. “I said I was asked to swear a blood oath.” She laughed softly, the sound of nightmares. “I never said I did.”

  Titus prayed.

  He had meant for her to flee, and judging by what Cooper said, she had run for it. But had she gone far enough? He wanted her halfway around the world by the time the Inquisitor broke him.

  The Inquisitor would break him. For all her days in a coma, she seemed to be haler than ever. Her eyes were sharp, her complexion glowing, her attention as focused as a beam of light that had passed through a magnifying glass.

  Mrs. Hancock arrived with the staff from Mrs. Dawlish’s house: cooks, maids, laundresses, and charwomen. Much to the complaints of those standing in the queue, they leapfrogged to the head of the line.

  The Inquisitor leaned forward with anticipation.

  Of course a girl living in Mrs. Dawlish’s house was going to be subject to more suspicion than a boy. And several of the maids and laundresses were about the right age.

  It so happened that a kitchen maid had the day off to visit a sick sister in London. The Inquisitor was displeased. “We asked for all the members of the staff to be accounted for.”

  “They were as of last evening, Madam Inquisitor,” said Mrs. Hancock calmly. “But the girl received a telegram early this morning, and Mrs. Dawlish, my superior, gave her leave without first consulting me. Rest assured she will return in good time.”

  Mrs. Hancock herded Mrs. Dawlish’s staff away. Cooper shouted, “There he comes, our Fairfax, fresh from the powder room, as promised.”

  What? Titus felt as if he had been whipped. Why?

  From the edge of the crowd, Fairfax made her jaunty way toward him, head held high, hat set at a dashing angle, whistling.

  Whistling. Had she lost her mind? Run, you fool. And do not look back.

  Guilt overwhelmed him: she had come because of the blood oath. There could be no other explanation. He prayed again—desperate, jumbled prayers—for the multitudes to close ranks and keep her out. Instead, she sliced effortlessly through the horde, like a clipper on an open ocean.

  You are the stupidest girl in the world.

  Mrs. Oakbluff stared at her. Haywood stared at her. The Inquisitor stared at them. The least twitch of recognition . . .

  She continued to advance, prettier than all the silk-clad sisters. It was a wonder she had managed to pass herself off as a boy for so long; she would not fool them another minute.

  Perhaps she did not intend to. Perhaps she meant to pit her powers against the Inquisitor’s here and now. She would not stand a chance. Among the Inquisitor’s minions were battle-hardened elemental mages with far greater experience than she.

  She only stopped when she reached Greencomb the secretary. A second later Greencomb announced, “Mr. Archer Fairfax.”

  Fairfax stepped before her greatest enemies and bowed.

  Titus’s disbelief reached an excruciating peak. How was it possible that she had not yet been yanked away? What was going on? Yet he dared not glance at either Oakbluff or Haywood, for fear of giving himself away.

  “I understand you are His Highness’s faithful companion, Mr. Fairfax,” said Lady Callista.

  She had already smiled long and hard this day. Her expression had become stiff, and tinged with fatigue.

  “I am a frequent beneficiary of His Highness’s largesse,” said Fairfax. “It seems only fitting that when he requires companionship, I am there to provide it.”

  Lady Callista’s eyes widened ever so slightly at Fairfax’s neutral statement on their friendship.

  Fairfax bowed again and prepared to yield her place to the next person in line.

  “Who are your parents?” asked the Inquisitor, who had not spoken to any of the boys presented so far.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Roland Fairfax of Bechuanaland, ma’am.”

  “Where in Bechuanaland, precisely?”

  “A hundred twenty miles outside Kuruman. Have you been to Bechuanaland, ma’am?”

  “No,” said the Inquisitor. “But should the opportunity arise, I will be sure to call on your parents.”

  Titus felt as if a giant spider was crawling down his spine. If the Inquisitor were to mount a personal investigation, then Titus’s thin veil of deceptio
n would not stand a chance.

  Fairfax’s sangfroid did not falter. “They will be honored to receive you, ma’am.”

  “We shall see,” said the Inquisitor.

  Fairfax bowed one more time and walked away.

  Safe for now.

  As Iolanthe left, she dared a glance in Master Haywood’s direction. He looked dazed and exhausted, and it took everything in her not to throw the scene into chaos and make away with him.

  Mrs. Dawlish’s house was deserted. But Wintervale’s mother was in his room, standing before his desk, writing something.

  It had been a frozen moment of horror in Wintervale’s house as Iolanthe realized her mistake. Then Wintervale’s mother had said, I won’t try to murder you again. What help do you need?

  Iolanthe had been stunned. But there had been no time to ask questions. She’d hurriedly explained her needs, brought Wintervale’s mother to Mrs. Dawlish’s house, and sent her off with a description of the two mages at whom she should aim a barrage of invalidating spells, so that as Iolanthe stood before Master Haywood and Mrs. Nettle, they would neither be able to access old memories, nor gain new ones while under the spell.

  She knocked very softly. Wintervale’s mother turned around. “It’s you.”

  “Thank you for helping me,” Iolanthe said. And please don’t lose your sanity now.

  “I had better go,” said the not-quite-so-mad woman. “Forgive me. And please do not mind what I said earlier—his choices are not your fault.”

  “Whose choices?”

  But Wintervale’s mother was already stepping into the wardrobe, a piece of paper in hand. When Iolanthe opened the wardrobe again, it was empty except for a note on the inside of the door.

  Dear Lee, I am blocking this portal for now, until I find a more secure means for you to access the house. Love, Mother.

  As it turned out, Fairfax was not the last boy from Mrs. Dawlish’s house to be brought before the Inquisitor, nor the second to last. A junior boy had slipped away to buy tobacco in town. A boy in his final year was found in a compromising position with a maid in the headmaster’s household—and dragged back for his inspection.

  But even after all the boys had been accounted for, the wait continued as the absent kitchen maid remained absent. Lady Callista had come prepared with snow-white linen and a picnic grand enough for a state banquet. Titus touched nothing, not even a drop of water.