Spark

by Anna Holmes

Tressa looks at me a moment, tapping a finger to her chin. “Yeah, it is. But typically what I’m meant to do when someone tells me so is to thank them for noticing and therefore reassure them that they’re not behaving like the people perpetrating the bullshit. I’m guessing you didn’t mean to insinuate that.”

  “No. Gods, I’m—"

  She holds up her hand again. “It’s fine. I don’t want an apology. I just…want to do my job.”

  I hop up backwards onto Morris’ desk, not even feeling slightly guilty about setting my backside on his workspace. “Right, then. Just…if there’s something I can do….”

  Tressa lifts her eyes and smiles. “That? I’ll thank you for. But I know how this goes, yeah? They’ll look at you or Riley and salute and just be sure to keep it quiet next time.”

  “Is that better or worse?”

  “I don’t really know,” she sighs. “On the one hand, I don’t have to hear it. On the other, they’re still thinking it, and with interest, since they’ve been taken to task for it now. Either way I get to hope that they grow out of being an asshole.” My face screws up, and she smiles again. “Yeah. I know. Bullshit.”

  I glance around the room at my advisors’ empty desks. “I really wish it were possible to drag people out of their own bullshit whether they like it or not.”

  “You and me both, Highness.” She tilts her head to the side, her braid hanging down in front of her bowstring. “Out of curiosity—what would you do?”

  “Well, it’d involve some decidedly not regal language.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Oh, not that. Do that thing where you just look at them and make them feel bad for existing in the same space as you.”

  “Oh, the ‘you’ve disappointed me by continuing to breathe’ face? I learned that from my mother.”

  Tressa grins. “That’s the one. Do that.”

  “On your signal, Sergeant, my displeasure will be made known.” I pause. “And then I’ll probably ream them, because my mother never did manage to teach me the quiet disapproval part.”

  “Hmm. A shame.”

  “Not for lack of trying.” I lean my elbows on the padding of my breeches. “I’m sorry that I didn’t know this was happening.”

  Tressa blinks a few times. “You’re joking, right? You’ve got a thousand other things sometimes literally screaming for your attention.”

  I shake my head. “And it is my distinct pleasure to shut them up so I can hear what’s on with you.” I lace my fingers together. Gods, it’s been at least weeks since we’ve talked for any length of time about anything other than running the country things. “What is on with you? Besides the bullshit.”

  “Oh, not much. Tracked some people, arrested some of those. While I have you, I should tell you about what I found last night.”

  “Tressa,” I wheedle. “I want to hear about you.”

  She laughs. “That is me, Highness. I track people and I arrest them.”

  “And you sew.”

  “Well, yeah, from time to time.”

  “And you cook!”

  “Haven’t done much of that lately,” she says.

  “Well, what have you done?”

  “Tracked people and arrested them, and occasionally, squeezed in reports about doing that.”

  “That’s appalling,” I say. “Not a break to be had?”

  “And what have you been up to?” When I don’t answer, she crosses her arms with a knowing smile. “That’s what I thought.”

  “All right, fair point. So tell me about the people you’ve tracked.”

  “Some brigands. Kai’s trail ran cold somewhere near the Murk. Crow’s been beating an odd path across the whole of the island, but not recently. That masked woman last night—very little luck with her, unfortunately.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Her footsteps ran out over that large bridge in the gardens. We combed the area for a good few hours, but the rain washed most everything away. I did manage to ascertain how she got up there, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Grappling hook. I don’t think anyone was expecting someone to climb three stories.”

  “We really should have learned, after Alain,” I muse. “Any hints on how she didn’t die after falling?”

  “Oh, yes,” she says, frowning deeper. “She didn’t fall. She swung. Dislodged a few vines on her way down, then crouched in an odd grate bucket thing about a story and a half up.”

  “The old mage cage?”

  “The what?”

  “The king before my grandfather was out of his gourd. Thought the best way to combat siege equipment would be to post casters literally on the walls. He had them build those on the leeward side of the castle, then grew those thorny trees to hide them. My aunts had all but the one removed.”

  “Why did that one stay?”

  “The story goes my dad asked them to keep it.” I say with a shrug. “Not sure why. He liked to say it was because we shouldn’t forget our mistakes, but secretly I think he just liked saying mage cage.”

  “Have you mentioned that to the prince?”

  “I haven’t. Honestly, I haven’t thought about the thing in…” I frown. “That’s so strange. Most people never even notice it, let alone incorporate that into some sort of plan.”

  Tressa taps her chin with a finger. “She seemed to be good at thinking on her feet. Found her doubling back a few times to avoid guards. I don’t think that she had the whole thing meticulously planned out.”

  “And what was it she wanted? She had a direct path to me and then just pissed off. All that work to climb up and she just left?”

  “Caelin, if trackers could ascertain motives from footprints, there’d be far fewer fugitives in the world. Riley’s got the current watches doubled. If she comes back, someone will spot her.”

  I nod absently, leaning forward on Morris’ desk. It groans a high protest under my weight, like a complaining kitten. For whatever reason, this only vaguely inappropriate noise in this hallowed chamber brings a small chuckle up from my chest. I lean forward again, longer this time, so the kitten sound is drawn out. Tressa rolls her eyes, but she smiles. “Very good, Your Highness.”

  I can’t help it. I outright giggle. This room has been the site of somber declarations and terse arguments long before mine. But it also brought about the mage cages and this griping baby cat disguised as a desk which of course belongs to my most difficult advisor, and I can’t help but feel a little fonder of it. Tressa pats my shoulder, moving to the door. “Take your own advice, Caelin. Take a break. Quit being the queen for a minute.”

  It's not exactly easy, quitting being the queen for a minute, but by the time I've gotten back up to my room, the tension between my shoulder blades tells me that it's absolutely necessary. I pause in front of my open wardrobe for a minute, reach in for a cloak, and do what I haven't done since Alain and I got back to this city. I pull my hood up and try to disappear.

  It's also not easy to do, partly thanks to the light that tries to escape from under it, partly because royal who sneaks around her own kingdom is now indelibly etched into the Elysian narrative. The outing was more than worth it, but I'm fairly certain it was my last with any sort of anonymity. Picking my way over the cobbled bridge to the University at dusk nets me more than a few stares, assorted bows, and more than one uneasy guard. I push out a breath and watch it coalesce into a cloud of fog in the air in front of me. Elyssian autumns are notoriously languorous. This one has felt like a blink. There's already ice creeping across the intricate panes of the University's windows, refracting a bit blue in the flickers of lamplight from the street below.

  Blue. My gut churns at the thought of it. Alain has looked progressively better each time I've seen him, but the tint still has yet to leave his skin. I pass through the almost-overgrown arches to the Arcanum, drawing curious looks from robed students. These are different from the stares in the upper town. These are bright people, aware of their uniqueness in the world. They're much les
s impressed with the rarity of a lightfolk or a queen when there are laws of nature to test. Their wondering is fleeting, quickly consumed by something more interesting than me. I prefer that.

  It's this absorption that allows me to slip into the back of Alain's classroom and lean against the wall. It’s relatively bare, save for chalkboards that are absolutely covered in Alain’s scribbles. I have to laugh a little. Narrative structure? Rising action, climax, denouement? Has he forgotten what he’s teaching? The students are out of their desks, clumped into small groups. Alain weaves his uneven way between them. He doesn't wear robes or a uniform like most of the other instructors. He's more comfortable in his own plain black pants and boots and the plain white shirt with the sleeves cuffed to the elbows. He looks good in his own clothes, and perhaps as comfortable as I've ever seen him in front of a class.

  He regards his students. “Consider carefully your position in this story,” he says. “We all believe ourselves the main character. This seems especially confirmed when will casting starts to emerge. It's a gift, we're told, one that precious few share.” He pauses and shakes his head. “That's only true on the surface. Every person the world over has the makings of a will caster. Emotion, reason, imagination, energy. That gift we're given? The tiniest break in the barrier between those qualities and magic. What you do with it, the stories you tell and how they're centered…that is what will determine your place in it all.” He lifts his eyes to me, masking a small smile. “Well. I suppose I've preached at you enough for this evening.” The students begin murmuring, shuffling, stuffing books and papers and pens into bags. He raises his voice slightly and holds up a worn book. “Chapters two through four of Parth's General Theory of Will Casting will be due for discussion next week including the questions at the end of chapter three.”

  I step off to the side as the students start shooting their way out of the classroom. Only a few even bother to glance my direction, one making an awkward, questioning bow as I make my way toward Alain. He folds his hands behind his back. “Your Stealthiness,” he says, his voice low. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  I let my hood drop as the door swings shut. “Tressa Nuthatch.”

  His mouth twitches. “We all owe a great many things to Tressa Nuthatch, whether we know it or not. What in specific should I note when I send her a thank you?”

  “She told me to get out of the castle.” I spread my hands and look around the empty classroom. “I'm out.”

  “So you are.” He limps over to the desk and begins to gather his books. I follow, watching. His hands still shake, but the blue to his skin is just a suggestion now. Good. “Though I'm not certain going from one ancient building to another counts as out.”

  “I agree. Let's have dinner.”

  He turns to me, books pressed to his chest. “Oh? And who will tonight's chaperone be?”

  I tug the books aside, leaning in close. Still a little warm—for him, anyway. “No one.”

  “No one? How did you manage to call Bannon off?”

  “Didn't tell him where I was going.”

  “Should you be doing that?”

  “No,” I answer, smiling. He grins back. “He'll thank me later when he didn't have to spend an evening listening to me call you pet names.”

  “You call me pet names?”

  “I do if he asks.” I take his free arm and wind it around mine. “Unless you'd like me to start?”

  He brushes his lips to the top of my head, letting the door swing shut behind us. “If you think you can keep up with my prodigious talent in the area.”

  “I haven't a chance.”

  Out of instinct or habit, he shies a little from my side once we reach the colonnades. I put my hand over his on my arm. “It's all right, dearest.”

  Alain pauses, looking at me for a moment, the chill wind playing with his wild black hair. He eases closer. “Yes, I suppose it is. It'll take some getting used to.”

  I kiss the peak of his shoulder. “Take all the time you need.” Gods know my court has taken entirely too much. It's taken much from both of us. I intend to make up as much as I can. Starting in this exact moment.

  Chapter Five

  Alain

  I had every intention of returning to the castle and collapsing, but this is better.

  I still catch Caelin's eyes snapping to me every time I pause for a breath, but bit by bit, she forgets. And I do, too. The weight of my fatigue is relegated to my leg for the moment, and even that seems to grow lighter the longer we’re out. She grasps both my hands and pulls me through the upper town, occasionally pausing to glance in shop windows or, in this case, pet an enormous brownish dog. I reach out for a nearby lamppost to steady myself and watch the aura around her brighten in time to the increasing ferocity of the dog’s wagging tail. Her hood’s still up, but there isn’t any dampening of this light. Not when there’s an animal to be loved. She glances back to me. “What?”

  I don’t bother suppressing my grin. “Could have sworn the sun set a half an hour ago. Didn’t know it came back out for dogs.”

  She takes a few more licks to the face and parts reluctantly from her new friend. “For particularly good ones, it might. He reminds me of my father’s bunch. There were always three or four underfoot. Or under my backside, in Beast’s case.”

  “You had a dog named Beast.”

  She tugs her gloves back on and takes my arm again. “There really was no better name. He was a huge, battle-scarred, one-eyed dog with wild tufts of black hair. Of course my father couldn’t say no.”

  “Was that the beginning of your obsession with riding monstrously large black creatures, or did Navigator just win you over with his abundant demonic charisma?”

  Caelin laughs brightly. She’s outshining the street lamps now, and if there were any unaware of her presence before, there are none now. Passersby bow to her, and they seem just a little brighter, too. “Have I really never told you how I got Navigator?”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “He was Kelvin’s. From the farm he ran—Riley’s mother’s farm. He was meant to be a work horse, if you can believe that.” She lets a glove trail along a couple of frost-chilled vines winding their way around the chocolate shop. “Unsurprisingly, he had other ideas. Six stablehands tried to attach a plow to him and he made a break for it. Everyone looked in the woods for a little while, but not very hard. Left him for the wolves.” A bit of her glow fades as she frowns.

  I nudge her. “You had other ideas?”

  She smiles a little, her mouth skewed slightly. “I did what I always do. Argue loudly and run off.”

  “That does sound like someone I know. And somehow, it usually ends up paying off.”

  “It did. I found him in a ravine, coaxed him out, brought him back full of righteous vindication. And they just tried the same thing with the same results. Kelvin decided that if he couldn’t have him, he might as well give him to me. Sometimes I think he felt the same about the country. Hoping one of the two would throw me.”

  I fumble for something to discuss that doesn’t involve politics or fainting or treasonous former advisors, and wind up pointing across the street and blurting out so very articulately, “Oh, it’s a clock store.”

  I’ve struck a vein of luck with my flailing. She seizes my hands again and yanks me over the slick cobblestones. “I love this shop! The old man here made all the clocks in the castle, and the enormous one at the university library—you’ve seen that one, haven’t you?”

  “I have.” I don’t mention that I saw it first in the days when the Legion had used it as a training ground. I don’t want the glow of her face to fade any further. She all but presses her face to the glass. I catch a hint of my reflection. I look downright dour next to her while she stoops to look at all the clock faces glinting back at her. Just for a few hours, I plead with the angular blue fellow staring back at me. I’ve pulled off charming for a good few banquets and even for a bit last night. I just need to borrow that for dinner.
Then I can collapse.

  She turns her head up toward me and beams. “Watch,” she commands.

  “What am I—?”

  The courtyard clock rings out, and in the same moment, the clock faces in the window spring to life. Little mechanical people, mechanical sheep, shifting stars and moons on metal rings, belligerent birds all tick along to a cacophony of chiming audible even from behind the glass. I stoop with some effort to watch.She bumps her shoulder into my arm. “It’s good, yeah?”

  “It’s intriguing,” I say, squinting, trying to follow the tiny pieces back to whatever mechanism moves them. I can’t find it.

  She laughs, throwing her head back. Her hood slips from it. “Leave it to you to use a big word when a ‘yeah’ would do.”

  I make a face back at her and pull her hood back up over her eyes. She settles it back on the crown of her head and watches all the activity subside, little doors shutting, chimes dying away. Caelin stands again and holds out her hands to me to help me back up, then settles my arm back in the crook of hers and glances around the lamplit street. “This is better, isn’t it?” she asks softly, her words coming out in little puffs of fog as she leans her head against my arm.

  I stop her, look furtively around. No guards, and the people don’t tend to pay us any mind until they see her head on, so I turn her at an odd angle to the shop, cradle the back of her head through her cloak with my hand and bow my head to give her a kiss. When I pull back, she yanks me close again. I may not be able to fully see straight by the time we’re done. I reach to the side of the building for support, then grin. “Yeah,” I say.

  “And that’s how we found out the webbing does in fact grow back,” I finish over the murmur of the other diners.

  “Oh, you didn’t,” Caelin gasps. We’re tucked in an alcove curtained off from everyone else, but she’s left it open just a crack. She likes to watch people.

  There was a time I’d thought it possessive—counting all the people her throne gives her rights to. I know well enough now that this is the result of a childhood spent mostly completely curtained off, then tucked away on some farm to be kept deliberately from other people. She sets her fork neatly on the edge of her plate and grabs up my right hand, holding it to the light. I laugh and put down my own fork. “I’m left-handed, love.”