Spark

by Anna Holmes

  “They were your friends.” This isn't so much bluffing. My heart is heavy, weighted by the knowledge that Caelin tortured herself with questions for years. She’d wondered how her father could have fallen when the only people who could have dined with him were family or friends so close they counted.

  “Yes. My friends. Who would drive the country I love into the ground by putting up resistance in a fight they could never win. I had to keep order.”

  I want to shout that no one asked him to, but now is of course the opportune moment to stumble and allow the Queen to capture one of my wrists. I feel metal clamp around it, feel my heart already thrashing faster. I fight through it. It’s clear that she and her daughter are cut from the same, much stronger than I am cloth. I don’t have much of a chance of fighting against her. So I think very hard about the second cuff, about keeping the latch from setting and cutting off my magic. And then I reach out for the Queen’s troubled mind. It’s in tumult. The waves upon waves of thoughts nearly overwhelm me. I won’t be able to trick her into anything complex, especially not with her knee pressing hard into my kidneys.

  So I simplify. I only need to convince her of one thing.

  Click, I think for us both.

  The pressure in my lower back eases and she releases my arms. I don’t even have a moment to look at her. The second she’s convinced she’s completed her directive, I summon that energy that’s been nagging at me to use it already and direct it at Thorn. His body is pulled back and pinned by a thin layer of electricity. Then I reach out with the unbound hand and find the well of energy he’s drawing from. I grit my teeth, and just as he did me, I use a tiny amount of my magic to force him to cast a spell. A big one.

  The entire hall erupts with light. When it’s dimmed, he sits panting against the wall, nearly depleted. I stand to face Thorn, one manacle swinging from my arm. He’s slumped, not quite unconscious, but close. I turn to the Queen. Her strings broken, she drops both swords to the ground with a clatter, her eyes hollow. She looks at me. “I—I didn’t want to do that.”

  “Run,” I tell her.

  “It won’t matter,” she answers, stricken. “He always finds me again. End it. Please.”

  She opens her shawl, baring her blue-ravaged neck. My throat tightens. Caelin invited me to kill her once, when I hated her more than anything. I couldn’t do that even then. I can’t do that to her mother now. “No. No, I won’t let him take you from her, too. She needs you.”

  Her face changes, fear and resolve chasing each other around her features. “I doubt that. She’s been to war.”

  “To which she wore your sword.”

  Her eyes close. After a span, she opens them again. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

  “After he’s dealt with, you can tell her yourself.”

  The Queen nods, though the slightly wistful look she gives the floor as she starts running feels familiar. She’s not giving herself over to hope. And she will have no cause to if I don’t handle Thorn. I turn and force him to his feet, leaning over this small and twisted man, if I should even call him that. “You are finished,” I tell him, my voice low. “Do you understand me?”

  He opens his eyes, looks directly into my face, and laughs, a deeply satisfied chuckle that makes me want to drop him to the ground. I don’t, because I have more questions for him. But dear gods, it’s tempting. “My most important work is already being carried on. By you, no less. My legacy is entrenched.”

  I clench my teeth, push the lightning a little bit tighter around his body. “I am nothing like you.”

  “Debatable. But even if it were true—I made you.”

  Suddenly, so much makes sense. The over-interest. The scrutiny. It wasn’t as a nosy boss or a curious observer. It was the culmination of an experiment. “So my mother has you to thank, then.”

  “Orillia was a talented student. She came to me with the proposition, and then again when you were starting to manifest your magic. I could hardly say no.”

  “I mean, you could’ve,” I say, eyeing the door. There have to be guards nearby. I can’t hold him here forever. “If you weren't a mad demon unconcerned with human life.”

  He laughs incredulously. “Human? No. You were never human. You’re much more than that. You are—magnificent.”

  For the first time since the lake, I feel cold. Utterly frozen on the inside. I stare at him, my mouth gaping like a fish, unable to form words. At last, I point a shaky hand in his direction. “You will pay for your crimes. All of them. I will see to it.”

  “And whom do you think they’ll believe? A man who has honorably served his country, been at the royal family’s side since birth, or an artificially enhanced enemy commander who has wormed his way into the Queen's confidence?”

  I turn my back on him without an answer and head for the door. Caelin will believe me. Telling her is another painful matter entirely.

  In the iced-over courtyard, it’s easy enough to find a pair of guards. Thorn, unfortunately, was correct— it’s difficult to convince them to detain the Head of the Arcanum. By the time we get back in there, he is, of course, gone, somehow slipped out of the lightning cage that’s still there. I curse, then turn to the guards. “He’s dangerous and needs to be found. I need to get to the Queen.”

  They look at each other sideways. They may as well debate out loud whether or not they can take orders from me. I don’t care if they do or not, but the second part of what I said is still true. I leave them to their pondering and run, through the arched hallways, crawling with vines, out into the streets of the upper town, and straight for the castle.

  My leg has been relatively calm since the infusion, like the pain has been shrouded, stifled. Now it complains loudly as I take the cobbled path through the garden to the forecourt. I grit my teeth and force my way through it. As I set foot on the drawbridge, the great alarm bell rings. I turn, see nothing behind me aside from townsfolk hurrying inside as they’re meant to when the bell sounds. Have the guards decided to believe me, or is something else going on?

  Either way, my course is unchanged. I turn and start running through the castle.

  I’m not even sure where I’m going. My only direction is to Caelin, and failing that, I suppose I could ask someone where she’s gone. The difficulty is that everyone here is rushing around in response to the warning bell, and I’m swimming up the river. I duck between servants and attaches and guards—so many guards—and try to think. Mother isn’t due to arrive for another hour. Caelin must be in conference.

  They’re going to hate this.

  The guards at the door of the cabinet chamber scuttle aside quickly, the same uncertainty on their faces as to whether to stop me, support me, or look behind me for what’s chasing me. I burst through the wide doors and into the cabinet room. My boots slide on the slick marble and I huff the fire out of my lungs as Caelin turns in surprise. “Alain? What’s wrong?”

  Where do I even start? “Elle,” I decide at last. “They took her. My mother is already in the city and she took her. Using your mother. Also, Professor Thorn—”

  Her advisors shift behind their desks. “My mother—she wouldn’t do that,” she says. Hidden in the statement is an unvoiced question, evident in the pallor of her face, her widened eyes. Would she?

  “Didn’t—didn’t have a choice,” I pant. “There’s something—in the poison that lets mages control her. And—”

  This gets the advisors alarmed, murmuring amongst themselves, drowning out me trying to tell Caelin which mage in particular. I move to start the spell, but before I can actualize it, a white-haired woman I know to be the Captain of the Guard speaks up. “Your Highness, the conditions in the city are unsafe. I suggest you repair to the the King’s Sanctum while the Guard handles the situation.”

  Caelin shakes her head. “I will receive Lieutenant Bannon's report and make my decision from there.”

  That’s a good point. Where is Bannon? I scan the room, my gaze eventually lighting on the large paned w
indows that look out over the upper town. In the distance, smoke curls up from a large stone building. I point. “What is that?”

  “The prison tower,” the Captain answers. “Supposedly the hardest to breach in the country.”

  The man with the gray beard, whose purpose I was never exactly clear on, growls under his breath. “No one was counting on a prisoner revolt, Moira. They’re meant to be kept to groups of three or four for that exact reason.”

  “I’m sure my men on the ground will be relieved to hear that,” she says darkly, looking to the window again with her arms folded.

  Caelin is dressed for diplomacy today, in a neutrally gold dress with no sword at her side. She seems at a bit of a loss without it, her fingers drumming on her hip. When the door behind us opens again and Bannon stalks in, she whirls. “Well?”

  “It’s not good. A small mercenary group from the outside penetrated the wall and most of the prisoners in the mage lockup got loose.” He tosses her her sword, the buckle jingling aggressively as she catches it. He catches sight of the manacle swinging from my wrist, then looks back to her. “I suppose at this point the ringleader shouldn't be a surprise.”

  “Jori,” I sigh. “I’ll deal with her.”

  Caelin shakes her head vehemently. “She wants you. Your mother wants you. You need to hide. Somewhere my mother wouldn’t think of.”

  The gray-haired woman looks worried. “Where would that be? Queen Aina was a prolific explorer in her health.”

  I have to admit I’m lost for ideas. The tunnels are out; Jori knows about those. Anywhere else I can think of the Queen would certainly know of. At last, Caelin lifts her head. “I have it. Alain, follow me. Riley—”

  “I’ve already dispatched Tressa and mage hunters to look for Crow. I’ll move on Kelvin and assign more hunters for the remainder of the escapees.”

  Oh, wonderful. I’m starting to wonder if there’s a mage in this city who doesn’t want one or both of us dead. The man who orchestrated Caelin’s false wedding to cement his own power is not above trying to kill her over its failure. Caelin nods and clasps his shoulders before grabbing me by the hand and hurrying from the room. I can hear the beginnings of objections from the cabinet, but she doesn’t wait. Once again, I’m off and running through the castle, across town. This time it takes a good bit of concentration not to stumble on my gelatinous, screaming leg. Midway across the courtyard Caelin straps her sword to her hip and throws my arm over her shoulder. “Where are we going?” I finally manage to pant.

  By now, most of the people have retreated indoors, shut curtains, hushed their conversations. The bell still calls out. Caelin assesses these things, then answers, “There are four doors in this city that can only be opened by my hand or hers, and only one about which she doesn't know."

  The green spires of the University library loom closer. We’re headed straight back from where I came. “Caelin, there’s something else you should know.”

  Somewhere in the distance, a loud boom shakes the city. She stops, braces me, then looks around. Nothing immediately apparent. I listen. Not a cryst release this time. “Come on,” she says, hoisting me higher.

  The redoubled speed wracks my leg and steals my breath and my voice. My brain wants to scream about Thorn, about what he’s done, but I can’t quite find my way around the pain to cast the spell. She throws open the massive wooden doors of the library and rushes me inside.

  I come here often, to the Great Study in the library, a vast chamber lined from floor to looming ceiling with shelves upon shelves of books. In the center are rows of aged tables where students usually hunch forward in their reading. Despite the familiarity and the urgency, I can’t help but be awed by the enormity of it. The ceiling, unattainable as it seems, is a deep blue, a silver moon and clouds and golden sun and stars rotating by clockwork to match the skies outside. Around the outside edges gold and copper rings and hands turn to form the enormous clock, big brother to all the little clocks in the shop window. It chimes on the hour now, deep, resonant tones echoing in the silence.

  And the books— leather of all colors and gold and silver around the bindings. I live in a study and we’re under attack, and still nothing tugs as hard as an unexplored book.

  Caelin brings me to the far western wall of the deserted room, right up to the great shelves, twice my height and then some. Her fingers trace a shelf at about eye level, then find a notch in one of them. “Here,” she breathes, then turns the corner sharply.

  I brace for impact, but none comes. We’ve passed through the shelf, or so it seems. The way that the shelves are set into the wall obscures that there is a small passage between them. I marvel. All this time and I’d never once noticed. No one would notice unless they were looking for it.

  I don’t have time to wonder long. We’re at the base of a set of stairs, and I have to brace again for every other excruciating, shooting electrifying step. By the time we’ve reached for the top, I have to spend every ounce of focus I have not to retch. She lets me breathe out the nausea for a moment, letting me collect myself.

  We’re in a loft high above the library. I can see over the massive shelf to the entire building. Before us is a wall with a gated door, bars like a jail cell, with a very old, very ornately worked, very magical doorknob. Caelin grasps it, and tendrils of white light snake out from the knob and up through the bars. The ancient lock opens with a click and a screech, and she ushers me past her into a room that very clearly has not been disturbed for a long time.

  I take a second, lean against a dust covered shelf and try to get my heart to stop thrashing around. “What is this place?”

  “It used to be storage for dangerous artifacts and antiquities.” She looks around. “I don’t think it’s been used since my aunts were queens. But the lock still works, and that’s the main thing.”

  Caelin keeps casting nervous glances over her shoulder into the mostly silent library, save for the sonorous ticking of that massive clock. Another loud boom, and her hand finds her sword. “I need to be out there.”

  “Caelin—”

  She grasps both sides of my face in her hands and bumps my forehead to hers. “Stay here. Stay safe. I love you.”

  She leaves me with a particularly forceful kiss that sinks my stomach like a stone in a lake. The gate bangs shut, reverberating in my chest. I try the knob. It may as well be an immovable part of the metal. I reach out through the bars as far as my arm can go and cry out, “Wait, please, Thorn is not who you think—”

  The only answer is my own plaintive echo. I turn to my storage room and slump my way to the floor, leaning my exhausted head against the bars.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Caelin

  Once I cross the threshold of the library, everything is silent. At first I think to blame the snow, but when I look to the city wall between the buildings, I still see arrows flying, shapes moving, the vague aura of spent magic. I should be hearing something. My own footsteps, at least. My heartbeat.

  The silence becomes oppressive, like it’s sucking the air away, too. Each step gets a little harder. I have to stop to take stock of my surroundings, confirm that the world isn’t whirling so fast I’m aware of its rotations.

  There’s no one immediately around me, with the fight still held up at the wall and everyone else fortifying the castle and the cathedral. As it should be, but with the silence and the desertion of the upper town, I’m starting to get a sinking in my stomach that makes me feel like I am the only person left here. I start to stumble back toward the library, toward Alain. I need to make sure he’s all right, find out what all this is.

  A hand grabs my arm, and I whirl, lifting my sword high. I’m lucky that I pull back at the last moment, because trembling in its path is the Professor. “Caelin,” he says, straightening as I lower my sword and breaking—somehow—that godsawful silence.

  I sheathe it quickly and grab him in a hug. “Oh, thank gods, Professor, it’s just you.”

  He pats my sho
ulder awkwardly, then separates from me. “You’re safe.”

  “For now,” I agree, tugging my buckler tauter against the slippery velvet of my skirt. "Professor, you should be evacuating with the rest of the town.”

  He gives me a lopsided smile. “It may surprise you, but I’m not a stranger to situations like this one.” His nose wrinkles, and he glances to the sliver of the airship just visible past the library’s dome. “Well, perhaps not precisely. It’s strange—ordinarily they’d have made their way inward by now, toward the castle.”

  “They’re not here for me,” I answer.

  He watches me a moment, then blinks in realization. “Oh—oh. Even so, wouldn’t they…?”

  “And he’s not home, either,” I say, adjusting the closure on my bracer again.

  He frowns deeply. “Your Highness, is that wise? The Sanctum is the safest place in the city.”

  “I’ve got him somewhere safer, though I’m sure he appreciates the concern.”

  Thorn’s eyes flick to the library briefly, and then he nods. “Well, then. Shall we to it?”

  I pause—just a moment, really. There’s something in that look, the same something that bothered me as he held my father’s book above the fireplace. But I don’t have long to think about it. From behind me sounds a crunch in the snow, then the pound of footsteps unattached to an owner. I draw my sword again, and Thorn frowns. He waves a hand, and just as she rounds the corner into the library, I catch the briefest of glimpses of Jori.

  I glance back at the Professor, and he holds out his arm as though he’s holding a door for me. I give an agitated, rushed curtsy, then dash in after Crow.

  She skids to a halt in the midst of the long tables, her abrupt stop shuffling some of the papers abandoned by the students on their way to the evacuation points. Her eye catches mine, and she smirks. Behind me, Professor Thorn jogs up, a little out of breath. Jori throws up a hand, and the massive library doors shut with a thunderous clang. He takes one look at her and smiles knowingly. “You’re talented,” he says. “I’ll give you that. But you’re all bravado.”