A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he snapped, “but this is hardly the time for a lover’s—”

  Rhy silenced Kell with a look. The amber in his eyes was shot with red, and that’s when Kell noticed how pale the captain was, how still.

  For a second, he thought Alucard Emery was dead.

  Then the captain’s eyes drifted wearily open. Bruises stood out beneath them, giving him the gaunt look of a person who’d been ill for a very long time. And something was wrong with his skin. In the low cabin light, silver—not molten bright, but the dull shine of scarred flesh—ribboned at his wrists, his collar, his throat. It traced paths up his cheeks like tears, flashed at his temples. Threads of light that traced the paths where the blue of veins should be, had been.

  But there was no curse in his eyes.

  Alucard Emery had survived Osaron’s magic.

  He was alive—and when he spoke, he was still his infuriating self.

  “You could have knocked,” he said, but his voice was hoarse, his words weak, and Kell saw the darkness in Rhy’s expression—not the product of any spell, only fear. How bad had it gotten? How close had he been?

  “We have to go,” said Kell. “Can Emery stand, or…” His voice trailed off as his eyesight sharpened. Across the cabin, something had moved.

  A shape, piled on the captain’s bed, sat up.

  It was a girl. Dark hair fell around her face in sleep-messed waves, but it was her eyes that stilled him. They were not curse-darkened. They were nothing. They were empty.

  “Anisa?” started Alucard, struggling to get to his feet. The name stirred something in Kell. A memory of reading scrolls, tucked next to Rhy, in the Maresh library.

  Anisa Emery, twelfth in line to the throne, the third child of Reson, and Alucard’s younger sister.

  “Stay back,” ordered Kell, barring the captain’s path but keeping his gaze on the girl.

  Kell had seen death before, witnessed the moment when a person ceased to be a person and became simply a body, the flame of life extinguished, leaving only a shell. It was as much a feeling as a sight, the sense of missing.

  Staring at Anisa Emery, Kell had the horrible sense that he was already looking at a corpse.

  But corpses didn’t stand.

  And she did.

  The girl swung her legs out of bed, and when her bare feet hit the floor, the wooden boards began to petrify, color leaching out of the timber as it withered, decayed. Her heart glowed through her chest like a coal.

  When she tried to speak, no sound came out, only the crackling of embers, as the thing in her continued to burn.

  Kell knew that the girl was already gone.

  “Nis?” said her brother again, stepping toward her. “Can you hear me?”

  Kell caught the captain’s arm and hauled him back just as the girl’s fingers brushed Alucard’s sleeve. The fabric greyed under her touch. Kell shoved Alucard into Rhy’s arms and turned back toward Anisa, reaching out to hold her at bay with his will, and when that didn’t work—it wasn’t her will he was fighting, not anymore, but the will of a monster, a ghost, a self-made god—he bent the ship around them, wood peeling away from the cabin walls to bar her path. She was disappearing from them, board by board, and then suddenly Kell realized he was warring with a second will—Alucard’s.

  “Stop!” shouted the captain, struggling against Rhy’s grip. “We can’t leave her, I can’t leave her, not again—”

  Kell turned and punched Alucard Emery in the stomach.

  The captain doubled over, gasping, and Kell knelt before them, quickly drew a second circle on the cabin floor.

  “Rhy, now,” said Kell, and as soon as the prince’s hand met his shoulder, he said the words. The burning girl vanished, the cabin fell away, and they were back in Rhy’s room, crouched on the prince’s inlaid floors.

  Hastra wilted in relief at the sight of them, but Alucard was already fighting to his feet, Rhy straining to hold him back, murmuring “Solase, solase, solase” over and over.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

  Alucard grabbed Kell by the collar, eyes wide and desperate. “Take me back.”

  Kell shook his head. “There’s no one left on that ship.”

  “My sister—”

  He gripped Alucard’s shoulders hard. “Listen to me,” he said. “There’s no one left.”

  It must have finally registered, because the fight went out of Alucard Emery. He slumped back onto the nearest sofa, shaking.

  “Kell—” started Rhy.

  He rounded on his brother. “And you. You’re a fool, do you know that? After everything we’ve been through, you just walked outside? You could have been killed. You could have been poisoned. It’s a miracle you didn’t fall ill.”

  “No,” said Rhy slowly, “I don’t think it is.”

  Before Kell could stop him, the prince was at the balcony, unlatching the doors. Hastra surged forward, but it was too late. Rhy threw open the doors and stepped out into the fog, Kell reaching him just in time to see the shadows meet the prince’s skin—and pull away.

  Rhy reached toward the nearest one, and it recoiled from his touch.

  Kell did the same. Again, the tendrils of Osaron’s magic retreated.

  “My life is yours,” said Rhy softly, thoughtfully. “And yours is mine.” He looked up. “It makes sense.”

  Footsteps, and then Alucard was there beside them. Kell and Rhy both turned to stop him from stepping out, but the shadows were already pulling away.

  “You must be immune,” said Rhy.

  Alucard looked down at his hands, considering the scars that traced his veins. “And to think, all I had to give up were my good looks.”

  Rhy managed a ghost of a smile. “I rather like the silver.”

  Alucard raised a brow. “Do you? Maybe it will start a trend.”

  Kell rolled his eyes. “If you two are done,” he said, “we should show the king.”

  IX

  There were moments when Lila wondered how the hell she’d gotten here.

  Which steps—and missteps—she’d taken. A year ago she’d been a thief in another London. A month ago she’d been a pirate, sailing on the open seas. A week ago she’d been a magician in the Essen Tasch. And now she was this. Antari. Alone, and not alone. Severed, but not adrift. There were too many lives tangled up in hers. Too many people to care about, and once again, she didn’t know whether to stay or to run—but the choice would have to wait, because this city was dying and she wanted to save it. And maybe that was a sign she’d already chosen. For now.

  Lila looked around the Sanctuary cell, with nothing but its cot and the symbols on the floor. Lila had been here once before, a dying prince draped around her shoulders. The Sanctuary had seemed cold and remote even then, but it was colder now. The hall beyond, once quiet, sat deathly still, her breath the only motion in the air. Pale light burned in sconces along the walls with a steadiness she’d come to recognize as spelled. A gust tore through, strong enough to rustle her coat, but the wind barely stirred the torches. The priests were all gone, most taking refuge while holding up the wards at the palace, and the rest scattered through the city, lost in the fog. Strange, she thought, that they weren’t immune, but she supposed that being closer to magic wasn’t always a good thing. Not when magic played the devil as well as god.

  The Sanctuary’s silence felt unnatural—she’d spent years slipping through crowds, carving out privacy in tight quarters. Now, she moved alone through a place meant for dozens, hundreds, a church of sorts that felt wrong without its worshippers, without the soft and steady warmth of their combined magic.

  Only stillness, and the voice—voices?—beyond the building urging her to Come out, come out, or let me in.

  Lila shivered, unnerved, and began to sing beneath her breath as she made her way up the stairs.

  “How do you know that the Sarows is coming.…”

  At the top, the main hall, with its vaulting ceilings and stone pilla
rs, all of it carved from the same flecked stone. Between the columns sat large basins carved from smooth white wood, each brimming with water, flowers, or fine sand. Lila ran her fingers through the water as she walked by, an instinctive benediction, a buried memory from a childhood a world away.

  Her steps echoed in the cavernous space, and she cringed, shifting her stride back into that of a thief, soundless even on the stone. The hair bristled on the back of her neck as she crossed the hall and—

  A thud, like stone against wood. It came once, and then again, and again.

  Someone was knocking on the Sanctuary door.

  Lila stood there, uncertain what to do.

  “Alos mas en,” cried a voice. Let me in. Through the heavy wood, she couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman, but either way, they were making too much noise. She’d seen the riots in the streets, the mobs of shadow-eyed men and women attacking those who hadn’t fallen, those who tried to fight, drawn to their struggle like cats to mice. And she didn’t need them coming here.

  “Dammit,” she growled, storming toward the doors.

  They were locked, and she had to lean half her weight on the iron to make it move, knife between her teeth. When the bolt finally slid free and the Sanctuary doors fell open, a man scrambled in, falling to his knees on the stone floor.

  “Rensa tav, rensa tav,” he stammered breathlessly as Lila forced the doors shut again behind him and spit the blade back into her palm. She turned, bracing for a fight, but he was still kneeling there, head bowed, and apologizing to the floor.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” he said.

  “Probably not,” said Lila, “but you’re here now.”

  At the sound of her voice, the intruder’s head jerked up, his hood tumbling back to reveal a narrow face with wide eyes unspelled.

  Her knife fell back to her side. “Lenos?”

  The Spire’s second mate stared up at her. “Bard?”

  Lila half expected Lenos to scramble away in fear—he’d always treated her like an open flame, something that might burn him at any moment if he got too close—but his face was merely a mask of shock. Shock, and gratitude. He let out a sob of relief, and didn’t even recoil when she hauled him to his feet, though he stared at the place where their hands met even as he said, “Tas ira…”

  Your eye.

  “It’s been a long night.…” Lila glanced at the light streaming in through the windows. “Day. How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, head ticking side to side in his nervous way. “But when the bells rang, I thought that maybe one of the priests…”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Is the captain safe?”

  Lila hesitated. She hadn’t seen Alucard, not since marking his forehead, but before she could say as much, the knocking came again at the door. Lila and Lenos spun.

  “Let me in,” said a new voice.

  “Were you alone?” she whispered.

  Lenos nodded.

  “Let me in,” it continued, strangely steady.

  Lila and Lenos took a step away from the doors. They were solid, the bolts strong, the Sanctuary supposedly warded against dark magic, but she didn’t know how long any of that would hold without the priests.

  “Let’s go,” she said. Lila had a thief’s memory, and Tieren’s map unfolded in her mind in full detail, revealing the halls, the cells, the study. Lenos followed close at her heels, his lips moving soundlessly in some kind of prayer.

  He’d always been the religious one aboard the ship, praying at the first sign of bad weather, the start and end of every journey. She had no idea what or who he was praying to. The rest of the crew indulged him, but none of them seemed to put much stock in it, either. Lila assumed that magic was to people here what God was to Christians, and she’d never believed in God, but even if she had, she thought it pretty foolish to think He had time to lend a hand to every rocking ship. And yet …

  “Lenos,” she said slowly, “how are you all right?”

  He looked down at himself, as if he wasn’t entirely sure. Then he drew a talisman from beneath his shirt. Lila stiffened at the sight of it—the symbol on the front was badly worn, but it had the same curling edges as the sigil on the black stone, and looking at it gave her the same hot-and-cold feeling. In the very center of the talisman, trapped in a bead of glass, hung a single drop of blood.

  “My grandmother,” he explained, “Helina. She was—”

  “Antari,” cut in Lila.

  He nodded. “Magic doesn’t get passed on,” he said, “so her power’s never done me much good.” He looked down at the necklace. “Until now.” The knocking continued, growing softer as they walked. “The pendant was supposed to go to my older brother, Tanik, but he didn’t want it, said it was just a useless trinket, so it went to me.”

  “Perhaps the gods of magic favor you after all,” she said, scanning the halls to either side.

  “Perhaps,” said Lenos, half to himself.

  Lila took the second left and found herself at the doors to the library. They were closed.

  “Well,” she said, “you’re either lucky or blessed. Take your pick.”

  Lenos cracked a nervous smile. “Which would you choose?”

  Ear to the wood, she listened for signs of life. Nothing.

  “Me?” she said, pushing open the doors. “I’d choose clever.”

  The doors gave way onto rows of tables, books still open on top, pages rustling faintly in the drafty room.

  At the back of the library, beyond the final set of shelves, she found Tieren’s study. A towering pile of scrolls sat on the desk. Pots of ink and books lined the walls. A cabinet stood open, showing shelf after shelf of glass jars.

  “Watch the door,” she said, her fingers tripping over the tinctures and herbs as she squinted at the names, written in a kind of shorthand Arnesian she couldn’t read. She sniffed one that looked like it held oil before tipping the mouth of the bottle against the pad of her thumb.

  Tyger, Tyger, she sang to herself, stirring the power in her veins, unsheathing it the way she would a knife. She snapped her fingers, and a small flame burst to life in her hand. In its flickering light, Lila scanned the list of supplies, and got to work.

  * * *

  “I think that’s it,” she said, shouldering the canvas bag. Scrolls threatened to spill out, and vials clattered softly inside, bottles of blood and ink, herbs and sand and other things the names of which made no sense. In addition to Tieren’s list, she’d nicked a flask of something called “sleep sweet” and a tiny ampule marked “seer’s tea,” but she’d left the rest, feeling quite impressed with her restraint.

  Lenos stood by the doors, one hand against the wood, and she didn’t know if he needed support or was simply listening, the way a sailor sometimes did to a coming storm, not with sound but touch.

  “Someone is still knocking,” he said softly. “And I think there are more of them now.”

  Which meant they couldn’t go out, not the way they’d come, not without trouble. Lila stepped into the hall and looked around at the branching paths, summoning to mind the map and wishing she’d had time to study more than her own intended path. She snapped her fingers. Fire came to life in her palm, and she held her breath as the flame settled, then began to dance subtly. Lila took off, Lenos on her heels as she followed the draft.

  Behind them came the short sound of something rolling from a high shelf.

  Lila spun, fire flaring in her hand, in time see the stone orb shatter on the floor.

  She braced for an attack that never came. Instead, only a pair of familiar amethyst eyes caught the light.

  “Esa?”

  Alucard’s cat crept forward, hackles raised, but the moment she made toward it, the creature shied away, obviously spooked, and darted through the nearest open door. Lila swore under her breath. She thought of letting it go—she hated the cat, and she was pretty sure the feeling was mutual—but maybe it knew another
way out.

  Lila and Lenos followed the cat through one door and then a second, the rooms around them turning cold enough to frost. Beyond the third open door they found a kind of cloister, open to the morning air. A dozen arches led onto a garden, not groomed like the rest of the Sanctuary, but wild—a tangle of trees, some winter dead and others summer green. It reminded her of the palace courtyard where she’d found Rhy the day before, only without a shred of order. Flowers bloomed and vines snaked across the path, and beyond the garden—

  But beyond the garden, there was nothing.

  No arches. No doors. The cloisters faced the river, and somewhere beyond the wild foliage, the garden simply ended, dropping away into shadow.

  “Esa?” she called, but the cat had darted between hedges and was nowhere to be seen. Lila shivered and swore at the sudden, cutting cold. She was already turning back toward the doors, but she could see the question in Lenos’s eyes. The whole crew knew how much the stupid cat meant to Alucard. He’d once jokingly told her that it was a talisman he kept his heart inside, but he’d also confessed that Esa was a gift from his beloved younger sister. Maybe in a way, both were true.

  Lila swore and slung the satchel into Lenos’s arms. “Stay here.”

  She turned her collar up against the cold and stormed into the garden, stepping over wild vines and ducking low branches. It was probably some kind of metaphor for the chaos of the natural world—she could almost hear Tieren lecturing her on treading lightly as she drew her sharpest knife and hacked an obnoxious vine aside.

  “Here, Esa,” she called. She was halfway through the garden when she realized she could no longer see the path ahead. Or behind. It was as though she’d stepped out of London entirely, into a world made of nothing but mist.

  “Come back, kitty,” she muttered, reaching the garden’s edge, “or I swear to god I will throw you into the…” Lila trailed off. The garden ended abruptly in front of her, roots trailing onto a platform of pale stone. And at the platform’s edge, just as she’d thought, there was no wall, no barrier. Only a sheer drop into the black slick of the Isle below.

  “Haven’t you heard?”