A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  “I never wanted to leave,” he said. “And if I’d known Rhy loved me then as much as I love him, I would never have stayed away.”

  They stood surrounded by the sea spray and the crack of sails.

  For a long minute, neither spoke.

  At last, Kell sighed. “I still can’t stand you.”

  Alucard laughed with relief. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “The feeling’s mutual.”

  With that, the captain left the Antari and made his way to his thief. Lenos had left her standing alone at the rail, and she was now using her blade to scrape dirt from beneath her nails, gaze trained on something distant.

  “Coin for your thoughts, Bard.”

  She glanced his way, and a smile touched the corner of her mouth.

  “I never thought we’d never share a deck again.”

  “Well, the world is full of surprises. And shadow kings. And curses. Coffee?” Alucard asked, offering the cup. She took one look at the brown sludge and said, “I’ll pass.”

  “Don’t know what you’re missing, Bard.”

  “Oh, I do. I made the mistake of trying some this morning.”

  Alucard made a sour face and tipped the rest of the drink out over the side. Ilo was making the Spire’s usual cook look like a palace chef. “I need a real meal.”

  “I’m sorry,” teased Lila, “when did someone exchange my stalwart captain for a whining noble?”

  “When did someone exchange my best thief for a thorn in the ass?”

  “Ah,” she said, “but I’ve always been one of those.”

  Lila tipped her face toward the sun. Her hair was getting long, the dark strands brushing her shoulders, her glass eye winking in the crisp winter light.

  “You love the sea,” he said.

  “Don’t you?”

  Alucard’s hand tightened on the rail. “I love pieces of it. The air on the open water, the energy of a crew working together, the chance for adventure and all that. But…” He sensed her attention sharpening, and stopped. For months they’d walked a careful line between outright lie and truth by omission, caught in a stalemate, neither willing to tip their hand. They’d doled out truths like precious currency, and only ever in trade.

  Just now, he’d almost gone and told her something for free.

  “But?” she prodded with a thief’s light touch.

  “Do you ever get tired of running, Bard?”

  She cocked her head. “No.”

  Alucard’s gaze went to the horizon. “Then you haven’t left enough behind.”

  A chill breeze cut through, and Lila crossed her arms on the rail and looked down at the water below. She frowned. “What is that?”

  Something bobbed on the surface, a piece of driftwood. And then another. And another. The boards floated past in broken shards, the edges burned. An unpleasant chill went through Alucard.

  The Ghost was sailing through the remains of a ship.

  “That,” said Alucard, “is the work of Sea Serpents.”

  Lila’s eyes widened. “Please tell me you’re talking about mercenaries and not giant ship-eating snakes.”

  Alucard raised a brow. “Giant ship-eating snakes? Really?”

  “What?” she challenged. “How am I supposed to know where to draw the line in this world?”

  “You can draw it well before giant ship-eating snakes.… You see this, Jasta?” he called.

  The captain squinted in the direction he was pointing. “I see it. Looks maybe a week old.”

  “Not old enough,” muttered Alucard.

  “You wanted the fastest route,” she called, turning back to the wheel as a large piece of hull floated past, part of the name still painted on its side.

  “So what are they, then,” asked Lila, “these Sea Serpents?”

  “Swords for hire. They sink their own ships right before they attack.”

  “As a distraction?” asked Lila.

  He shook his head. “A message. That they won’t be needing them anymore, that once they’re done killing everyone aboard and dumping the bodies in the sea, they’ll take their victims’ boat instead and sail away.”

  “Huh,” said Lila.

  “Exactly.”

  “Seems like a waste of a perfectly good ship.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Only you would mourn the vessel instead of the sailors.”

  “Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “the ship certainly didn’t do anything wrong. The people might have deserved it.”

  II

  When Kell was young and couldn’t sleep, he’d taken to wandering the palace.

  The simple act of walking steadied something in him, calmed his nerves and stilled his thoughts. He’d lose track of time, but also space, look up and find himself in a strange part of the palace with no memory of getting there, his attention turned inward instead of out.

  He couldn’t get nearly as lost on the Ghost—the whole of the ship was roughly the size of Rhy’s chambers—but he was still surprised when he looked up and realized he was standing outside Holland’s makeshift cell.

  The old man, Ilo, was propped in a chair in the doorway, silently whittling a piece of black wood into the shape of a ship by feel alone, and doing a rather decent job. He seemed lost in his task, the way Kell had been moment before, but now Ilo rose, sensing his presence and reading in it a silent dismissal. He left the small wooden carving behind on the chair. Kell glanced into the small room, expecting to see Holland staring back, and frowned.

  Holland was sitting on the cot with his back to the wall, his head resting on his drawn-up knees. One hand was cuffed to the wall, the chain hanging like a leash. His skin had taken on a greyish pallor—the sea clearly wasn’t agreeing with him—and his black hair, Kell realized, was streaked with new bright silver, as if shedding Osaron had cost him something vital.

  But what surprised Kell most was the simple fact that Holland was asleep.

  Kell had never seen Holland lower his guard, never seen him relaxed, let alone unconscious. And yet, he wasn’t entirely still. The muscles in the other Antari’s arms twitched, his breath hitching, as though he were trapped in a bad dream.

  Kell held his breath as he lifted the chair out of the way and stepped into the room.

  Holland didn’t stir when Kell neared, nor when he knelt in front of the bed.

  “Holland?” said Kell quietly, but the man didn’t shift.

  It wasn’t until Kell’s hand touched Holland’s arm that the man woke. His head snapped up and he pulled suddenly away, or tried to, his shoulders hitting the cabin wall. For a moment his gaze was wide and empty, his body coiled, his mind somewhere else. It lasted only a second, but in that sliver of time, Kell saw fear. A deep, trained fear, the kind beaten into animals who’d once bitten their masters, Holland’s careful composure slipping to reveal the tension beneath. And then he blinked, once, twice, eyes focusing.

  “Kell.” He exhaled sharply, his posture shifting back into a mimicry of calm, control, as he wrestled with whatever demons haunted his sleep. “Vos och?” he demanded brusquely in his own tongue. What is it?

  Kell resisted the urge to retreat under the man’s glare. They’d hardly spoken since he had arrived in front of Holland’s cell and told him to get up. Now he said only, “You look ill.”

  Holland’s dark hair was plastered to his face with sweat, his eyes feverish. “Worried for my health?” he said hoarsely. “How touching.” He began to fiddle absently with the manacle around his wrist. Beneath the iron, his skin looked red, raw, and before Kell had fully decided, he was reaching for the metal.

  Holland stilled. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” said Kell, producing the key. His fingers closed around the cuff, and the cold metal with its strange numbing weight made him think of White London, of the collar and the cage and his own voice screaming—

  The chains fell away, manacle hitting the floor hard and heavy enough to mark the wood.

  Holland stared down a
t his skin, at the place where the metal cuff had been. He flexed his fingers. “Is that a good idea?”

  “I suppose we’ll see,” said Kell, retreating to sit in the chair against the opposite wall. He kept his guard up, hand hovering over a blade even now, but Holland made no motion to attack, only rubbed his wrist thoughtfully.

  “It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it?” said Kell. “The king had me arrested. I spent some time in that cell. In those chains.”

  Holland raised a single dark brow. “How long did you spend in chains, Kell?” he asked, voice dripping with scorn. “Was it a few hours, or an entire day?”

  Kell went silent, and Holland shook his head ruefully, a mocking sound caught in his throat. The Ghost must have caught a wave, because it rocked, and Holland paled. “Why am I on this ship?” When Kell didn’t answer, he went on. “Or perhaps the better question is, why are you on this ship?”

  Kell still said nothing. Knowledge was a weapon, and he had no intention of arming Holland, not yet. He expected the other magician to press the issue, but instead he settled back, face tipped to the open window.

  “If you listen, you can hear the sea. And the ship. And the people on it.” Kell tensed, but Holland continued. “That Hastra, he has the kind of voice that carries. The captains, too, both of them like to talk. A black market, a container for magic … it won’t be long before I’ve pieced it all together.”

  So he wasn’t dropping it.

  “Enjoy the challenge,” said Kell, wondering why he was still there, why he’d come in the first place.

  “If you’re planning an attack against Osaron, then let me help.” The other Antari’s voice had changed, and it took Kell a moment to realize what he heard threaded through it. Passion. Anger. Holland’s voice had always been as smooth and steady as a rock. Now, it had fissures.

  “Help requires trust,” said Kell.

  “Hardly,” countered Holland. “Only mutual interest.” His gaze burned through Kell. “Why did you bring me?” he asked again.

  “I brought you along so you wouldn’t cause trouble in the palace. And I brought you as bait, in the hopes that Osaron would follow us.” It was a partial truth, but the telling of it and the look in Holland’s eyes loosened something in Kell. He relented. “That container you heard about—it’s called an Inheritor. And we’re going to use it to contain Osaron.”

  “How?” demanded Holland, not incredulous, but intense.

  “It’s a receptacle for power,” explained Kell. “Magicians used them once to pass on the entirety of their magic by transferring it into a container.”

  Holland went quiet, but his eyes were still fever bright. After a long moment he spoke again, his voice low, composed. “If you want me to use this Inheritor—”

  “That isn’t why I brought you,” cut in Kell, too fast, unsure if Holland’s guess was too far from or too close to the truth. He’d already considered the dilemma—in fact, had tried to think of nothing else since leaving London. The Inheritor required a sacrifice. It would be one of them. It had to be. But he didn’t trust it to be Holland, who’d fallen once before, and he didn’t want it to be Lila, who didn’t fear anything, even when she should, and he knew Osaron had his sights set on him, but he had Rhy, and Holland had no one, and Lila had lived without power, and he would rather die than lose his brother, himself … and around and around it went in his head.

  “Kell,” said Holland sternly. “I own my shadows, and Osaron is one of them.”

  “As Vitari was mine,” replied Kell.

  Where does it start?

  He got to his feet before he could say more, before he seriously began to entertain the notion. “We can argue over noble sacrifices when we have the device in hand. In the meantime…” He nodded at Holland’s chains. “Enjoy the taste of freedom. I’d give you leave to walk the ship, but—”

  “Between Delilah and Jasta, I wouldn’t make it far.” Holland rubbed his wrists again. Flexed his fingers. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. At last he crossed his arms loosely over his chest, mimicking Kell’s own stance. Holland closed his eyes, but Kell could tell he wasn’t resting. His guard was up, his hackles raised.

  “Who were they?” Kell asked softly.

  Holland blinked. “What?”

  “The three people you killed before the Danes.”

  Tension rippled through the air. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It mattered enough for you to keep track,” said Kell.

  But Holland’s face had retreated back behind its mask of indifference, and the room filled with silence until it drowned them both.

  III

  Vortalis had always wanted to be king—not the someday king, he told Holland, but the now king. He didn’t care about the stories. Didn’t buy into the legends. But he knew the city needed order. Needed strength. Needed a leader.

  “Everyone wants to be king,” said Vortalis.

  “Not me,” said Holland.

  “Well, then you’re either a liar or a fool.”

  They were sitting in a booth at the Scorched Bone. The kind of place where men could talk of regicide without raising any brows. Now and then the attention drifted toward them, but Holland knew it had less to do with the topic and more to do with his left eye and Vortalis’s knives.

  “A pretty pair we make,” the man had said when they first entered the tavern. “The Antari and the Hunter. Sounds like one of those tales you love,” he’d added, pouring the first round of drinks.

  “London has a king,” said Holland now.

  “London always has a king,” countered Vortalis. “Or queen. And how long has that ruler been a tyrant?”

  They both knew there was only one way the throne changed hands—by force. A ruler wore the crown as long as they could keep it on their head. And that meant every king or queen had been a killer first. Power required corruption, and corruption rewarded power. The people who ended up on that throne had always paved the way with blood.

  “It takes a tyrant,” said Holland.

  “But it doesn’t have to,” argued Vortalis. “You could be my might, my knight, my power, and I could be the law, the right, the order, and together, we could more than take this throne,” he said, setting down his cup. “We could hold it.”

  He was a gifted orator, Holland would give him that. The kind of man who stoked passion the way an iron did coals. They had called him the Hunter, but the longer Holland was in his presence, the more he thought of him as the Bellows—he’d told him once, and the man had chuckled, said he was indeed full of air.

  There was an undeniable charm about the man, not merely the youthful airs of one who hadn’t seen the worst the world has to offer, but the blaze of someone who managed to believe in change, in spite of it.

  When Vortalis spoke to Holland, he always met both eyes, and in that flecked gaze, Holland felt like he was being seen.

  “You know what happened to the last Antari?” Vortalis was saying now, leaning forward into Holland’s space. “I do. I was there in the castle when Queen Stol cut his throat and bathed in his blood.”

  “What were you doing in the castle?” wondered Holland.

  Vortalis gave him a long, hard look. “That’s what you take away from my story?” He shook his head. “Look, our world needs every drop of magic, and we’ve got kings and queens spilling it like water so they can have a taste of power, or maybe just so it can’t rise against them. We got where we are because of fear. Fear of Black London, fear of magic that wasn’t ours to control, but that’s no way forward, only down. I could have killed you—”

  “You could have tried—”

  “But the world needs power. And men who aren’t afraid of it. Think what London could do with a leader like that,” said Vortalis. “A king who cared about his people.”

  Holland ran a finger around the rim of his glass, the ale itself untouched, while the other man drained his second cup. “So you want to kill our current king.”

  Vorta
lis leaned forward. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  It was a valid question.

  Gorst—a mountain of a man who’d carved his way to the throne with an army at his back and turned the castle into a fortress, the city into a slum. His men rode the streets, taking everything they could, everything they wanted, in the name of a king who pretended to care, who claimed he could resurrect the city even while he drained it dry.

  And every week, King Gorst opened throats in the blood square, a tithe to the dying world, as if that sacrifice—a sacrifice that wasn’t even his—could set the world to rights. As if the spilling of their blood was proof of his devotion to his cause.

  How many days had Holland stood at the edge of that square, and watched, and thought of cutting Gorst’s throat? Of offering him back to the hungry earth?

  Vortalis was giving him a weighted look, and Holland understood. “You want me to kill Gorst.” The other man smiled. “Why not kill him yourself?”

  Vortalis had no problem killing—he hadn’t earned his nickname by abstaining from violence—and he was really very good at it. But only a fool walked into a fight without his sharpest knives, Vortalis explained, leaning closer, and Holland was uniquely suited to the task. “I know you’re not fond of the practice,” he’d added. “But there’s a difference between killing for purpose and killing for sport, and wise men know that some must fall so others can rise.”