A Darker Shade of Magic

by Victoria Schwab

  After several long moments, the water gave a single ripple (it could have been caused by Kell yawning or the man gripping the counter) and then went still.

  Ned stared down at the board, veins bulging. His hand closed into a fist, and for a moment Kell worried he’d smash the little game, but his knuckles came down beside it, hard.

  “Oh well,” said Kell.

  “It’s rigged,” growled Ned.

  Kell lifted his head from his hand. “Is it?” he asked. He flexed his fingers a fraction, and the clod of earth rose from its groove and drifted casually into his palm. “Are you certain?” he added as a small gust caught up the sand and swirled it into the air, circling his wrist. “Maybe it is”—the water drew itself up into a drop and then turned to ice in his palm—“or maybe it’s not. …” he added as the oil caught fire in its groove.

  “Maybe …” said Kell as the piece of bone rose into the air, “… you simply lack any semblance of power.”

  Ned gaped at him as the five elements each performed their own small dance around Kell’s fingers. He could hear Rhy’s chiding: Show-off. And then, as casually as he’d willed the pieces up, he let them fall. The earth and ice hit their grooves with a thud and a clink while the sand settled soundlessly in its bowl and the flame dancing on the oil died. Only the bone was left, hovering in the air between them. Kell considered it, all the while feeling the weight of the Enthusiast’s hungry gaze.

  “How much for it?” he demanded.

  “Not for sale,” answered Kell, then corrected himself, “Not for you.”

  Ned shoved up from his stool and turned to go, but Kell wasn’t done with him yet.

  “If I brought you your dirt,” he said, “what would you give me for it?”

  He watched the Enthusiast freeze in his steps. “Name your price.”

  “My price?” Kell didn’t smuggle trinkets between worlds for the money. Money changed. What would he do with shillings in Red London? And pounds? He’d have better luck burning them than trying to buy anything with them in the White alleys. He supposed he could spend the money here, but what ever would he spend it on? No, Kell was playing a different game. “I don’t want your money,” he said. “I want something that matters. Something you don’t want to lose.”

  Ned nodded hastily. “Fine. Stay here and I’ll—”

  “Not tonight,” said Kell.

  “Then when?”

  Kell shrugged. “Within the month.”

  “You expect me to sit here and wait?”

  “I don’t expect you to do anything,” said Kell with a shrug. It was cruel, he knew, but he wanted to see how far the Enthusiast was willing to go. And if his resolve held firm and he were here next month, decided Kell, he would bring the man his bag of earth. “Run along now.”

  Ned’s mouth opened and closed, and then he huffed, and trudged off, nearly knocking into a small, bespectacled man on his way out.

  Kell plucked the bit of bone out of the air and returned it to its box as the bespectacled man approached the now-vacant stool.

  “What was that about?” he asked, taking the seat.

  “Nothing of bother,” said Kell.

  “Is that for me?” asked the man, nodding at the game box.

  Kell nodded and offered it to the Collector, who lifted it gingerly from his hand. He let the gentleman fiddle with it, then proceeded to show him how it worked. The Collector’s eyes widened. “Splendid, splendid.”

  And then the man dug into his pocket and withdrew a folded kerchief. It made a thud when he set it on the counter. Kell reached out and unwrapped the parcel to find a glimmering silver box with a miniature crank on the side.

  A music box. Kell smiled to himself.

  They had music in Red London, and music boxes, too, but most of theirs played by enchantment, not cog, and Kell was rather taken by the effort that went into the little machines. So much of the Grey world was clunky, but now and then its lack of magic led to ingenuity. Take its music boxes. A complex but elegant design. So many parts, so much work, all to create a little tune.

  “Do you need me to explain it to you?” asked the Collector.

  Kell shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “I have several.”

  The man’s brow knit. “Will it still do?”

  Kell nodded and began to fold the kerchief over the trinket to keep it safe.

  “Don’t you want to hear it?”

  Kell did, but not here in the dingy little tavern, where the sound could not be savored. Besides, it was time to go home.

  He left the Collector at the counter, tinkering with the child’s game—marveling at the way that neither the melted ice nor the sand spilled out of their grooves, no matter how he shook the box—and stepped out into the night. Kell made his way toward the Thames, listening to the sounds of the city around him, the nearby carriages and faraway cries, some in pleasure, some in pain (though they were still nothing compared to the screams that carried through White London). The river soon came into sight, a streak of black in the night as church bells rang out in the distance, eight of them in all.

  Time to go.

  He reached the brick wall of a shop that faced the water, and stopped in its shadow, pushing up his sleeve. His arm had started to ache from the first two cuts, but he drew out his knife and carved a third, touching his fingers first to the blood and then to the wall.

  One of the cords around his throat held a red lin, like the one King George had returned to him that afternoon, and he took hold of the coin and pressed it to the blood on the bricks.

  “Well, then,” he said. “Let’s go home.” He often found himself speaking to the magic. Not commanding, simply conversing. Magic was a living thing—that, everyone knew—but to Kell it felt like more, like a friend, like family. It was, after all, a part of him (much more than it was a part of most) and he couldn’t help feeling like it knew what he was saying, what he was feeling, not only when he summoned it, but always, in every heartbeat and every breath.

  He was, after all, Antari.

  And Antari could speak to blood. To life. To magic itself. The first and final element, the one that lived in all and was of none.

  He could feel the magic stir against his palm, the brick wall warming and cooling at the same time with it, and Kell hesitated, waiting to see if it would answer without being asked. But it held, waiting for him to give voice to his command. Elemental magic may speak any tongue, but Antari magic—true magic, blood magic—spoke one, and only one. Kell flexed his fingers on the wall.

  “As Travars,” he said. Travel.

  This time, the magic listened, and obeyed. The world rippled, and Kell stepped forward through the door and into darkness, shrugging off Grey London like a coat.

  II

  RED ROYAL

  I

  “Sanct!” announced Gen, throwing a card down onto the pile, faceup. On its front, a hooded figure with a bowed head held up a rune like a chalice, and in his chair, Gen grinned triumphantly.

  Parrish grimaced and threw his remaining cards facedown on the table. He could accuse Gen of cheating, but there was no point. Parrish himself had been cheating for the better part of an hour and still hadn’t won a single hand. He grumbled as he shoved his coins across the narrow table to the other guard’s towering pile. Gen gathered up the winnings and began to shuffle the deck. “Shall we go again?” he asked.

  “I’ll pass,” answered Parrish, shoving to his feet. A cloak—heavy panels of red and gold fanning like rays of sun—spilled over his armored shoulders as he stood, the layered metal plates of his chest piece and leg guards clanking as they slid into place.

  “Ir chas era,” said Gen, sliding from Royal into Arnesian. The common tongue.

  “I’m not bitter,” grumbled Parrish back. “I’m broke.”

  “Come on,” goaded Gen. “Third time’s the charm.”

  “I have to piss,” said Parrish, readjusting his short sword.

  “Then go piss.”

&n
bsp; Parrish hesitated, surveying the hall for signs of trouble. The hall was devoid of trouble—or any other forms of activity—but full of pretty things: royal portraits, trophies, tables (like the one they’d been playing on), and, at the hall’s end, a pair of ornate doors. Made of cherrywood, the doors were carved with the royal emblem of Arnes, the chalice and rising sun, the grooves filled with melted gold, and above the emblem, the threads of metallic light traced an R across the polished wood.

  The doors led to Prince Rhy’s private chambers, and Gen and Parrish, as part of Prince Rhy’s private guard, had been stationed outside of them.

  Parrish was fond of the prince. He was spoiled, of course, but so was every royal—or so Parrish assumed, having served only the one—but he was also good-natured and exceedingly lenient when it came to his guard (hell, he’d given Parrish the deck of cards himself, beautiful, gilded-edge things) and sometimes, after a night of drinking, would shed his Royal and its pretentions and converse with them in the common tongue (his Arnesian was flawless). If anything, Rhy seemed to feel guilty for the persistent presence of the guards, as if surely they had something better to do with their time than stand outside his door and be vigilant (and in truth, most nights it was more a matter of discretion than vigilance).

  The best nights were the ones when Prince Rhy and Master Kell set out into the city, and he and Gen were allowed to follow at a distance or relieved of their duties entirely and allowed to stay for company rather than protection (everyone knew that Kell could keep the prince safer than any of his guard). But Kell was still away—a fact that had put the ever-restless Rhy in a mood—and so the prince had withdrawn early to his chambers, and Parrish and Gen had taken up their watch, and Gen had robbed Parrish of most of his pocket money.

  Parrish scooped up his helmet from the table, and went to relieve himself; the sound of Gen counting his coins followed him out. Parrish took his time, feeling he was owed as much after losing so many lin, and when he finally ambled back to the prince’s hall, he was distressed to find it empty. Gen was nowhere to be seen. Parrish frowned; leniency went only so far. Gambling was one thing, but if the prince’s chambers were caught unguarded, their captain would be furious.

  The cards were still on the table, and Parrish began to clean them up when he heard a male voice in the prince’s chamber and stopped. It was not a strange thing to hear, in and of itself—Rhy was prone to entertaining and made little secret of his varied tastes, and it was hardly Parrish’s place to question his proclivities.

  But Parrish recognized the voice at once; it did not belong to one of Rhy’s pursuits. The words were English, but accented, the edges rougher than an Arnesian tongue.

  It was a voice like a shadow in the woods at night. Quiet and dark and cold.

  And it belonged to Holland. The Antari from afar.

  Parrish paled a little. He worshipped Master Kell—a fact Gen gave him grief for daily—but Holland terrified him. He didn’t know if it was the evenness in the man’s tone or his strangely faded appearance or his haunted eyes—one black, of course, the other a milky green. Or perhaps it was the way he seemed to be made more of water and stone than flesh and blood and soul. Whatever it was, the foreign Antari had always given Parrish the shivers.

  Some of the guards called him Hollow behind his back, but Parrish never dared.

  “What?” Gen would tease. “Not like he can hear you through the wall between worlds.”

  “You don’t know,” Parrish would whisper back. “Maybe he can.”

  And now Holland was in Rhy’s room. Was he supposed to be there? Who had let him in?

  Where was Gen? wondered Parrish as he took up his spot in front of the door. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but there was a narrow gap between the left side of the door and the right, and when he turned his head slightly, the conversation reached him through the crack.

  “Pardon my intrusion,” came Holland’s voice, steady and low.

  “It’s none at all,” answered Rhy casually. “But what business brings you to me instead of to my father?”

  “I have been to your father for business already,” said Holland. “I come to you for something else.”

  Parrish’s cheeks reddened at the seductiveness in Holland’s tone. Perhaps it would be better to abandon his post than listen in, but he held his ground, and heard Rhy slump back onto a cushioned seat.

  “And what’s that?” asked the prince, mirroring the flirtation.

  “It is nearly your birthday, is it not?”

  “It is nearly,” answered Rhy. “You should attend the celebrations, if your king and queen will spare you.”

  “They will not, I fear,” replied Holland. “But my king and queen are the reason I’ve come. They’ve bid me deliver a gift.”

  Parrish could hear Rhy hesitate. “Holland,” he said, the sound of cushions shifting as he sat forward, “you know the laws. I cannot take—”

  “I know the laws, young prince,” soothed Holland. “As to the gift, I picked it out here, in your own city, on my masters’ behalf.”

  There was a long pause, followed by the sound of Rhy standing. “Very well,” he said.

  Parrish heard the shuffle of a parcel being passed and opened.

  “What is it for?” asked the prince after another stretch of quiet.

  Holland made a sound, something between a smile and a laugh, neither of which Parrish had borne witness to before. “For strength,” he said.

  Rhy began to say something else, but at the same instant, a set of clocks went off through the palace, marking the hour and masking whatever else was said between the Antari and the prince. The bells were still echoing through the hall when the door opened and Holland stepped out, his two-toned eyes landing instantly on Parrish.

  Holland guided the door shut and considered the royal guard with a resigned sigh. He ran a hand through his charcoal hair.

  “Send away one guard,” he said, half to himself, “and another takes his place.”

  Before Parrish could think of a response, the Antari dug a coin from his pocket and flicked it into the air toward him.

  “I wasn’t here,” said Holland as the coin rose and fell. And by the time it hit Parrish’s palm, he was alone in the hall, staring down at the disk, wondering how it got there, and certain he was forgetting something. He clutched the coin as if he could catch the slipping memory, and hold on.

  But it was already gone.

  II

  Even at night, the river shone red.

  As Kell stepped from the bank of one London onto the bank of another, the black slick of the Thames was replaced by the warm, steady glow of the Isle. It glittered like a jewel, lit from within, a ribbon of constant light unraveling through Red London. A source.

  A vein of power. An artery.

  Some thought magic came from the mind, others the soul, or the heart, or the will.

  But Kell knew it came from the blood.

  Blood was magic made manifest. There it thrived. And there it poisoned. Kell had seen what happened when power warred with the body, watched it darken in the veins of corrupted men, turning their blood from crimson to black. If red was the color of magic in balance—of harmony between power and humanity—then black was the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint.

  As an Antari, Kell was made of both, balance and chaos; the blood in his veins, like the Isle of Red London, ran a shimmering, healthy crimson, while his right eye was the color of spilled ink, a glistening black.

  He wanted to believe that his strength came from his blood alone, but he could not ignore the signature of dark magic that marred his face. It gazed back at him from every looking glass and every pair of ordinary eyes as they widened in awe or fear. It hummed in his skull whenever he summoned power.

  But his blood never darkened. It ran true and red. Just as the Isle did.

  Arcing over the river, in a bridge of glass and bronze and stone, stretched the royal palace. It was known as the Sone
r Rast. The “Beating Heart” of the city. Its curved spires glittered like beads of light.

  People flocked to the river palace day and night, some to bring cases to the king or queen, but many simply to be near the Isle that ran beneath. Scholars came to the river’s edge to study the source, and magicians came hoping to tap into its strength, while visitors from the Arnesian countryside only wanted to gaze upon the palace and river alike, and to lay flowers—from lilies to shooting stars, azaleas to moondrops—all along the bank.

  Kell lingered in the shadow of a shop across the road from the riverside and looked up at the palace, like a sun caught in constant rise over the city, and for a moment, he saw it the way visitors must. With wonder.

  And then a flicker of pain ran through his arm, and he came back to his senses. He winced, slipped the traveling coin back around his neck, and made his way toward the Isle, the banks of the river teeming with life.

  The Night Market was in full swing.

  Vendors in colored tents sold wares by the light of river and lantern and moon, some food and others trinkets, the magic and mundane alike, to locals and to pilgrims. A young woman held a bushel of starflowers for visitors to set on the palace steps. An old man displayed dozens of necklaces on a raised arm, each adorned with a burnished pebble, tokens said to amplify control over an element.

  The subtle scent of flowers was lost beneath the aroma of cooking meat and freshly cut fruit, heavy spices and mulled wine. A man in dark robes offered candied plums beside a woman selling scrying stones. A vendor poured steaming tea into short glass goblets across from another vibrant stall displaying masks and a third offering tiny vials of water drawn from the Isle, the contents still glowing faintly with its light. Every night of the year, the market lived and breathed and thrived. The stalls were always changing, but the energy remained, as much a part of the city as the river it fed on. Kell traced the edge of the bank, weaving through the evening fair, savoring the taste and smell of the air, the sound of laughter and music, the thrum of magic.