A Darker Shade of Magic

by Victoria Schwab

  “You’re no match for Astrid Dane.”

  “Tell me, do you underestimate everyone, or just me? Is it because I’m a girl?”

  “It’s because you’re a human,” he snapped. “Because you may be the bravest, boldest soul I’ve ever met, but you’re still too much flesh and blood and too little power. Astrid Dane is made of magic and malice.”

  “Yes, well, that’s all well and good for her, but she’s not even in her body, is she? She’s here, having a grand time in Red London. Which means she should make an easy target.” Lila gave him the sharpest edge of a grin. “And I may be human, but I’ve made it this far.”

  Kell frowned deeply.

  It is amazing, thought Lila, that he doesn’t have more wrinkles.

  “You have,” he said. “But no farther.”

  “The girl has power in her,” offered Tieren without looking back.

  Lila brightened. “See?” she preened. “I’ve been telling you that all along.”

  “What kind of power?” asked Kell, raising a brow.

  “Don’t sound so skeptical,” Lila shot back.

  “Unnurtured,” said Tieren. “Untended. Unawakened.”

  “Well, come on then, onase aven,” she said, holding out her hands. “Wake it up.”

  Tieren glanced back and offered her a ghost of a smile. “It shall awake on its own, Delilah Bard. And if you nurture it, it will grow.”

  “She comes from the other London,” said Kell. Tieren showed no surprise. “The one without magic.”

  “No London is truly without magic,” observed the priest.

  “And human or not,” added Lila sharply, “I’d like to remind you that you’re still alive because of me. I’m the reason that White queen’s not wearing you like a coat. And I’ve got something you need.”

  “What’s that?”

  Lila pulled the white rook from her pocket. “The key.”

  Kell’s eyes widened a fraction in surprise, and then narrowed. “Do you honestly think you could keep it from me, if I wished to take it?”

  In an instant, Lila had the rook in one hand and her knife in the other. The brass knuckles of the handle glinted in the candlelight while the stone hummed low and steady, as if whispering to Kell.

  “Try it,” she sneered.

  Kell stopped walking and looked at her. “What is wrong with you?” he asked, sounding honestly baffled. “Do you care so little about your life that you would throw it all away for a few hours of adventure and a violent death?”

  Lila frowned. She’d admit that, in the beginning, all she wanted was an adventure, but that wasn’t why she was insisting now. The truth was, she’d seen the change in Kell, seen the shadow sweep across his eyes when he summoned that clever cursed magic, seen how hard it was for him to return to his senses after. Every time he used the stone, he seemed to lose a bigger piece of himself. So no, Lila wasn’t going with him just to satisfy some thirst for danger. And she wasn’t going with him just to keep him company. She was going because they’d come this far, and because she feared he wouldn’t succeed, not alone.

  “My life is mine to spend,” she said. “And I will not spend it here, no matter how nice your city is, or how much safer it might be. We had a deal, Kell. And you now have Tieren to guard your story and heal your brother. I’m of no use to him. Let me be of use to you.”

  Kell looked her in the eyes. “You will be trapped there,” he said. “When it is over.”

  Lila shivered. “Perhaps,” she said, “or perhaps I will go with you to the end of the world. After all, you’ve made me curious.”

  “Lila—” His eyes were dark with pain and worry, but she only smiled.

  “One adventure at a time,” she said.

  They reached the edge of the tunnel, and Tieren pushed open a pair of metal gates. The red river glowed up at them from below. They were standing on its northern bank, the palace shimmering in the distance, still surrounded by starry light, as if nothing were amiss.

  Tieren brought his hand to Kell’s shoulder and murmured something in Arnesian before adding in English, “May the saints and source of all be with you both.”

  Kell nodded and gripped the priest’s hand with his unwounded one before stepping out into the evening. But as Lila went to follow, Tieren caught her arm. He squinted at her as if searching for a secret.

  “What?” asked Lila.

  “How did you lose it?” he asked.

  Lila frowned. “Lose what?”

  His weathered fingers drifted up beneath her chin. “Your eye.”

  Lila pulled her face from his grip, her hand going to the darker of her two brown eyes. The one made of glass. Few people ever noticed. Her hair cut a sharp line across her face, and even when she did look someone in the eye, they rarely held the gaze for long enough to mark the difference. “I don’t remember,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. “I was a child, and it was an accident, I’m told.”

  “Hm,” said Tieren pensively. “Does Kell know?”

  Her frown deepened. “Does it matter?”

  After a long moment, the old man tilted his head. “I suppose not,” he said.

  Kell was looking back at Lila, waiting for her.

  “If the darkness takes him,” said Tieren under his breath, “you must end his life.” He looked at her. Through her. “Do you think you can?”

  Lila didn’t know whether he wanted to know if she had the strength, or the will.

  “If he dies,” she said, “so will Rhy.”

  Tieren sighed. “Then the world will be as it should,” he said, sadly. “Instead of as it is.”

  Lila swallowed, and nodded, and went to join Kell.

  “To White London, then?” she asked when she reached him, holding out the rook. Kell did not move. He was staring out at the river and the palace arching over it. She thought he might be taking in his London, his home, saying his goodbyes, but then he spoke.

  “The bones are the same in every world,” he said, gesturing to the city, “but the rest of it will be different. As different as this world is from yours.” He pointed across the river, and toward the center of London. “Where we’re going, the castle is there. Athos and Astrid will be there, too. Once we cross through, stay close. Do not leave my side. It is night here, which means it is night in White London, too, and the city is full of shadows.” Kell looked at Lila. “You can still change your mind.”

  Lila straightened and tugged up the collar of her coat. She smiled. “Not a chance.”

  III

  The palace was in a state of upheaval.

  Guests were spilling, confused and concerned, down the great stairs, ushered out by the royal guards. Rumors spread like fire through the crowd, rumors of violence and death and wounded royalty. Words like treason and coup and assassin filled the air, only feeding the frenzy.

  Someone claimed that a guard had been murdered. Another claimed to have seen that guard fall from the prince’s balcony to the courtyard below. Another still said that a woman in a green gown had stolen a necklace from the gruesome scene and rushed into the palace. Another insisted he’d seen her thrust the pendant into the hands of another guard and then collapse at his feet. The guard had not even called for help. He’d simply stormed away toward the royal chambers.

  There the king and queen had withdrawn, their strange calm only adding to the guests’ confusion. The guard had vanished into their room, and a moment later, the king had apparently burst forth, his steadiness cast off as he shouted about treason. He claimed that the prince had been stabbed and that Kell was to blame, demanding the Antari’s arrest. And just like that, the confusion shattered into to panic, chaos billowing like smoke through the night.

  By the time Gen’s boots approached the palace, the stairs were crowded with worried guests. The thing inside Gen’s armor turned its black eyes up at the dancing lights and jostling bodies. It wasn’t the mayhem that drew him there. It was the scent. Someone had used strong magic, beautiful magic, and he meant to fi
nd out who.

  He set off up the stairs, pressing past the flustered guests. No one seemed to notice that his armor was rent, peeled back over the heart, a stain like black wax across his front. Nor did they notice the blood—Parrish’s blood—splashed across the metal.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, he drew a deep breath and smiled; the night hung heavy with panic and power, the energy filling his lungs, stoking him like coals. He could smell the magic now. He could taste it.

  And he was hungry.

  He’d chosen his latest shell quite well; the guards, in their commotion, let him pass. It wasn’t until he was inside, through the flower-lined antechamber and striding across the emptied ballroom, that a helmeted figure stopped him.

  “Gen,” demanded the guard, “where have you …” But the words died in the guard’s throat when he saw the man’s eyes. “Mas aven—”

  The oath was cut off by Gen’s sword, sliding through armor and between ribs. The guard dragged in a single, shuddering breath and tried to cry out, but the sword cut sideways and up, and the air died in his throat. Easing the body down, the thing wearing Gen’s skin resheathed his weapon and removed the guard’s helmet, sliding it over his own head. When he pulled the visor down, his black eyes were nothing but a glint through the metal slit.

  Footsteps sounded through the palace, and shouted orders echoed overhead. He straightened. The air was full of blood and magic, and he went to find its source.

  * * *

  The stone still sang in Kell’s hand, but not quite the way it had before. Now the melody, the thrum of power, seemed to be singing in his bones instead of over them. Every moment, he felt it in his heartbeat and in his head. With it came a strange quiet, a calm, one he trusted even less than the initial surge of power. The calm told him everything would be well. It cooed and soothed and steadied his heart and made Kell forget that anything was wrong, made him forget that he was holding the stone at all. That was the worst part. It was bound to his hand, and yet it hung at the outside of his senses; he had to fight to remember it was there with him. Inside of him. Every time he remembered, it was like waking from a dream, full of panic and fear, only to be dragged down into sleep again. In those brief moments of clarity, he wanted to claw free, break or tear or cut the stone from his skin. But he didn’t, because competing with that urge to cast it off was the equal, opposite desire to hold it close, to cling to its warmth as if he were dying of cold. He needed its strength. Now more than ever.

  Kell didn’t want Lila to see how scared he was, but he thought she saw it anyway.

  They had woven back toward the city center, the streets mostly deserted on this side of the river, but had yet to cross any of the bridges that arced back and forth over the Isle. It was too dangerous, too exposed. Especially since, halfway there, Kell’s face had reappeared on the scrying boards that lined the streets.

  Only this time, instead of saying:

  MISSING

  It now said:

  WANTED

  For treason, murder, and abduction.

  Kell’s chest tightened at the accusations, and he held fast to the fact that Rhy was safe—as safe as he could possibly be. His fingers went to the brand over his heart; if he focused, he could feel the echo of Rhy’s heartbeat, the pulse a fraction of time after his own.

  He looked around, trying to picture the streets not only as they were here, but as they would be in White London, superimposing the images in his mind.

  “This will have to do,” he said.

  Where they stood now, at the mouth of an alley across from a string of ships—Lila had surveyed them with an appraising eye—they would stand before a bridge in the next city. A bridge that led to a street that ended at the walls of the White Castle. As they’d walked, Kell had described to Lila the dangers of the other London, from its twin rulers to its starving, power-hungry populace. And then he had described the castle and the bones of his plan, because bones were all he had right now.

  Bones and hope. Hope that they would make it, that he would be able to hold on to himself long enough to beat Athos and retrieve the second half of the stone and then—

  Kell closed his eyes and took a low, steadying breath. One adventure at a time. Lila’s words echoed in his mind.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  Lila was leaning against the wall. She tapped the bricks. “Come on, Kell. Door time.” And her casual air, her defiant energy, the way, even now, she didn’t seem concerned or afraid, only excited him, gave him strength.

  The gash across his palm, though now partially obscured by the black stone, was still fresh. He touched the cut with his finger and drew a mark on the brick wall in front of them. Lila took his hand, palm to palm with the stone singing between them, and offered him the white rook, and he brought it to the blood on the wall, swallowing his nerves.

  “As Travars,” he commanded, and the world softened and darkened around them as they stepped forward and through the newly hewn doorway.

  Or at least, that’s how it should have happened.

  But halfway through the stride, a force jarred Kell backward, tearing Lila’s hand from his as it ripped him out of the place between worlds and back onto the hard stone street of Red London. Kell blinked up at the night, dazed, and then realized he was not alone. Someone was standing over him. At first, the figure was no more than a shadow, rolling up his sleeves. And then Kell saw the silver circle glittering at his collar.

  Holland looked down at him and frowned.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  IV

  Lila’s black boots landed on the pale street. Her head spun a little from the sudden change, and she steadied herself against the wall. She heard the sound of Kell’s steps behind her.

  “Well, that’s an improvement,” she said, turning. “At least we’re in the same place this—”

  But he wasn’t there.

  She was standing on the curb in front of a bridge, the White Castle rising in the distance across the river, which was neither grey nor red, but a pearly, half-frozen stretch of water, shining dully in the thickening night. Lanterns along the river burned with a pale blue fire that cast the world in a strange, colorless way, and Lila, in her crisp black clothes, stood out as much a light in the dark.

  Something shone near her feet, and she looked down to find the white rook on the ground, its pale surface still dotted with Kell’s blood. But no Kell. She picked up the token and pocketed it, trying to swallow her rising nerves.

  Nearby, a starved dog was watching her with empty eyes.

  And then, quickly, Lila became aware of other eyes. In windows and doorways, and in the shadows between pools of sickly light. Her hand went to the knife with the metal knuckles.

  “Kell?” she called out under her breath, but there was no answer. Maybe it was like last time. Maybe they’d simply been separated, and he was making his way toward her now. Maybe, but Lila had felt the strange pull as they stepped through, had felt his hand vanish from hers too soon.

  Footsteps echoed, and she turned in a slow circle but saw no one.

  Kell had warned her of this world—he’d called it dangerous—but so much of Lila’s own world had fit that term, so she hadn’t given it much stock. After all, he’d grown up in a palace and she’d grown up on the streets, and Lila thought she knew a good bit more about bad alleys and worse men than Kell. Now, standing here, alone, Lila was beginning to think she hadn’t given him enough credit. Anyone—even a highborn—could see the danger here. Could smell it. Death and ash and winter air.

  She shivered. Not only from cold, but from fear. A simple bone-deep sense of wrong. It was like looking into Holland’s black eye. For the first time, Lila wished she had more than knives and the Flintlock.

  “Övos norevjk,” came a voice to her right, and she spun to see a man, bald, every inch of exposed skin, from the crown of his head down to his fingers, covered in tattoos. Whatever he was speaking, it didn’t sound like Arnesian. It was gruff an
d guttural, and even though she didn’t know the words, she could grasp the tone, and she didn’t like it.

  “Tovach ös mostevna,” said another, appearing to her left, his skin like parchment.

  The first man chuckled. The second tsked.

  Lila pulled the knife free. “Stay back,” she ordered, hoping her gesture would make up for any language barrier.

  The men exchanged a look and then withdrew their own jagged weapons.

  A cold breeze cut through, and Lila fought down a shiver. The men broke into rotting grins. She lowered her knife. And then, in one smooth move, she drew the pistol from her belt, raised it, and shot the first man between the eyes. He went down like a sack of stones, and Lila smiled before she realized how loud the gunshot sounded. She hadn’t noticed how quiet the city was until the shot rang out, the blast carrying down the streets. All around them, doors began to open. Shadows moved. Whispers and murmurs came from corners of the street—first one, then two, then half a dozen.

  The second man, the one with papery skin, looked at the dead one, and then at Lila. He started talking again in a low threatening growl, and Lila was glad she didn’t speak his tongue. She didn’t want to know what he was saying.

  Slivers of dark energy crackled through the air around the man’s blade. She could feel people moving behind her, the shadows taking shape into people, gaunt and grey.

  Come on, Kell, she thought as she raised the gun again. Where are you?

  V

  “Let me pass,” said Kell.

  Holland only raised a brow.

  “Please,” said Kell. “I can end this.”

  “Can you?” challenged Holland. “I do not think you have it in you.” His gaze went to Kell’s hand, the dark magic twining around it. “I warned you, magic is not about balance. It is about dominance. You control it, or it controls you.”