A Darker Shade of Magic

by Victoria Schwab

  “I am still in control,” said Kell through gritted teeth.

  “No,” said Holland. “You’re not. Once you let the magic in, you’ve already lost.”

  Kell’s chest tightened. “I don’t want to fight you, Holland.”

  “You do not have a choice.” Holland wore a sharpened ring on one hand and used it now to cut a line across his palm. Blood dripped to the street. “As Isera,” he said softly. Freeze.

  The dark drops hit the ground and turned to black ice, shooting forward across the street. Kell tried to step back, but the ice moved too fast, and within seconds he was standing on top of it, fighting for balance.

  “Do you know what makes you weak?” said Holland. “You’ve never had to be strong. You’ve never had to try. You’ve never had to fight. And you’ve certainly never had to fight for your life. But tonight that changes, Kell. Tonight, if you do not fight, you will die. And if you—”

  Kell didn’t wait for him to finish. A sudden gust of wind whipped forward, nearly knocking Kell off-balance as it cycloned toward Holland. It surrounded the Antari, swallowing him from sight. The wind whistled, but through it Kell could hear a low, haunting sound. And then he realized it was a laugh.

  Holland was laughing.

  A moment later, Holland’s blood-streaked hand appeared, parting the cyclone wall, and then the rest of him stepped through, the column of wind crumbling around him. “Air cannot be made sharp,” he chided. “Cannot hurt. Cannot kill. You should choose your elements with more care. Watch.”

  Holland moved with such smooth swiftness, it was hard to follow his motions, let alone keep up. In a single fluid move, he dropped to a knee and touched the ground and said “As Steno.”

  Break.

  The paving stone beneath his palm shattered into a dozen sharpened shards, and as he stood, the shards came with him, hovering in the air the way the nails had done in the alley. He flicked his wrist, and the shards shot forward through the air toward Kell. The stone against his palm sang with warning, and he barely had time to throw up his hand, the talisman shining in it, and say, “Stop.”

  The smoke poured forth and caught the slivers in their path, crushing them to dust. Power shot through Kell with the command, followed instantly by something darker, colder. He gasped at the sensation. He could feel the magic climbing over his skin, and under it, and he willed it to stop, pushed back with all his strength as the smoke dissolved.

  Holland was shaking his head. “Go ahead, Kell. Use the stone. It will consume you faster, but you might just win.”

  Kell swore under breath and summoned another cyclone, this one in front of him. He snapped the fingers of the hand without the stone. A flame appeared in his palm, and when he touched it to the twisting air, it took it, engulfing the wind in fire. The burning cyclone scorched across the ground, melting the ice as it charged toward Holland, who threw out his hand and summoned the ground up into a shield, and then, the instant the flame was gone, sent the stone wall surging toward Kell. He threw up his hands, fighting for control over the rocks, and realized too late that they were only a distraction for the arcing wave of water that struck him from behind.

  The surge from the river slammed Kell to his hands and knees, but before he could recover, it swept him up and coiled around him. In moments, Kell was trapped by the swell, gasping for air before it swallowed him entirely. He fought, pinned by the force of the water.

  “Astrid wanted you alive,” said Holland, drawing the curved blade from beneath his cloak. “She insisted upon it.” His free hand curled into a fist, and the water tightened, crushing the air from Kell’s lungs. “But I’m sure she will understand if I have no choice but to kill you in order to retrieve the stone.”

  Holland strode toward him with measured steps over the icy ground, the curved blade hanging at his side, and Kell twisted and thrashed, scouring for something, anything he could use. He reached for the knife in Holland’s grip, but the metal was warded, and it didn’t even quiver. Kell was running out of air, and Holland was nearly to him. And then through the wall of water he saw the rippling image of the ship supplies, the pile of boards and poles and the dark metal of chains coiled on posts by the bridge.

  Kell’s fingers twitched, and the nearest set of chains flew forward, wrapping around Holland’s wrist, jarring his focus. The water lost its shape and fell apart, and Kell stumbled forward to the ground, soaking wet and gasping for breath. Holland was still trying to free himself, and Kell knew he couldn’t afford to hesitate. Another set of chains, from another post, snaked around the Antari’s leg and up his waist. Holland moved to throw the curved blade, but a third set of chains caught his arm and drew taut. It wouldn’t hold, not for long. Kell willed a metal pole up from the dock floor and through the air, the bar hovering a foot or so behind Holland.

  “I can’t let you win,” said Kell.

  “Then you’d better kill me,” growled Holland. “If you don’t, it will never end.”

  Kell drew the knife from his forearm and lifted it as if to strike.

  “You’re going to have to try harder than that,” said Holland as Kell’s hand froze, the bones held still by the other Antari’s will. It was exactly what Kell was hoping for. The moment Holland’s focus was on the knife, Kell attacked, not from the front, but from behind, willing the metal bar forward with all his strength.

  It soared through the air and found its mark, striking Holland in the back with enough force to pierce through cloak and skin and bone. It protruded from Holland’s chest, the metal and blood obscuring the seal scarred over his heart. The silver circle clasp broke and tumbled away, the half-cloak sliding off Holland’s shoulders as his knees folded.

  Kell staggered to his feet as Holland collapsed onto the damp street. A horrible sadness rolled through him as he crossed to the Antari’s body. They had been two of a kind, a dying breed. Now he was the only one. And soon, there would be none. Perhaps that was how it should be. How it needed to be.

  Kell wrapped his fingers around the bloody metal bar and pulled it free of Holland’s chest. He tossed the pole aside, the dull sound of it clanging down the road like a faltering heartbeat. Kell knelt beside Holland’s body as blood began to pool beneath it. When he felt for a pulse, he found one there. But it was shallow, fading.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. It felt stupid and useless to say, but the sharpness had gone out of his anger, and his sadness, his fear, his loss—they had all dulled into a steady ache, one he felt he might never shake as he reached under the Antari’s collar and found a White London token on a cord around his neck.

  Holland knew. He’d seen the attack coming, and he hadn’t stopped it. The instant before the metal struck him from behind, Holland had stopped fighting. It was only a second, a fraction of a breath, but it had been enough to give Kell the edge, the opening. And in the sliver of time after the metal pierced his body, and before he fell, it wasn’t anger or pain that crossed his face. It was relief.

  Kell snapped the cord and straightened, but couldn’t bring himself to leave the Antari there, in the street. He looked from the token to the waiting wall and then dragged Holland’s body to its feet.

  VI

  The first thing Kell saw when he stepped into White London was Lila brandishing two knives, both of them bloody. She’d managed to cut a path through several men—their bodies littered the street—but four or five were circling her, and more hung back and watched with hungry eyes and whispered in their guttural tongue.

  “Pretty red blood.”

  “Smells like magic.”

  “Open her up.”

  “See what’s inside.”

  Kell lowered Holland’s body to the ground, and stepped forward.

  “Vös rensk torejk!” he boomed, rumbling the ground for good measure. Back away from her.

  A ripple went through the crowd when they saw him—some fled, but others, too curious, took only a step or two back. The moment Lila saw him, her eyes narrowed.

  �
��You are very, very late,” she growled. Her usual calm had cracked, and underneath she looked tense with fear. “And why are you wet?” Kell looked down at his dripping clothes. He ran his hands along them, willing the water out, and a moment later, he stood, dry except for the puddle at his boots.

  “I hit a snag,” he said, gesturing back toward Holland. But several dark-eyed citizens were already beginning to investigate the body. One pulled out a knife and pressed it to the dying Antari’s wrist.

  “Stop,” ordered Kell, slamming the assailants backward with a gust of wind. He hauled the Antari up over his shoulder.

  “Leave him,” spat Lila. “Let them pick his bones clean.”

  But Kell shook his head.

  “If you don’t,” she said. “They’ll pick ours.”

  Kell turned and saw the men and women closing in around them.

  The people of White London knew the orders, knew the Danes would take the head of any who touched their guest from afar, but it was night, and the lure of fresh magic and Holland’s defenseless state—“Let me make a crown from him,” murmured one; “I bet there’s still blood left,” said another—seemed to tip them off their senses. Lila and Kell moved backward until their heels met the bridge.

  “Lila?” said Kell as they backed onto it.

  “Yeah?” she said, her voice low and tight.

  “Run.”

  She didn’t hesitate, but turned and took off sprinting across the bridge. Kell’s hand shot up, and with it, a wall of stone, a barricade to buy them time. And then he, too, was running. As fast as he could, with Holland’s body over his narrow shoulder and the black magic surging in his veins.

  Kell was halfway across the bridge—and Lila nearly to the other side—when the commoners finally tore down the wall and surged after them onto the structure. The moment he reached the opposite bank, Kell sank to the ground and touched his bloody hand to the floor of the bridge.

  “As Steno,” he commanded, just as Holland had, and instantly, the bridge began to crumble, plunging stone and bodies down into the icy Sijlt. Kell fought for breath, his pulse thudding his ears. Lila was standing over him, glaring at Holland’s body.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Close enough,” said Kell, getting to his feet, hauling the Antari’s body with him.

  “I hope you made him suffer,” she spat, turning toward the looming castle.

  No, thought Kell as they set off. He suffered long enough.

  He could feel the people watching as they moved through the streets, but no one came out of their houses. They were too near the castle now, and the castle had eyes. Soon, it loomed before them, the stone citadel behind its high wall, the archway like a gaping mouth, leading onto the darkened courtyard and its statues.

  The stone hummed against Kell’s palm, and he realized it wasn’t calling only to him now. It was calling to its other half. Beside him, Lila drew yet another blade from beneath her coat. But this one wasn’t an ordinary knife. It was a royal half-sword from Red London.

  Kell’s mouth fell open. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “Nicked it off the guard who tried to kill me,” she said, admiring the weapon. He could see the markings scrawled across the blade. Metal that disabled magic. “Like I said, you can never have too many knives.”

  Kell held out his hand. “Can you spare it?”

  Lila considered him a moment, then shrugged and handed it over. Kell fingered the grip as she drew out her pistol and began to reload it.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, spinning the chamber.

  Kell gazed through the gate at the waiting castle. “No.”

  At that, she offered him the sharpest edge of a grin. “Good,” she said. “The ones who think they’re ready always end up dead.”

  Kell managed a ghost of a smile. “Thank you, Lila.”

  “For what?”

  But Kell didn’t answer, only stepped forward into the waiting dark.

  XIII

  THE WAITING KING

  I

  A cloud of black smoke hung in the air of the white throne room, a patch of night against the pale backdrop. Its edges frayed and curled and faded, but its center was smooth and glossy, like the fragment of stone in Athos’s hand, or the surface of a scrying board, which was exactly what the king had summoned with it.

  Athos Dane sat on his throne, his sister’s body in her own chair beside him, and turned the stone over in his hand as he watched the shifting image of Kell and his companion pass into the courtyard of his castle.

  Where the stone’s other half had gone, so had its gaze.

  The farthest London had been little more than a blur, but as Kell and his companion traveled nearer, the image in the surface had grown crisp and clear. Athos had watched the events unfold across the various cities—Kell’s flight, the girl’s cunning, his servant’s failure, and his sister’s foolishness, the wounded prince, and the slaughtered Antari.

  His fingers tightened on the talisman.

  Athos had watched it all unfold with a mixture of amusement and annoyance and, admittedly, excitement. He bristled at the loss of Holland, but a spike of pleasure ran through him at the thought of killing Kell.

  Astrid would be furious.

  Athos rolled his head and considered his sister’s body, propped up on its throne, the charm pulsing at her throat. A London away, she might still be wreaking havoc, but here she sat, still and pale as the sculpted stone beneath her. Her hands draped on the arms of the chair, and wisps of white hair ribboned over her closed eyes. Athos tsked at his sister.

  “Ös vosa nochten,” he said. “You should have let me go to the masquerade instead. Now my plaything is dead, and yours has made an awful mess. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Of course, she did not answer.

  Athos rapped his long fingers on the edge of his throne, thinking. If he broke the spell and woke her, she would only complicate things. No, he had given her the chance to deal with Kell in her own way, and she had failed. It was his turn now.

  Athos smiled and rose to his feet. His fingers tightened on the stone, and the image of Kell dissolved into smoke and then into nothing. Power thrummed through the king, the magic hungry for more, but he held it in place, feeding it only what it needed. It was a thing to be controlled, and Athos had never been a lenient master.

  “Do not worry yourself, Astrid,” he said to the spellbound queen. “I will make things right.”

  And then he smoothed his hair, readjusted the collar of his white cloak, and went to greet his guests.

  II

  The White London fortress rose in a column of sharp light out of the shadowed stone courtyard. Lila slipped into the forest of statues to fulfill her part of the plan while Kell made his way toward the waiting steps. He laid Holland’s body on a stone bench and ascended the stairs, one hand curled around the royal blade, the other around the Black London talisman.

  Go ahead, Kell, Holland had goaded. Use the stone. It will consume you faster, but you might just win.

  He wouldn’t. He vowed not to. His recent use in battle had only spurred the darkness on. Black threads now coiled up past his elbow and toward his shoulder, and Kell couldn’t afford to lose any more of himself. As it was, every heartbeat seemed to spread the poison more.

  His pulse thudded in his ears as he climbed the steps. Kell wasn’t foolish enough to think he could sneak up on Athos—not here. He had to know that Kell was coming, yet he let him approach his doors without assault. The ten empty-eyed guards that usually flanked the stairs were gone, the way cleared for Kell. The unhindered path was itself a challenge. An act of arrogance befitting White London’s king.

  Kell would rather have faced an army than the unmanned doors and whatever waited on the other side. Every forward step that went unchecked, unobstructed, only made him more nervous for the next. By the time he reached the landing at the top, his hands were trembling and his chest was tight.

  He brought his shaking
fingertips to the doors and forced a last breath of cold air into his lungs. And then he pushed. The castle doors opened under his touch, requiring neither force nor magic, and Kell’s shadow spilled forward into the corridor. He took a step over the threshold, and the torches of the chamber lit with pale fire, trailing up against the vaulted ceilings and down the hall and revealing the faces of the dozen guards who lined it.

  Kell sucked in a breath, bracing himself, but the soldiers did not move.

  “They won’t lay a hand on you,” came a silvery voice. “Not unless you try to flee.” Athos Dane stepped out of the shadows, dressed in his usual pristine white, his faded features rendered colorless by the torchlight. “The pleasure of killing you will be mine. And mine alone.”

  Athos held the other half of the black stone loosely in one hand, and a thrum of power spiked through Kell’s body at the sight of it.

  “Astrid will sulk, of course,” continued Athos. “She wanted you as a pet, but I have always maintained that you were more trouble alive than dead. And I think recent events would serve as evidence of that.”

  “It’s over, Athos,” said Kell. “Your plan failed.”

  Athos smiled grimly. “You are like Holland,” he said. “Do you know why he could not take the crown? He never relished war. He saw bloodshed and battle as means to an end. A destination. But I have always relished the journey. And I promise you, I’m going to savor this.”

  His fingers tightened over his half of the stone, and smoke poured forth. Kell didn’t hesitate. He willed the armor—and the guards within—from their places against the wall and into a barricade between himself and the king. But it was not enough. The smoke went over, and under, and through, and reached for Kell, trying to twine around his arms. He willed the wall of guards forward into Athos, and sliced at the smoke with the royal sword. But the king did not drop the stone, and the magic was clever and moved around Kell’s blade, catching hold of his wrists and turning instantly into forged chains that ran not down to the floor but out to the walls on either side of the antechamber hall.