The Burning Sky tet-1

by Shelly Thomas

  She wanted to muster her courage, but she might as well pluck diamonds out of thin air. Her feet felt as if they were dissolving; her lungs, as if they’d been filled with mercury.

  “How exactly am I supposed to—defeat the Bane?”

  “I am not sure. I have been reading about elemental magic for years, but I have yet to discover how to harness the power of a great elemental mage—and only by harnessing the power of a great elemental mage can one defeat the Bane, according to my mother.”

  “Harnessing the power of a great elemental mage . . .” she echoed slowly. “You mean, as the Bane does.”

  “No, not the way he does.”

  “Then how?”

  “I do not know yet.”

  She was confused. “So you are going to experiment on me?”

  “No, I am going to experiment with you, not on you. We are in this together.”

  She wanted desperately to trust this boy who looked as if he’d been born under the wings of the Angels, beautifully unafraid. But they were not in this together. To help him achieve his goal of altering the course of history, she would have to give up her entire purpose of survival.

  And great elemental mage or not, she was no great heroine, just an ordinary girl trembling in a pair of nonmage shoes that pinched slightly at the toes.

  Her desire to impress him, however, still warred with her need to save herself. “Perhaps—I’m only supposed to help you in an advisory capacity.”

  She was a coward, but better cowardly than dead.

  He shook his head. “No, you are the most essential part.”

  Each word fell on her like a knife. “But if I don’t know what to do and you don’t know what to do—”

  “I will find out, eventually. In the meantime I will train you to better channel your powers. Potential is not enough; you must achieve mastery. Only then can you face the Bane.”

  Her lips quivered. She could no longer deny the truth. “I don’t want to face the Bane.”

  “No one does, but you cannot escape your destiny.”

  Did she believe in destiny, she who shamelessly curried favor with a lowly village official, just so she could stay in one place until her qualifying exams? “I don’t have a destiny,” she said weakly.

  “Maybe you did not learn about it until today, but you do and you always did.”

  His voice was urgent, his gaze intense. Were she any kind of a dreamer, the force of his conviction would have carried her away. “I’m not this brave soul you think I am. I came with you because you offered sanctuary. I don’t have what it takes to shoulder what you ask.”

  He was silent for a moment; something flickered in his eyes. “What of your guardian? You can rescue him on your own?”

  His questions agonized her for nearly a full minute before she recognized them for what they were: manipulation. He was not above using her anxiety for Master Haywood to get his way.

  Every last mage in pursuit of you seeks to abuse and exploit your powers.

  Trust no one.

  Why hadn’t she understood it sooner? For all the prince’s seeming majesty, he was monumentally ambitious and wanted her only as a means to his own ends.

  Dismay spread unchecked in her heart. “This is beneath you, Your Highness. My guardian did not make his sacrifices so that I could throw away my life on a wild quest doomed to fail. He would be apoplectic if I allowed myself to be exploited this way.”

  The prince’s jaw tightened. “I am not exploiting you. I have saved you two times, offered you as much security as you will find anywhere on this earth, and put myself at abysmal risk. It is a fair enough exchange to ask for some help from you for a good cause—for as worthy a cause as there ever was.”

  Unlike her, he had not raised his voice. But he sounded defensive.

  “So a steer should head willingly to slaughter because the farmer has fed and housed it? How many would make this bargain if they only knew what would happen to them in the end? You are asking me to give up everything for a cause that isn’t mine. I don’t want to be part of any revolution. I just want to live.”

  “To live like this, never knowing what it is like to be free?” His voice was tight.

  “I will know nothing when I’m dead!”

  Her anger was all the more bitter because she had stood ready to place her faith and hope in him. To rely on him as her anchor in this new, turbulent life. And to repay his kindness to the utmost of her ability.

  Only to be told that he wanted her to die for him.

  Back in Archer Fairfax’s room, Iolanthe lifted the dull red valise the prince had given her to carry as her own and placed it on the desk. Inside were boy’s clothes, unfamiliar-looking coins, a map of London, a map of the Eton-Windsor area, and a book called Bradshaw’s Monthly Railway Guide.

  “Please reconsider,” said the prince.

  She spun around sharply. She had no idea when he’d vaulted into the room.

  He stood with his back against a wall, his expression blank. “You do not even know where to go.”

  But she did. The prince had said that his school was not far from London. She needed to be back in London. Master Haywood had advised her to wait near the end portal for as long as possible, for the arrival of the memory keeper. The move had its risks. But she did not plan to go back inside the madwoman’s house. She could monitor the house from outside, a nearby rooftop, perhaps—

  “I would not even think about it.”

  Her heart missed a beat, but she turned back to the valise, pocketed the coins, and pretended to check what else it contained.

  “That woman in the attic knows who you are—or what you are, at least. She will have consulted other Exiles. There are informants among the Exiles. Atlantis will have the entire neighborhood under surveillance by now. The agents will strip the house of its protections for you to vault in, if you are desperate enough to try. Do it, and it will be the last anyone sees of you.”

  She felt nauseous. “Britain is a large realm. My options are nearly endless. As you yourself said earlier, Atlantis, great as it is, cannot hope to locate me so easily in a land of millions.”

  “You are not as anonymous as you think. Your jacket is part of the Eton uniform. It will mark you anywhere as an Eton boy. The natives will wonder why you wander about when you should be at school instead—and they will remember you.”

  She broke into a sweat. She could reveal herself so easily, without even being aware of it. “All I have to do is to change.”

  She exchanged the jacket for a brown one from the valise.

  “If only it were so easy. In the countryside, where everyone knows one another, you will be too conspicuous. So you must go into cities, where anonymity is possible. But you do not know which parts of a city are safe for a well-dressed young man, and which will get you robbed and possibly beaten. And before you reassure me again how handy you are with your fists, how many grown men can you take on at once, without resorting to elemental powers?”

  “If you aim to convince me that every place out there is dangerous for me,” she retorted, “you have not succeeded.”

  But he was coming awfully close.

  “Every place out there is dangerous for you. Have you not realized this yet?”

  She wished he wouldn’t speak so quietly and reasonably. “More dangerous than here? You will lead me to my death.”

  “I will lay down my life for you. Do you know anyone else who will do that?”

  I will lay down my life for you. The words had a strange effect on her, a pain almost like a wasp sting to the heart. She shut the valise. “Can you promise me I will live? No? I thought not.”

  He was quiet. Saddened. She had not perceived it earlier, but now she saw that there was always a trace of melancholy to him, a heavyheartedness that came of being entrusted with too great a burden.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, unable to help herself.

  He walked to the window and looked toward the darkening sky. His left hand tight
ened on the curtain. She could not be completely sure, but it seemed that he shivered.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He remained silent for some more time. “The stars are out. They will be quite beautiful tonight.”

  He turned around and came toward her, his wand raised. She took a step back, uncertain of his intentions. But he only tailored the brown jacket to fit her.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled.

  “If you are going to be caught by Atlantis, you might as well look your best.”

  She wanted to snort coolly, but could do nothing of the sort. She seemed to have a ball of sawdust in her throat.

  “So . . . this is good-bye.”

  “It does not need to be.”

  She shook her head. “You took the risks for a reason. Since I can’t give you what you want, I shouldn’t put you at further risk.”

  “Let me decide how much risk I am willing to bear,” he said softly.

  This almost undid her altogether. If he would shelter her even when she would not help him . . .

  No, she must not let herself become starry-eyed again. “I can’t stay, but thank you, in any case, for telling me the truth.”

  A shadow darkened his eyes before his face quickly became unreadable. He placed a hand on her shoulder. For a moment she thought he would pull her in and kiss her, but he only drew the pad of his thumb across her forehead, a princely benediction.

  “May Fortune walk with you,” he said, and let go of her.

  CHAPTER 8

  DÉJÀ VU.

  It seemed only moments ago that Iolanthe last stood in the same spot behind Mrs. Dawlish’s house, looking up at Fairfax’s window. Except then she was going toward safety. Now she was leaving for unknown dangers.

  There was no movement behind the curtain, but the light remained on, a golden rectangle of comfort and refuge. She ought to be off, but she kept watching the window, hoping for things she had no more right to expect.

  If only she didn’t feel so small and alone out here, like a lost child, in desperate need of a helping hand.

  The hotel suite was out of the question. The ruined barn then. The memory of its leaky, muddy interiors did not appeal, but she closed her eyes and willed herself to traverse the distance.

  The displacement did not happen. She tried again, still no use. The distance must be greater than her vaulting range. And since she didn’t know any places en route, she could not break the journey into smaller segments.

  She kicked the nearest tree in frustration. Could her retreat be any more inept? She should have considered her course of action with much better care. Should have had an achievable destination in mind. And failing that, should have at least swiped the prince’s vaulting aid.

  And put on a warmer jacket. Now that night had fallen, the temperature had taken a tumble. The brown jacket she had changed into was not quite thick enough to shield her from the chill. She hugged herself with her free hand.

  The cold also made her realize she was hungry. She’d hardly eaten anything this entire day; her stomach was emptier than a midnight street.

  If nothing else, she had to find some food.

  She took one last look at Fairfax’s brightly lit window. If something were to happen to her, would the prince feel a tug of loss?

  She shivered. She told herself it was only the cold. Besides, she didn’t need to go back to a place she’d already been. She’d put the English coins from the valise into her pocket. By walking along the streets of Eton, she’d probably find an inn where she could buy something to eat and a bed for the night.

  In the morning things wouldn’t look so dire.

  She inhaled deeply, shifted her valise to her left hand, and headed for the street. But she’d barely taken two steps when something made her look up.

  The sky was a deep, cavernous blue. The prince was right: the stars were out, brilliant and countless. Leo. Virgo. Gemini. And there, Polaris, the North Star, anchoring the great celestial compass.

  But what were those black dots high above, almost invisible against the darkness of the night? She squinted. Birds didn’t fly in a perfect diamond formation, did they?

  The birds headed east and disappeared in the distance. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, however, another group approached from the west, again in a perfect diamond formation.

  This time, as they passed overhead, three birds broke formation. They circled, descending as they did so, until she saw the dull metallic glint of their bellies.

  They were not birds, but the infamous armored chariots of Atlantis, aerial vehicles that could convey a single visiting dignitary, or shower rains of death upon mutinous populations.

  What had the prince said? That once news of her arrival spread, Atlantis would have the madwoman’s entire district surrounded, on the chance that Iolanthe might return.

  If this was Atlantis mobilizing, then the prince had, if anything, understated the ferocity of its response.

  The rush of blood was loud in her ears. She dug frantically into every pocket for her wand. It wasn’t until she was almost in tears that she remembered she’d left it behind in the laboratory, after the prince advised her not to have anything on her person that might identify her as an escapee from a mage realm.

  Now she was caught in the open without a wand.

  She tried to reason with herself. Atlantis did not know her precise location—here in Britain she was but a single speck of sand on a mile-long beach. Besides, Atlantis sought a girl, and dozens of boys had failed to recognize her as one.

  But the three armored chariots above her continued to descend. She scurried into a coppice of trees, her hands trembling, her heart careening.

  Two hundred feet above the ground, the armored chariots stopped, suspended in air.

  She gripped the nearest trunk for support.

  A moment later, a cluster of mages at least a dozen strong appeared on the lawn behind Mrs. Dawlish’s house.

  In hindsight, her reaction had been entirely predictable. Why would anyone want to embrace such a hopeless cause? Titus himself hated it with a passion, this albatross around his neck.

  But he had been deluded by his own sentiments. His entire life had been defined by secrecy and subterfuge. With her he yearned for a true partnership, a rapport of trust, understanding, and good will—everything he had never experienced before.

  Stupid, of course. But stupid did not mean he wanted it less badly.

  He left the window and sat down on the spare chair, a sturdy Windsor with a thick, tufted cushion in gray-and-white-striped cloth. The chair he had selected himself, the fabric for the seat cushion likewise. He had also chosen the blue wallpaper and the white curtains. He knew very little of decor, but he had wanted to make the room calm and comforting, knowing that the events leading to Fairfax’s arrival at Eton were inevitably going to be traumatic.

  Opposite him on the shelves were books he had collected with the express purpose of familiarizing Fairfax with the nonmage world: a handbook of Britain for foreigners, several almanacs and encyclopedias, a guide to Eton written by a former pupil, a volume on etiquette, another on rules for the most popular games and pastimes, among dozens of others.

  So much thought, so much effort, so much futility.

  He should have bent his mind to duplicity. He was the best actor of his generation, was he not? He could have said that he must protect her at whatever cost because she had been prophesied to be the love of his life. There, an easy, marvelous lie, perfect for deceiving a girl. She would have stayed, and he would have proceeded with her training, no further questions asked.

  But she had wanted truth and he, in a fit of derangement, had wanted honesty and fair dealing. And truth, honesty, and fair dealing had brought him to this fine wreck.

  He bolted out of the chair. That sound, what was it? He turned off the light and rushed to the window.

  Bloody hell—as his classmates would say.

  Bloody hell.

  He vault
ed for it.

  One of the mages pointed in Iolanthe’s direction. They all loped toward the coppice.

  She panted, the sound of her fear fracturing the silence.

  Could she take on all the mages come to hunt her? Or was it better to vault back to the hotel and hope that fewer agents of Atlantis awaited her there? And did she dare throw all caution to the wind and call down a second bolt of lightning, if it should come to that?

  Another mage materialized on the lawn, a woman in nonmage clothes. Iolanthe shrank farther inside the coppice. The woman strode purposefully toward the agents of Atlantis.

  They spoke softly. Iolanthe could not make out their conversation, except to note that despite their low voices, they exchanged some heated words.

  At last the Atlantean agents vaulted away, probably back into the armored chariots. And the woman, with a final look around, also disappeared.

  Someone tapped her on her shoulder. She leaped in sheer terror. But it was only the prince.

  “They are gone for now. I am not sure if they will remain gone. Leave fast if you want to leave.”

  Ask me to stay, just a few days, until the worst passes.

  He did nothing of the sort. And why should he? She’d made it abundantly clear that nothing could induce her to stay.

  “What happened just now?” she asked, her voice holding more or less even, as if she hadn’t been petrified.

  “A jurisdictional dispute.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that the mages from the chariots were dispatched by the Inquisitor. But Mrs. Hancock here has her orders directly from Atlantis’s Department of Overseas Administration, and she does not care for the Inquisitor’s minions barging in on her territory without express invitation. They know it, which was why they tried to conceal themselves right here, where you are.”

  Her heart pounded even more violently than before.

  “Go,” he said.

  She had no choice but to admit the obvious. “I don’t know where to go.”

  He took her hand and placed it on his arm. The next moment they were on a brightly lit street, across from a long, pillared building with curved mansard roofs.