Chapter 5 — Hayli
Someone was shaking me, and it hurt like the devil in a doghouse. Everything hurt. My head throbbed and I tasted the metal tang of blood on my tongue, and even when I pried open my eyes, the whole world kept swirling about till I thought maybe I’d got my eyeballs knocked loose. I got that reeling sensation sometimes after I Shifted, but this was different. All wrong.
“Hey, kid! Are you all right?”
I shoved back onto my side, hunting for something to focus on. Wet sky and wet trees and clouds of steam…rough patchy pavement scoring lines into my palms. Then, finally, I saw a face. A strong face, stern, even handsome. Thirties, maybe. Short blonde hair, military style. Uniform.
The guard! I’d fallen, and hadn’t Shifted at all…
But no, I knew that wasn’t right. This uniform was different. Black on black, long coat, tall boots. Two revolvers on his hips instead of a rifle. A plain black coach hat tucked under one arm, a faint silver shield emblem on the sleeve.
That symbol meant only one thing. Bodyguard.
A bodyguard? That made no sense. Not out here, out in the trees and the rain, all alone…
I dug my hands against my head. Nothing made sense. And to make it all worse, my skin still prickled with the phantom feel of feathers, and if I opened my mouth I didn’t much know what kind of noise would come out.
“Damn it, Zagger, I told you these things are death-traps,” another voice said, drifting out from somewhere behind me. “Don’t tell me one of the coils blew.”
And right then, all I could think was how the voice sounded like jet stone: smooth and rich and a little dark. Refined.
I rolled my head back. My gaze drifted over a smart black motorcar, its grilled nose uncomfortably close to my back, snorting steam at me like a hard-worked horse. It was bigger than I’d imagined from the newspaper photographs, all rounded edges and copper trim, with bright bulbous lamps glaring at me like glassy eyeballs.
A boy just older than me was climbing from the back seat, slim even in his long leather coat and wool scarf. He had one hand gripping his neck under a shock of unruly dark hair. It must have been slicked back smooth before the rain hit, but now it stuck out every which way, wilder and wilder the more he chafed it with his hand.
He took one look at the bodyguard, then me, and came running.
“What the devil! Are you hurt?” he asked, crouching down beside me.
The bodyguard took a step toward him, but the boy waved him off, dark eyes flashing.
“Death-trap’s right, hackie,” I snapped, glaring at the older man. My voice tasted like gravel. “Dan’ y’ave eyes? What got you in such a rush? On the get, you and the kid?”
“Come again?”
I almost didn’t catch the look he exchanged with the boy, half-amused, half-angry. And the boy, staring at me like I spoke a different language than him.
“What are you doing on these grounds?” the boy asked, stern suddenly, like Derrin. “How did you get past the guards?”
Well, that relieved me a bit, anyway. At least I’d made it inside the palace walls.
“Oh, maybe I flew over them,” I said, shifting to a crouch, and smirked through all the pain.
“Maybe you should smarten up and learn some manners,” the bodyguard said.
But the boy waved at him again, and the man backed a few steps away. That sort of struck me as odd, but I couldn’t quite figure how.
“Are you hurt?” the boy asked me again. “Is anything broken?”
I wanted to glare at him, but he actually sounded concerned. And he wouldn’t have seen it anyway, because he’d already turned his gaze back to the guard.
“You hit the kid?”
“I didn’t even see him.”
Him. I snorted inside.
“Look, I’m sorry,” the big man said, attempting pity. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“I’m jake,” I said. “Leave me be.”
The boy reached out a hand, offering to help me up. Pretending to be a gentleman when I knew he was just trying to mock me, me in my rags, sprawled in the mud. I swiped at his hand, and jolted. The boy jerked back, too, and stared at me with some kind of surprise or horror in his eyes that I couldn’t sort at all. Even for seconds after that touch, my hand felt all buzzy like I had a little hive of insects under my skin.
“Something wrong?” the guard asked.
And still the boy stared at me, almost like he was waiting. When I didn’t move he stood and brushed off his hands, facing aside.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just a static shock.” (Even I knew that didn’t make sense, what with the rain, but I didn’t say aught about it.) “Come on, we need to get going. Get her off the grounds.”
“Her?”the bodyguard echoed, his eyebrows shooting up.
“Really, Zagger?” the boy said, amused.
Why aye, you great dafty, can’t you tell a girl when you see one? I thought, even though I wore trousers and a waistcoat like the lads just to keep folks from looking twice at me. Kind of work I did, being seen for a girl could get you in trouble—and not the kind of trouble I liked to be in, either. But the boy had known what I was right from the start, and somehow I thought I didn’t quite mind that.
He stared at me a moment, then shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and swung away again. Zagger bent and pulled me to my feet, scowling like I’d Shifted right in front of him. I wanted to tug my filthy grey waistcoat straight and fix my cap, but what for? As if either of these blokes cared that I looked like a patched-up sewer rat. I knew I cared more than I should, and I didn’t even know why.
A minute and the boy turned, flicking his hand at Zagger: Get on with it.
“Guard!” Zagger bellowed, calling to one of the passing patrols.
Swell. My luck never stuck. I’d finally managed to get inside the palace walls, and of all the things that could possibly go wrong, I’d gone and got crosswise to one of those blasted new motorcars. Now they’d toss me back onto the streets, and there’d go my one and only shot at getting Jig inside. Poof, gone. And Kantian would bedpost me without food for a week, as if that could make things better.
Maybe I could Shift when their backs were turned, and they’d never even know what happened. Then I could try to find Jig, and we could finish the job…
But I didn’t have a chance, because right then the guard came sprinting up and saluted, not at Zagger, but at the boy. I jutted my lower lip in a scowl.
“Your Highness?” the guard asked. “Shall I arrest him?”
Your Highness? I bit my tongue on a cry of surprise. I felt my face turn white, then red, and I’m sure my eyes bugged as big as the headlamps on the motorcar.
Zagger must have seen it, because he kind of smirked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching. The prince didn’t move at all. He stood turned a little aside, so I only saw his profile. All quiet lines and tanned skin, like he’d been born somewhere that actually saw the sun once in a while.
“Just send her off,” he said. A second hitched past and his dark eyes drifted back toward me. “She won’t be back.”
“Oy, hang on!” I cried. “Please, I’ve got to be here. I’ve got to—”
I screwed my mouth shut. Chunnering on like a moonbrained idiot, and the Crown Prince not five steps away from me. The prince. I’d seen his pictures in the Herald, of course. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him from the beginning. Maybe because the pictures always showed him all dashing in sport gear or three-piece suits, with that sweet mischievous smile and studied laziness—not mucked up with rain and mud and his cheeks all ruddy from the wind.
I didn’t realize I was staring at him until Zagger cleared his throat.
“His Royal Highness visits the public on specific, pre-appointed days. You can ogle him on the next such occasion if you like, but right now I have to return him to the palace.”
The prince spun about. My face caught fire, but still, he looked so baffled I almost laughed.
The boy—the prince—glanced at me one last time before climbing into the motorcar. Zagger gave me a parting smirk for good measure and launched himself into the cab. The engine snarled and I backed a step in the guard’s grip, and then they were gone.
The guard nudged me, so I winced and fell in step with him. He didn’t talk to me, not a word. Maybe if I Shifted he’d say something. Maybe even swear. Or maybe he’d shoot me with that rifle before I’d flown a foot.
I wouldn’t die a crow. Not ever.
So I walked in silence all the way through the gates and out onto the street. Then, soon as the guard let me go, I hobbled into the nearest alley like a whipped dog, disappearing before Jig could see my failure.
Chapter 6 — Tarik
We rode in silence, even though I’d left the glass window open since the accident. I plastered my gaze to the passing beech trees, chewing at my nails the way that always bothered my mother. The skin of my palm still tingled a bit from where the Jixy girl had touched me. Just thinking about it made the static prickle dance up and down my arms, half-terror, half-curiosity.
What was a Jixy doing on the palace grounds? Had she recognized that jolt the way I did? If she had, she’d done a remarkable job of hiding it.
The sensation wasn’t new to me, after all. I still felt it every time my mother touched me—my mother, whose secret matched my own. When I was little she’d told me it was our gifts saying how-d’you-do. All mages shared a bond of sorts, something in our blood that called to others like us.
If the girl knew as much about that as my mother did…she would know the Crown Prince was like her.
A Jixy.
Gad, the scandal would be unbearable. Or maybe the scandal wouldn’t be so bad—it might even be exciting—but my father would be an absolute bear about it. I should have told the guard to arrest the girl on some trumped-up charge. At least then I could’ve made sure she’d keep her mouth shut.
But she was just a street rat. Maybe she didn’t know anything about the magery bond. Maybe she didn’t even know what she was, though I rather doubted that.
Finally I leaned toward the cab. “Zag, you’re sure you didn’t see that kid?”
He flinched. “No.”
“You weren’t looking somewhere else?”
“No, Your Highness. I had my eyes on the road. Though, I thought I saw…”
His voice trailed off, and I gave him a semi-patient three seconds to finish. When he didn’t, I prodded him to keep talking.
“Nothing, Your Highness.”
“Zagger!”
I hated putting that hard edge on my voice; it reminded me too much of my father. Sometimes it was useful, though, especially with Zag. He straightened and lifted his chin, like a soldier coming to attention.
“I thought I saw a bird flying close out of the corner of my eye,” he said. “Then I hit the kid.”
I sighed and gnawed on the raggedy edges of my nail again.
“I told you it was nothing,” Zagger went on. “Just my mind playing tricks on me.” He let out a thin breath and said, “I thought they’d got the motorcar.”
“Me too,” I said, and slouched back. “I think she was a Jixy.”
Zagger jolted. “Why?”
I dropped my head against the seat and closed my eyes, and didn’t answer.
“Your Highness, not presuming to tell you what to do, but shouldn’t we have held her for questioning? Your father would want to know that a Jixy was on the palace grounds.”
If only you knew, I thought, hiding a bitter smile.
“She might have been an assassin, or…” Zagger’s voice trailed off.
“I doubt she was involved in Griff’s crash, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said. “She probably just got lost.”
We rolled up to the palace steps, and a footman in a tall hat and greatcoat came to open my door. I stepped out into the shelter of an umbrella, but paused to poke my head into the cab.
“It was an accident, and she was just a stray. So forget about it, all right?”
Zagger looked unhappy, but he gave a sharp little nod. After all, he couldn’t exactly argue with me. The engine rumbled and I backed away, watching as he guided the motorcar toward the carriage house.
Inside the palace, I’d barely shed my wraps when the butler accosted me, greeting me with a formal bow and a smile that made him look rather like one of my father’s hyper spaniels.
“Afternoon, Your Highness. Had you a pleasant outing?”
“Yes, thank you, Pont,” I said, and swallowed back the part about getting drenched, frozen, and nearly bucked from my motorcar.
Pont seemed rather confounded by my civilized reply, but he only said, “Her Majesty is expecting you.”
I arched a brow at that, but nodded my thanks and waved him away. My mother would be in her study in the Long Ward at this hour, when her tea guests had all left and the dinner guests hadn’t yet arrived. Those were her few precious moments of peace and solitude, and I hated the thought of her wasting them on me.
My footsteps clashed in the empty space between gilt-mirrored walls and marble floors, too loud in all the silence. The electrical lamps warmed the corridor to nighttime brightness, and servants scurried in and out of the state rooms in last-minute preparation for the evening’s dinner, pausing to give courtesy as I passed.
I’d always thought the Long Ward’s name was rather an understatement. It took me a good ten minutes of trekking down dark-paneled halls and up gold-carpeted steps to finally reach my mother’s apartments. A silent servant admitted me to her study, where I found her sitting at her desk, probably writing a letter to the same dignitary she had just received for tea. She had already dressed for dinner, in blue silk and pearls.
“There you are, dear,” she said, her pen still curling around in fluid strokes. “Come, sit. Finn, you may go.”
Her lady curtsied and swept from the room as I sat in front of the mahogany desk, wishing I’d taken the time to make myself presentable first. I was drenched and the cuffs of my trousers hung heavy with mud, and my hair fell in my eyes the way that always sent my valet into fits. But it was too late for redemption now.
For a few moments I sat properly, then I groaned and leaned my elbows on my knees.
“Posture,” she said, barely glancing at me, but when I didn’t move she laid down her pen and frowned. “You’ve been out in the rain all afternoon, haven’t you? You’ll catch your death, I’m sure.”
“I’m fine. I’m fantastic.”
“No, you’re not,” she said briskly. “Don’t lie, Tarik. It isn’t becoming, and you don’t fool me.”
“Why did you want to see me?”
She pursed her mouth and leveled a narrow look at me. “Something’s troubling you.”
“You couldn’t have known that when you told Pont to send me up.”
“Darling, you’ll feel better if you just tell me.”
“Griff nearly crashed his aeroplane,” I said, without any hope of fooling her.
“He’s all right,” she said, and I nodded. “I’m rather surprised it didn’t happen sooner. But I am glad he wasn’t hurt.” Her eyes searched mine, reading my heart like a journal. “That isn’t what has you bothered, though.”
I frowned at her under my eyebrows. Then, repressing a sigh, I reached across and touched her hand. The pinching static charge traced up my arm, but coming from her it was comforting. Familiar. A bond.
“I felt that today,” I said, pulling my hand back and sitting on it like a schoolboy.
She stiffened, just. “What?”
“Some Jixy kid got in front of the motorcar,”
I said. “It was an accident.”
“Tarik!” she cried, paling. “Darling, are you all right? I told your father those things are dangerous, but he’d never listen.”
I shrugged, and she didn’t even chide me for it. “I’m fine. It was nothing. We were barely moving when it happened. But…I felt that bond when I tried to help the kid up.”
For a few long moments the only sound was the rain pattering the glass and the round ticking of the clock over the mantle. My mother had her gaze riveted on her pen, her mouth drawn up in a little line.
“Do you think she recognized what you are?” she asked.
I smiled—I hadn’t said anything about the Jixy being a girl. Mother always just knew those things.
“I don’t think so. She looked stung a bit, but maybe she’s never touched another Jixy before.”
I tried not to think about how unlikely that was.
“You know it could be disastrous if…”
“I didn’t—” I started, then clacked my jaws shut. I’d interrupted; I knew better.
“You know it could be disastrous if the mages in this city learn the truth about…us.”
“Yes,” I murmured.
I knew it, though I’d always tried to ignore it. If the world knew my—her—secret…I couldn’t bear to imagine what would become of her. In some nations, being a mage was as much as a death sentence. Things hadn’t gotten so bad here, not that I’d ever heard anyway, but mages were still strictly forbidden from holding positions of authority in the government, or places of status in society. This wasn’t just a fun bit of scandal that I could stir up and then hide from as I always did. This was a question of her honor.
I winced. I didn’t want to think how close I’d come to destroying her.
She sat quietly another few moments, then she pulled her hands to her lap and raised her eyes to mine.
“Your father is going to speak to you later.”
“Am I in trouble?”
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 4
