A Darker Shade of Magic

“What is it?” asked Kell.

“Where’s Paris?” she asked, pointing to the place on the continent where it should be.

“There is no Paris,” said Kell, rummaging through a cupboard. “No France. No England, either.”

“But how can there be a London without an England?”

“I told you, the city’s a linguistic oddity. Here London is the capital of Arnes.”

“So Arnes is simply your name for England.”

Kell laughed. “No,” he said, shaking his head as he crossed to her side. “Arnes covers more than half of your Europe. The island—your England—is called the raska. The crown. But it’s only the tip of the empire.” He traced the territory lines with his fingertip. “Beyond our country lies Vesk, to the north, and Faro, to the south.”

“And beyond them?”

Kell shrugged. “More countries. Some grand, some small. It’s a whole world, after all.”

Her gaze trailed over the map, eyes bright. A small private smile crossed her lips. “Yes, it is.”

She pulled away and wandered into another room. And then moments later, she called, “Aha!”

Kell started. “Did you find it?” he called back.

She reappeared, holding up her prize, but it wasn’t the rook. It was a knife. Kell’s spirits sank.

“No,” she said, “but isn’t this clever?” She held it up for Kell to see. The hilt of the dagger wasn’t simply a grip; the metal curved around over the knuckles in a wavering loop before rejoining the stock.

“For hitting,” explained Lila, as if Kell couldn’t grasp the meaning of the metal knuckles. “You can stab them, or you can knock their teeth out. Or you can do both.” She touched the tip of the blade with her finger. “Not at the same time, of course.”

“Of course,” echoed Kell, shutting a cabinet. “You’re very fond of weapons.”

Lila stared at him blankly. “Who isn’t?”

“And you already have a knife,” he pointed out.

“So?” asked Lila, admiring the grip. “No such thing as too many knives.”

“You’re a violent sort.”

She wagged the blade. “We can’t all turn blood and whispers into weapons.”

Kell bristled. “I don’t whisper. And we’re not here to loot.”

“I thought that’s exactly why we’re here.”

Kell sighed and continued to look around the shop. He’d turned over the whole thing, including Fletcher’s cramped little room at the back, and come up empty. Fletcher wouldn’t have sold it … or would he? Kell closed his eyes, letting his senses wander, as if maybe he could feel the foreign magic. But the space was practically humming with power, overlapping tones that made it impossible to parse the foreign and forbidden from the merely forbidden.

“I’ve got a question,” said Lila, her pockets jingling suspiciously.

“Of course you do.” Kell sighed, opening his eyes. “And I thought I said no thieving.”

She chewed her lip and dug a few stones and a metal contraption even Kell didn’t recognize the use of out of her pocket, setting them on a chest. “You said the worlds were cut off. So how does this man—Fletcher—have a piece of White London?”

Kell sifted through a desk he swore he’d searched, then felt under the lip for hidden drawers. “Because I gave it to him.”

“Well, what were you doing with it?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you steal it?”

Kell frowned. He had. “No.”

“Liar.”

“I didn’t take it for myself,” said Kell. “Few people in your world know about mine. Those that do—Collectors and Enthusiasts—are willing to pay a precious sum for a piece of it. A trinket. A token. In my world, most know about yours—a few people are as intrigued by your mundaneness as you are by our magic—but everyone knows about the other London. White London. And for a piece of that world, some would pay dearly.”

A wry smile cut across Lila’s mouth. “You’re a smuggler.”

“Says the pickpocket,” snapped Kell defensively.

“I know I’m a thief,” said Lila, lifting a red lin from the top of the chest and rolling it over her knuckles. “I’ve accepted that. It’s not my fault that you haven’t.” The coin vanished. Kell opened his mouth to protest, but the lin reappeared an instant later in her other palm. “I don’t understand, though. If you’re a royal—”

“I’m not—”

Lila gave him a withering look. “If you live with royals and you dine with them and you belong to them, surely you don’t want for money. Why risk it?”

Kell clenched his jaw, thinking of Rhy’s plea to stop his foolish games. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Lila quirked a brow. “Crime isn’t that complicated,” she said. “People steal because taking something gives them something. If they’re not in it for the money, they’re in it for control. The act of taking, of breaking the rules, makes them feel powerful. They’re in it for the sheer defiance.” She turned away. “Some people steal to stay alive, and some steal to feel alive. Simple as that.”