A second vault in such a short time unsettled even a steed as disciplined as Marble. She screeched as they materialized above the Labyrinthine Mountains, her eyes shut tight in distress. Titus had to yank the reins with all his strength to avoid crashing into a peak that suddenly reared in their path—the constant motion of the mountains meant that even one as familiar with them as he must always take care.
“Shhhhhh,” he murmured, his own heart pounding hard at the near miss. “Shhhhh, old girl. It is all right.”
He guided her higher, clear of any summits that might decide to sprout additional spurs. She obeyed his commands, her prodigious muscles contracting with each rise of her wings.
Beneath him, the Domain stretched in all directions, the Labyrinthine Mountains bisecting the island like the plated spine ridge of a prehistoric monster. To either side of the great mountain range, the countryside was a fresh, luminous green dotted by the pinks and creams of orchards in bloom.
You are the steward of this land and its people now, Titus, Prince Gaius, his grandfather, had said on his deathbed. Do not fail them as I did. Do not fail your mother as I did.
Had he known then what he knew now, he would have told the old bastard, You chose to put your own interests above that of this land and its people. You chose to fail my mother. I hope you suffer long and hard where you are going.
Quite the family, the House of Elberon.
Since the Inquisitor already knew he had visited the location of the lightning strike, there was no more need to be stealthy. As the castle came into sight, he wheeled Marble directly toward the landing arch at the top.
Marble cried plaintively at his dismount. He gave the rubbery skin of her wing a quick caress. “I will have the grooms take you for more exercise. Go now, my love.”
Strong winds buffeted the pinnacle of the castle. Titus fought his way inside and sprinted down two flights of stairs into his apartment.
He greeted the usual huddle of attendants with a snarled, “Am I ready to depart yet?” and waved away those still foolhardy enough to follow him.
The apartment was vast. Even with the aid of secret passages, it still took him another minute to emerge in the globe room, where a representation of the Earth, fourteen feet across, hovered in midair.
With a swish of his wand, doors shut, drapes drew, and a dense fog rose from the floor. Only the air between the globe and his person remained transparent. Carefully, he touched the half pendant he still wore to the globe. His fingers brushed against something hot and grainy—the Kalahari Desert, probably.
A pulse passed between the pendant and the globe. He drew back and looked up. A bright red dot appeared on the globe, a thousand miles east northeast of where he stood—and very much in the middle of a nonmage realm.
To limit the influence of Exiles,3 Atlantis had placed a chokehold on travel between mage realms and nonmage realms. Most portals would have been rendered useless. The girl’s trunk must employ startlingly unusual magic—or someone had made sure a loophole had been left open for it.
She could have been taken anywhere. But Fortune smiled upon him today, and her current location was within twenty-five miles of his school. With luck, he would find her in the next hour.
Waving away the fog, he summoned Dalbert, his valet and personal spymaster. He must leave immediately, before the Inquisitor put more agents on his tail.
“Your Highness.” Dalbert appeared at the door, a middle-aged man whose round, pleasant face hid a ferocious talent for intelligence gathering.
He had supplied facts and rumors to Titus in a timely and discreet manner for the past eight years, keeping his master apprised of everything that went on in the Domain and around the world while looking after Titus’s personal comforts. The prince, however, had never taken Dalbert into his confidence.
“There is a train getting into Slough in twenty minutes. I plan to be on it. Make it happen.”
“Yes, sire. And, sire, Prince Alectus and Lady Callista await below. They request an audience with Your Highness.”
The regent and his mistress resided in Delamer, the capital, and rarely called upon Titus’s mountain keep.
Titus swore under his breath. “Show them into the throne room—and have Woodkin exercise Marble.”