The thought was almost comforting: at least no one paid her any attention.
A breeze almost made off with her hat; she clamped it down and began walking. Her new clothes did not move well—too many layers, the cut restrictive, the material inelastic. And without her hair, her head felt oddly light, nearly weightless.
Gingerly, and trying not to look like a foreigner, she stepped onto the sidewalk, only to be immediately accosted by a grimy boy of indeterminate age, waving pieces of printed paper in the air.
She leaped back, primed to run the other way.
“More details from John Brown’s funeral! You want to know about ’em, guv?”
“Ah . . .” Did she?
“Read all about Her Majesty’s sorrow. Read it for a penny.”
She found her breath. A newspaper, that was what the boy was waving—newspapers in the Domain hadn’t used actual paper for a very long time.
“Sorry. Never cared for the man,” she said truthfully.
The boy shrugged and continued peddling his wares down the narrow street, which was squeezed in by tightly packed brick houses with steep, pitched roofs.
She came to a stop before the front door of Mrs. Dawlish’s house, black and unassuming beneath an arched doorway. There, she’d made it. Now she only had to pass herself off as a boy. For the foreseeable future.
And under the watchful eyes of Atlantis.
Titus changed into his school uniform in his own room. As he stepped out into the passage, Wintervale’s door opened.
“When did you get here?” asked Wintervale, surprised.
“A while ago,” said Titus. “I have been in my room.”
“Why didn’t you join Kashkari and myself?”
“I was in a foul mood—ran into the Inquisitor today. You do not look too pleased either. What is the matter?”
“My mother. I had to go back home just now.”
Titus asked the obvious. “Does she not usually leave for Aix-les-Bains as soon as you return here?”
“Baden-Baden this time, but she hasn’t left yet. I found her in the attic in a state. She kept saying she’d killed someone and that this time there would be no forgiveness from the Angels. I checked the house from top to bottom: nothing. If she had truly killed someone, you’d think I’d have found a corpse.”
It was not easy being Lady Wintervale’s son. She was not consistently insane. But at times she came close enough.
“Is she still at home?”
“She’s gone to stay with the Alhambras.” Wintervale knocked the back of his head against the wall behind him. “Atlantis did this to her. When are you going to lead us to overthrow them?”
Titus shrugged. “You will have to organize the revolt, cousin. If I could, I wouldn’t be here.”
Lying to Lady Callista and the Inquisitor was a perennial necessity—Titus took pride in rarely speaking a true word before those two. But lying to his second cousin, equally necessary, had always bothered him. He wished Wintervale were not so trusting.
“Why do you think I’m trying to get into Sandhurst?” said Wintervale. “The British fight lots of wars. Maybe there is something to be learned from them.”
Titus also wished Lady Wintervale had not adamantly adhered to the tradition of having a child from one of the Domain’s grandest families study alongside the heir of the House of Elberon. Lady Callista had been his mother’s companion—look how well that had turned out.
“Try not to get yourself killed in one of Britain’s colonial wars,” he told Wintervale. “It would be the ultimate irony.”
“Do I hear mentions of colonial wars?” said Kashkari, joining them, dapper in his impeccably turned-out uniform and sleek black hair. “Is your stomachache gone, Wintervale? You look better.”
“I’m fine now,” said Wintervale.
Lady Wintervale’s unpredictable mental state and penchant for relying on her only child meant that Wintervale often had to invent sudden pains to go back to his room—or clear his room—to use the wardrobe portal.
“Do the two of you want some tea?” Wintervale issued his usual invitation.
“Why not?” said Kashkari.
“I will join you in a minute. I think I saw Fairfax from my window. Let me go down to make sure it is really him.”
“Fairfax!” exclaimed Wintervale. “Are you sure?”
“But your window doesn’t face the street. How did you see him?” asked Kashkari.
“He was walking across the grass. Who knows? Maybe he wants to refamiliarize himself with everything.”
“About time,” said Wintervale. “We need him to play.”