Exactly what Titus had feared. He grabbed Fairfax’s cage and gestured to Dalbert to keep quiet and follow him.
“Your Highness,” came Lady Callista’s voice. “The regent and I have been most distressed to hear of the seizure you unexpectedly suffered while touring the Inquisitory.”
“Hurry,” Titus whispered to Dalbert. “They will try to confiscate my transport.”
They slipped into a secret passage accessed from Titus’s dressing room and ran, Titus willing his stomach not to rebel again until later. The secret passage ended somewhere below the garret. He took the revolving steps three at a time, growing dizzier with each turn. Beneath came the pounding din of pursuit.
The garret, at last. They threw themselves into the rail coach, Titus bolting the door while Dalbert lurched for the controls. No sooner had Dalbert’s hand fitted around the lever than a phalanx of guards burst through the door.
“Go!” Titus commanded.
Dalbert pulled. The rail coach shuddered and forcefully inserted itself into the pulsating bloodstream that was the English rail works.
The sound of steel wheels grinding on metal rails had never sounded so sweet.
Fairfax was safe. For now.
CHAPTER 17
THE TRAIN HAPPENED TO TAKE them to Charing Cross rail station. Titus decided that one of the big, new hotels near Trafalgar Square frequently patronized by American tourists would serve his purpose very well.
He briefly bewitched a middle-aged lady and her maid. As the two followed dazed and obedient in his wake, he presented himself to the hotel clerk as Mr. John Mason of Atlanta, Georgia, traveling with his mother. Once he had his key in hand, he walked the lady and her maid out a different door, released them from the bewitchment, and bade them a cordial good night.
In his rooms, he applied layer upon layer of anti-intrusion spells, feeling no compunction in using the deadlier ones known to magekind. Deeming it secure enough for Fairfax to resume human form, he left her in the bedroom with a tunic from his satchel and a pair of his English trousers.
She padded out of the bedroom just as the dumbwaiter dinged.
“Your supper,” he mumbled from where he lay slumped on the settee, his arm over his eyes.
She found the door of the dumbwaiter. The aroma of chicken broth and beef pie wafted into the parlor. She set down the tray of food on the low table next to him. “Are you all right?”
He grunted.
“You don’t want to eat anything?”
“No.” He did not want to tax his stomach for the next twelve hours.
“So what now? Are we going on the run?”
He removed his arm from his face and opened his eyes. She was sitting on the carpet before the low table, wearing his gray hooded tunic, but not his trousers. Her legs were bare below mid-thigh.
The sight jolted him out of his lethargy. “Where are your trousers?”
“They had no braces and won’t stay up. Besides, it’s warm enough in here.”
He was feeling quite hot. It was not unusual to see girls in short robes come summertime in Delamer. But in England skirts always skimmed the ground and men went mad for a glimpse of feminine ankles. So much skin—boys at school would faint from overexcitement.
He might have been a bit unsteady too, if he were not already lying down.
“You never answered my question,” she said, as if the view of long, shapely legs should not scramble his thoughts at all. “Are we going on the run?”
“No, we go back to school tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Had they managed to take you before we left the Domain, you would have been doomed. But now that danger is past, we must do everything in our power to preserve your current identity. As long as it remains intact, Atlantis can suspect me as much as it wants, but cannot prove anything.”
“But you said you hadn’t managed to convince the Inquisitor of anything. She will come after you again.”
“She will, but not immediately. That interruption of yours was a blow to her. She will need some time to recover. Besides, I cannot disappear just like that. It is the law of the land that the throne cannot be left unoccupied. Alectus would be named the ruling prince.”
And that would be the end of the House of Elberon.
She ladled herself a bowl of soup and dug into the beef pie. “So we have no choice but to carry on at school?”
“For as long as we can.”
“And when we can’t anymore?”
“Then we will be put to the test.”
This earned him a look that was almost pure stoicism—except for a flash of sorrow. She had such beautiful eyes, this girl, and . . .
His thoughts slowed as he realized her eyes might be the last thing he saw before he died.
“You wouldn’t have been involved in this at all if it weren’t for your mother,” she said, yanking him back to the present. “What if the Inquisitor is right?”
What if the Inquisitor had been? Much of his mother’s brief life was a mystery to him, as were many of her visions. “Bear in mind the Inquisitor wanted to destabilize my mind as much as possible.”
“Did your grandfather kill your mother?”