“Do oracles ever answer such questions?”
A loud knock came, not on his door, but hers. “You there, Fairfax?” asked Cooper. “I could use some help with my critical paper.”
“My flock bleats. I’d better shepherd.” She opened the door. “Cooper, old bloke. Have you missed me?”
Titus already missed her.
When she had left, he opened the Crucible to the illustration for “The Oracle of Still Waters.” Her face looked back at him from the surface of the pool. As he had hoped, the pond’s ability to capture the likeness of anyone who looked into it was immune from the reach of the Irreproducible Charm.
Titus V had built the trick into the pond because he had wanted all the great and terrible mages who dwelled inside the Crucible to resemble him. Titus VII didn’t even like to look at his own face in the mirror, but he was immensely grateful that his ancestor had been so silly.
Now he could work her likeness into any story of his choosing.
Now he could fight dragons for her.
And now he could kiss her again.
CHAPTER 19
PART OF A BRITISH BOY’S education consisted of memorization. In repetition class, pupils recited the forty or so lines of Latin verse they had been assigned to memorize.
Titus seldom viewed anything through the same prism as his classmates did. But on this mind-numbing exercise, he and they were in agreement: it was a colossal misuse of time. To make matters worse, although a boy could leave as soon as he had said his lines, sprinting out of the classroom like a puppy that had been kenneled too long, he could not say those lines until he had been called upon to do so. And Frampton invariably kept Titus waiting until almost everyone else had gone.
On the day Titus first returned to class after a weeklong convalescence, however, Frampton called on him second, immediately after Cooper, who always provided a perfect recital to set the standard for the rest of the class.
Titus, who had come to rely on listening to the lines repeated dozens of times during class to memorize them, stumbled badly.
Frampton tsked. “Your Highness, you are shortly to assume the reins of an ancient and magnificent realm. Surely the thought ought to compel you to do better.”
This was new. Frampton might have delighted in making Titus cool his heels, but he had never been openly antagonistic.
“The success of my rule does not rely on my ability to recite obscure Latin verse,” Titus said coldly.
Frampton showed no sign of being humbled by the rebuke. “I speak not of the memorization and delivery of specific lines, but of the understanding of duty. From everything I have seen of you, young man, you have a poor grasp of obligation and responsibility.”
Next to him, Fairfax sucked in a breath. She was not alone. The entire class was riveted.
Titus made a show of examining his cuff links. “It is irrelevant what a lackey such as you thinks of my character.”
“Ah, but times change. Nowadays princes from thousand-year-old houses may very well find themselves without a throne,” said Frampton smoothly. “Next, Sutherland. Let’s hope you’ve prepared better.”
Titus wasted no time in leaving. As soon as he was back in his room at Mrs. Dawlish’s, he inserted a piece of paper under the writing ball. No new intelligence awaited him. Not very surprising—only three hours ago Dalbert had reported that there had been little change in the Inquisitor’s condition.
But if the Inquisitor remained unconscious, why had Frampton gone on the offensive? Simply to remind Titus that he was now persona non grata in Atlantean circles for having incapacitated one of the Bane’s most capable lieutenants?
He was jittery. More than a week after the Inquisition, he still had no idea how to interpret the rupture view of a skyful of wyverns and fire-spewing armored chariots. Fairfax’s march to greatness had stalled since her breakthrough with air. The only concrete progress he could point to was an escape satchel that they had prepared and stowed in the abandoned barn.
They could not go on like this, at the mercy of events beyond their control. He had to find a way to neutralize the Inquisitor, exploit the rupture view, and spur Fairfax to firmer mastery over her powers.
He turned to his mother’s diary, hoping for guidance. If there was a silver lining to the dark cloud of the Inquisition, it was that his faith in her had been fully restored. The threads of destiny wove mysteriously, but he had become convinced that Princess Ariadne, however briefly, had had her hand on the loom.
He lifted the pages carefully, one by one, feeling that peculiar tingle of anxiety in his stomach. It was not long before he came to a page that was not blank.
26 April, YD 1020
Exactly a year before her death.