The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

“Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt this engrossing conversation, but practice is about to start,” said West.

It had been an engrossing conversation indeed. Iolanthe hadn’t even noticed West’s approach. She shook hands with him. “We are drawing a crowd today.”

West glanced at the dozens and dozens of boys gathered at the edge of the playing field. “That’s nothing. Wait until the Summer Half.”

“Cooper and Rogers, over there,” said Iolanthe to Kashkari.

Cooper waved. Iolanthe blew him an exaggerated kiss. Both Cooper and Rogers bent over laughing, as if it were the funniest thing they had ever seen.

“Does the prince not come and watch you play?” asked West.

“He has about as much interest in cricket as he has in medieval French grammar,” Iolanthe answered.

“Is that so?”

West’s tone seemed casual, but Iolanthe could sense his disappointment—a subtle movement in the set of his jaw, the way he carried his bat closer to his person.

Why should West care whether Titus came to the practice?

Was he an agent of Atlantis, by some chance?

This possibility distracted her so much that it was not until they were twenty minutes into the practice that the significance of what Kashkari had said fully made itself understood.

Kashkari had seen her—or Fairfax, rather—several times in dreams in the past two years, while Fairfax was only supposed to have been absent from school for three months, according to the stipulations of the prince’s otherwise spell that had created and maintained Fairfax’s fictitious identity.

When Iolanthe had finally turned up, under the name Fairfax, Kashkari would have known that Fairfax hadn’t been absent for a mere three months, but had never been seen in Mrs. Dawlish’s house until that moment.

No wonder at the beginning of their acquaintance he’d asked Iolanthe so many questions and made her so nervous. He had suspected from the first second that some pieces about Fairfax did not fit together.

That Fairfax, who was supposed to have lived under Mrs. Dawlish’s roof for the past four years, did not exist until the start of Summer Half.



Iolanthe kept glancing at Kashkari as they walked back together to Mrs. Dawlish’s. He was possibly even more difficult to read than the prince—and he accomplished it without the haughtiness the latter wore like a suit of spiked armor.

It amazed her now, behind that gentlemanly amiability, how much Kashkari had kept to himself. Not only his own secrets, but hers too, never revealing anything of his inner thoughts, except perhaps an occasional question that left her flailing for an answer.

But why was he divulging all these closely held secrets to her? And why now? Was he trying to tell her something?

Or was it a warning?

The prince came out of his room as she and Kashkari reached the stair landing of their corridor at Mrs. Dawlish’s. “Our lackeys have our tea almost prepared.”

They usually had their tea in Wintervale’s room. Now that Wintervale was indisposed, the location had temporarily moved to Kashkari’s room. Iolanthe didn’t want tea, but she also didn’t want to drag the prince back into his room to unburden herself, not with Kashkari already saying, “A pleasure to host my friends.”

Kashkari’s room was almost as spare as the prince’s. A rather ancient-looking rug covered the floor. On the bookshelf gleamed brass plates that bore oil lamps and small heaps of vermilion and turmeric. Above this diminutive altar, the painted image of the god Krishna, sitting with one foot upon the opposite knee, a flute at his lips.

“Nice curtain.” She pointed her chin toward the sky-blue brocade drapery, which provided a splash of color in the otherwise plain room.

“Thank you. Something more substantial on the window for the English winter—otherwise cold air just seeps in.”

Junior boys came, bearing plates of hot beans on toast and eggs. Kashkari poured tea. They talked about Wintervale’s condition, the latest news from India, Prussia, and Bechuanaland—this last forcing Iolanthe to participate. The chair might as well have grown thorns. How much longer must they keep this up? And why had the prince come at all? Yesterday he had begged off tea altogether.

She glanced at the clock. Twenty-five minutes had passed. Five more minutes, and she was leaving.

A light knock came at the door.

It was Mrs. Hancock, with a letter for Kashkari. “This just came in the post for you, dear.”

Kashkari rose, took the letter from Mrs. Hancock, thanked her, and returned to the table. The envelope was a brown, square one, with large black letters written across both the front and the back. PHOTOGRAPH INSIDE. PRAY DO NOT BEND.

Kashkari put the letter aside, sat down, and then, with what for him passed as great agitation, rose again. “It’s no use.”

“What?” asked the prince.

“I know what it is: a portrait from my brother’s engagement party. I can’t avoid it forever so I might as well open it now.”