The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

Iolanthe almost dropped the bun in her hand. It was a long moment before she could raise her bowler hat an inch. “Afternoon, my lady.”


Without a word in reply, Lady Wintervale led Iolanthe into an alley and vaulted. They rematerialized in a room with ivory silk wallpaper, an enormous fireplace, and a gilded ceiling. A large window looked out onto—

Iolanthe took a few steps closer. It was the Thames River, and Eton College on the other side. “Are we in the English queen’s home?”

“We are.” Lady Wintervale pulled off her gloves and tossed them aside. “Such a hovel.”

The interior of Windsor Castle was stodgy, to be sure, but it felt respectable enough. Then again, the Wintervale estate, before its destruction at the end of the January Uprising, was supposed to have rivaled the Citadel in magnificence. “Do the staff know you are here?”

“They do. They think I am one of the queen’s German relatives.” Lady Wintervale sat down in a daffodil-yellow stuffed chair. “Now tell me, how is Lee?”

Wintervale’s given name was Leander, but no one ever called him that—or any variants of it. “He can’t walk by himself, but otherwise he seems fine. He asks about you a lot.”

“What does he ask about me?”

“I . . . He never does it in front of me, so I can only relate what I have heard from His Highness. The prince says Wintervale is always anxious for your news. And His Highness has been glad not to have your news, so he doesn’t have to lie to Wintervale.”

Lady Wintervale placed two fingers against her temple. “And why can’t Lee walk by himself?”

“We don’t know. Would you like me to have the prince bring him here to meet you?”

Lady Wintervale’s head snapped up. “No. No. That would be far too dangerous. Absolutely not. And say nothing to Lee of my presence, you understand? Not a word.”

The woman always made Iolanthe nervous. “Yes, my lady, I understand. Wintervale is not to know you are here.”

“Good. You may go,” said Lady Wintervale, closing her eyes as if she had been exhausted by the conversation. “If you learn anything I should know, come back to this room and say Toujours fier.”



This time the prince was in the laboratory.

“Where were you?” Iolanthe could barely contain herself. “I have been looking for you all over.”

“I was in Paris.”

Paris again. “What were you doing there?”

“Buying things for you, obviously.” He pointed at a bag of pastries sitting on the worktable.

She didn’t think he had hopped across the Channel just for the baked goods, but that was a topic for another time. “I just spoke to Lady Wintervale.”

His expression changed instantly. “How did she escape? Or was she let go?”

Iolanthe’s heart dropped half a foot. “I didn’t ask.”

Part of her was always petrified with fear at being face-to-face with Lady Wintervale, since Lady Wintervale had very nearly suffocated Iolanthe to death when she first came to England. “I was in shock. She vaulted me to Windsor Castle, asked me a few questions about Wintervale, told me not to mention anything of her presence to him, and dismissed me.”

And she had been all too glad to be let go.

“Tell me everything again,” asked Titus. “More slowly this time. Give me all the details.”

She did, as he listened carefully. Then she asked, “Why do you suppose Lady Wintervale came to me, instead of you?”

“She knows I am watched, now more than ever.”

The hawker who always loitered before Mrs. Dawlish’s house, the person who might or might not be hiding in the copse of trees behind—they were but the tip of the iceberg. Some days, when Iolanthe walked to school with the other boys, she could feel the surveillance the entire length of the way.

“And what were you doing on High Street?” asked the prince. “It is not your turn to provide for tea.”

Mrs. Dawlish supplied three meals a day, but the boys were responsible for their own tea, which was in essence a fourth meal. The prince, Wintervale, Kashkari, and Iolanthe took turns buying a week’s worth of teastuff for the four of them.

Iolanthe started. “I completely forgot why I was there in the first place. The tiles.”

She related the incident of the roof tiles, and of the book that fell off a shelf and struck Kashkari. “Too many falling items to be a coincidence. Kashkari thinks they were all for him, the book and the tiles.”

Titus’s face was grave. “Far too many, especially roof tiles. Before I was sent here, mages from the Domain came and improved the house from top to bottom. Have you ever noticed clogged drains, creaking steps, or bad flues in this house?”

She had to think about it. “No.”

When things went smoothly, they did so unnoticed.

“And there would not be, not while I remain here, and perhaps not even for years afterward. So it is quite impossible for roof tiles to have blown off. Those roof tiles should have stayed in place even if a tornado took a running leap at Mrs. Dawlish’s house.”