“The insolence of it,” muttered George. He set his cup on the table and hauled himself to his feet, snatching up the letter from the table.
It appeared there were still some things a king must do himself.
*
It was getting worse.
Much worse.
Ned had tried banishing spells in three different languages, one of which he didn’t even speak. He’d burned all the sage he had stockpiled, and then half the other herbs he kept in the kitchen, but the voice was getting louder. Now his breath fogged no matter how high the hearth was stoked, and that black spot on the floor had grown first to the size of a book, then a chair, and it was now larger than the table he’d hurriedly pushed against the doors.
He had no choice.
He had to summon Master Kell.
Ned had never successfully summoned anyone, unless you counted his great-aunt when he was fourteen, and he still wasn’t entirely sure it was her, since the kettle had been overfilled, and the cat quick to spook. But desperate times.
There was, of course, the problem of Kell’s being in another world. But then, so was this creature, it seemed, and it was reaching through, so perhaps Ned could whisper back. Perhaps the walls were thinner here. Perhaps there was a draft.
Ned lit five candles around the element kit and the coin Kell had gifted him on his last visit, a makeshift altar in the center of the tavern’s most auspicious table. The pale smoke, which was spreading even in the absence of the sage, seemed to bend around the offering, which Ned took as a very good sign.
“All right, then,” he said to no one and to Kell and the darkness in between. He sat, elbows on the table and palms up, as if waiting for someone to reach out and take his hands.
Let me in, whispered that ever-present voice.
“I summon Kell—” Ned paused, realizing he didn’t know the other man’s full name, and began again. “I summon the traveler known as Kell, from London far away.”
Worship me.
“I summon a light against the dark.”
I am your new king.
“I summon a friend against an enemy I do not know.”
Goose bumps broke out along Ned’s arm—another good sign, at least, he hoped. He pressed on.
“I summon the stranger with the many mantles.”
Let me in.
“I summon the man with eternity in his eye, and magic in his blood.”
The candles shivered.
“I summon Kell.”
Ned closed his hands into fists, and the quivering flames went out.
He held his breath as five tendrils of thin white smoke trailed into the air, forming five faces with five yawning mouths.
“Kell?” he ventured, voice trembling.
Nothing.
Ned sank back into his chair.
Any other night, he would have been over the moon to extinguish the candles, but it wasn’t enough.
The traveler hadn’t come.
Ned reached out and took up the foreign coin with the star at its center and the lingering scent of roses. He turned it over in his fingers.
“Some magician,” he muttered to himself.
Beyond the bolted door, he heard the heavy clomp of a coach and four drawing up, and a moment later, a fist pounded on the wood.
“Open up!” bellowed a deep voice.
Ned sat up straight, pocketing the coin. “We’re closed!”
“Open this door!” ordered the man again, “by orders of His Majesty the King!”
Ned held his breath as if he could starve the moment out with lack of air, but the man kept knocking and the voice kept saying Let me in and he didn’t know what to do.
“Break it down,” ordered a second voice, this one smooth, pompous.
“Wait!” called Ned, who really couldn’t afford to lose the front door, not when that slab of wood was one of the only things keeping the darkness from spilling out.
He slid the bolt, opened the door a crack, just enough to see a man with a sleek handlebar mustache filling the step.
“I’m afraid there’s been a leak, sir, not fit for—”
The mustached man shoved the door inward with a single push, and Ned stumbled backward as George the Fourth strode into his pub.
The man wasn’t dressed as the king, of course, but a king was a king whether they wore silk and velvet or burlap. It was in his bearing, his haughty look, and, of course, the fact that his face was on the newly minted coin in Ned’s pocket.
But even a king would still be in danger.
“I beg of you,” said Ned. “Leave this place at once.”
The king’s man snorted, while George himself sneered. “Did you just issue an order to the king of England?”
“No, no, of course not, but, Your Majesty—” His gaze darted nervously around the room. “It isn’t safe.”
The king crinkled his nose. “The only thing poised to cause me ill is the state of this place. Now where is Kell?”
Ned’s eyes widened. “Your Majesty?”
“The traveler known as Kell. The one who’s frequented this pub once a month without fail for the last seven years.”
The shadows were beginning to draw together behind the king. Ned swore to himself, half curse, half prayer.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, Your Majesty,” stammered Ned. “I haven’t seen Master Kell this month, I swear it, but I could send word—” The shadows had faces now. The whispers were growing. “—Send word if he comes around. I know your address.” A nervous laugh. The shadows leered. “Unless you’d rather I make it out to—”
“What the devil are you looking at?” demanded the king, glancing back over his shoulder.
Ned couldn’t see His Majesty’s face, so he couldn’t gauge the expression that crossed it when the king saw the ghosts with their gaping mouths and their scornful eyes, their silent commands to kneel, to beg, to worship.
Could they hear the voices, too? wondered Ned. But he never got the chance to ask.
The king’s man crossed himself, turned on his heel, and left the Five Points without a backward glance.
The king himself went very still, jaw working up and down without making any sound.
“Your Majesty?” prompted Ned as the ghosts yawned and collapsed into smoke, into mist, into nothing.
“Yes …” said George slowly, smoothing his coat. “Well, then …”
And without another word, the king of England drew himself up very straight, and walked very briskly out.
II
It was raining when the hawk returned.
Rhy was standing on an upper balcony, under the shelter of the eaves, watching as freights hauled the remains of the tournament arenas from the river. Isra waited just inside the doorway. Once the captain of his father’s city guard, now the captain of his royal one. She was a statue dressed in armor, while Rhy himself wore red, as was the custom for those in mourning.
Veskans, he’d read, streaked their faces with black ash, while Faroans painted their gems white for three days and three nights, but Arnesian families celebrated loss by celebrating life, and that they did by wearing red: the color of blood, of sunrise, of the Isle.
He felt the priest come through the door behind him, but did not turn, did not greet him. He knew that Tieren was grieving, too, but he couldn’t bear the sadness in the old man’s eyes, couldn’t bear the calm, cold blue. The way he’d listened to the news of Emira, of Maxim, his features still, as if he’d known, before the spell was done, that he would wake to find the world changed.
And so they stood in silence beneath the curtain of rain, alone with their thoughts.
The royal crown sat heavy in Rhy’s hair, much larger than the golden band he’d worn for most of his life. That band had grown with him, the metal drawn out every year to fit his changing stature. It should have lasted him another twenty years.
Instead, it had been stripped away, stored for a future prince.
Rhy’s new crown was too great a weight. A constant reminder of his loss. A wound that wouldn’t close.
The rest of his wounds did heal—far too fast. Like a pin driven into clay, the damage absorbed as soon as the weapon was gone. He could still summon the feelings, like a memory, but they were distant, fading, leaving that horrible question in their wake.
Was it real?