He rolled his eyes. “She’s just a child.”
“Baby vipers still have fangs….” Lila trailed off, swaying on her feet, the gentle rock of a body trying to find balance. She braced herself against the wall.
“Lila?” He reached to steady her. “Have you slept?”
“Not you, too,” she snapped, flicking a hand dismissively at him and then back toward Hastra. “What I need is a stiff drink and a solid plan.” The words tumbled out in their usual acerbic way, but she didn’t look well. Blood dotted her cheekbones, but it was her eyes—again her eyes—that caught him. One warm and brown, the other a burst of jagged lines.
It looked wrong, and yet right, and Kell couldn’t tear his gaze away.
Lila didn’t even try. That was the thing about her. Every glance was a test, a challenge. Kell closed the gap between them and brought his hand to her face, the beat of her pulse and power strong against his palm. She tensed at the touch, but didn’t pull away.
“You don’t look well,” he whispered, his thumb tracing her jaw.
“All things considered,” she murmured, “I think I’m holding my own….”
Several feet away, Hastra looked like he was trying to melt into the wall.
“Go on,” Kell told him without taking his eyes from Lila. “Get some rest.”
Hastra shifted. “I can’t, sir,” he said. “I’m to escort Miss Bard—”
“I’ll take that charge,” cut in Kell. Hastra bit his lip and retreated several steps.
Lila let her forehead come to rest against his, her face so close the features blurred. And yet, that fractured eye shone with frightening clarity.
“You never told me,” he whispered.
“You never noticed,” she answered. And then, “Alucard did.”
The blow landed, and Kell started to pull away when Lila’s eyelids fluttered and she swayed dangerously.
He braced her. “Come on,” he said gently. “I have a room upstairs. Why don’t we—”
A sleepy flicker of amusement. “Trying to get me into bed?”
Kell mustered a smile. “It’s only fair. I’ve spent enough time in yours.”
“If I remember correctly,” she said, her voice dreamy with fatigue, “you were on top of the bed the entire time.”
“And tied to it,” observed Kell.
Her words were soft at the edges. “Those were the days….” she said, right before she fell forward. It happened so fast Kell could do nothing but throw his arms around her.
“Lila?” he asked, first gently, and then more urgently. “Lila?”
She murmured against his front, something about sharp knives and soft corners, but didn’t rouse, and Kell shot a glance at Hastra, who was still standing there, looking thoroughly embarrassed.
“What have you done?” demanded Kell.
“It was just a tonic, sir,” he fumbled, “something for sleep.”
“You drugged her?”
“It was Tieren’s order,” said Hastra, chastised. “He said she was mad and stubborn and no use to us dead.” Hastra lowered his voice when he said this, mimicking Tieren’s tone with startling accuracy.
“And what do you plan to do when she wakes back up?”
Hastra shrank back. “Apologize?”
Kell made an exasperated sound as Lila nuzzled—actually nuzzled—his shoulder.
“I suggest,” he snapped at the young man, “you think of something better. Like an escape route.”
Hastra paled, and Kell swept Lila up into his arms, amazed at her lightness. She took up so much space in the world—in his world—it was hard to imagine her being so slight. In his mind, she was made of stone.
Her head lolled against his chest. He realized then that he’d never seen her sleep—without the edge to her jaw, the crease in her brow, the glint in her glare, she looked startlingly young.
Kell swept through the halls until he reached his room and lowered Lila onto the couch.
Hastra handed him a blanket. “Shouldn’t you take off her knives?”
“There’s not enough tonic in the world to risk it,” said Kell.
He started to drape the blanket over her, then paused, frowning at the holsters that lined Lila’s arms and legs.
One of them was empty.
It was probably nothing, he told himself, tucking her in, but the prickle of doubt followed him to his feet, a nagging worry that faded to a whisper as he stepped into the hall.
Probably nothing, he thought as he sagged against the door and scrubbed the dregs of sleep from his eyes.
He hadn’t meant to fall asleep earlier, in Rhy’s room, had only wanted a moment of quiet, a second to catch his breath. To steady himself for all that was to come.
Now he heard someone clear their throat and looked up to see Hastra, one hand still turning a coin over and over between his fingers.
“Let it go,” said Kell.
“I can’t,” said the former guard.
Kell willed the coin from Hastra’s fingers into his. The guard made a small yelp, but didn’t try to take it back.
Up close Kell saw it wasn’t an ordinary coin. It was of White London make, a wooden disk with the remains of a control spell etched into its face.
What had Hastra said?
It’s my fault she found you.
So this was how Ojka had done it.
This was why Hastra blamed himself.
Kell closed his hand over the coin and summoned fire, letting the flames devour the coin. “There,” he said, tipping ash from his palm. He pushed himself off the floor, but Hastra’s gaze stayed, stuck to the tiles.
“Is the prince truly alive?” he whispered.
Kell pulled back as if struck. “Of course. Why would you ask—”
Hastra’s wide brown eyes were tight with worry. “You didn’t see him, sir. The way he was, before he came back. He wasn’t just gone. It was like he’d … been gone. Gone for a long time. Like he’d never come back.” Kell stiffened, but Hastra kept talking, his voice low but urgent, the color high in his cheeks. “And the queen, she wouldn’t leave his body, she kept saying over and over that he would come back, because you would come back, and I know you two have the same scar, I know you’re bound together, somehow, life to life, and, well, I know it’s not my place, I know it’s not, but I have to ask. Is it some cruel illusion? Is the real prince—”
Kell brought his hand to the guard’s shoulder, and felt the quiver in it, the genuine fear for Rhy’s life. For all his foolishness, these people loved his brother.
He pointed down the hall.
“The real prince,” he said firmly, “sleeps beyond that door. His heart beats as strongly in his chest as my heart does in mine, and it will until the day I die.”
Kell was pulling away when Hastra’s voice drew him back, soft, but insistent. “There is a saying in the Sanctuary. Is aven stran.”
“The blessed thread,” translated Kell.
Hastra nodded eagerly. “Do you know what it means?” His eyes brightened as he spoke. “It’s from one of the myths, the Origin of the Magician. Magic and Man were brothers, you see, only they had nothing in common, for each’s strength was the other’s weakness. And so one day, Magic made a blessed thread, and tied itself to Man, so tightly that the thread cut into their skin….” Here he turned his hands up, flexing his wrists to show the veins, “and from that day, they shared their best and worst, their strength and weakness.”
Something fluttered in Kell’s chest. “How does the story end?” he asked.
“It doesn’t,” Hastra said.
“Not even if they part?”
Hastra shook his head. “There’s no ‘they’ anymore, Master Kell. Magic gave so much to Man, and Man so much to Magic, that their edges blurred, and their threads all tangled, and now they can’t be pulled apart. They’re bound together, you see, life to life. Halves of a whole. If anyone tried to part them, they’d both unravel.”
VI
Alucard knew the Maresh palace better than he should have.