I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Alucard grabbed Kell by the collar, eyes wide and desperate. “Take me back.”
Kell shook his head. “There’s no one left on that ship.”
“My sister—”
He gripped Alucard’s shoulders hard. “Listen to me,” he said. “There’s no one left.”
It must have finally registered, because the fight went out of Alucard Emery. He slumped back onto the nearest sofa, shaking.
“Kell—” started Rhy.
He rounded on his brother. “And you. You’re a fool, do you know that? After everything we’ve been through, you just walked outside? You could have been killed. You could have been poisoned. It’s a miracle you didn’t fall ill.”
“No,” said Rhy slowly, “I don’t think it is.”
Before Kell could stop him, the prince was at the balcony, unlatching the doors. Hastra surged forward, but it was too late. Rhy threw open the doors and stepped out into the fog, Kell reaching him just in time to see the shadows meet the prince’s skin—and pull away.
Rhy reached toward the nearest one, and it recoiled from his touch.
Kell did the same. Again, the tendrils of Osaron’s magic retreated.
“My life is yours,” said Rhy softly, thoughtfully. “And yours is mine.” He looked up. “It makes sense.”
Footsteps, and then Alucard was there beside them. Kell and Rhy both turned to stop him from stepping out, but the shadows were already pulling away.
“You must be immune,” said Rhy.
Alucard looked down at his hands, considering the scars that traced his veins. “And to think, all I had to give up were my good looks.”
Rhy managed a ghost of a smile. “I rather like the silver.”
Alucard raised a brow. “Do you? Maybe it will start a trend.”
Kell rolled his eyes. “If you two are done,” he said, “we should show the king.”
IX
There were moments when Lila wondered how the hell she’d gotten here.
Which steps—and missteps—she’d taken. A year ago she’d been a thief in another London. A month ago she’d been a pirate, sailing on the open seas. A week ago she’d been a magician in the Essen Tasch. And now she was this. Antari. Alone, and not alone. Severed, but not adrift. There were too many lives tangled up in hers. Too many people to care about, and once again, she didn’t know whether to stay or to run—but the choice would have to wait, because this city was dying and she wanted to save it. And maybe that was a sign she’d already chosen. For now.
Lila looked around the Sanctuary cell, with nothing but its cot and the symbols on the floor. Lila had been here once before, a dying prince draped around her shoulders. The Sanctuary had seemed cold and remote even then, but it was colder now. The hall beyond, once quiet, sat deathly still, her breath the only motion in the air. Pale light burned in sconces along the walls with a steadiness she’d come to recognize as spelled. A gust tore through, strong enough to rustle her coat, but the wind barely stirred the torches. The priests were all gone, most taking refuge while holding up the wards at the palace, and the rest scattered through the city, lost in the fog. Strange, she thought, that they weren’t immune, but she supposed that being closer to magic wasn’t always a good thing. Not when magic played the devil as well as god.
The Sanctuary’s silence felt unnatural—she’d spent years slipping through crowds, carving out privacy in tight quarters. Now, she moved alone through a place meant for dozens, hundreds, a church of sorts that felt wrong without its worshippers, without the soft and steady warmth of their combined magic.
Only stillness, and the voice—voices?—beyond the building urging her to Come out, come out, or let me in.
Lila shivered, unnerved, and began to sing beneath her breath as she made her way up the stairs.
“How do you know that the Sarows is coming….”
At the top, the main hall, with its vaulting ceilings and stone pillars, all of it carved from the same flecked stone. Between the columns sat large basins carved from smooth white wood, each brimming with water, flowers, or fine sand. Lila ran her fingers through the water as she walked by, an instinctive benediction, a buried memory from a childhood a world away.
Her steps echoed in the cavernous space, and she cringed, shifting her stride back into that of a thief, soundless even on the stone. The hair bristled on the back of her neck as she crossed the hall and—
A thud, like stone against wood. It came once, and then again, and again.
Someone was knocking on the Sanctuary door.
Lila stood there, uncertain what to do.
“Alos mas en,” cried a voice. Let me in. Through the heavy wood, she couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman, but either way, they were making too much noise. She’d seen the riots in the streets, the mobs of shadow-eyed men and women attacking those who hadn’t fallen, those who tried to fight, drawn to their struggle like cats to mice. And she didn’t need them coming here.
“Dammit,” she growled, storming toward the doors.
They were locked, and she had to lean half her weight on the iron to make it move, knife between her teeth. When the bolt finally slid free and the Sanctuary doors fell open, a man scrambled in, falling to his knees on the stone floor.
“Rensa tav, rensa tav,” he stammered breathlessly as Lila forced the doors shut again behind him and spit the blade back into her palm. She turned, bracing for a fight, but he was still kneeling there, head bowed, and apologizing to the floor.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he said.
“Probably not,” said Lila, “but you’re here now.”
At the sound of her voice, the intruder’s head jerked up, his hood tumbling back to reveal a narrow face with wide eyes unspelled.
Her knife fell back to her side. “Lenos?”
The Spire’s second mate stared up at her. “Bard?”
Lila half expected Lenos to scramble away in fear—he’d always treated her like an open flame, something that might burn him at any moment if he got too close—but his face was merely a mask of shock. Shock, and gratitude. He let out a sob of relief, and didn’t even recoil when she hauled him to his feet, though he stared at the place where their hands met even as he said, “Tas ira …”
Your eye.
“It’s been a long night….” Lila glanced at the light streaming in through the windows. “Day. How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t,” he said, head ticking side to side in his nervous way. “But when the bells rang, I thought that maybe one of the priests …”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Is the captain safe?”
Lila hesitated. She hadn’t seen Alucard, not since marking his forehead, but before she could say as much, the knocking came again at the door. Lila and Lenos spun.
“Let me in,” said a new voice.
“Were you alone?” she whispered.
Lenos nodded.
“Let me in,” it continued, strangely steady.
Lila and Lenos took a step away from the doors. They were solid, the bolts strong, the Sanctuary supposedly warded against dark magic, but she didn’t know how long any of that would hold without the priests.
“Let’s go,” she said. Lila had a thief’s memory, and Tieren’s map unfolded in her mind in full detail, revealing the halls, the cells, the study. Lenos followed close at her heels, his lips moving soundlessly in some kind of prayer.
He’d always been the religious one aboard the ship, praying at the first sign of bad weather, the start and end of every journey. She had no idea what or who he was praying to. The rest of the crew indulged him, but none of them seemed to put much stock in it, either. Lila assumed that magic was to people here what God was to Christians, and she’d never believed in God, but even if she had, she thought it pretty foolish to think He had time to lend a hand to every rocking ship. And yet …