Alucard nodded. “Not all sea maps are made equal, though. They all have the ports, the paths to avoid, the best places and times for making deals. But a pirate’s cipher is designed to keep secrets. To the passing eye, the cipher’s practically useless, nothing but lines. Not even a city named.” He glanced at Tieren’s rough map. “Like that.”
Lila frowned. There it was again, that tickle, only now it took shape. Behind her eyes, another room in another London in another life. A map with no markings spread across the table in the attic of the Stone’s Throw, weighted down by the night’s take.
She must have lowered her guard, let the memory show in her face, because Kell touched her arm. “What is it?”
She drew a finger around the rim of her glass, trying not to betray the emotion in her voice. “I had a map like that once. Nicked it from a shop when I was fifteen. Didn’t even know what it was—the parchment was all rolled up, bound with string—but it just kind of … pulled at me, so I took it. Weird thing was, after all that, I never thought to sell the thing. I suppose I liked the idea of a map with no names, no places, nothing but land and sea and promise. My map to anywhere, that’s what I called it….”
Lila realized the room had gone quiet. They were all staring at her, the king and the captain, the magician and the priest and the prince. “What?”
“Where is it now,” said Rhy, “this map to anywhere?”
Lila shrugged. “Back in Grey London, I suspect, in a room at the top of the Stone’s Throw.”
“No,” said Kell gently. “It’s not there anymore.”
The knowledge hit her like a blow. A last door slamming closed. “Oh …” she said, a little breathless, “well … I should have figured someone would—”
“I took it,” cut in Kell. And then, before she could ask him why, he added, hurriedly, “It just caught my eye. It’s like you said, Lila, the map has a kind of pull to it. Must be the spellwork.”
“Must be,” said Alucard dryly.
Kell scowled at the captain, but went to fetch the map.
While he was gone, Maxim lowered himself into a chair, fingers gripping the cushioned arms. If anyone else noticed the strain in the monarch’s dark eyes, they said nothing, but Lila watched as Tieren moved too, taking up a place behind the king’s chair. One hand came to rest on Maxim’s shoulder, and Lila saw the king’s features softening, some pain or malady eased by the priest’s touch.
She didn’t know why the sight made her nervous, but she was still trying to shake the prickle of unease when Kell returned, map in hand. The room gathered around the table, all but the king, while Kell unfurled his prize, weighting the edges. One side was stained with long-dry blood. Lila’s fingers drifted toward the stain, but she stopped herself and shoved her hands instead in the pockets of her coat, fingers curling around her timepiece.
“I went back once,” said Kell softly, head tipped toward hers. “After Barron …”
After Barron, he said. As if Barron had been a simple thing, a marker in time. As if Holland hadn’t cut his throat.
“Nick anything else?” she asked, voice tight. Kell shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, and she didn’t know if he was sorry for taking the map, or for not taking more, or for simply reminding Lila of a life—a death—she wanted so badly to forget.
“Well,” asked the king, “is it a cipher?”
Alucard, on the other side of the table, nodded. “It appears to be.”
“But the doors were sealed centuries ago,” said Kell. “How would an Arnesian pirate’s cipher even come to be in Grey London?”
Lila blew out a breath. “Honestly, Kell.”
“What?” he snapped.
“You weren’t the first Antari,” she said, “and I’ll bet you weren’t the first to break the rules, either.”
Alucard raised a brow at the mention of Kell’s past crimes, but had the sense for once to say nothing. He kept his attention fixed on the map, running his fingers back and forth as if searching for a clue, a hidden clasp.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” asked Kell.
Alucard made a sound that was neither a yes nor a no, and might have been a curse.
“Spare a knife, Bard?” he said, and Lila produced a small, sharp blade from the cuff of her coat. Alucard took the weapon and briskly pierced his thumb, then pressed the cut to the corner of the paper.
“Blood magic?” she asked, sorry she’d never known how to unlock the map’s secrets, never even known it had secrets to unlock.
“Not really,” said Alucard. “Blood is just the ink.”
Under his hand, the map was unfolding—that was the word that came to mind—crimson spreading in thin lines across the paper, illuminating everything from ports and cities to the serpents marking the seas and a decorative band around the edge.
Lila’s pulse quickened.
Her map to anywhere became a map to everywhere—or, at least, everywhere a pirate might want to go.
She squinted, trying to decipher the blood-drawn names. She picked out Sasenroche—the black market carved into the cliffs at the place where Arnes and Faro and Vesk all met—and a town on the cliffs named Astor, as well as a spot at the northern edge of the empire marked only by a small star and the word Is Shast.
She remembered that word from the tavern in town, with its twofold meaning.
The Road, or the Soul.
But nowhere could she find the Ferase Stras.
“I don’t see it.”
“Patience, Bard.”
Alucard’s fingers skimmed the edge of the map, and that’s when she saw that the border wasn’t simply a design, but three bands of small, squat numbers trimming the paper. As she watched, the numbers seemed to move. It was a fractional progress, slow as syrup, but the longer she stared, the more certain she was—the first and third lines were shifting to the left, the middle to the right, to what end she didn’t know.
“This,” said Alucard proudly, tracing the lines, “is the pirate’s cipher.”
“Impressive,” said Kell, voice dripping with skepticism. “But can you read it?”
“You’d better hope so.”
Alucard took up a quill and began the strange alchemy of transmuting the shifting symbols of the map’s trim into something like coordinates: not one set, or two, but three. He did this, keeping up a steady stream of conversation not with the room, but with himself, the words too low for Lila to hear.
By the hearth, the king and Tieren fell into muted conversation.
By the windows, Kell and Rhy stood side by side in silence.
Lenos perched nervously on the sofa’s edge, fiddling with his medallion.
Only Lila stayed with Alucard and watched him translate the pirate’s cipher, all the while thinking she had so much left to learn.
VIII
It took the better part of an hour for the captain to crack the code, the air in the room growing tenser with every minute, the quiet taut as sails in a strong wind. It was a thief’s quiet, coiled, lying in wait, and Lila kept having to remind herself to exhale.
Alucard, who could usually be counted on to disrupt any silence before it grew oppressive, was busy scratching numbers on a slip of paper and snapping at Lenos whenever the man began to hover.
Tieren had left shortly after the captain started, explaining that he had to help his priests with their spell, and King Maxim had risen to his feet several minutes later looking like a corpse revived.
“Where are you going?” Rhy asked as his father turned toward the door.
“There are other matters to attend to,” he said in a distracted way.
“What could be more—”
“A king is not one man, Rhy. He does not have the luxury of valuing one direction and ignoring the rest. This Inheritor, if it can be found, is but a single course. It is my task to chart them all.” The king left with only the short command to summon him when the damned business of the map was done.
Rhy now sprawled across the couch, one arm over his eyes, while Kell seemed to be sulking against the hearth and Hastra stood at attention with his back to the door.