Lila tried to focus on these men, their slow movements like ticking cogs, but her own attention kept flicking back to the window, to those tendrils of fog that coiled and uncoiled beyond the glass, taking shape and falling apart, cresting, then crashing like waves against the palace.
She stared at the fog, searching for shapes in the shadows the way she sometimes did in clouds—a bird, ship, a pile of gold coins—before she realized that the shadows were indeed taking the shape of something.
Hands.
The revelation was unsettling.
Lila watched as the darkness drew together into a sea of fingers. Mesmerized, she lifted her own hand to the cold glass, the warmth of her touch steaming the window around her fingertips. Just beyond the window, the nearest shadows drew into a mirror image, palm pressed to hers, the seam of glass suddenly too thin, humming as wall and ward strained and shuddered between them.
Her brow furrowed as she flexed her fingers, the shadow hand mimicking with a child’s slow way, close but not in time, a fraction off the beat.
She moved her hand back and forth.
The shadows followed.
She tapped her fingers soundlessly on the glass.
The other hand echoed.
She was just beginning to curl her fingers into a rude gesture when she saw the greater darkness—the one beyond the wave of hands, the one that rose from the river, blanketed the sky—begin to move.
At first, she thought they were coalescing into a column, but soon that column began to grow wings. Not the kind you found on a sparrow or a crow. The kind of wings that formed on a castle. Buttresses, towers, turrets, unfolding like a flower in sudden, violent bloom. As she watched, the shadows shimmered and hardened into glassy black stone.
Lila’s hand fell away from the glass. “Am I losing my wits,” she said, “or is there another palace floating on the river?”
Rhy sat up. Kell was at her shoulder in an instant, peering out through the fog. Parts of it were still blossoming, others dissolving into mist, caught in a never-ending process of being made and remade. The whole thing seemed at once very real and utterly impossible.
“Sanct,” swore Kell.
“That fucking monster,” growled the prince, now at Lila’s other side, “is playing blocks with my arenas.”
Lenos hung back, his eyes wide with either horror or awe as he stared at the incredible palace, but Hastra abandoned his place by the door, surging forward to see.
“By the nameless saints …” he whispered.
Lila called over her shoulder. “Alucard, come see this.”
“A little busy,” muttered the captain without looking up. Judging by the crease between his brows, the cipher wasn’t proving quite as simple as he’d hoped. “Blasted numbers, sit still,” he muttered, leaning closer.
Rhy kept shaking his head. “Why?” he said sadly. “Why did he have to use the arenas?”
“You know,” said Kell, “that’s really not the most important aspect of this situation.”
Alucard made a triumphant sound and set the quill aside. “There.”
Everyone turned back toward the table except for Kell. He stayed by the window, visibly appalled by the shift in focus. “Are we just going to ignore the shadow palace, then?” he asked, sweeping his hand at the specter beyond the glass.
“Not at all,” said Lila, glancing back. “In fact, shadow palaces are where I draw the line. Which is why I’m keen to find this Inheritor.” She took in the map. Frowned.
Lenos looked down at the parchment. “Nas teras,” he said softly. I don’t see it.
The prince cocked his head. “Neither do I.”
Lila leaned in. “Maybe you should draw an X, for dramatic effect.”
Alucard blew out an indignant breath. “You’re quite an ungrateful bunch, you know that?” He took up a pencil and, plucking a very expensive-looking book from a shelf, used its spine to draw a line across the map’s surface. Kell finally drifted over as Alucard drew a second, and a third, the lines intersecting at odd angles until they formed a small triangle. “There,” he said, adding a little X with a flourish at the center.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” said Kell dryly. The X was, after all, not on the coast, or inland, but in the Arnesian Sea.
“Hardly,” said Alucard. “Ferase Stras is the largest black market on water.”
Lila broke into a smile. “It’s not a market, then,” she said. “It’s a ship.”
Alucard’s eyes were bright. “It’s both. And now,” he added, tapping the paper, “we know where to find it.”
“I’ll summon my father,” said Rhy as the others pored over the map. According to Alucard’s calculations, the market wasn’t far this time of year, sitting somewhere between Arnes and the northwest edge of Faro.
“How long to reach it?” asked Kell.
“Depends on the weather,” said Alucard. “A week, perhaps. Maybe less. Assuming we don’t run into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Pirates. Storms. Enemy ships.” And then, with a sapphire wink: “It is the sea, after all. Do try to keep up.”
“We still have a problem,” said Lila, nodding at the window. “Osaron has a hold on the river. His magic is keeping the ships in their berths. Nothing in London is likely to sail, and that includes the Night Spire.”
She saw Lenos straighten at this, the man’s thin form shifting from foot to foot.
“Osaron’s strength isn’t infinite,” Kell was saying. “His magic has limits. And right now, his power is still focused largely on the city.”
“Well, then,” sniped Alucard. “Can’t you magic the Spire out of London?”
Kell rolled his eyes. “That’s not how my power works.”
“Well what good are you, then?” muttered the captain.
Lila watched Lenos duck out of the room. Neither Kell nor Alucard seemed to notice. They were too busy bickering.
“Fine,” said Alucard, “I’ll need to get beyond Osaron’s sphere, and then find a ship.”
“You?” said Kell. “I’m not leaving the fate of this city in your hands.”
“I’m the one who found the Inheritor.”
“And you’re the one who lost it.”
“A trade isn’t the same thing as a—”
“I’m not letting you—”
Alucard leaned across the desk. “Do you even know how to sail, mas vares?” The honorific was said with serpentine sweetness. “I didn’t think so.”
“How hard can it be,” snarled Kell, “if they let someone like you do it?”
A glint of mischief flashed in the captain’s eyes. “I’m rather good with hard things. Just ask—”
The blow caught Alucard across the cheek.
Lila hadn’t even seen Kell move, but the captain’s jaw was marked with red.
It was an insult, she knew, for one magician to strike another with a bare fist.
As if they weren’t worth the use of power.
Alucard flashed a feral grin, blood staining his teeth.
The air hummed with magic and—
The doors swung open, and they all turned, expecting the king or the prince returning. Instead there was Lenos, holding a woman by the elbow, which made a strange picture, since the woman was twice his weight and didn’t look the type to be easily led. Lila recognized her as the captain who’d greeted them on the docks before the tournament.
Jasta.
She had to be half Veskan, broad as she was. Her hair plumed in two massive braids around her face, dark eyes threaded with gold, and despite the winter cold she wore nothing but trousers and a light tunic rolled to the elbows, revealing the silver lines of fresh scars along her skin. She’d survived the fog.
Alucard and Kell trailed off at the sight of her.
“Casero Jasta Felis,” said the woman, by way of grudging introduction.
“Van nes,” said Lenos, nudging the captain forward. Tell them.
She shot him a look Lila recognized—one she’d doled out a dozen times. A look that said, quite simply, that the next time the sailor laid a hand on her, he’d lose a finger.
“Kers la?” demanded Kell.