“It’s not just a ring,” he protested with far more certainty than he felt.
“Then what is it?” asked Jasta, arms crossed, still clearly bitter from being turned away.
“I don’t exactly know,” he said, defensively. “Maris called it a binding ring.”
“No,” corrected Alucard. “Maris called it binding rings.”
“There’s more than one?” asked Holland.
Kell took up the loop of metal and pulled, the way he had before, one ring becoming two the way Lila’s knives did, only these had no hidden clasp. It wasn’t an illusion. It was magic.
He set the newly made second ring back atop the crate, wondering at the original. Perhaps two was the limit of its power, but he didn’t think it was.
Again Kell held the ring in both hands, and again he pulled, and again it came apart.
“That one never gets smaller,” noted Lila, as Kell tried to make a fourth ring. It didn’t work. There was no resistance, no rebuff. The refusal was simple and solid, as if the ring simply had no more to give.
All magic has limits.
It was something Tieren would say.
“And you’re sure it’s Antari-made?” asked Lenos.
“That’s what Alucard said,” said Kell, cutting him a look.
Alucard threw up his hands. “Maris confirmed it. She called them Antari binding rings.”
“All right,” said Lila. “But what do they do?”
“That she wouldn’t say.”
Hastra took up one of the spell-made rings and squinted through it, as if expecting to see something beside Kell’s face on the other side.
Lenos poked at the second with his index finger, startling a little when it rolled away, not a specter, but a solid band of metal.
It tumbled right off the crate, and Holland caught it as it fell, his chains rattling against the wood.
“Would you take these foolish things off?”
Kell looked to Lila, who frowned back but didn’t threaten mutiny. He slipped the original ring on his finger so he wouldn’t drop it as he undid the manacles. They fell away with a heavy thud, everyone on deck tensing at the sudden sound, the knowledge that Holland was free.
Lila plucked the third ring from Hastra’s grip.
“A little plain, aren’t they?” She started to put it on, then cut a look at Holland, who was still considering the band of metal in his palm. Her eyes narrowed in distrust—they were binding rings, after all—but the moment Holland returned his ring to the crate, Lila flashed Kell a wicked grin.
“Shall we see what they do?” she asked, already sliding the silver band onto her finger.
“Lila, wait—” Kell started tugging his own ring off, but he was too late. The moment the band crossed her knuckle, it hit him like a blow.
Kell let out a short, breathless cry and doubled over, bracing himself against the crate as the deck tilted violently beneath him. It wasn’t pain, but something just as deep. As if a thread in the very center of his being had pulled suddenly tight, and his whole self thrummed with the sudden tension of the cord.
“Mas vares,” Hastra was saying, “what’s wrong?”
Nothing was wrong. Power coursed through him, so bright it lit the world, every one of his senses singing with the strain. His vision blurred, overwhelmed by the sudden surge, and when he managed to focus, to look at Lila, he could almost see the threads running between them, a metallic river of magic.
Her eyes were wide, as if she saw it, too.
“Huh,” said Alucard, gaze flicking along the lines of power. “So that’s what Maris meant.”
“What is it?” asked Jasta, unable to see.
Kell straightened, the threads humming beneath his skin. He wanted to try something, so he reached, not with his hands, but with his will, and drew a fraction of Lila’s magic toward him. It was like drinking light, warm and lush and startlingly bright, and suddenly anything felt possible. Was this what the world looked like to Osaron? Was this how it felt to be invincible?
Across the deck, Lila frowned at the shifting balance.
“That’s mine,” she said, wrenching the power back. As quick as it had come, the magic was gone, not just Lila’s borrowed stake but his natural well, and, for a terrifying moment, Kell’s world went black. He staggered and fell to his hands and knees on the deck. Nearby, Lila let out a sound that was part shock, part triumph, as she claimed his power as her own.
“Lila,” he said, but his voice was unsteady, weak, swallowed by the whipping wind and the rocking ship and that sudden, gutting absence of strength, too like the cursed collar and the metal frame. Kell’s whole body shook, his vision flickered, and through the spotted dark he saw her bring her hands together and, with nothing but a smile, summon an arc of flame.
“Lila, stop,” he gasped, but she didn’t seem to hear him. Her gaze was empty, elsewhere, her attention consumed by the gold-red light of the fire as it grew and grew around her, threatening to brush the wooden boards of the Ghost, rising toward the canvas sail. A shout went up. Kell tried to rise, but couldn’t. His hands tingled with heat, but he couldn’t pull the ring from his finger. It was stuck, fused in place by whatever spellwork bound the two of them together.
And then, as sudden as the gain of Lila’s magic, the loss of his, a new wave of magic surged through his veins. It wasn’t coming from Lila, who still stood at the burning center of her own world. It was a third source, sharp and cold but just as bright. Kell’s vision focused and he saw Holland, the final ring on his hand, its presence flooding the paths between them with fresh magic.
Kell’s own power came back like air into starved lungs as the other Antari peeled away thread after thread of Lila’s magic, the fire in her hands shrinking as the power was drawn away, divided between them, the air around Holland’s hands dancing with tendrils of stolen flame.
Lila blinked rapidly, waking from the power’s thrall. Startled, she dragged the ring from her finger, and nearly toppled over from the sudden spike and subsequent loss of power. As soon as the band was free of her hand, it melted away, first dissolving into a ribbon of silver mist and then—nothing.
Without her presence, the connection shuddered and shortened, drawing taut between Kell and Holland, the light of their collective power dimming a fraction. Again Kell tried to wrench the ring from his finger. Again he couldn’t. It wasn’t until Holland withdrew his own band, the echo of Kell’s original, that the spell broke and his ring came free, tumbling to the wooden deck and rolling several feet before Alucard stopped it with the toe of his boot.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Lila was leaning heavily against the rail, the deck scorched beneath her feet. Holland braced one hand against the mast for balance. Kell shivered, fighting the urge to be sick.
“What—” gasped Lila, “—the bloody hell—just happened?”
Hastra whistled softly to himself as Alucard knelt and retrieved the abandoned ring. “Well,” he mused. “I’d say that was worth three years.”
“Three years of what?” asked Lila, swaying as she tried to straighten. Kell glared at the captain, even as he sagged back against a stack of crates.
“No offense, Bard,” continued Alucard, scuffing his boot where Lila had scorched the deck. “But your form could use some work.”
Kell’s head was pounding so loudly, it took him a moment to realize Holland was talking, too.
“This is how we do it,” he was saying quietly, his green eye fever-bright.
“Do what?” asked Lila.
“This is how we catch Osaron.” Something crossed Holland’s face. Kell thought it might have been a smile. “This is how we win.”
VI
Rhy sat atop his mount, squinting through the London fog for signs of life.
The streets were too still, the city too empty.