Kell dragged his attention away from the glass, but the water kept spinning inside it. “What’s what like?”
“Being able to travel. To see the other Londons. What are they like?”
Kell hesitated. A scrying table sat against one wall. Unlike the smooth black panels of slate that broadcast messages throughout the city, the table served a different purpose. Instead of stone, it held a shallow pool of still water, enchanted to project one’s ideas, memories, images from their mind onto the surface of the water. It was used for reflection, yes, but also to share one’s thoughts with others, to help when words failed to convey, or simply fell short.
With the table, Kell could show him. Let Rhy see the other Londons as he saw them. A selfish part of Kell wanted to share them with his brother, so that he wouldn’t feel so alone, so that someone else would see, would know. But the thing about people, Kell had discovered, is that they didn’t really want to know. They thought they did, but knowing only made them miserable. Why fill up a mind with things you can’t use? Why dwell on places you can’t go? What good would it do Rhy, who, for all the privileges his royal status might grant him, could never set foot in another London?
“Uneventful,” said Kell, returning his glass to the chest. As soon as his fingers left its surface, the cyclone fell apart, the water sloshing and settling to a stop. Before Rhy could ask any more questions, Kell pointed at the glass in the prince’s hand and told him to try again.
Rhy tried again—and failed again—to move the earth within the glass. He made a frustrated noise and knocked the sphere away across the table. “I’m rubbish at this, and we both know it.”
Kell caught the glass ball as it reached the table’s edge and tumbled over. “Practice—” he started.
“Practice won’t do a damned thing.”
“Your problem, Rhy,” chided Kell, “is that you don’t want to learn magic to learn magic. You only want to learn it because you think it will help you lure people into your bed.”
Rhy’s lips twitched. “I don’t see how that’s a problem,” he said, “And it would. I’ve seen the way the girls—and boys—fawn over your pretty black eye, Kell.” He shoved to his feet. “Forget the lesson. I’m in no mood for learning. Let’s go out.”
“Why?” asked Kell. “So you can use my magic to lure people into your bed?”
“A fine idea,” said Rhy. “But no. We must go out, you see, because we’re on a mission.”
“Oh?” asked Kell.
“Yes. Because unless you plan to wed me yourself—and don’t get me wrong, I think we’d make a dashing pair—I must try and find a mate.”
“And you think you’ll find one traipsing around the city?”
“Goodness, no,” said Rhy with a crooked grin. “But who knows what fun I’ll find while failing.”
Kell rolled his eyes and put the orbs away. “Moving on,” he said.
“Let’s be done with this,” whined Rhy.
“We shall be done,” said Kell. “As soon as you can contain a flame.”
Of all the elements, fire was the only one Rhy had shown a … well, talent was too strong a word, but perhaps an ability for. Kell cleared the wooden table and set a sloped metal dish before the prince, along with a piece of white chalk, a vial of oil, and an odd little device like a pair of crossed pieces of blackened wood joined by a hinge in the middle. Rhy sighed and drew a binding circle on the table around the dish using the chalk. He then emptied the vial onto the plate, the oil pooling in the center, no bigger than a ten-lin coin. Finally, he lifted the device, which fit easily in his palm. It was a fire starter. When Rhy closed his hand around it and squeezed, the two stems scraped together, and a spark fell from the hinge to the pool of oil, and caught.
A small blue flame danced across the surface of the coinsize pool, and Rhy cracked his knuckles, rolled his neck, and pushed up his sleeves.
“Before the light goes out,” urged Kell.
Rhy shot him a look, but brought his hands to either side of the chalk-binding circle, palms in, and began to speak to the fire not in English, but in Arnesian. It was a more fluid, coaxing tongue that leant itself to magic. The words poured out in a whisper, a smooth, unbroken line of sound that seemed to take shape in the room around them.
And to their mutual amazement, it worked. The flame in the dish turned white and grew, enveloping what was left of the oil and continuing to burn without it. It spread, coating the surface of the plate and flaring up into the air before Rhy’s face.
“Look!” said Rhy, pointing at the light. “Look, I did it!”
And he had. But even though he’d stopped speaking to the flame, it kept growing.
“Don’t lose focus,” said Kell as the white fire spread, licking the edges of the chalk circle.
“What?” challenged Rhy as the fire twisted and pressed against the binding ring. “No word of praise?” He looked away from the fire and toward Kell, his fingers brushing along the table as he turned. “Not even a—”
“Rhy,” warned Kell, but it was too late. Rhy’s hand had skimmed the circle, smudging the line of chalk. The fire tore free.
It flared up across the table, sudden and hot, and Rhy nearly toppled backward in his chair trying to get out of its way.
In a single motion, Kell had freed his knife, drawn it across his palm, and pressed his bloodied hand to the tabletop. “As Anasae,” he ordered—dispel. The enchanted fire died instantly, vanishing into air. Kell’s head spun.
Rhy stood there, breathless. “I’m sorry,” he said guiltily. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …”
Rhy hated it when Kell was forced to use blood magic, because he felt personally responsible—he often was—for the sacrifice that came with it. He had caused Kell a great deal of pain once, and had never quite forgiven himself for it. Now Kell took up a cloth and wiped his wounded hand. “It’s fine,” he said, tossing aside the rag. “I’m fine. But I think we’re done for today.”
Rhy nodded shakily. “I could use another drink,” he said. “Something strong.”
“Agreed,” said Kell with a tired smile.
“Hey, we haven’t been to the Aven Stras in ages,” said Rhy.
“We can’t go there,” said Kell. What he meant was, I can’t let you go there. Despite its name, the Aven Stras—“Blessed Waters”—had become a haunt for the city’s unsavory sorts.
“Come on,” said Rhy, already returned to his sporting self. “We’ll get Parrish and Gen to dig up some uniforms and we’ll all go as—”
Just then a man cleared his throat, and Rhy and Kell both turned to find King Maxim standing in the doorway.
“Sir,” they said in unison.
“Boys,” he said. “How are your studies going?”
Rhy gave Kell a weighted look, and Kell raised a brow, but said only, “They’ve come and gone. We just finished.”
“Good,” said the king, producing a letter.
Kell didn’t realize how much he badly he wanted that drink with Rhy until he saw the envelope, and he knew he wouldn’t get it. His heart sank, but he didn’t let it show.
“I need you to carry a message,” said the king. “To our strong neighbor.”
Kell’s chest tightened with the familiar mixture of fear and excitement that was inextricable when it came to White London.
“Of course, sir,” he said.
“Holland delivered a letter yesterday,” explained the king. “But couldn’t stay to collect the response. I told him I would send it back with you.”
Kell frowned. “All is well, I hope,” he said carefully. He rarely knew the contents of the royal messages he carried, but he could usually glean the tone—the correspondences with Grey London had devolved to mere formality, the cities having little in common, while the dialogue with White was constant and involved and left a furrow in the king’s brow. Their “strong neighbor” (as the king called the other city) was a place torn by violence and power, the name at the end of the royal letters changing with disturbing frequency. It would have been too easy to discontinue correspondence and leave White London to its decay, but the Red crown couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
They felt responsible for the dying city.
And they were.
After all, it had been Red London’s decision to seal itself off, leaving White London—which sat between Red and Black—trapped and forced to fight back the dark plague on its own, to seal itself in, and the corrupted magic out. It was a decision that haunted centuries of kings and queens, but at the time, White London was strong—stronger even than Red—and the Red crown believed (or claimed to believe) it was the only way they would all survive. They were right and wrong. Grey London receded into quiet obliviousness. Red not only survived but flourished. But White was forever changed. The city, once glorious, fell to chaos and conquering. Blood and ash.
“All is as well as it can be,” said the king as he handed Kell the note and turned back toward the door. Kell moved to follow when Rhy caught his arm.
“Promise,” the prince whispered under his breath. “Promise you’ll come back empty-handed this time.”
Kell hesitated. “I promise,” he said, wondering how many times he had said those words, how empty they’d become.
But as he pulled a pale piece of silver from beneath his collar, he hoped that this time they might prove true.