Tes glanced back to the door, half expecting the tendril to surge out into the room. But it was gone. She turned her attention to Ned, and cobbled together her rusty High Royal.
“Thanks to you,” she said, the words strange in her mouth.
He rose to his feet and began to talk very fast, the words blurring together.
“Please,” she said. “Slow down. This isn’t … my language.”
Ned cocked his head to one side. “Oh, huh, I never thought of that. It makes sense, I suppose. Other worlds, and such. But Kell always spoke the King’s English.”
Tes started at the name. “Kell Maresh?”
But of course, it had to be. There was only one Kell who could move between worlds.
Ned nodded enthusiastically. “Do you know him?”
Tes snorted. People didn’t know the crimson Antari, Kell Maresh, adopted brother to King Rhy. Most never even met him. The closest she had ever come was when she named the owl Vares after him. But Ned was staring at her expectantly, as if it were a perfectly fair question.
“No,” she said. “I’ve never met the prince.”
“Prince?” Ned’s eyes went wide. “As in, heir to a throne?”
Tes nodded. Ned whistled softly. “He never told me.” He began to pace. “You sure we’re talking about the same Kell? Red hair? One fully black eye? And there’s his companion, Lila Bard—but she’s no princess. Have you met her?”
In fact, Tes had met the other Antari, once, when she first got to London.
It hadn’t gone well.
“Speaking of,” said the man, rambling on. “You don’t have one—a black eye, I mean—but you’re still here—how did you do that? I thought only those magicians with the black eyes could cross the threshold. Of course Lila doesn’t have one either, but then, that’s because one of hers is glass, not that you’d ever know.…”
The room was spinning and he was talking too fast again. Tes sank into his vacant chair and pressed her fingers to her temples. What she really needed was a very large, very hot, very strong cup of—
“Tea?” offered Ned.
She looked up. “You have tea?”
He bobbed his head. “Can’t get by without the stuff. You look like you could use some. I could, too. Long night. Of course, not quite so long as yours…”
He swept across the room, his long legs carrying him quickly behind the counter, and into an alcove. She heard the rattle of a kettle, a match being struck, a stove.
Vares sat on the table, the threads of the owl’s magic bright against the backdrop of the empty room. Tes reached out and ran her finger lightly down one string and the bird fluttered happily, as if she’d stroked the feathers he didn’t have.
Ned reappeared with a rattling tray. “How do you take it?” he asked.
She didn’t understand the question. “In a cup?”
He laughed—it was a gentle sound—then set a pot and two cups on the table, as well as a saucer of milk and a bowl of sugar. It had never occurred to Tes to foul the beautiful bitter strength of her tea with cream and sweetness, but maybe the tea here needed it. She watched as he put three cubes of sugar and a splash of milk in his cup. She put nothing in hers.
If the tea was bad enough, she decided, she would try it.
But the tea wasn’t bad enough. It wasn’t bad at all.
It was … different, of course. Different, but just as strong as she liked it. It was nice to know, that worlds might change, but this, at least, was constant. She wrapped her fingers around the steaming cup, and drank, and for the first time since she’d fixed the doormaker, and stepped into another world, and killers had come and threatened to cut off her hands, and her shop was destroyed and she was stabbed and forced to flee into another world, Tes felt her eyes burn with tears.
A few dripped to the table before she scrubbed them away.
Ned pretended not to notice. She was grateful for that. He nudged a small plate toward her. On it, a stack of pale disks, little bigger than coins.
“Biscuits,” he explained.
Tes considered them. They looked like kashen, a spiced cookie she’d eaten as a child. She took one, and sniffed it, but couldn’t detect any spice. She bit down, or tried, but it was hard, and bland, and resisted in her teeth, and she was wondering how—and why—a person would eat it when Ned took one and dunked it in his tea.
Skeptically, she followed his lead, placing the moistened biscuit in her mouth. This time, it was warm, and soft, and sugary. Not kashen by any stretch, but nice.
Vares clicked his beak, and Ned stared at the owl with a kind of childlike wonder.
“Amazing,” he murmured, and Tes felt herself preen a little—it was an elegant bit of magic. She finished her cup, and he poured her another, this one even stronger for how long it had steeped.
“Did you and Kell have tea often?” she asked.
Ned started to laugh, and choked on half a biscuit. “No. His visits have always been strictly business. He’s never even taken off his coat.”
“I’ve heard it’s magic,” she said. “That coat.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “Isn’t everything magic where you come from?”
Tes started to shake her head, then stopped. Not everything was spelled, of course, but there was magic in it. That’s where the threads came from.
“You have magic,” she said, glancing at the tendril in the air around him. “You shouldn’t. But you do.”
It was like she’d lit a lamp inside Ned’s face. “You can tell? I mean, I know it’s not much, but I’ve been practicing, every day, and I feel like I’m getting better…”
There he went again, talking too fast in High Royal, his hands moving in his enthusiasm. In fact, this man never seemed to stop moving. He reminded Tes of Vares. All those little twitches and shifts. She waited until he lost enough steam that she could catch the words—something about candles and element kits—and then her gaze drifted back to the locked wooden door on the other side of the room.
“There’s magic in there, too.”
Ned’s brow furrowed. The joy dropped out of his face. “Oh.”
“What’s behind the door?”
“Nothing,” he said, swift as a window slamming shut. The kind of lie that made it clear she wouldn’t get the truth.
Tes wanted to tell him that whatever it was, it wasn’t safe.
But there was a look on Ned’s face that said he already knew. He knew it was bad. He knew it was wrong. He knew, and here it was, and here he was with it. So she simply said, “Be careful.”
And then she finished her cup of tea, and stood, wincing as the stitches pulled.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
It was a good question. She didn’t have a good answer. But she couldn’t stay here. She went to the counter, and gingerly pulled on her coat, shoved her feet into her boots, tucked the doormaker under her arm, and slipped all of the coins save one into her pocket. She put the last on Ned’s table. As payment, for the help, and the tunic, and the tea.
He did a strange thing then. He took up the coin and brought it to his nose, murmuring what sounded like flowers.
“You’re very odd,” she said.
He smiled. “So I’ve been told. If you see Kell or Lila, tell them Ned Tuttle says hello.”
Tes laughed a little at that, even though it hurt. She couldn’t imagine running into the two Antari, but he seemed hopeful, so she said, “I will.”
Ned stood, following her to the door. “You can come back, you know. Anytime,” he said, throwing the latch. “You don’t have to be bleeding to death. I mean, obviously, if you are hurt, do come, but if you just want to swing by for a tea and a chat, that’s fine, too.”
The door swung open, revealing a pale grey morning.
“Oh,” he said, “I never got your name.”
And perhaps it was because of all he’d done to save her life, or perhaps it was because she never thought she’d see him again—perhaps it was just her tired mind giving way—but she found herself telling him the truth.
“It’s Tesali Ranek,” she said, adding, “but friends call me Tes.” Even though the truth was only Nero called her that.
Ned smiled. “Well, Tes. You know where to find me.”