It was a coat that no longer felt like it fit.
Technically, of course, it always would. Every one of the coat’s many sides were perfectly tailored to his body. It was in the magic threaded through the garment so that even when Kell’s body broadened at sea, new muscles winding over lean limbs thanks to hours of training with his swords, the coat had let itself out across the back, and drawn in at the waist, shaping itself easily to his new form.
And yet, as the crimson mantle settled on Kell’s shoulders, it felt all wrong.
He felt wrong within it.
In the mirror over the basin, a ghost stared back. Eyes mismatched, and haunted. Jaw hardened and cheeks hollowed. A single pale streak, like a scar, through his copper hair.
Across the room, Lila drove the dagger she was holding into the wall, pinning the slip of paper there. On it was a symbol, one of the first he’d ever done, a simple circle cut through by a cross. A shortcut. Antari magic could take a person to the same place in different worlds, or different places in the same one. But the latter required a marker.
“Remind me again,” said Lila, “why we couldn’t use your brother’s ring?”
A marker—or a token. The first would take you to a place, the other to a person.
“Because,” said Kell, “I know better than to walk in on Rhy unannounced.” It had been nearly a year since their last visit, and they’d made the mistake that time of traveling directly to the king. They had ended up standing in his private chambers, and Kell had seen far more of Alucard Emery than he’d ever wanted to.
Lila shrugged, and set to work, drawing her thumb along the knife’s edge, just deep enough to cut. She used the blood to copy the symbol onto the wall, but he could tell her mind was elsewhere.
“Still thinking of the night we met?”
He’d been joking, but she didn’t laugh. “I think about it often,” she said as her touch whispered against the wall. “When Holland found me, you already had the stone. There was no reason for you to come back.”
“It wasn’t your fight,” said Kell. “He was using you to get to me.”
“Still,” she said. “It only worked because you let it.”
“Yes. I did.” And then, “Good thing you came back for me, too.”
Lila tilted her head, examining her work. “Indeed.”
He paused, leaning on the basin. It must be the room, or the red light of the Isle, but he was feeling nostalgic. “Why did you?”
“Well, I had so much fun with Holland the first time, I thought—”
“Lila.”
She tugged the knife from the wall. “I supposed I owed you. I got away that night because you took my place. I had lost the fight. You know how I hate losing. Turns out I hate it even more when someone else is losing for me. Now,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“No.”
Lila smiled. “Good.”
He joined her at the wall. She tugged at the collar of his coat, then reached up and ruffled his copper hair so it fell in messy curls around his face. Then she took his hand, and placed her other on the symbol.
“As Tascen.”
The world didn’t tear open.
It simply fell away.
It didn’t hurt, not as it did when Kell performed a spell himself, but it felt wrong, as if he were a passenger, dragged along in the wake of someone else’s magic.
Then the world took shape again, and the Setting Sun was gone, replaced by the royal palace. Kell reached out and steadied himself against a tapestried wall, waiting for the shallow wave of dizziness to pass before he followed Lila out of the alcove and into his royal chambers. He looked around, at the bed heaped high with pillows, the golden tray balanced on the sofa’s edge, the balcony giving way to crimson dusk.
Home.
The word rose up like bile. He forced it down.
This room belonged to a different Kell, the one whose coat no longer fit. The one who had sat at a gilded table downstairs, trying to teach Rhy magic, the one for whom it came as easily as air. And standing there, amid the memories, he flinched, because of how badly he wanted to be that Kell again. To have that life back. But it was gone.
He had become someone else. By necessity, not choice.
And yet, this place called him back. Wrapped its arms around him in a strange embrace, and made promises it couldn’t keep.
Kell went to the bed, ran a hand over the silk pillows. It had been nearly a year since he’d last set foot in this room, and yet, it looked as though he’d only just left. The hearth was clean, and waiting to be lit. Books sat exactly where he’d left them, their covers free of dust. A pitcher of clean water waited by a marble basin. He imagined Rhy giving the orders, imagined servants drawing the curtains back each day, and returning them each night, going through the motions as if his brother might arrive at any moment.
Kell heard the bedroom doors swing open, and turned in time to see Lila vanish into the hall, followed moments later by the sound of armor as bodies scrambled into motion.
“Sanct,” he muttered, hurrying after. He reached the hall, and found three soldiers squaring off, blocking Lila’s way. At the sight of Kell they dropped their swords and sank into a bow, three plated knees striking the floor like bells.
“Well, that’s just rude,” muttered Lila, crossing her arms.
“Mas vares,” said the oldest guard, without looking up.
“Welcome back,” added the second, who looked to be his age.
The youngest of the three had clearly never seen Kell Maresh in the flesh, because he paled, and instead of bowing his head, looked straight at Kell’s eyes, his expression a rigid mix of awe and fear.
“Aven,” the young guard whispered under his breath, a blessing that might as well have been a curse.
Kell gestured for them all to rise, and said, “Where is the king?”
“In his rooms,” said the oldest, before turning to Lila. “Apologies, mas arna,” he added as they stood aside, and Kell could almost hear Lila’s teeth clenching at the term. My lady. The lights in the hall flared brighter.
Kell made it to the door first, knocking before Lila could barge in. Moments later, it swung open, and there stood Alucard Emery, slouched like a cat in the doorway, shirt open and brassy hair hanging loose around his face.
His dark blue eyes raked over Kell, and his mouth twitched into an arrogant smirk.
“I didn’t order this!” he called to the guards over Kell’s shoulder. “Send it back.”
Kell scowled, and it was a good thing then, that magic no longer rushed to meet his mood. Instead, his hand drifted to the blade at his hip as Alucard looked to Lila, the smirk blooming into a genuine smile. “Bard. You can come in.”
And then Rhy was there, pushing his lover aside, and flinging his arms around Kell’s shoulders.
“Brother,” said Rhy, holding him tight. And unlike the coat, and all the other trappings of Kell’s old life, this one, at least, still fit.
II
Rhy Maresh was on top of the world.
At least, that’s how it felt. In truth, he was perched on the sloping roof over his rooms, one leg drawn up, a bottle of silver wine balanced on his knee, and his brother at his side.
If he leaned forward far enough to look down over the edge, he’d be able to see his balcony below, the light spilling out his bedroom doors. If he looked straight out, he could see the entire city, a sprawling sea of glass and wood and stone divided by the brilliant crimson light of the Isle. And if he looked up, he saw only sky. Low clouds stained red, or the orb of the moon, or, on a dark night, the scattered light of stars.
Ask anyone in London, and they would tell you the best views of the city were those that looked onto the arching palace—but that was because they would never see this one.