Eleventh hour.
Her steps dragged to a stop. She’d assumed the time on the edge of the coin referred to night, but what if she’d been wrong? After all, the surest crimes were those done in daylight, right under the mark’s nose.
Lila turned, and headed for the nearest bridge.
VI
WHITE LONDON
Kosika leaned her elbows on the castle terrace.
Below, a hundred soldiers were going through their morning practice, the motions of battle broken down and ordered into movements. They reminded her of leaves, the way they bent and moved, the way they rose up and turned together, guided by an invisible wind, their charcoal armor turning them to shadows on the training ground.
As she watched, Kosika plucked at a strip of linen wrapped tight around her forearm, her skin still raw from yesterday’s tithe. And perhaps it was just her imagination, or the nature of the season—and there were seasons now, four of them, instead of the pale breath of change that used to mark the passing of the year—but today, the sky looked bluer, the leaves a more vivid shade of green. The sun was burning off the morning chill, and Kosika savored the warmth of it against her skin as a shout rose up from the training ground below.
The soldiers had finished their movements, and broken off to spar, those who could conjure paired with those who couldn’t, so each could learn how to best the other.
Kosika spotted Lark among them. He had grown a foot or more in the last few months, his narrow shoulders banded with new muscle. And while there were other fair-haired soldiers, his curls alone shone silver-white in the sun, making him look less like a boy of nearly eighteen and more like a struck match.
She watched him circle his partner, turning the sword in a lazy arc, fire licking down the blunted practice blade. The other man was twice his size, but Lark darted and dodged like flame itself, and in moments, the other soldier was stamping out a lick of fire on his forearm. As he did, Lark twisted around his sparring partner and came up behind him, resting the blade against his throat.
And then he looked up at Kosika, and flashed her a wicked, toothy grin. An infectious smile that made her smile, too. As if they had a secret—the only secret being that they had lived a life before this one. That they were thieves, had stolen their way into this castle.
“You’ve got a crush.”
Kosika jumped, fingers tensing on the terrace wall. Nasi had come up behind her.
“Are you sure you cannot bend the air?” asked the young queen. “I never hear you coming.”
Nasi shrugged. “It comes in handy, being quiet. The better to watch you swoon.”
Kosika crinkled her nose, even as she felt her cheeks burn. She was not swooning. She looked down, but he was gone again, a blur of motion.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, turning her back to the soldiers. “Lark is like a brother.”
Nasi’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Just as I am like a sister?”
“Exactly.”
The other girl drew closer then, until their fronts were pressed together. She ran teasing fingers down Kosika’s ribs, her waist, still flat and narrow as a child’s. “One day you will want more than the company of siblings.”
Kosika hissed between her teeth, and swatted Nasi’s hand away.
“I just don’t want you to be alone,” said Nasi, and Kosika wished that she could tell her friend she wasn’t.
She was never alone anymore.
Holland stood beside her, as he had all morning, as he had every day for nearly a year. Her constant shadow. Her blessed saint. The hand that guided everything.
* * *
ONE YEAR AGO
After Holland appeared to her in that first dream, she lived for sleep.
Kosika sat through the council meetings, and entertained the parade of citizens who came to ask her favor, and walked the castle grounds, and dined with the Vir, and waited for night, when she could fall into bed and go in search of Holland.
Sometimes she found him in his room.
Other times, she found him sitting on the throne, or in the courtyard, or on the steps.
Some nights they walked the castle, side by side, and some they stood before his own altar, and he told her the stories of his life as Serak had so many times—only he also told her things that Serak hadn’t, details of his life before he came to serve Vortalis.
And if it was strange that a dream could know things that she did not, well then, Kosika assumed it was her own imagination. But every night she dreamt of him, Holland seemed to grow more real. Until one night, as they stood before his altar, she found herself saying, “I wish you were here.”
Holland had been studying the statue. Now he looked down at her, perplexed. “I am.”
“But this is only a dream,” said Kosika.
He surveyed the alcove where they stood. “It may be a dream for you,” he said. “It is something else for me. A shadow world. A waiting place. I was here, long before you found me.”
The words rattled through her, shook loose a vicious hope that he was not merely a figment after all. That he and this were somehow real. That Kosika was in the presence not of a conjuring, but the Someday King. An impossible hope, and yet, what was impossible, in a world where magic rekindled and power passed like a sugar cube between hands, and her eye turned black, and she was queen?
“What are you then?” she asked.
The question elicited the faintest twitch at the edge of his mouth. In all the works of art, in all the statues and sketches and reliefs, Holland Vosijk never smiled. His brows drew together, his mouth always a firm line, his jaw clenched, as if biting back words. Or pain. Even this could hardly be called a smile—it was only the barest curve at the corner of his lips—but she felt bathed in light.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked, and Kosika shook her head. She never had, even when Lark tried to scare her with tales when they were young. She knew that magic came and went, and so did people. Here was here and gone was gone—but what, then, did that make Holland Vosijk?
He seemed to consider the question, though she didn’t ask aloud.
“I know what I was,” he said. “But not what I am. I bound myself to the magic of this world. And so, it seems, I am still here.” He studied his hands. “In a way. I have been here in this place between. And then you found me. The question is…” His gaze flicked back to her. “How did you find me now?”
Kosika said nothing, even as his eyes weighed down on her.
“Your power was mine once,” he ventured. “Perhaps it grows. Or perhaps you have done something…”
She flinched, and knew he saw the truth, in her face, or her mind. Of the day she had used his token to travel, the day her dreams of him had started. And it was as if he himself had forgotten, and now remembered, suddenly, the open box, the missing piece.
What have you done?
His anger rekindled, then, and all the altar candles with it.
“You should not have gone there, Kosika.” She took a step back, but he caught her by the shoulders. “Tell me you took nothing out.” His fingers tightened, until it hurt. The pain felt real. “Tell me.”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I swear.”
Holland let go as quickly as he’d grabbed her, the sudden absence of weight leaving her off-balance. He turned away from her, and the circle of altar lights, and leaned against the alcove wall, shadows washing over his weary face.
“There was nothing to take,” Kosika went on. “No signs of magic. Everything I saw was dead.” But as she said the word, she thought of Serak’s lantern, the wick hissing with smoke as the fire went out.
Magic does not die.
Fear sparked inside her then, fear that she had carried some piece of cursed magic from that place, like mud on the bottom of her shoes.