But the prince waved off the last time as if it hadn’t involved a broken nose, several bribes, and a thousand lin in damages.
“This will be different,” he insisted. “No mischief. No mayhem. Just a drink at a place befitting our station. Come on, Kell, for me? I can’t spend another minute cooped up planning tournaments while Mother second guesses my every choice, and Father worries about Faro and Vesk.”
Kell didn’t trust his brother to stay out of trouble, but he could see in the set of Rhy’s jaw and the glint in his eyes, he was going out. Which meant they were going out. Kell sighed and nodded at the stairs. “Can I at least stop by my rooms and change?”
“No need,” said Rhy cheerfully. “I’ve brought you a fresh tunic.” He produced a soft shirt the color of wheat. Clearly he meant to usher Kell out of the palace before he could change his mind.
“How thoughtful,” muttered Kell, shrugging out of his shirt. He saw the prince’s gaze settle on the scar scrawled across his chest. The mirror image of the one over Rhy’s own heart. A piece of forbidden, irreversible magic.
My life is his life. His life is mine. Bring him back.
Kell swallowed. He still wasn’t used to the design—once black, now silver—that tethered them together. Their pain. Their pleasure. Their lives.
He pulled on the fresh tunic, exhaling as the mark disappeared beneath the cotton. He slicked his hair back out of his face and turned to Rhy. “Happy?”
The prince started to nod, then stopped. “Almost forgot,” he said, pulling something from his pocket. “I brought hats.” He placed a pale grey cap gingerly on his black curls, taking care to set it at a slight angle so the scattering of green gems shone across the brim.
“Wonderful,” grumbled Kell as the prince reached out and deposited a charcoal-colored cap over Kell’s reddish hair. His coat hung from a hook in the alcove, and he fetched it down and shrugged it on.
Rhy tutted. “You’ll never blend in looking like that,” he said, and Kell resisted the urge to point out that with his fair skin, red hair, and black eye—not to mention the word Antari following him wherever he went, half prayer and half curse—he would never blend in anywhere.
Instead he said, “Neither will you. I thought that was the point.”
“I mean the coat,” pressed Rhy. “Black isn’t the fashion this winter. Haven’t you got something indigo or cerulean hidden away in there?”
How many coats do you suppose there are inside that one?
The memory caught him like a blow. Lila.
“I prefer this one,” he said, pushing the memory of her away, a pickpocket’s hand swatted from the folds of a coat.
“Fine, fine.” Rhy shifted his weight again. The prince had never been skilled at standing still, but Kell thought he’d gotten worse. There was a new restlessness to his motions, a taut energy that mirrored Kell’s. And yet, Rhy’s was different. Manic. Dangerous. His moods were darker and their turn sharper, cutting the span of a second. It was all Kell could do to keep up. “Are we ready, then?”
Kell glanced up the stairs. “What about the guards?”
“Yours or mine?” asked the prince. “Yours are standing by the upper doors. Helps that they don’t know there’s another way out of this place. As for my own men, they’re probably still outside my room. My stealth really is in fine form today. Shall we?”
The Basin had its own route out of the palace, a narrow staircase that curled up one of the structure’s supports and onto the bank; the two made their way up, lit only by the reddish dark and the pale lanterns that hung sparsely, burning with eternal flames.
“This is a bad idea,” said Kell, not because he expected to change Rhy’s mind, but simply because it was his job to say it, so that later he could tell the king and queen he’d tried.
“The best kind,” said Rhy, looping his arm around Kell’s shoulders.
And with that the two stepped out of the palace, and into the night.
II
Other cities slept away the winter months, but Red London showed no signs of retreat. As the two brothers walked the streets, elemental fires burned in every hearth, steam drifting from the chimneys, and through his clouded breath, Kell saw the haloed lights of the Night Market lining the bank, the scent of mulled wine and stew drifting on the steam, and the streets bustling with scarf-wrapped figures in jewel-toned cloaks.
Rhy was right: Kell was the only one dressed in black. He pulled the cap down over his brow, to shield him less from the cold than the inevitable looks.
A pair of young women strolled past, arm in arm, and when one cut a favoring glance at Rhy, nearly tripping over her skirts, he caught her elbow.
“An, solase, res naster,” she apologized.
“Mas marist,” replied Rhy in his effortless Arnesian.