Shelly Thomas - The Burning Sky

Lady Callista laughed softly. “Don’t be silly, sire. I’m looking for nothing of the sort. My goodness, why should I want anything to destabilize the current situation, which favors me so?”

She walked backward until she was on the pedestal and curtsied again. “However, should you ever decide to spearhead a quixotic cause, sire, you must let me know. Stability does grow tedious after a while.”

A CURIOUS VEHICLE OCCUPIED THE highest garret of the castle: a black-lacquered private rail coach. Inside, the walls of the coach were covered in sky-blue silk. A pair of padded chairs were upholstered in cream brocade. A porcelain tea service, with steam curling from the spout of the teapot, sat on a side table.

Canary cage in hand, Titus entered the rail coach, the link to his other life. He could almost smell the coal burning at the heart of the yet-distant steam engine, feel the rumble of the wheels on the tracks.

Dalbert brought his luggage, and then closed the door of the coach. “Something to drink for the journey, sire?”

“Thank you, but hardly necessary.”

Dalbert glanced at his watch. “Brace yourself, sire.”

He pulled a large lever. The coach shook. The next moment it was no longer in placid storage in the castle’s uppermost reach, but a thousand miles away on English soil, part of a train that had departed from Mansion House station, London, three quarters of an hour before.

“Slough in five minutes, sire.”

“Thank you, Dalbert.”

Titus rose from his seat to stand before the window. Outside it drizzled—another wet English spring. The land was green and foggy, the train’s motions rhythmic, almost hypnotic.

How strange that when he’d first arrived in this nonmage realm, he had hated everything about it—the sooty, offensive smells, the flavorless food, the inexplicable customs. Yet now, after nearly four years at his nonmage school, this world had become a refuge, a place to escape, as far as escape was possible, from the oppression of Atlantis.

And the oppression of his destiny.

Two shrill steam blasts announced the train’s arrival in Slough. Dalbert pulled down the window shades and handed Titus his satchel.

“May Fortune walk with you, sire.”

“May Fortune heed your wish,” replied Titus.

Dalbert bowed, Titus inclined his head—and vaulted.

None of the opening spells Iolanthe knew worked. She did not have power over wood. Water was useless here, as was fire. She could keep herself safe from fire, but were she to set the trunk aflame, either from inside or outside, she’d still succumb to smoke inhalation.

Unless someone freed her, she was stuck.

She didn’t often give in to panic, but she could feel hysteria rising in her lungs, squeezing out air, squeezing out everything but the need to start screaming and never stop.

She forced her mind to go blank instead, to breathe slowly and try for a measure of calm.

The Inquisitor wants me?

Badly.

The Inquisitor was the Bane’s de facto viceroy to the Domain. Once, when Iolanthe had been much younger, she’d asked Master Haywood why mages were so afraid of the Inquisitor. His answer she’d never forgotten: Because sometimes fear is the only appropriate response.

She shuddered. If only she’d listened to Master Haywood. Then the light elixir would have been safe—and she’d never have brought down the lightning.

She dropped her face into her hands. Something cold and heavy pressed into the space between her brows: the pendant the prince had given her before he shoved her on her way.

A new smidgeon of fire revealed the pendant to be a half oval made of a gleaming silver-white metal, with faint tracery on its surface. At first it remained icy to the touch—proximity to her fire made no difference. Then, for no reason she could discern, it warmed to room temperature.

The prince’s presence had to be one of the most puzzling aspects of the day, second only to Master Haywood’s anguished ignorance.

Master Haywood had known that she should be kept away from the prying eyes of Atlantis. He had prepared a satchel in the event of an emergency evacuation. How could he not know then where she was going or what was in the satchel?

The satchel!

She shoved the pendant into her pocket, called for more fire—taking care that it didn’t come near her hair or her clothes—and searched inside the satchel. Her fingers encountered fabric, leather, a silky pouch with jingling coins, and at last, an envelope.

The envelope contained a letter.

My dearest Iolanthe,

I have just come from your room. You are a week short of your second birthday, sleeping with a sweet gusto under the singing blanket that was still crooning softly to you as I closed the door behind me.

I want a secure, uneventful future for you. It fills me with dread to think of you someday reading this letter, still a child, yet utterly alone, as you must be.

(I can’t help but wonder how your power would have manifested itself. By causing the Delamer River to flow in reverse? Or shearing the air of a sunny day into a cyclone?)

Nightly I pray that we will never come to it. But it has been agreed that for the sake of everyone’s safety, I will give up my knowledge of certain events to a memory keeper. After tomorrow, I will only know that I must guard the extent of your powers from the notice of Atlantis, and that if I were to fail, to distance you from immediate harm.

You no doubt crave explanations. Yet explanations I dare not set down in writing, for fear that this letter falls into the wrong hands, despite all my precautions. Only remember this: Keep away from any and all agents of Atlantis. Every last mage in pursuit of you seeks to abuse and exploit your powers.

Trust no one.

Trust no one, that is, except the memory keeper. She will find you. And she will protect you to her dying breath.

To help her, remain where you are for as long as you can—I have been assured that the end-portal will be kept at a secure location. But by all means use caution. You cannot be careful enough. And whatever you do, do not repeat the action that brought you to Atlantis’s notice in the first place.

Be careful, Iolanthe. Be careful. But do not despair. Help will reach you.

I want nothing more than to take you into my arms and assure you that all will be well.

But I can only pray ardently that Fortune walks with you, that you discover hitherto unimagined strength in yourself and encounter unexpected friends along this perilous path that you must now tread.

All my love,

Horatio

P.S. I have applied an Irreproducible Charm to you. No one can capture your likeness—and therefore Atlantis will not be able to disseminate your image.

P.P.S. Do not worry about me.

How could she not worry about him? The Inquisitor would be furious when she realized that he’d deliberately given up his memories to foil her. And if—

A thump in the floor—a vibration that shot up Iolanthe’s spine—scattered her thoughts. She shoved the letter back into the satchel and extinguished her fire. For a moment she could hear nothing, and then it came again, the thump. Her fingers closed around her wand.

She lifted the disc covering the peephole. Part of the floor lifted. A trapdoor—she was in an attic. Light wafted up from the opening, illuminating crates, chests, and shelves upon which crowded ranks and rows of dusty curiosities.

The trapdoor rose farther, accompanied by a squeak of the hinge. A lantern made its way into the attic, followed by a woman with a wand. She raised the lantern. It glowed brighter and brighter, rivaling the blinding brilliance of noonday.