A Conjuring of Light

  All of this was said without a pause, or, as far as Kell could tell, the need for breath. But that wasn’t what unnerved him most. “How do you know about the state of London?”

  Maris’s attention drifted toward him, and she began to answer, then squinted. “Ah,” she said, “it seems you’ve found my old coat.” Kell’s hands rose defensively to his collar, but Maris waved it away. “If I wanted it back, I wouldn’t have lost it. Thing’s got a mind of its own, I think the spellwork must be fraying. Still eating coins and spitting out lint? No? It must like you.”

  Kell never got a word in edgewise, as Maris seemed more than content to carry on her conversations without a partner. He wondered if the old woman was a little daft, but her pale eyes flicked from target to target with all the speed and accuracy of a well-thrown knife.

  Now that attention landed on Lila. “Aren’t you a trinket,” said Maris. “But I’m betting a devil to hold on to. Has anyone told you, you’ve something in your eye?” Her hand tipped, letting the tokens tumble roughly to the table. “The watch must be yours, my darling traveler. It smells of ash and blood instead of flowers.”

  “It’s the most precious thing I own,” said Lila through gritted teeth.

  “Owned,” corrected Maris. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, dearie. You gave it up.” Her fingers tightened on the cane, eliciting a crackle of ligament and bone. “You must want something more. What brings a prince, a noble, and a stranger to my market? Have you come with a single prize in mind, or are you here to browse?”

  “We only want—” started Kell, but Alucard clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  “To help our city,” said the captain.

  Kell shot him a confused look but had the sense to say nothing.

  “You’re right, Maris,” continued Alucard. “A shadow has fallen over London, and nothing we have can stop it.”

  The old woman rapped her nails on the table. “And here I thought London wanted nothing to do with you, Master Emery.”

  Alucard swallowed. “Perhaps,” he said, casting a dark look Kell’s way. “But I still care for it.”

  Lila’s attention was still leveled on Maris. “What are the rules?”

  “This is a black market,” she said. “There are no rules.”

  “This is a ship,” countered Lila. “And every ship has rules. The captain sets them. Unless, of course, you’re not the captain of this ship.”

  Maris flashed her teeth. “I am captain and crew, merchant and law. Everyone aboard works for me.”

  “They’re family, aren’t they?” said Lila.

  “Stop talking, Bard,” warned Alucard.

  “The two men who threw the other overboard, they take after you, and the one guarding the door—Katros, was it?—has your eyes.”

  “Perceptive,” said Maris, “for a girl with only one of her own.” The woman stood, and Kell expected to hear the creak and pop of old bones settling. Instead, he heard only a soft exhale, the rustle of cloth as it settled. “The rules are simple enough: your token buys you access to this market; it buys you nothing more. Everything aboard has a price, whether or not you elect to pay it.”

  “And I assume we can only choose one thing,” said Lila.

  Kell recalled the man thrown overboard, the way he’d called out for another chance.

  “You know, Miss Bard, there is such a thing as being sharp enough to cut yourself.”

  Lila smiled, as if it were a compliment.

  “Lastly,” continued Maris with a pointed look her way, “the market is warded five ways to summer against acts of magic and theft. I encourage you not to try and pocket anything before it’s yours. It will not go well.”

  With that, Maris took her seat, opened a ledger, and began to write.

  They stood there, waiting for her to say more, or to excuse them, but after several uncomfortable moments, during which the only sound was the rattling of one trunk, the slosh of the sea, and the scratch of her quill, Maris’s bony fingers drifted to a second door set between two stacks of boxes.

  “Why are you still here?” she said without looking up, and that was all the dismissal they got.

  * * *

  “Why are we even bothering with the ship?” asked Kell as soon as they were through the door. “Maris has the only thing we need.”

  “Which is the last thing you’re going tell her,” snapped Alucard.

  “The more you want something from someone,” added Lila, “the less they’ll want to part with it. If Maris finds out what we actually need, we’ll lose what power we have to bargain.” Kell crossed his arms and looked about to counter, but she pressed on. “There are three of us, and only one Inheritor, which means the two of you need to find something else to buy.” Before either of the men could protest, she cut them off. “Alucard, you can’t ask for the Inheritor back, you’re the one who gave it to her, and Kell, no offense, but you tend to make people angry.”

  Kell’s brow furrowed. “I don’t see how that—”

  “Maris is a thief,” said Lila, “and a bloody good one by the look of this ship, so she and I have something in common. Leave the Inheritor to me.”

  “And what are we supposed to do?” asked Kell, gesturing to himself and the captain.

  Alucard made a sweeping gesture across the market, the sapphire twinkling above his eye. “Shop.”

  VII

  Holland still hated being at sea—the dip and swell of the ship, the constant sense of imbalance—but moving around helped, somewhat. The manacles still emitted their dull, muffling pressure, but the air on deck was crisp and fresh, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was somewhere else—though where he’d be, Holland didn’t really know.

  His stomach panged, still hollowed out from his first hours aboard, and he reluctantly made his way back down into the hold.

  The old man, Ilo, stood at the narrow counter in the galley, rinsing potatoes and humming to himself. He didn’t stop when Holland entered, didn’t even soften his tune, just carried on as if he didn’t know the magician was there.

  A bowl of apples sat in the center of the table, and Holland reached out, chains scraping the wood. Still the cook didn’t move. So the gesture was pointed, thought Holland, turning to go.

  But his way was blocked.

  Jasta stood in the doorway, half a head taller than Holland, her dark eyes leveled on him. There was no kindness in that gaze, and no sign of the others behind her.

  Holland frowned. “That was fast.…”

  He trailed off at the sight of the blade in her hand. One manacled wrist leaned on the table, the apple in his other hand, a short length of chain between. He’d lost the splinter he’d kept between metal and skin, but a paring knife sat on the counter nearby, its handle within reach. He didn’t move toward it, not yet.

  It was a narrow room, and Ilo was still washing and humming as if nothing were amiss, pointedly ignoring the rising tension.

  Jasta held her blade loosely, with a comfort that gave Holland pause.

  “Captain,” he said carefully.

  Jasta looked down at her knife. “My brother is dead,” she said slowly, “because of you. Half my crew is gone because of you.”

  She stepped toward him.

  “My city is in peril because of you.”

  He held his ground. She was close now. Close enough to use the blade before he could stop her without things getting messy.

  “Perhaps two Antari will be enough,” she said, bringing the tip of the knife to rest against his collar. Her gaze held his as she pressed down, testing, the knife sinking just enough to draw blood before a new voice echoed down the hall. Hastra. Followed by Lenos. Steps tumbling briskly down the stairs.

  “Perhaps,” she said again, stepping back, “but I’m not willing to risk it.”

  She turned and stormed out. Holland rocked back against the counter, wiping the blood from his skin as Hastra and Lenos appeared and Ilo took up another song.

  TEN

>   BLOOD AND BINDING

  I

  Grey London

  Ned Tuttle woke to the sound of someone knocking.

  It was late morning, and he’d fallen asleep at a table in the tavern, the grooves of the table’s pentagram now etched like sheet folds into the side of his face.

  He sat up, lost for a moment between where he was and where he’d been.

  The dreams were getting stranger.

  Every time, he found himself somewhere else—on a bridge overlooking a black river, looking up at a palace of marble and crimson and gold—and every time he was lost.

  He’d read about men who could walk through dreams. They could project themselves into other places, other times—but when they walked, they were able to speak to people, and learn things, and they always came away wiser. When Ned dreamt, he just felt more and more alone.

  He moved like a ghost through crowds of men and women who spoke languages he’d never heard, whose eyes swam with shadows and whose edges burned with light. Sometimes they didn’t seem to see him, and other times they did, and those were worse, because then they’d reach for him, claw at him, and he’d have to run, and every time he ran, he ended up lost.

  And then he’d hear that particular voice; the murmur and the susurrus, low and smooth and steady as water over rocks, the words muffled by some unseen veil between them. A voice that reached just like those shadow hands, wrapping fingers around his throat.

  Ned’s temples were pounding in time with the door as he reached for the glass on the table that had so recently served as his bed. Realizing the glass was empty, he swore and took up the bottle just beyond his fingers, swigging in a way that would have earned him a reproach if he were still at home. The table itself was scattered with parchment, ink, the elemental kit he’d bought from the gentleman who’d bought it from Kell. This last item rattled sporadically as if possessed (and it was, the bits of bone and stone and drops of water trying to get out). Ned thought groggily that it might have been the source of the knocking, but when he put his hand firmly on the box, the sound still echoed from the door.

  “Coming,” he called hoarsely, pausing a moment to steady his aching head, but when he rose and turned toward the tavern door, his jaw dropped.

  The door was knocking itself, rocking forward and back in its frame, straining against the bolt. Ned wondered if there was a strong wind outside, but when he threw the shutters, the tavern sign hung still as death in the early morning light.

  A shiver passed through him. He had always known this place was special. He’d heard the rumors from patrons back when he was one of them, and now they’d lean forward on their stools and ask him, as if he knew any more than they.

  “Is it true…” they’d start, followed by a dozen different questions.

  “That this place is haunted?”

  “That it’s built on a ley line?”

  “That it sits in two worlds?”

  “That it belongs to neither?”

  Is it true, is it true, and Ned only knew that whatever it was, it had drawn him, and now it was drawing something else.

  The door kept up its phantom knocking as Ned stumbled up the stairs and into his room, searching through the drawers until he found his biggest bundle of sage and his favored book of spells.

  He was halfway down the stairs again when the noise stopped.

  Ned returned to the tavern, crossing himself for good measure, and set the book on the table, turning through the pages until he found one to banish negative forces.

  He went to the hearth, stoked the last embers of the night’s fire, and touched the end of the sage bundle until it caught.

  “I banish the darkness,” he intoned, sweeping the sage through the air. “It is not welcome,” he went on, tracing the windows and doors. “Begone foul spirits, and demons, and ghosts, for this is a place of…”

  He trailed off as the smoke from the sage curled through the air around him and began to make shapes. First mouths, and then eyes, nightmarish faces drawing themselves in the pale plumes around him.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Ned fumbled for a piece of chalk and dropped to his knees, drawing a pentagram on the tavern floor. He climbed inside, wishing he had a bit of salt, too, but unwilling to venture out behind the bar as all around him the grotesque faces swelled and fell apart and swelled again, their mouths yawning wide, as if laughing, or screaming—but the only sound that came out was that voice.

  The one from his dream.

  It was up close and far away, the kind of voice that seemed to be coming from the other room and another world at once.

  “What are you?” Ned demanded, voice trembling.

  “I am a god,” it said. “I am a king.”

  “What do you want?” he said, because everyone knew that spirits had to tell the truth. Or was that fae? Christ …

  “I am just,” said the voice. “I am merciful.…”

  “What is your name?”

  “Worship me, and we will do great things.…”

  “Answer me.”

  “I am a god.… I am a king.…”

  That’s when Ned realized that, whatever it was, wherever it was, the voice wasn’t talking to him. It was reciting its lines, repeating the words as one might a spell. Or a summoning.

  Ned began to back out of the pentagram, his foot slipping on something smooth. Looking down, he saw a small patch of black on the old wooden floor, the size of a large coin. He thought at first that he had missed a spill, the remnants of someone’s drink frozen in the recent cold snap. But the room wasn’t really cold enough, and when Ned touched the strange dark slick, neither was it. He tapped it once with his nail and it sounded almost like glass, and then, before his eyes, the patch began to spread.

  The knocking started up again, but this time a very human voice beyond the door called out, “Oy, Tuttle! Open up!”

  Ned looked from the door, to the thinning smoke faces still hanging in the air, to the patch of creeping darkness on the floor, and called back, “We’re closed!”

  The words were met by a grumbled curse and the scuff of boots, and as soon as the man was gone, Ned was up, propping a chair against the locked door for good measure before he returned to the open book and started looking for a stronger spell.

  II

  It didn’t matter that Alucard had been to the market once before. And it didn’t matter that he had a compass in his head from years at sea, and a knack for learning paths. Within minutes, Alucard Emery was lost. The floating market was a maze of stairs and cabins and corridors, all of them empty of people and full of treasure.

  There were no merchants here, calling out their wares. This was a private collection, a pirate’s hoard on display. Only the rarest and strangest and most forbidden objects in the world made it onto Maris’s ship.

  It was a marvel nothing had ever been lost—or lifted, though not, he’d heard, for lack of trying. Maris had a fearful reputation, but a reputation carried only so far, and inevitably, drunk either on power or cheap wine, a thief would get it in their head to try to steal from the queen of the Ferase Stras.

  As she’d warned, it never ended well.

  Most of the stories involved missing limbs, though a few of the more outlandish tales involved entire crews scattered over land and sea in pieces so small no one ever found more than a thumb, a heel.

  It made sense—when you had a wealth of black magic at your fingertips, you also had a wealth of ways to keep it safe. The market wasn’t simply warded against light fingers. It was warded, he knew, against intent. You couldn’t draw a knife. Couldn’t reach for a thing you didn’t mean to purchase. Some days, when the wards were fickle, you couldn’t even think about stealing.

  Unlike most magicians, Alucard was fond of Maris’s wards, the way they muted everything. Without the noise of other magic, the treasures shone—his eyes could pick out the strands of power clinging to each artifact, the signatures of the magicians who’d spelled them.
In a place without merchants to tell him what an object did, his sight came in handy. A spell was, after all, a kind of tapestry, woven from the threads of magic itself.

  But it didn’t stop him from getting lost.

  In the end, it had taken Alucard half an hour to find the room of mirrors.

  He stood there, surrounded by artifacts of every shape and size—some made of glass, and others polished stone, ones that reflected his own face, and ones that showed him other times and other places and other people—scanning the spellwork until he found the right one.

  It was a lovely, oval thing with an onyx rim and two handles like a serving tray. Not an ordinary mirror, by any stretch, but not strictly forbidden, either. Only very rare. Most reflective magic showed what was in your mind, but a mind could invent almost anything, so a reflector could be fooled into showing a tale instead of the truth.

  Reaching into the past—reflecting things not as they were remembered, or rewritten, but as they were, as they’d really happened—that was a very special kind of magic.

  He slid the mirror into its case, a sleeve like a sheath but made of delicately carved onyx, and went to face Maris.

  He was on his way back to the captain’s chamber when his eyes snagged on the familiar threads of Antari magic. At first he thought he was simply catching sight of Kell, whose iridescence always trailed behind him like a coat, but when he rounded the corner, the magician was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the threads of magic were spilling from a table where they wrapped around a ring.

  It was old, the metal fogged with age, and wide, the length of one full knuckle, and it sat on a table with a hundred others, each in an open box—but where the rest were woven with threads of blue and green, gold and red, this one was knotted with that unsteady color, like oil and water, that marked an Antari.

  Alucard took it up, and went to find Kell.