All That Burns

  “There was a war between the Ad-hene. A very long time ago,” Kieran says dryly. “We lost many brothers. We nearly destroyed the entire island and fought to the brink of extinction, but Queen Mab intervened. She offered us her help in exchange for the use of our tunnels. That was when it became a prison.”

  “Oh, Mab.” Anabelle scrunches her nose and gives the winch a final, vicious yank. “I wasn’t really her biggest fan. Considering she tried to kill me and drain my blood like some kind of crazed albino vampire.”

  “Vampire?” Kieran’s face goes from daze to frown. I realize, as I watch his confusion, that Anabelle is probably the first true mortal he’s ever spoken with. “What’s that?”

  “Really?” Anabelle quirks an eyebrow at me. “No vampires?”

  I shake my head.

  Anabelle looks back at the Ad-hene. “Don’t worry about it. So you live in the dark all the time? Don’t you ever get sick of it?”

  “No. The Labyrinth is part of me.” Kieran traces the threading on his arm. “It’s my nature.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” The princess leans over the side of the boat, unravels the final knot mooring us into place. “Do you think your nature might be able to help this sailboat move faster? Took us long enough getting here and the wind’s not in our favor this time.”

  Kieran’s magic billows against the sails and Anabelle mans the wheel, steering us off the coast. I have nothing to do but sit and watch and feel Guinevere’s words inside my chest—haunted and clawing. Making no sense, yet meaning everything.

  One word rises out from all the rest. Her scream in every dream. Her final plea.

  Remember.

  Remember what? How Camelot burned and its ashes coated the hillsides like snow? How Guinevere was once bold and beautiful and happy—so in love with King Arthur that you could hear it in every single syllable she spoke? How none of the Fae understood how someone so fierce, so committed, could abandon her king for a new lover, destroy everything?

  There’s something I’m missing. Some key piece to the puzzle, swirling around in those endless lifetimes of memories, just beyond my reach.

  I never used to forget things, but ever since Herne siphoned my magic, the past has become fuzzy.

  The cushion I’m sitting on dips under a new weight. Kieran. I feel his closeness before I see him. His presence, his magic prickles the back of my neck: a summer evening swelter. Thick and all over.

  Kieran is much older than he looks, with those perfect spiral curls and hurricane eyes. His powers are deep, aged strong. If only I had a bit of it. Just a taste—what wouldn’t I do?

  There it is again. The yearning—stretching as far and wide as this November sea. I shut my eyes but I still feel it. So I focus on the bob of the boat on the waves instead.

  Kieran speaks with a voice like rum: dark and spicy. “The princess. She’s not what I expected. She’s fiery.”

  My eyes snap open at this sly, cruel word. I can’t help but think the Ad-hene used it on purpose.

  But Kieran isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at the helm, where Anabelle stands by the wheel. Her hair has fallen loose, the wind weaves it in ribbons of gold over her shoulders. The rest of her coronation makeup is gone, washed off by sea mist, but I think she’s prettier without it. Beautiful. The Ad-hene does too, I think.

  Or perhaps he just stares this intensely at everyone.

  I shut my eyes again, focus on the sudden quease of my stomach. So much like the sickness I once fled from. The sickness I lost when I chose Richard, turned my back on power and eternity.

  “She’s driven,” I say. “Just like her brother.”

  My eyes are still shut, still pinned on dark and nausea. I can’t tell if Kieran is shifting closer or farther. “You were there? When he was taken?”

  The shelter of my closed eyes is suddenly compromised, flooded with pictures. Richard swarmed by those masked men, being torn from my arms. Me pinned into the cushions. Powerless.

  So weak and failing. This fire without flame.

  I draw a sharp breath, open my eyes.

  “Yes. Men came into the carriage and took him. They tore him straight out of my arms.” I try to recite this like pure fact. As if I were reading off a recipe. But my voice betrays me, comes out half-sob.

  “Men?” Kieran tilts his head.

  I don’t have the energy to explain it. So I don’t.

  “You told me before that your love did not make you miserable. It seems a cruel twist . . .” He doesn’t go on, but I know where his words would go if they did. I know because I’ve been thinking it myself over and over.

  If I still had my magic, I could have saved him.

  I gave up power for love. And lost love because I gave up power.

  A cruel twist indeed.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” I manage to choke out.

  Kieran watches me. His stare is careful and intent. His words are the same. “Forgive me. It was not my intention to cause you suffering. I’m still trying to understand how love is worth all this. . . . It’s haunted me, you know. Our conversation. You have such a conviction, a will. Seeing it left me wanting . . . wondering if there’s something more.

  “This is the first time I’ve left the island,” the Ad-hene goes on. His eyes break away from where I sit, back in the direction of the cliffs. The lights of his brothers are gone, swallowed by distance and daylight.

  The boat sways on the waves, up and down through silence.

  “I never knew about the war between the Ad-hene,” I say.

  “It was many ages ago. We are united now and we try our best to forget.” Memories chip and spark through his eyes. “We try our best to forget, but sometimes I think the island remembers. It stopped creating us. There have been no new Ad-hene since those days. My brothers and I are all that are left.”

  Bones of a once great kingdom. There’s a longing in Kieran’s voice I know all too well.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper into the waves.

  “It is behind us now. We can only look forward.” Kieran looks away from the boat’s wake, up to the helm, where Anabelle’s hair licks gold. Where the sea stretches out like a story waiting to be read. “Hope for better things.”

  The dip and rise of the Irish Sea is too much for my heavy lids. I try my best to fight it, but weariness wins out. I fall with the boat into black, into sleep and chaos.

  The mountainside is above me now, towering like a dragon. A lone figure stands on the edge of the hill, looking down at all that’s unfolding around me. I can’t see the face. It’s too shrouded by fog and distance.

  The hell of battle stretches around me: blood, splintered bones, and death. Planted in the mud a few meters away is Arthur Pendragon’s banner: a scarlet standard with a white dragon. Its staff is snapped like a twig, the flag’s edges dragging in the mud. Across the grim field the castle’s fire is already beginning to spread. Soon it will ravage everything.

  I know it’s a dream, yet my heart is all terror inside my chest: punching, beating, trying to flee. It feels too real. The braided scents of sweat and blood. The nail-curling shrieks of gutted horses. Men.

  Then I see him and my heart stops.

  Richard stands in the center of the field. All around him is scarred earth and the insides of men turned out, but he’s untouched. His ermine cape flows flawless over the mud and his boots are unscuffed. His eyes are wide as they take in Camelot’s doom. They comb through the field and land, finally, on me.

  “Embers?” His voice breaks through screams, the raging song of war. Reaches to where I am.

  I start running for him, ankles sinking deep in the mud. Moving forward is a struggle, but I do it anyway, dodging bodies and fallen swords. Blades and knights blur around me, but all I see is Richard. Standing alone. Vulnerable. I’m pushing, pushing, as fast as my feet will allow.

  Movement just behind Richard’s ermine cape catches my eye. Black armor. Black blade. There’s only one man in the entire world w
ho wore such armor. Only one blade which had such a black-adder bite.

  He was the leader of the northern armies. The man who invaded Camelot and planted his blade in King Arthur’s chest.

  Mordred. Killer of kings.

  I know this is a dream. I know this man has been dead for more than a thousand years, but still my blood becomes ice.

  “Run, Richard!” I scream at the top of my lungs, but he doesn’t seem to hear. He’s still staring in my direction, reaching for someone who isn’t there.

  I lunge through the mud, but Mordred is faster. He grabs the end of Richard’s cape. Starts to pull. The king is just tumbling back when I reach him. Our fingers touch.

  Real. It feels so real. These are his fingers. The ones which traced every intimate curve of my face. Which threaded through my hair every time we kissed.

  These are his fingers. The ones which are being torn away. Yanked in the direction of Mordred’s blade.

  And—again—there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  Thirteen

  We return to a restless city. A London pulled tight. It’s not a dead silence in the air, as it was the night of Lights-down, but a hush. Trains still run. Cars clog the streets as they always do. People hail cabs and stride down sidewalks.

  But just under everything is a strain. Sleepless eyes are lined with fear. Walks clip faster. Women grip their handbags tighter. Everyone avoids alleyways, darkened corners.

  Kieran is all eyes, drinking in the city’s steel and stone. He fidgets and twists in the wool peacoat Anabelle designed for him. All of us are in new clothes, fashioned by the princess’s instructions and Kieran’s bewildered magic. The clothes he produced are mostly scratchy gray wool. A far cry from Helene’s colored silks.

  “It’s better for blending in,” Anabelle said once I pointed it out.

  The new outfits seem to be working. So far no one has recognized us.

  “Your city is impressive, Princess.” Kieran’s neck is permanently craned, taking in the vastness of buildings and open sky. “I’ve seen the towns of my island grow, but nothing like this.”

  “It’s not my city,” Anabelle says, “but thank you.”

  “You don’t feel ill?” I haven’t taken my eyes off of Kieran since we first entered London’s outskirts. Even dressed in modern clothes he can’t completely hide his otherness. At first glance he’s an advertisement campaign: a well-knotted scarf, wool peacoat, cabbie hat highlighted by a clean-cut face. But if you look too closely you’ll see the hardness of that jaw, the eyes too clear and cutting for any human.

  “The sickness,” he pauses. “Now that you mention it there are hints. Waves. It’s not so terrible. But I’m an Ad-hene; I carry the earth in my bones.”

  “Right.” I tug at the edge of the cap Anabelle fashioned to hide my hair. “Well, if you feel yourself getting too worn down you can go to the Underground.”

  “Underground? There’s a Labyrinth here too?”

  “Kind of.” Plus a few rats and malfunctioning trains. Minus tattooed guards and ranting, emaciated prisoners.

  “Stop fidgeting with that!” Anabelle smacks my hand off my cap. The night’s sleep has centered her, revived some of her old type A self. “The last thing we need is for your hair to come loose. It’s a dead giveaway. People are already staring as it is.”

  She’s right. Though it’s Kieran most people’s eyes snag to. Women especially. I’ve even seen Anabelle stealing a glance or two when she thought no one was looking.

  Even though I know I’m supposed to be discreet, I can’t help staring back into the passing crowd. As if Richard just disappeared around the corner for a cup of coffee, bound to return to me at any moment. Every time I see high cheekbones or desert-sand hair my heart lurches.

  The Ad-hene seems oblivious to all this. “I could change your hair,” he offers. “It wouldn’t take much, just a small alteration spell.”

  I know it wouldn’t take much, because I’ve changed my hair before as well. But the long, flowing red . . . it’s the hair I love. The only hair Richard has ever seen me in. I wouldn’t be Embers without it.

  “No,” I say quickly. “The hat’s fine.”

  We keep walking, but the closer we get to Trafalgar Square the more the sidewalks thin. Closed signs dangle from shop doors; some storefronts are boarded up altogether, covering jags of broken glass. All roads to the square are empty and full at the same time: littered with miniature flags, lost gloves, signs cheering Richard’s coronation. Things bent and trampled under a panicked crowd’s feet.

  The street ends at a police cordon: large metallic walls cutting across asphalt and sidewalk. A lone patrol car sits, its lights throbbing. As if the barrier itself wasn’t enough.

  Trafalgar Square has become a fortress.

  “Cameras!” Anabelle spits out the word like a curse and swivels around, her trainers scuffing the concrete. She jerks the hood of her sweatshirt even farther over her eyes. There are only a few, stragglers lingering by the edge of the cordon. Newscasters reciting their lines for cameramen. Photographers capturing pictures of the barrier from all angles, hoping for some fantastic breakthrough.

  “Stupid!” the princess mutters. “Of course the police and paparazzi would be crawling all over this.”

  I grab her arm. “We have to go to the square!”

  “Agreed. But that’s not going to happen as long as it’s crawling with investigators. In case you’ve forgotten, we happen to be at the top of the list of London’s Most Wanted.”

  “Belle, we’ve wasted enough time already.” It took us the better part of a day to travel back and forth from the Labyrinth. Valuable hours for the magic’s trail to fade. For Richard to be pulled even farther from my grasp.

  I turn to Kieran. “Does your kind have the equivalent of a veiling spell?”

  “Veiling spell? Hiding from the mortals’ sight?” It’s almost catlike, the way the Ad-hene’s stare travels, both aloof and piercing, to the caravan of press and police. “Yes.”

  “Could you get all three of us into the square without detection?”

  He shrugs. “I’ve never tried before. There’s not much need for invisibility in the Labyrinth. Much less hiding others.”

  “Will you try?” It’s Anabelle asking this time. “Please?”

  Her plea—so hopeful and desperate from the shelter of her hoodie—seems to soften the Ad-hene’s face. The edge of his lip twitches. “I’ll try my best, Princess.”

  Anabelle slides her hand into mine. I hold it tight, brace myself for his spell.

  “Follee-shiu.”

  Kieran’s magic breaks over my head, drips down like an egg yolk, covering every inch of my skin, my clothes. The spell isn’t physically heavy, but I feel a weight to it. And even though it feels like armor, there’s a strange warmth to the magic. It prickles like pinecones, flushes my cheeks.

  I grit my teeth, trying my best not to show how unnerving it is to have the Ad-hene’s magic soaking over me. Anabelle squeezes my hand. The tremor in her fingers tells me she feels this too.

  “You’re hidden now.” Kieran doesn’t have to tell me. The knowledge weighs my limbs. It feels as if bricks have been bound to my feet as I walk past the flashing patrol car, through the police barrier.

  It’s as awful as I first thought it would be, that morning when Kieran knelt on the cliffside and offered to heal my wound. Magic. The feel of it dances across my skin: sparks and longing. I can’t help but remember the rush of my own spells, golden and unyielding through my veins. How the world and everything in it—the sky, the sea, the earth—was at my fingertips.

  “Watch it!” Anabelle yanks me directly out of the path of a harried-looking detective.

  “Sorry.” We’re almost in the square. My steps sway a bit, as if I’ve had too many gin and tonics. I guess I am drunk in a way, reeling under so much magic after so many months without.

  I catch Kieran staring.

  But I don’t have time to think about any of this
. Trafalgar Square is at our feet. So empty. The sea of humanity is no more. Instead there are only clusters, islands of investigators and authorized press. Lanes of yellow tape. Hints of the Black Dog’s carnage outlined in chalk and bloodstains. The remnants of the Gold State Coach: splinters and gold in the middle of the road.

  When Anabelle sees the carriage she stops. Her eyes flicker, unable to hide the ruin she sees. My muscles tense as I wait for another reaction, some flare in her blood magic, but the princess keeps her promise. She swallows it all back, makes her face hard, stays in control.

  Getting close to the carriage takes skill. Human investigators swarm all around its carcass. It’s not so difficult for me to slip through their maze of suits, but I’ve had centuries of practice. As I navigate the obstacle course of cameras and blue-gloved hands I can’t help but catch snippets of the conversation.

  “Still no confirmed sightings of His Majesty or his sister.” A detective in a bright yellow vest says as he blows on his coffee.

  “What about the Faery?” the man next to him asks.

  “Nothing. There’s a warrant out for her.” The detective’s face twists. “They found the Jaguar on the west coast. Abandoned. No telling what she did with the princess.”

  They’re talking about me.

  “This is a bloody mess. Looks like Forsythe was right.”

  “You’re not on about that M.A.F. crap again? Mark my words. Julian Forsythe’s up for a power grab.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” The other man shrugs. “Someone’s got to stand up to these creatures.”

  Kieran and Anabelle follow slowly, carefully. Backpackers picking their way through a china shop. The princess only has eyes for the coach. Several times Kieran has to hold her back, guide her through the buzz of mortals.

  “Feel anything?” I ask when they reach the edge of the carriage.

  Kieran runs his hand over the wheel’s twisted remains. “Titania’s been here, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes.” I touch the same wheel. Try to feel what he feels. Just grains of wood and paint brush under my fingertips. The only magic is his. Power and pepper-spice against my skin.