All That Burns

  She reappears like a wraith through the fog—bright face and open mouth. Her joy wilts fast into a frown. “It didn’t stick.”

  “I didn’t even expect you to disappear that time,” I tell her, trying to ignore the jealous pang under my chest. Anabelle’s magic fills the air, burning thicker than the cold. My skin sings with it. “Holding the spell for a long time is where your emotions come in. Whatever feeds your magic will maintain the spell. Try to think of a strong emotion. A positive one. Something which makes you happy. I know that might be hard with everything that’s happened, but—”

  “Got it.” Anabelle shuts her eyes again. Nibbles the edge of her lip in concentration. Her whole face is pink with near-winter cold. “Behyd.”

  She’s gone again. I’m alone and stunned in this island of mist. Waiting for Anabelle’s emotion to waver. For her spell to fail.

  Mist spits through my hair, plasters it to my cheeks. A few sparrows land by my feet. Heads cocked, ready for crumbs I don’t have. The minutes stretch out; the birds realize I’m empty-handed and head back off into the almost-storm.

  And still I wait.

  The princess is a natural. Of course, I don’t know why I expected anything different. Everything she does is perfect. The emotion Anabelle is tapping into is strong, wealthy. Made of stolen glances, beetroot flans, and magic sessions.

  I think of all the smiles I’ve seen on her face the last few days, so at odds with everything crumbling around us. I think of the reason why he almost kissed me. How I almost let him.

  We’re in very dangerous territory.

  “Am I ready?” Anabelle’s voice springs up behind me. Grenading all sorts of emotions through my body: shock, guilt, green, green envy.

  I spin around and she’s there, standing by a stack of folded lounge chairs. Where just a few nights ago Kieran stood, and I told him how much his presence meant.

  “Let’s practice it a few more times,” I tell her. “Just to make sure.”

  She nods and we do. But there’s no need. Her spell is dead-on. An arrow into a bull’s-eye. Every time. In the mist and out of it again.

  My thoughts feel just as cloudy. Swirling with the feel of Anabelle’s magic all around. And the memory of Richard’s kiss, echoing so far into my waking hours. And the dark, brimming smolder of Kieran’s touch.

  He’s not your only choice.

  I came up here to the rooftop to escape Kieran and his words. But it’s too late. They’re already lodged inside, creeping like feeler roots. Finding all the cracks in my mortal soul, prying open a Pandora’s box of thoughts.

  What would it be like? If I’d never met Richard. If I hadn’t retreated from Kieran’s lips. If magic and love could both be mine . . .

  No.

  I don’t love Kieran.

  But . . . there’s something there—a glimmer—which makes me think I could.

  He’s not Richard. He never will be. But he is a choice: a never-ending life of power and magic. A life where I can keep Richard safe from every threat. A life where Richard isn’t forced to be fighting, always fighting for a cause which isn’t even truly his.

  Maybe Queen Mab was right. Maybe mortals and Fae can never be together. Maybe Richard and I were never truly meant for each other. No matter how much we thought otherwise, no matter how much we wanted it. We were just a fling—fleeting as summer—and now the autumn has come.

  Maybe all this time I’ve only been choosing what I want the most. What’s best for me. Maybe my choice to be with Richard was just as foolish and destructive as Guinevere’s. Maybe it’s time to undo it before the kingdom burns. Before there are only ashes left.

  No. No. No.

  All I want to do is go back to sleep. To be with just Richard. Only Richard. In a place where all of these other forces and wants and choices don’t exist.

  But all dreams must end. Both the real and the waking.

  “Emrys, are you listening?” We’ve been up here so long that Anabelle is almost soaked through with the storm’s breath. She’s a mess. Hair plastered to her face and skin mottled with cold. Yet I’ve never seen her look more alive. She’s kindled from the inside, her spells flashing like a lighthouse on the rocks. I can hardly stand to look at her for it.

  “I was asking you what spell we should work on next.”

  Next? I wrap my arms around my chest and shiver. I’m just as wet and dripping as the princess, but there’s no light inside me to ward off the dreary November chill. I don’t think I can stand on this rooftop much longer, watching Richard’s sister gain back everything I’ve lost.

  “We’re done for now.” My breath rises like dragon’s smoke between us. “Belle?”

  Anabelle looks at me. Bright, life, innocence. And I hate what I’m about to say. Why I’m about to say it.

  “Be careful, with Kieran. I know—” I swallow a lungful of mist, wonder if I’m saying too much. “I know he’s attractive. But—”

  “Really, Emrys?” She laughs, but the sound is too loud. Pounding decibels trying to drown out the truth of things. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s cute and all, but I’m focused on finding Richard. Not getting a new boyfriend. Besides, can you imagine what Mum would think if I brought home an Ad-hene? Two immortals at family dinners. She’d have a conniption.”

  Too loud. Too many words. Crowding, crowding, crowding. I even it out with a silence.

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about, sister.” The princess smiles, flashing pearly edged teeth. “Thanks for helping me today.”

  Every one of her words is a bitter pill. But I can’t let her see how they’re choking me. I turn and start to head for the stairs.

  “Let’s get out of the cold,” I say.

  Twenty

  The world is all rain, darkness, and streetlamps as Anabelle leads the way up the sidewalk. Across the street Big Ben chimes the hour, the glow of the clock’s face hidden by fog. Twelve low, mournful notes shiver over the tops of the puddles, under my skin. They call out the start of a new day. Another twenty-four hours of Richard gone.

  I tried to sleep more, once my lessons with Anabelle were finished. Tried to find my way back into the dreams. Back into Richard’s arms. But every time I shut my eyes all I could see was Blæc’s body, crumbling to ash in a sea of symbols. And Kieran’s hand inching toward mine. His eyes snagging all those stray pieces of my soul. And Anabelle’s spells weaving together perfectly, filling her face with joy.

  I saw these things and I could not dream.

  “This way.” Anabelle waves us around the corner of a Victorian Gothic building. It towers above us, banded bricks and Portland stone. A few of the dollhouse windows still have lights shining: members of Parliament pulling late nights in their offices. “His office is on the top floor.”

  I don’t know why she’s whispering. All of us are under veiling spells, invisible to the few souls we pass: a smoking man waiting on a bus bench, a security guard planted in the office lobby, flipping lazily through a copy of The Sun, frowning at pictures of the latest riots. Neither of them bats an eyelid when the princess walks past. She’s held her spell amazingly well, even putting into practice a layering trick which allows Kieran and me to see her. The Ad-hene must have taught her when I retreated to my room, tried to see Richard again.

  I walk ahead of Kieran. Between him and the princess. I can feel his stare boring into my back. Feel his magic wrapped around me like a Kelpie’s seaweed mane. All the way up the stairs. All the way down the hall of oak-paneled doors and gold nameplates. To the very end where the script reads: JULIAN FORSYTHE—M.A.F.

  Anabelle speaks the lock open, another skill Kieran must’ve taught her while I tried to sleep. I feel my heart high in my throat as the door swings wide, gives us our first glimpse into the lion’s den.

  Julian Forsythe’s office is tiny, cramped against the slant of the roof above. Its limited wall space is covered in shelves, filled with titles like The Prince, Behemoth, and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy. Th
ere’s a desk with a few gilded picture frames and a Newton’s cradle. A corner piled high with boxes.

  “Looks like he’s getting ready to move.” Anabelle nods at the buckling tower of cardboard. The edges of files and embossed leather books jut out of the lip. “He must really be counting on those emergency elections. I heard on the news that the motion of no confidence passed. The elections are actually happening. Tomorrow.”

  The thought of Julian Forsythe inscribing PRIME MINISTER on his nameplate scrapes like fingernails inside my stomach.

  Anabelle grabs a silver-framed photo from one of the top boxes. It’s a picture of Julian and his wife on a beach. Mediterranean waters fan behind them, vast stretches of aqua and near-green. The couple is smiling, fingers interlocked. Julian’s crescent of white teeth still reminds me of a joker’s grin.

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in that.” Anabelle’s finger smudges over the long, flowing fabric of Elaine Forsythe’s long sleeves and yoga bottoms. “Especially on a beach.”

  “Says the girl who’s spent the last four days wearing a hoodie,” I can’t help but point out.

  The princess rolls her eyes and tosses the picture back in the box. “I’m a fugitive. I have an excuse.”

  “She probably sunburns easily. Her skin is so pale.” I sigh. “Contrary to your long-standing beliefs, Belle, wearing ugly clothes isn’t a crime.”

  “It is when you’re a politician’s wife! People see you. They expect a certain standard of fashion! I feel bad for her.”

  I think of the woman who sat across from me at the Winfreds’ gala. Those dark doe eyes wide with horror, hate. “I wouldn’t feel too bad for her. She did marry Julian.”

  “Yes, but that was before some crazy Camelot magician swooped in and stole his body,” Anabelle shoots back.

  I look back at the picture, notice how white Julian Forsythe’s knuckles are around his wife’s. Tight. Probably not sunburn then. I wonder how many bruises and secrets she’s hiding under that fabric.

  “Speaking of crazy Camelot magicians, where do we start?” Kieran brushes past my shoulder—iron strength and wretched tenderness—and joins Anabelle in the middle of the office. “And what are we looking for?”

  “Everything. Runes. Contracts for hit men.” The princess’s hands fall from her hips as she approaches the mountain of boxes. “Something’s here. I know it.”

  The pair tackles the first box while I watch from the doorway, trying to feel for rune magic. The office air is tangled tight with the richness of blood magic. The razor edge of Kieran’s spell. If there are rune spells here, they aren’t strong enough for me to feel out.

  I go behind the desk, have a seat in the leather chair. Its drawers are mostly packed away, populated by a few stray pens and a thick wad of papers entitled A Treatise on the Evils of Immortal Integration. I scan the shelves, flip through hundreds of dry-leaf book pages. Find nothing.

  Big Ben strikes again. A clear, single call through the night. Anabelle and Kieran are through the fourth box, rifling through sheaves of paper.

  “Nothing. Just traffic law proposals from ages ago.” Anabelle stands, throws the beige folder back into the growing pile. “My eyes are going cross-eyed.”

  I pick up a copy of Behemoth for the third time. Its words streak together as I flip through it. End in a page of empty, blank white.

  There’s nothing here.

  The trail is dead.

  Julian Forsythe’s tattoo is just ink spread under flesh. Not magic.

  I shut the book, slide it back onto the shelf with all the other useless volumes. “There’s nothing here. We would’ve found something by now. Felt it.”

  The last box sits between Anabelle and Kieran, a lonely thing. Both of them look at it with drawn-lipped grimaces. As if they know it too holds nothing. The princess doesn’t say anything as she reaches out to open it.

  All I want to do is sleep. There’s such weariness inside, my soul stretched thin. Like a woman’s nylon sock, ripping. Full of gaps and holes.

  I lay my head down on the desk. Shut my eyes.

  But instead of black all I see is a pure and blinding white. The spell is like the first stab of a headache, forking through my head. It stings across my scalp, bristling every hair. I jerk back in my seat, away from the desk.

  “What’s wrong?” Anabelle asks, a clump of files forgotten in her hand.

  “I—” The charge is gone but my head is swimming. Made of spin.

  Kieran is like a wolf on a scent, rigid and alert. He approaches the desk with measured steps. Eyes keen and focused on its wood. “Lady Emrys found something.”

  I frown and rub my temple, where magic buzzes like a hangover.

  Kieran kneels down so his eyes are level with the wood. He wipes a palm across the desk’s surface, pulls it back as if he just pressed his flesh onto a searing iron.

  “In the center,” he says, his hand still hovering above the desk.

  The wood is varnished—all gloss—not even a hint of a scratch. Julian Forsythe must not use his desk very much. I pull out the center drawer again. It’s just as barren as it was the last four times I scanned it. Hollow space. Everything in plain sight.

  But there are still some hidden places. I slide my hand into the drawer, feel out the wood of the desk’s underside. It’s as glossy as the top, sleek like fish scales.

  Until it isn’t. I barely have time to register the harsh carve under my fingers before the magic strikes. It cramps pain through my fingers, burns under my arm, reaches all the way to my shoulder before I pull away.

  I yank the drawer out with my good hand. Kieran shines his mark into the new gap.

  And there they are, ugly scars in the wood, carved out by something sharp and determined. Runes cramped into a long, deliberate string. Eating into the desk like termites.

  My fingers are tingling now. Numb with the spell’s aftermath.

  “I’d say this proof is solid enough.” Anabelle leans into Kieran’s shoulder. His light flares with the motion. “Queen Titania won’t be able to explain this away.”

  I frown at the marred wood. This proof might be solid, yet I expected to uncover something a bit more transportable. “She’ll have to see it first. She won’t be returning to London any time in the near future. And it’s not as if we can send this along with a sparrow.”

  “We could cut it out of the desk,” the princess offers.

  “He’ll notice it’s gone, know we’re on to him. That would put Richard in danger.” My throat feels thick even saying this.

  Anabelle frowns, looks up at Kieran. She’s still nudged against his shoulder, her hair haloed bright by his scar light. “What is the spell anyway? It didn’t seem to do anything.”

  “This magic is still strange to me,” the Ad-hene tells her. “It could be the spell did nothing.”

  I squint at the runes again. There was something familiar about the spell’s feel and form. It tugs at my thoughts like the first few notes of a song I can’t place.

  My frown grows.

  “I still think we should send Queen Titania a message,” Anabelle goes on. “She can’t ignore us forever.”

  I’m quite certain she can. No matter how many parchments I tie to a sparrow’s leg. No matter how many messages I scroll and seal.

  My thoughts halt.

  And I know what the desk’s rune magic reminds me of. Something about it is stunningly similar to the sealing spells Fae place on their most secret correspondence. Spells which notify the caster exactly who opened it.

  And when.

  My eyes go wide—taking in the chiseled symbols with a growing sense of horror.

  They aren’t a sealing spell. They’re an alarm system.

  “We have to go!” I leap from the chair, send its leather bulk crashing into the shelves. Books shudder and fall like dominoes. “It’s a trap! He knows we’re here!”

  “Emrys, what are you talking about?” Anabelle stumbles after me, skipping over the discarded drawer, t
he snowfall of Julian’s treatise papers on the floor.

  Kieran reaches the door first, in bold, fluid ink movements. He rises, broad-chested, in front of it, blocking the way. His mark is all glare, filling the room with more shadows than it needs.

  “What are you doing?” I brace myself, ready to push past if I must.

  He holds up a lone finger, calls for silence. His gaze is trained on the door’s solid wood. The whole of the Ad-hene’s face is still so wolflike, alert, ready for a fight.

  And then I hear the footsteps. Thud, thud, thud down the hall. Getting louder, closer with each second. Like the pound of an enemy’s drum rippling over hills. Announcing doom.

  My eyes stray to the lone window, where fog presses into the glass, hiding the five stories of fall between us and freedom.

  “We can’t,” Kieran says softly. He’s looking at the window too. “Ad-hene are of the earth. Not the air.”

  And I’m still grounded.

  Thud, thud, thud. Doom, doom, doom.

  My heart is a sledgehammer, threatening to smash out of my throat.

  “Veiling spells won’t work. He knows someone’s here.” I swallow. The floor shakes under the approaching steps. It can’t be much more now. “We have to fight him.”

  “No!” Anabelle’s eyes flash fierce at both of us. She reaches out, wraps a hand around the moonsong of Kieran’s mark. The room’s light shifts, falls dim. “Stay hidden. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Princess.” The Ad-hene’s words waver like his light. “What are you doing?”

  “You said yourself you aren’t strong enough to face him. I can’t let you get hurt.” Her fingers tighten around his arm. There’s a tightness in her voice too.

  Thud. Doom. Closer.

  Kieran’s jaw tenses with danger and dark. “Don’t do this, Belle!”

  “Belle—” We say her name at the same time.

  She looks at both of us. First me, then Kieran. “Trust me.”

  I feel her veiling spell lift.

  The door opens.

  For such a creature of the earth, Kieran moves like wind. Swinging away from the door, pulling me to his side with steady, boulder grace. The magic of his veiling spell feels heavier than ever, cloaked wide over both of us.