The Burning Sky tet-1 Read online

  Early school was followed by chapel. After the religious service, which she found slow and mournful, the prince took her back to Mrs. Dawlish’s house, where, to her surprise, a hearty breakfast was laid out. The boys, many of whom she’d seen buying breakfast outside earlier, wolfed down a second one as if they’d been starving for three days.

  After breakfast, they returned to classes—called divisions—until the midday meal back at Mrs. Dawlish’s. Mrs. Hancock, who had not been there at breakfast, was now present. Again, it was she who said grace. This time she did not mention Fairfax by name, but Iolanthe still felt her sharp-eyed gaze.

  She didn’t know what made her do it. At the end of the meal, when the boys were filing out, she broke rank and approached Mrs. Hancock.

  “My parents asked me to tell you, ma’am, that I’ll be less trouble this Half,” she said.

  If Mrs. Hancock was taken aback by Iolanthe’s maneuver, she did not show it. She only chuckled. “Well, in that case, I hope you are listening to your parents.”

  Iolanthe grinned, even though her palms were damp. “They are hoping so too. Good day, ma’am.”

  The prince waited for her at the door. She was surprised to see his expression of sullen impatience—it was unlike his controlled, reticent person. He didn’t speak to her as they left the dining room.

  But when they were outside Mrs. Dawlish’s house, he said softly, “Well done.”

  She glanced at him. “Was that why you looked as if you’d like to hit me with something?”

  “She would be that much more watchful of you if she believed our friendship to be genuine.” His lips curled slightly, a halfhearted sneer. “Much better that she sees me as an arrogant prick and you an opportunist.”

  Friendship is untenable for people in our position.

  She never wanted to feel sympathy for him. But she did, that moment.

  Titus was curious to see her reaction to their afternoon divisions.

  They had Latin again, conducted by a tutor named Frampton, a man with a big beak of a nose and fleshy lips. One rather expected Frampton to speak wetly, but he enunciated with nothing less than oratorical perfection as he lectured on Ovid’s banishment from Rome and read from Tristia.

  Fairfax seemed mesmerized by Frampton’s master-thespian voice. Then she bit her lower lip, and realized that she was not listening only to Frampton’s voice, but also to Ovid’s words of longing.

  She too was now an Exile.

  They were almost a quarter hour into the division before she saw Frampton for what he was. As he read, Frampton passed by her desk. She glanced up and seized in shock: the design on Frampton’s stickpin was a stylized whirlpool, the infamous Atlantean maelstrom. Immediately she bent her head and scribbled in her notebook, not looking at Frampton again until he had returned to the front of the classroom.

  After dismissal, she all but shoved Titus into the cloister behind the quadrangle, her grip hard on his arm.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He is obvious. You would have to be blind not to see.”

  “Are there agents who don’t wear the emblem?”

  “What do you think?”

  She inhaled. “How many?”

  “I wish I knew. Then I would not need to suspect everyone.”

  She pushed away from him. “I’m going to walk back by myself.”

  “Enjoy your stroll.”

  She turned to leave; then, as if she’d remembered something, pivoted back to face him. “What else are you keeping from me?”

  “How much can you handle knowing?”

  Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.

  Her eyes narrowed, but she left without further questions.

  Iolanthe didn’t return to Mrs. Dawlish’s directly, but walked northeast, along the road before the school gate. To the left of the road was a large green field; to the right a high brick wall twice as tall as she.

  Hawkers lined this wall. An old woman in a much-patched dress tried to sell Iolanthe a dormouse. A sun-browned man waved a tray of glistening sausages. Other hawkers peddled pies, pastries, fruits, and everything else that could be consumed without plates or silverware. Around each hawker, junior boys congregated like ants on a picnic, some buying, the rest salivating.

  The normalcy of the scene only made Iolanthe feel more out of place. For these boys, this was their life. She was only passing through, pretending.

  “Fairfax.”

  Kashkari. She inhaled: Kashkari made her nervous. He seemed to be the rare person who asked a question and actually paid attention to the answer.

  “Where are you going?” Kashkari asked as he crossed the street and came to stand next to her.

  “Reacquainting myself with the lay of the land.”

  “I don’t think that much has changed since you were here last. Ah, I see old Joby is back with his ha’penny sherbet drinks. Fancy one?”

  Iolanthe shook her head. “The weather’s a bit cool for it.”

  But she followed Kashkari to a gaunt-looking hawker. Kashkari bought a handful of toasted walnuts and held out his palm to her.

  “Look, it’s Turban Boy and Bumboy together.”

  Iolanthe whipped around. Trumper and Hogg.

  “Bumboy, is Turban Boy your coolie now?” sniggered Trumper.

  Her reputation obviously had not preceded her here. Few schoolchildren in any mage realm deliberately chose to provoke elemental mages, as by the time latter were old enough to attend school, they would have had years of conditioning, directing their anger into physical, rather than magical, responses. And also because an elemental mage was almost never considered at fault, as long as the school hadn’t burned down at the end of a fight.

  Kashkari must have seen the belligerence in her face. “Ignore them. They feel more accomplished when you rise to the bait.”

  “I hate to pass on good fisticuffs.” She took a few toasted walnuts from him. “But after you.”

  The walnuts were sweet and crunchy. They walked on. Trumper and Hogg shouted insults and slurs for another minute before giving up.

  “I was surprised you came back,” said Kashkari. “Word went around that you might return with your parents to Bechuanaland.”

  There were a number of Atlanteans in the Domain, especially in the bigger cities. But as far as Iolanthe knew, all of them, even the lowest clerks and guards, sent their children home for schooling. She had to assume the British weren’t that different.

  “My parents might go back. But they want me to finish my education here.”

  Kashkari nodded. So her answer was acceptable. She let out a breath.

  “Do you miss Bechuanaland?”

  What had she learned about the Kalahari Realm at school? It was the seat of a great civilization, its music, art, and literature much admired. Its legal system had been copied in many a mage realm around the world. And it was famous for the beauty of its gentlemen mages—this last, obviously, gleaned from somewhere other than geography lessons.

  She popped a piece of walnut into her mouth to buy herself some time. “I do miss the weather when it gets too drizzly here. And of course the big-game hunting.”

  “Are the natives friendly?”

  She was beginning to perspire. She had to believe that if her nonexistent parents would return there, the situation could not be too dire. “No more hostile than they are elsewhere, I suppose.”

  “In India the population isn’t always happy about the British presence. In my father’s youth, there was a great mutiny.”

  How had he drawn her into a discussion about the political situation of the nonmage world, of which she had only the sketchiest of ideas? What she did know was that the mage realms of the subcontinent had also risen up against Atlantis, twice in the past forty years.

  “An occupier should always consider itself despised,” she said. “Is there ever a population that is happy to be subjugated?”

  Kashkari stopped midstride. She tensed. What had she said?

/>   “You have very enlightened views,” he mused, “especially for someone who grew up in the colonies.”

  Unsure whether she’d put her foot in her mouth, she decided to brazen it out. “That’s what I think.”

  “You two! I’ve been looking for you.”

  Iolanthe looked up, surprised to find herself only fifteen feet from Mrs. Dawlish’s front door.

  Wintervale leaned out of his open window. “Change quickly. I’ve already rounded up the other lads. Time to play cricket.”

  There was a book in Iolanthe’s room that gave the rules of popular games. The night before, she’d skimmed through the section on cricket. But she’d been so tired and distracted, nothing had made any sense.

  “Come on,” said Kashkari.

  She was doomed. It was one thing to nod and pretend to be engrossed as Wintervale pontificated on the game, quite another to pass herself off as an experienced cricketer. The moment she stepped on the pitch—that was what a playing ground was called, wasn’t it?—it would be obvious she had no idea what to do.

  All too soon, she arrived upstairs. Wintervale was in the corridor, dressed in a light-colored shirt of sturdy material and similarly light-colored trousers.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  The prince was nowhere in sight. Kashkari was already shrugging out of his coat and waistcoat. Iolanthe had no choice but to also start unbuttoning, although she kept all her clothes firmly on until she was behind closed doors.

  In her wardrobe she found garments similar to those worn by Wintervale. They fit her well, as did a pair of rugged brogues. When had the prince altered them? Never mind, she had more pressing concerns.

  Wintervale knocked on her door. “What’s taking you so long, Fairfax?”

  She opened the door a crack, her hand tight on the doorknob. “My trousers are ripped. I need to patch them. You go on, I’ll catch up with you.”

  “Hanson is handy with a needle.” Wintervale pointed at a shorter boy behind him. “Want him to help?”

  “Last time he helped me, he used my left testicle for a pincushion,” she said.

  The boys in the passage laughed and left, stomping down the stairs like a herd of rhinoceros.

  She slipped into Wintervale’s room to see the direction the boys went. Then she knocked on the prince’s door. No one answered. She opened the door to an empty room.

  Where was he when she needed him?

  She could pretend to fall victim to a sudden abdominal complaint, but what if Wintervale, or someone else in the house—Mrs. Hancock, for instance—insisted on medical attention for her? The last thing she wanted was a scrutiny of her body.

  She paced in the prince’s room, torn. If she didn’t go soon, Wintervale might send someone to fetch her—another undesirable outcome.

  Had she the opportunity to spy on the game for some time, she might grasp its essence. But what if the playing field was entirely open, with nowhere for her to conceal herself?

  There was no perfect solution. She’d better return to her room and study the rules of cricket again—if she could study with her heart hammering away—and then try to approach the pitch unobserved.

  But as she stepped back into the corridor, Kashkari came out from his room.

  “Shall we go then?” he asked amiably.

  She was caught.

  CHAPTER 11

  TITUS RAN.

  He hated unanticipated events. The unanticipated should happen only to the unanticipating. It was not fair that he, who spent all his waking hours actively preparing for everything the future could lob at him, should be caught short like this.

  Yet from the moment Fairfax burst into his life, he had lurched from one unforeseen event to the next. He should have told her to walk around with a limp, well enough to attend school but not eligible for sports.

  It had come as a shock to him, his first Summer Half at Eton, hearing Fairfax discussed as a cricketer. But with the popular consensus already formed, it was too late for him to intervene and convince the other boys that Fairfax was instead a rower.

  He had meant to give her a few surreptitious lessons in cricket, but there had not been time. And damn it, Wintervale was not supposed to call a practice today.

  His lungs hurt, but he forced himself to run even faster. She had no idea what to do. She would flounder and betray her ignorance.

  Wintervale might begin to question things. Of course he would not immediately conclude that Fairfax had never existed before yesterday, but it was dangerous to have anyone question anything.

  When the individuals on the pitch became distinguishable, he saw that it was Kashkari bowling. Kashkari took a short run, wound his arm, and bowled. The ball flew fast, but Wintervale, at the crease, was ready for it. He knocked it low and straight, toward the exact middle of the gap between the mid-wicket fielder and the square-leg fielder.

  It was a good hit. The ball would zip past the fielders and roll out of bounds, giving Wintervale’s team an automatic four runs.

  A white blur: someone sprinting at tremendous speed. That someone dove to the grass. When he again stood straight, he lifted his hand to show that he had scooped the ball out of midair.

  Fairfax! And by catching the ball before it had landed, she had dismissed Wintervale, one of the best batsmen in the entire school.

  Wintervale emitted a jubilant shout. “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? All we needed was for Fairfax to come back.”

  Titus belatedly realized that Wintervale was addressing him. He had stopped running at some point and was staring, agape. He gathered himself and shouted back, “One lucky catch does not a cricket prodigy make!”

  This earned him a disdainful glance from Fairfax. For some reason, his heart beat even faster than a minute ago, when he had feared that his entire scheme would be going up in smoke.

  The practice resumed. Not even two overs later—each over being a set of six balls bowled consecutively—she dismissed Sutherland by striking one of the bails above the stumps while he was still running.

  Wintervale was beside himself. He had Fairfax replace Kashkari as the bowler and set Kashkari to bat. The moment the ball left Fairfax’s hand, everyone on the field knew that the team at last had the bowler they desperately needed: she threw with an astonishing velocity.

  Kashkari, not expecting the ball to hurtle at him so swiftly, barely managed to hit it. A fielder near him quickly scooped up the ball, and Kashkari could not score any runs.

  Wintervale shouted directions at Fairfax. “Higher!” “Lower!” “Put some spin to it.”

  She spun the ball very decently for someone with such attack to her throw. Kashkari wiped his brow as she readied herself to bowl again.

  “Take him out, Fairfax,” Titus heard himself yelling, enthused beyond what he had ever thought possible for cricket. “Take him out!”

  She did, by knocking off one of the bails above the stumps of the wicket. The team roared with approval. Titus shook his head in amazement. She was gifted: fast, strong, and marvelously coordinated.

  Of course she was. How could he have forgotten that elemental mages were almost invariably great athletes?

  She turned around to face Titus, raised her right hand, and, with her forefinger and middle finger pressed together, passed her hand before her face.

  It was a boasting gesture. But there were boasting gestures and there were boasting gestures. She’d just told him to go bugger himself.

  He laughed, then his laughter froze. Had Wintervale seen the gesture, by any chance? It was emphatically not one used in the nonmage world, at least not in this country.

  No, Wintervale was behind her, thank goodness. She turned to shake hands with Kashkari, that most gracious of sportsmen.

  The practice resumed. She continued to excel, so much so that when the teams switched sides and she took her turn at bat, she could laugh off her otherwise grievous mistake of using the wrong side of the bat—the side with the slight V in profile rather than the flat one�
�as the result of too much excitement.

  They carried on until the college clock sounded for evening chapel. At which point every boy grabbed his equipment and broke into a run—lockup was in ten minutes.

  It was a festive rush, the boys ribbing one another for mistakes made during practice. Fairfax wisely refrained—except to chortle when expected.

  They were within sight of Mrs. Dawlish’s house when Wintervale suddenly exclaimed, “What the hell!”

  Titus had already seen them. Fairfax glanced up. By the tightening of her expression, he knew she had spied the formation of armored chariots. They were almost invisible now, disappearing into the darkening eastern sky.

  “What is it?” asked several of the boys.

  Wintervale shook his head. “Never mind. Just the clouds. My eyes were playing a trick on me.”

  “What did you think you saw?” Kashkari persisted.

  “Your sister kissing the chai-wallah,” said Wintervale.

  Kashkari punched Wintervale in the arm. The other boys laughed, and that was the end of it.

  Except for Fairfax. She had been both exhausted and exulted; now she looked only exhausted.

  You will become accustomed to it, the prince had said to her.

  She had not yet. The feeling of naked vulnerability was an iron fist at her throat.

  “Are you all right?” asked the prince. They’d made it back to Mrs. Dawlish’s before lockup. He’d slipped into her room with her.

  She shrugged. At least she didn’t need to pretend with him—the boys had not dispersed immediately upon reaching the house, forcing her to maintain her cheery facade for another quarter hour.

  “I lied,” he said softly. “The truth is you will never get used to it. The taste of fear always chokes.”

  She flattened her lips. “That isn’t what I need to hear now. You should have kept lying.”

  “Believe me, I would like to. Nothing sounds more unsettling than truth rolling off my tongue.” He put a kettle in the grate, opened her cupboard, lifted out a tin box, and pressed a piece of cake into her hand. “I had the foodstuff delivered today. Eat—you will be less afraid on a full stomach.”