The Burning Sky tet-1 Page 15

  She took a bite of the cake. She didn’t know whether it made her less afraid, but at least it was moist and buttery, everything a cake ought to be.

  “How did you learn to play cricket so quickly?” he asked.

  She had suggested to Kashkari that they run to catch up with the other boys. She then pretended, as they reached the pitch, to suffer from a muscle cramp. That bought her time to sit on the sidelines. Watching the other boys, her hasty reading on cricket the evening before began to make sense. The terminology of cricket had confused her, but the game in play was a bat-and-ball game, and she was familiar with those.

  She rested her hip against the edge of her desk and shrugged again. “It isn’t that hard.”

  He flipped down her cot and took a seat, his back against the wall, his hands behind his head. “Lucky for us. Wintervale was convinced you were an exceptional player. That was the problem with my trick: the mind finds ways to fill a blank—and Archer Fairfax was a perfect blank.”

  She almost didn’t hear what he was saying. The way he sat, all strong shoulders and long limbs—it was . . . distracting. “Is that why Kashkari thinks I’m going back to Bechuanaland with my parents?”

  “That is the least alarming of misconceptions. You will be surprised what people thought of you. Last year there was a rumor going around that you had not hurt your leg at all, but had been sent away because you had impregnated a maid.”

  “What?”

  “I know,” said the prince with a straight face. “I was impressed by the extent of your virility.”

  Then he smiled, overcome by the humor of the situation. Bright mischief lit his face and he was just a gorgeous boy, enjoying one hell of a joke.

  It was a few seconds before she realized that, astounded by his transformation, she’d stopped chewing. She swallowed awkwardly. “Kashkari asked me a great number of questions.”

  This sobered him. The smile, like a brief glimpse of the sun in rainy season, disappeared. “What kind of questions?”

  She was almost relieved not to see his smile anymore. “He wanted to know what I thought of the relationship between the British Empire and lands under her influence abroad.”

  “Ah.” He relaxed visibly. “Kashkari would want to know your opinions.”

  “Why?”

  The kettle sang. He rose, lifted it off its hook, poured boiling water into a teapot, and swished the teapot. “Kashkari has ambitions. He does not state it, but he wants to free India from British rule in his lifetime. Wintervale is sympathetic. I am known to be apolitical, so he is secure in the knowledge that at least I am not antagonistic toward his goals. But he is less sure about you.”

  “Wouldn’t he have conjured Fairfax as someone more sympathetic to his views, the way Wintervale believes I’d help him win cricket games?”

  He discarded the water from the warmed teapot, tossed in some tea leaves, and poured more boiling water on top. “Fairfax was born and brought up overseas. There are other such boys here at school, and they are the most fervent imperialists of all. Kashkari had no reason to think you would be different.”

  He set aside the kettle and placed the lid on the teapot for the tea to steep. “So what did you think of the relationship between the empire and her colonies?”

  She still couldn’t quite comprehend the sight of the Master of the Domain making tea—for her. “I said an empire shouldn’t be too surprised that her colonies are unhappy with their overlord.”

  “And Kashkari was pleasantly surprised by your attitude, no doubt.”

  “He thought my thinking very unusual.”

  “It is. And do not broadcast it. The last thing we want is to have you labeled as a radical.”

  “What is that?”

  “Someone whose parents had better explain why their son thinks as he does. Imagine an Atlantean youth piping up at school and saying that Atlantis should let go of all the realms under its control. The reaction here probably would not be quite as extreme, but better not test it.”

  She nodded—she saw the point.

  He filled a teacup and brought it to her. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him so near. “Thank you, though you don’t need to ply me with food and drink all the time.”

  “You would do the same for the most important person in your life.”

  She set down the teacup harder than she needed to. In the wake of that resounding thud, an uneasy silence spread—uneasy for her, at least, caught between the dark allure of his words and the harshness of her own common sense. And he was so close, she could smell the silver moss with which his clothes had been stored, the clean, crisp scent of it made just slightly peppery by the heat of his body.

  “I need to go back to the laboratory,” he said, taking a step back. “Stay safe in my absence.”

  From his laboratory, Titus returned to Mrs. Dawlish’s for supper, then to his own room to test the trial he planned for Fairfax. He emerged from the Crucible disoriented and nauseous, to knocks on his door.

  Wintervale charged in. “What the hell is going on out there? Why are there armored chariots everywhere all of a sudden? Is there a war going on I haven’t heard about?”

  Titus gulped down a glass of water. “No.”

  “Then what? Something is going on.”

  Wintervale’s family, even in exile, was extraordinarily connected. He would learn sooner or later. And if Titus lied to a direct question, it would appear as if he were hiding something.

  “Atlantis is hunting for an elemental mage who brought down a bolt of lightning.”

  “You mean, like Helgira?”

  The name still made Titus squeamish. “You could say that.”

  “That’s poppycock. No one can do that. What’s next? Mages riding comets?”

  A burst of masculine laughter came from Fairfax’s room next door. Who else had become her friend now?

  Friends, he mentally corrected himself, as more boys joined in the uproarious laughter.

  “You know what I think?” Wintervale set two fingers under his chin. “I think it’s just an excuse for Atlantis to get rid of some Exiles they don’t like. I’d better tell my mother to be extra careful.”

  “We can all stand to be a bit more careful.”

  “You are right,” said Wintervale.

  Now why could Fairfax not be more like Wintervale, respectful and willing to take advice?

  “How is Lady Wintervale, by the way?” he asked.

  “Gone to her spas. I hope they calm her down. I haven’t seen her so jumpy in a while.”

  Wintervale left only when it was nearly lights-out. But Fairfax’s room, when Titus pushed open her door, was still full. She sat cross-legged on her bed, Sutherland next to her, Rogers and Cooper, two other boys from the house cricket squad, straddling chairs pulled up to the bed. They were playing cards.

  “Come and help me, prince,” she said casually. “I’m terrible at cards.”

  “He really is,” said Sutherland.

  “Good thing I’m a brilliant athlete and handsome as a god,” she said it with that affable cockiness she did so astonishingly well.

  The boys laughed and booed.

  “Full of ourselves, aren’t we?” asked Rogers.

  “My mother taught me false modesty is a sin,” she said, smirking.

  Titus had cautioned her against making friends. But the sharp feeling in his heart was not concern, but a stab of envy. Even if his circumstances had allowed friends, he would not have had them so easily. There was something about him that discouraged contact, let alone intimacy.

  “It is almost lights-out,” he said.

  Cooper, always awed by Titus, immediately set down his cards. “Better get back to my room then.”

  More reluctantly, Sutherland and Rogers followed.

  As Titus closed the door behind them, she shuffled the cards. “You’re very good at dispersing a party, Your Highness. Must have taken you years of practice.”

  “Incorrect—I was born this talented
. But you, it must have taken you years to perfect your act.”

  “You refer to my innate and splendid charm?”

  “Your charm is about as innate as my truthfulness.”

  She gathered the deck in her right hand. The cards flew out of her fingers and landed neatly in the palm of her left hand. “Did you have something to tell me?”

  He had not come with any particular purpose. But as her question fell, his answer sprang readily, as if he’d been mulling it over for a while. “I have been reading about your guardian. He has not made your life easy.”

  “His own life was made impossibly difficult because of me.”

  “Relax—I do not question his character. I only want to let you know that you took very good care of him. You have a good heart.”

  Her glance, when it came, was as cold as a mountain stream. “I took care of him because I love him—and because I can never do as much for him as he has done for me by taking me in and giving me a home. Your compliments will not earn you greater devotion from my part. I will do as much as the blood oath stipulates and nothing more.”

  Clever girl. She made him feel almost transparent.

  “Good night, Your Highness.”

  Grand, too, dismissing him as if he were a subject of hers, instead of the other way around.

  He vaulted the few feet that separated them, kissed her on the cheek, and, before she could quite react, vaulted back to his place by the door. “Good night, Fairfax.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE PRINCE WAS MANIPULATING HER, Iolanthe was sure. But to what goal? Did he think that telling her that she was infinitely precious to him, complimenting her on her good heart, or kissing her on the cheek would make her willingly embrace mortal danger for his sake?

  Nothing would make her willingly embrace mortal danger for his sake.

  But still she tossed and turned for a long time before she fell asleep, the imprint of his cool lips a burn upon her cheek.

  The next morning her training plunged her into a story called “Batea and the Flood,” where she had a grueling time holding back a swollen river. More grueling yet was an afternoon division called Greek Testament. Master Haywood had never quite understood her trouble with ancient Greek, pointing out that it was not much more morphologically complex than Latin. But whereas Latin she found no more difficult to master than fire, Greek had always felt like lifting mountains.

  By the time she returned to Mrs. Dawlish’s house, she was ready to lie down for a few minutes in her room. But the prince wasn’t done with her.

  “Come with me.”

  “We already trained for the day.”

  “Today is a shorter day at school. On those days, you will have an afternoon session, too.”

  She said nothing as she followed him into his room.

  “I know you are tired.” He closed the door behind him and directed a keep-away charm at it. “But I also know you are strong—far stronger than you, or perhaps even I, can comprehend.”

  She did not feel strong, only trapped.

  “Always remember,” he said, as he placed his hand on the Crucible, “that someday your strength will overturn the world as we know it.”

  They landed in a part of the Crucible she hadn’t seen before: an apple orchard, the branches heavy with pink-and-white flowers, the air cool and sweet. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked toward the second sun, pale and barely there. She was peeved at the extra session and angry at everything else in her life, but she couldn’t quite help her fascination with the Crucible. It made her feel as if she were on a different world altogether.

  “What story are we in?”

  “‘The Greedy Beekeeper.’”

  No wonder the buzz of bees echoed in her ears. “What happens in it?”

  “You will see.”

  She did not like that answer.

  Side by side they walked deeper into the orchard. At one point a boulder jutted up from the ground. The prince leaped lightly on top and held out a hand toward her. She ignored him and made her own way across.

  “It is only courtesy on my part, Fairfax. You need not worry that taking my hand will bind you more inextricably to me.”

  “Perhaps not in any magical manner. But with you, Your Highness, there’s no such thing as simple courtesy. You extend a hand because you want something in return. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday you deem that your premeditated kindnesses will add up to something.”

  His response was a slight smile and an admiring gaze. Calculated, all calculated, she reminded herself. All the same, warmth pooled deep inside her.

  They came to a clearing in the orchard. She frowned. “Is that a beehive?”

  The hive was the familiar round, tapered shape of a skep, but it was three stories tall and measured at least twenty feet across at its base.

  “That is the beekeeper’s house.”

  He opened the door and ushered her in. The inside of the house, except for its shape, looked typical for a rustic dwelling: planked floors, unvarnished furniture, and honey-yellow curtains on the small windows.

  He pushed a chest of drawers to the center of the house, set a chair on top of the chest, and climbed onto the chair to place something on a crossbeam.

  “What’s that?”

  “A piece of paper with the exit password for the Crucible. It will not respond to a summons, but will obey a breeze.”

  He leaped down and, with the exstinctio spell, destroyed all the furniture. “The beekeeper keeps his bees in old-fashioned skeps. To get to the honey, he kills the bees each time. The bees have finally had enough.”

  “And?” She was beginning to be nervous.

  “And I wish we had met under different circumstances.” He pressed his spare wand into her hand. “Good luck.”

  He left. She stared at the door for a minute before glancing up at the crossbeam again. It was at least twelve feet in the air, too high for her to jump. He’d left nothing that could give her a lift. And since one couldn’t vault in the Crucible, she’d have to do this either honestly or not at all.

  She sighed, raised her face to the ceiling, and closed her eyes to concentrate.

  Something wet and sticky splattered onto her face.

  “What the—” She leaped back, her lids flying open.

  A golden, viscous liquid dripped down from—everywhere. Every inch of the wall was now a honeycomb, each hexagon seeping honey.

  Seeping turned into drizzling. Drizzling turned into pouring. Honey flowed down the wall. Thick ropes of it tumbled from the domed ceiling.

  The only place that wasn’t directly assaulted was the exact spot where he’d placed the password—the house had an opening at the very center of the roof, which served as a chimney.

  Puddles gathered. She stepped around them for the door. But the door had disappeared behind six inches of hard wax. The windows, when she ripped away the curtains, were similarly inaccessible.

  If honey continued to inundate the room, she’d be submerged.

  She cursed him. Of course he would think of something so nefarious. She cursed some more and implored the air in the room to cooperate. Please. Just this once.

  The honey cascaded faster and faster, rising to her ankles, then to her knees, so thick she could barely move her feet. The aroma overwhelmed her, too sweet, too cloying. She stood under the beam for shelter. But still honey slimed her, plastering her hair to her head. She had to wipe it away from her brows so it wouldn’t get into her eyes. Even the wand had become coated, at once gluey and slippery.

  She wanted that password. How she wanted it. But air ignored her attempts to control it. Like shouting at the deaf, or waving her hands before the blind.

  The honey was now waist-high. Her chest hurt with panic.

  Perhaps she ought to move out from directly underneath the crossbeam. She’d be able to see the piece of paper, and perhaps that might help.

  But when she tried to do so, she lost her footing avoiding a huge glob of hone
y falling toward her and listed sideways. Like a fly caught in tree sap, she couldn’t right herself. She was sucked downward—a horrifying sensation.

  It occurred to her that she could drown in honey—and that this was precisely the brink toward which he meant to push her.

  She flailed and sank deeper into the honey. Her toes hit the floor. She gasped, struggled upright, and dug her wand out of the honey. “I’m going to break your wand hand,” she shouted. “And your skull too.”

  The honey had risen as high as her chest, the pressure heavy against her sternum. She panted. A dribble of honey fell into her mouth. She’d thought she liked honey, but now its taste turned her stomach.

  She spat and tried again to concentrate. She had never needed to concentrate for any of the other elements: her dealings with them were as straightforward as breathing. Wrestling with air was like—well, wrestling with air, struggling with an entity that could not be seen, let alone pinned down.

  The honey swelled ever higher. Past her lips, creeping toward her nose. She tried to push herself up, to float. But she couldn’t kick her legs high enough to turn herself horizontal. Thrashing about—if her molasses-slow motion could be called thrashing—only pulled her deeper into the mire.

  She could no longer breathe. Her lungs burned. Instinct forced her to open her mouth. Honey poured in. She coughed, the raw pain of honey going down her air pipe indescribable.

  Only her hand was above the honey now. She waved her wand, livid and desperate. Had she done it? She could not open her eyes. Her lungs imploded.

  The next moment all the honey was gone and she was surrounded by the clean weightlessness of air. She fell to the floor—the floor of the prince’s room—and panted, filling her lungs with the ineffable sweetness of oxygen.

  Rationally, she knew she had never, not for a moment, been in real danger. And therefore there was no reason for her to shake and gasp with the relief of survival.

  Which only made her loathe him more.