She slid off the stool and onto her knees beside him. “Did he tell you what had happened to him? ” she said urgently. “Can we help him? ”
“Dear lady,” Farquhar Broome said. She felt a twitch in her pocket, and the handkerchief she had borrowed jumped to his hand. He wiped his forehead with it and handed it back with his daft smile. All she could find to say was, “It’s not clean.”
The door flew open, and Phoebe Broome’s sonn caught them. A moment of suffused silence, and then the mage said, in a controlled voice, “Father, what exactly was that? ”
Farquhar’s smile was suddenly much less daft and very unhappy. “That was our friend Ishmael, dear girl. As best I understand his situation, he is captive of one of two surviving mages from the time of the laying of the Curse—”
“That’s—” The speaker thought better of “impossible.”
“. . . Who seems to have attempted, and succeeded, in augmenting Ishmael’s strength.” He reached up. “Help me up.”
Phoebe, and the Borders-born mage who had argued with the coachman, lifted him between them. He said, shakily, “It was a rather brutal process, and would not have succeeded in someone less robust. And as you sensed, he has very little control.”
“He studied wi’us,” the Borders mage objected.
“Dear boy, all his efforts went toward
increasing
the effect of the little magic he had. Even under the best of all possible circumstances, it would take him time to adjust.”
“Is he ensorcelled? ” Phoebe said, horrified.
Her father turned to her. “I could not tell.” Briefly, he supported himself on the lintel, and then handed himself through. Vladimer was waiting outside, Mycene and the baronette flanking him. “I think, Lord Vladimer,” Farquhar said to Vladimer, “I will ask you to go downstairs, smartly now, and close off the space between the floors.”
“What is it? ”
“By your leave,” the mage said, “it will be quicker if I simply show you.”
Vladimer sonned him, taking in his manner, quite bereft of all eccentricity and whimsy. His shoulders tightened, and then he thrust his fisted hand at Farquhar. Farquhar’s hand closed lightly around it. Vladimer’s face registered his shock.
“Ishmael?”
Farquhar squeezed his hand and released it. “I am afraid so, dear boy. Explain it to the others.”
“Do you think you can—”
“Me? I think not. But I might be able to give Ishmael what he needs, with the help of my dear people here, and, perhaps, if they will permit me to speak to them, the Lightborn. It is probably safer for bystanders not to be too close. You do understand? ”
Of course Vladimer understood, having been at the archduke’s breakfast. “If you don’t have the strength,” Vladimer said, intensely, “then I order you to wait on making any move. There is no purpose to your risking yourselves. Fejelis will be in the palace by now. Give him a chance to get through to the high masters.”
Farquhar gave him his wide smile. “I shall most certainly try. Now
please
, go downstairs.”
“But—,” began Lavender di Gautier, hoarsely.
“Shoo! ”
said Farquhar, with matching gestures.
Vladimer hesitated, his expression an odd mix of annoyance and helplessness. Then he said over his shoulder to the others, “Downstairs. I will explain.” His sonn brushed Telmaine. “Lady Telmaine? ”
Telmaine shook her head firmly, not trusting her voice. Ishmael needed her, and needed her all the more because the mages, whom he regarded as his own, seemed to have marked him as a danger, if not an enemy. He did not deserve that from them, too. She stood tensely, poised for argument, as Vladimer herded Mycene, the baronette, and their men down the stairs.
“My dear ones,” Farquhar Broome began, and then stopped and spread his hands helplessly.
“It’s all right, Father.”
“It is
not
all right.” Telmaine sensed the interplay of magic between them, swift and cryptic, excluding her again. But this time, she found herself measuring them, measuring their magic against that inferno she had felt from Ishmael. They could not match him—Farquhar Broome’s manner told him that. But if he destroyed them, it might destroy him. She remembered that dream. A warning?
Farquhar Broome said, and, with no deference to rank, they spread around the room, found chairs and stools and trunks, and sat, leaving her to perch on a stool with her skirts spread around her.
He let out a breath and shook his head. he said to Telmaine,
No one feeling that furnace of magic could make that mistake.
The thought leaked; Farquhar Broome’s wizened-apple face creased in a smile.
Telmaine drew a deep breath to settle herself and then whispered,
The heat. The overwhelming heat. That she knew it was not physical made no difference to what she
felt
. But within the heat, she could sense his alertness, his listening presence. She concentrated on that.
No words, no attempt at conversation. Was he shying from injuring her? If only she could have pretended to be unaffected by his magic. She hesitated, but this was Ishmael. He
could not
be their enemy. He would surely sense how frightened she was for Balthasar, how desperately she wanted this over and him safe—them all safe.
<
What was that?
>
That
was not Ishmael. She recoiled quickly, but not quickly enough. Magic split her mind like the husk of a seed, spilling and raking through the kernels within: her encounters with the Shadowborn, with Tammorn, with Vladimer, Fejelis, the archduke, Ishmael. Vaguely she sensed the blaze of Ishmael’s outrage, and even more vaguely, Farquhar Broome’s efforts to reach her. The Shadowborn—it was a woman—said thoughtfully,
And she felt Shadowborn magic drop over her like a great sheet, and
lift
.
Ten
Fejelis
“. . . I need you to stay here, help the Darkborn. . . .” Fejelis glanced up from folding the princely mourning jacket around the caul, and found his brother staring at him in dismay. He measured the angle and color of the early-morning light, and stuffed the bundle into his borrowed bag with more urgency and less respect than it deserved. “You know the railway. You can talk to the railway people, get them what they need. You’ve my authority to overturn the day-night orders. . . .” Which he had remembered to scrawl. Celeste was translating it into Darkborn script on one of the clever Darkborn punch machines, still chortling at her own perversity in refusing to believe Fejelis’s claim.
“But what are you going to do? ” Orlanjis said. “And can’t I come with you?”
Fejelis forgave him the plaintive tone. “Take my city back. . . . Find a way to get the Temple to see sense and work with the Darkborn mages. . . . Calm things down between Lightborn and Darkborn so the archduke of the Darkborn can see his way to reinforcing Strumheller and Stranhorne, and make sure he understands the need to. . . . Decide what to do
after
lunch.” His brother did not react to the weak jest. “We simply can’t take you with us, Jis. I need Jovance on her feet at the end of the
lift
, and I need you to hold together the alliance here.”
“Why are you trusting me? I’ve only ever been your rival.”
This was the heart of it, and no less than expected, since they’d been set up as rivals all their lives. Fejelis straightened to face his brother. He hated being hurried in a conversation of this importance, hated having to strip it down to its essence. “. . . Orlanjis, we are fighting for our lives against an enemy that few of us even recognize. I’m
trusting
you because you’ve seen exactly the same thing as I have, and come to the same conclusions. I’m trusting you because I watched you fight, come under attack, and not break. When we go back to the palace and all the usual problems and politics of a new reign, if I can keep you, I will. . . . You’re not the boy you were even a few days ago.”
Nor,
he thought,
am I.
He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and looked down into his eyes. “If I die doing this, all I ask is that you rule as you believe, not as anyone else tells you. Father didn’t think that a prince’s policy should survive the prince, and I agree. But try to be a good prince, and watch your back. I’ll do my best to avoid leaving you quite as ghastly a mess as we have now, but if I fail, we will need as strong a relationship with the Darkborn—” He caught himself; shook his head. “. . . And here I said I wasn’t going to try to influence you.”
“That’s not influence,” Jovance interrupted from the door. “That’s the verbal equivalent of sitting in a lather, tearing a piece of paper to bits. You’re not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. He’s your father’s son as well.”
He gave her a grateful glance at that, then hugged Orlanjis quickly, thankful that when the Darkborn train had left with Lord Vladimer and his mages aboard, no one had suggested that Orlanjis travel with it. But the Lightborn railway workers were bringing in a day train with plans to press on to Stranhorne before sunset, and if Fejelis could not end this today, in the city, Orlanjis would go with them. “I’ll give your regards to Mother, though I’d appreciate it if you sent a message to reassure her I didn’t abandon you in the wilds.”
Orlanjis watched from the doorway as they went down the steps of the small house and into the carefully tended garden. The perfume of the night-blooming flowers on the trellises lingered in the still morning air, though the flowers themselves were furled. A baffled bee was bumping gently against one as though trying to wake it. With the stillness and the early sunshine, and they being the only people moving in it, the world seemed new made, free of Curse and Shadowborn.
“Nice pep talk,” Jovance said in a low voice.
“I’m terrified for him,” Fejelis admitted. “He’s only fourteen.”
“One thing reassures me,” Jovance said. “I see no sign that he needs to do stupid things to prove his courage.” She looked up at him, her skin warmed by the sunlight. “Nor do you; I don’t think it
occurs
to you to be afraid.” If she could feel his pulse, if she could touch him, she would know that was wrong. “Where do you want me to put us down? It needs to be somewhere I know, and it’s best to be somewhere outside. I can sense and avoid living things more easily than inanimate objects.”
“. . . What do you say to the palace gardens, on the plinth of the sundial garden? ”
Where, on certain ceremonial occasions, the prince would stand, his shadow marking a significant time. She stared at him, her lips parting, and then he remembered that one of those ceremonies was the public announcement of the contract between the prince and his chosen consort, and another, the sealing of the contract itself. His color mounted. “Jovance, I, um . . .”
She was still laughing when she landed them on the plinth above the sundial garden. The hour was a most unceremonial one, and their shadows tracked across the blue and silver border, outside time. She gasped as the effort of the magic caught up with her, and he got a hand around her back and guided her down to sit on the edge of the platform, all thought of his misstep slipping from his mind. “Sorry,” she said, wanly. “Needed quite a punch to get through the Temple interference. It’s a safe bet they know I’ve arrived.”
“If they don’t, tell them,” Fejelis said. “I want to get their attention.” He stepped from the platform down onto the ground. “Can you walk? I don’t like us being exposed like this.” He’d had one crossbow bolt through him already in his young reign. No sense inviting another.
“I’d like to say no,” she remarked, gazing up under her lashes, “just to make you carry me.” She slipped off the plinth onto her feet, and steadied herself with a grip on his arm, delighting him with the casual ease of the gesture. Of all the people he knew, only Tam and his father had ever touched him so easily. “No,” she murmured, and he realized she was aware of his distracted thoughts. “Maybe not a good idea.” Then she lifted her head. “Company, Prince.”
Good
company, he found, turning: Captain Lapaxo at the head of a flying wedge of palace vigilants, with a look on his face that promised a locked safe room for a feckless prince, and a fate worse than death for anyone who would think to harm him. Fejelis towed Jovance several yards down the path to get the flower beds off the line of the charge. He had enough civil wars on his hands without adding one between vigilants and gardeners.
Lapaxo halted in front of him, scowling. “Well,
curse it
, your brightness.” Then the captain outraged protocol and endeared himself to Fejelis forever by clapping hands to his prince’s arms and giving him a sharp shake. “Where’d you get to? ”