* * *
The queen’s workshop was empty.
It was strange, thought Alucard, given the hour. Nadiya always said the darkest part of the night was the best for getting anything of value done. Those long, black hours before dawn, when she could cast off the mantles of mother and queen and be what she wanted most: a Loreni. An inventor.
Another time, Alucard might have lingered to explore. But tonight, he wanted only to find his way back to sleep. The kind that fell like a curtain, and brought neither dreams nor memories.
He went to the chest on the far side of the room, its surface covered in cut-glass vials, jars of herbs, a stone mortar and pestle. The vessels were all marked, and he studied their labels, trying to remember the exact portions of dreamsquick and hallowsroot as he drew the empty bottle from his pocket. He’d just taken up the first vial, was trying to decide between three drops and four, when a voice behind him cut in.
“There’s a fine line between medicine and poison.”
He turned, and saw Nadiya at the base of the stairs, a tray balanced on her hip.
“I thought you might be asleep,” he said.
“At this hour?” she asked, as if that were absurd. “I wanted tea.” She set the tray down. It held a steaming pot, a cup, and a stack of small spiced cookies.
“I’m sure the servants would have obliged.”
“I’m sure,” she said, striding toward him. “But I have two legs and a passing ability to boil water.” She plucked the empty bottle from his hand and shooed him away from the chest.
“You know,” she went on, drawing the dropper from the hallowsroot, “there are times in life when it serves one to guess, and times when it does not.” Two small beads of liquid disappeared into the bottle. “This is one of the latter. Unless, of course, you like not knowing if you’ll wake.”
“I would prefer it,” he said as she returned the hallowsroot, and reached past the dreamsquick for a bundle of widowswork instead, dropping a leaf into the mortar.
“The king is going through this batch quite quickly.”
“It’s not for him,” admitted Alucard.
Nadiya met his gaze but said nothing, only returned to preparing the tonic. He decided to make himself useful; drifted toward the tray and poured the tea, swiping a spiced cookie from the top of the stack. He placed the cup at her elbow.
“Did you know that the Antari are in residence?” she asked, as if making pleasant conversation.
“Mhmm,” he said around the cookie. Swallowed. Offered nothing else. The queen was brilliant, but her eyes took on a different light when Kell and Lila were around. She called it curiosity. He called it hunger.
“What brings them to London after all this time?” she pressed.
“The Hand,” he said, then continued to wander about the queen’s workshop as he explained about the raid on Maris Patrol’s floating market, and the stolen persalis, and Bard’s certainty that it had been smuggled here to use against the crown. He trailed off as he reached the worktable in the middle of the room.
“What’s this?” he asked, studying the counter.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” the queen called without turning to see. But Alucard was busy trying to make sense of the sight himself.
The three Antari rings were out of their glass box. The wide silver bands sat like weights, pinning the corners of a large black cloth, its surface covered in Nadiya’s slanted hand, the white chalk markings of a spell. The marks were connected, a vast, intricate web of lines, and at their center sat two lengths of chain, both wrought in gold. One was thinner and shorter than the other.
“Oh, that,” said the queen, appearing at his side. She set her tea down on a nearby stack of books, and handed him the sleeping tonic. He slipped it absently into his robe, unable to take his eyes from the work laid out before him.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Right now? It is a work in progress. One day, perhaps, it will change everything.” Unease prickled beneath his skin as Nadiya took up the thicker chain, held it between her hands as if it were a priestly relic.
“It’s one thing,” she said, “to devise an object that magnifies a user’s magic, as long as that magic is confined to a single element. Two water mages. Two fire workers. Two—or even three—Antari. Something that functions only as an amplifier, allowing one magician to borrow another’s strength. But it is quite another for that magician to borrow a different power. Imagine being able to pair a water worker and an earth mage, or a fire maker and a wind one. Or”—her eyes flicked up to his—“a person without magic, and one who has plenty.”