She waved him off. “In the wrong hands a paring knife can end a man’s life. Shall we ban them from the kitchen?”
Alucard stared at her, aghast. Nadiya Loreni was a brilliant inventor, but she had a kind of tunnel vision when it came to her work. She never seemed to see the danger in it, only the potential. In her mind, power was a neutral force. Alucard wished he could agree.
“This is dangerous.”
“This is progress,” she shot back. “Magic chooses, that’s what the priests say. Do you believe that you’ve been chosen? That the forces guiding the world decided you should be able to wield not one element but three? What makes you so deserving?” He said nothing, then. He had no answer. “Why should some arbitrary force decide who wields water or fire or stone? Who has magic and who does not?”
Alucard stilled—this was not some pursuit followed for the sake of curiosity. This was a weapon against scrutiny, a way to protect their family and their throne. He did not blame her for it. And yet.
“Nadiya,” he said, the anger slipping from his voice.
But it only mounted in hers. “Think of Rhy. Of how many people claim he should not be allowed to rule simply because he has no magic.”
“Those people are fools,” he said.
“Of course they are,” she said, “but fools have voices, and voices carry. They want to punish Rhy, Alucard, all because magic did not choose him. But we can. We can give him power.”
“By taking it from someone else.”
“It isn’t done,” she said, exasperated.
“Yes, it is.” It had to be. Because Alucard understood. Understood that if Nadiya offered Rhy power, he might take it, and if he did, those people—the ones who called him weak—wouldn’t stop, they’d simply have another, better reason to hate him. They would find out his magic was borrowed, or stolen, the balance of the world tipped unrightly in his favor, and then, when they called for his head, they would be right.
He stepped toward Nadiya, set his hands on the queen’s shoulders, and met her eyes.
“Destroy it,” warned Alucard, “or I will.”
III
WHITE LONDON
Holland Vosijk stood beside the tree in the center of Kosika’s room.
It had grown over the last year, from a knee-high sapling to a tree half as tall as the room was high, a hundred eyes staring out from its pale trunk, and its leaves the color of amber. But unlike the ones in the Silver Wood, those leaves never fell. They colored, and withered, curled in only to fan wide again when the seasons changed.
The servants whispered of the tree that had taken root overnight. Spoke of signs and miracles. They had no idea how right they were.
“How was the tithe?” asked Holland now.
“You should have come with me,” said Kosika, rising from the kol-kot board, where she’d left Nasi’s present.
His eyes found hers. “I am always with you.”
She felt warmth flood beneath her skin as he said it, turned to hide the blush and made her way to the basin. It stood waiting on a marble shelf, a bottle of salve and a length of clean cloth beside it. A castle of servants at the ready, but she preferred to tend the tithing cuts herself. They thought it was a part of the ritual, when in truth, it was privacy, so that she and her saint could speak.
Kosika rolled up her sleeve. Her head was bowed over her work, but she could feel Holland’s shadow fall over her as she cleaned the four fresh cuts that scored her forearm.
“You are troubled.”
She looked down into the basin, the water tinted with her blood. “I feel the city’s magic getting stronger. I do.” She swallowed. “But some days it feels like the soil will never be sated.”
Holland rested his hand on her head. She could feel it—no longer just the shadow of a touch, but something closer to flesh and bone. “Magic can speed the work of many things, Kosika. But change itself will always take time.”
His words were steady, but she was sure that if she turned her gaze to his, she’d see disappointment in his eyes. She was disappointing him. Her king. Her saint.
The weight of his fingers fell away. “We are working a vast and complicated spell. You must be patient.”
Kosika shook her head as she smoothed the cold salve across the inside of her arm. Patience was a word for ordinary souls. She was Antari. If she could not summon enough magic—she tried to silence the fears, knew she shouldn’t give voice to them, lest he take her thoughts as a lack of faith. But of course, he heard them anyway.