“Then let the girl try and fix it.”
“I cannot!” he shouted, the words splintering his voice. “I cannot, Lila. Don’t you understand? If it were just my life at stake—but it is not. You seem to forget, I am bound to my brother. If the girl’s work failed, if it went wrong, my life is not the only one that would be forfeit.”
Lila, at last, said nothing.
Across the room, Rhy cleared his throat. “If that is what’s stopping you, Kell,” he said, “you have my permission.”
Alucard looked horrified. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kell cut in first.
“It’s not permission,” he seethed. “It’s a weight. One you do not wish to hold, so you force it onto me. You might be willing to gamble with your life, but I am not.”
Alucard crossed his arms. “For once, Kell and I are in agreement. It is not worth the risk.”
Lila’s gaze raked across the room. He could feel her anger, in the tensing air, in the pressure on the glass, in the flare of the candles.
“Hang you all,” she muttered, turning on her heel.
“Don’t leave the palace,” warned Kell.
Lila raised one hand in a rude gesture, and stormed out.
The doors banged shut behind her. Kell folded forward in his chair, head falling into his hands.
He was so very tired.
The sofa dipped beneath the weight of a new body. Kell didn’t need to lift his head to know it was his brother. A lifetime of sharing space, and he knew the way the air bent around Rhy’s shoulders, long before the ringed fingers settled on his sleeve.
“We should talk about this.”
“There is nothing to discuss,” said Kell.
“If there’s a chance to free you from this—”
“No.”
“You would do anything to spare me, Kell,” pressed Rhy. “Why can’t I do the same for you?”
He dragged his head up, met his brother’s golden eyes. “Because I am not the king.”
“You are my family. Surely that matters more than any crown.”
“The two of you,” muttered Alucard, “always competing for the role of martyr. And you,” he snapped at Rhy, “you would do the Hand’s work for them.”
“At least I know that if I die,” said Rhy, “you will make a handsome king.”
“And what of Ren?” asked Alucard.
Rhy’s expression faltered. It was one thing, to be a brother, or a king, another to be a father. Pain flashed like a current beneath his skin. Kell saw it, and squeezed his brother’s knee.
“There is no need to speak like this. It is my choice, and I have made it. Besides,” he said, pushing himself to his feet, “I am getting quite good with a sword.”
Rhy blinked, and tried to smile. It didn’t reach his eyes.
Alucard reached out to the nearest lantern, as if grazing the threads that only he could see. But he frowned as his fingers went straight through. He set down his glass, and started for the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Rhy.
“To the prison,” he said, straightening his coat. “I for one would like to see this girl, whose power is so much greater than my own.” He stepped out into the hall, but held the door. “Well?” he asked. “Are you coming?”
VII
WHITE LONDON
Kosika woke to laughter.
It rose like tendrils of smoke through the floor of her room, thin, but impossible to ignore. She tried tossing and turning for several moments before finally flinging off her sheets. It was the middle of the night, but she pulled on a robe and followed the sounds out into the hall. There were no guards. That was odd. She padded barefoot down the tower stairs, the sound growing with each descending step. By the time she reached the third floor, she heard music. By the second, voices. By the first, the chime of glasses and the shuffle of feet.
The feast day was long over. The celebration should have dimmed by now.
Instead, it had grown, bloomed into something raucous and bright.
A hundred lanterns filled the castle hall, which brimmed with bodies, a sea of jewel-toned dresses and capes studded by the silver-clad Vir.
Kosika strode across the room. Or tried. The crowd should have parted for her, should have bowed, but they did not move. In fact, they seemed to close ranks, and jostle, so that she had to force her way between their limbs like an intruding child.
A fountain stood in the center of the hall, the sound of its spilling water lost beneath the burble of voices and the tinkling laughter, a statue of Holland looming over the pool, but as Kosika got close, she realized it wasn’t Holland the Servant, or the King, or the Saint. It was Holland, her Holland, and he was not made of stone, though he might as well have been. He did not move, did not look at her, only stood, white hair rising in a crown, and head bowed over a large bowl in his hands. A bowl that spilled wine into the basin below.