“Believe it or not,” said Alucard, careful to keep his voice lower than the music, “I’m trying to blend in. You act as if you’ve never enjoyed a pleasure garden, when I know for a fact Rhy dragged you to more than one. According to him, you are at least capable of having fun.”
Alucard reached up and embraced the side of Kell’s hood, the way he’d cup a close friend’s cheek. This time, Kell did not recoil, but his body was stiff as stone under his touch.
“Have you found anything or not?” he muttered.
Alucard shook his head. “Not yet. Perhaps we should—”
But at that moment, Kell stiffened, and pulled away. He turned, sweeping out of the room into the hall, and Alucard had no choice but to follow. He caught up in time to see Kell ducking into an unclaimed room, holding his hand as if burned.
Alucard shut the door behind them. “What’s wrong?”
“My ring.”
Two bands circled Kell’s right hand, one red, the other black. This second had taken on a faint glow, and Alucard knew, from the times Rhy had called on him, that it was hot to the touch, just shy of burning.
“I thought she refused to wear it,” said Alucard.
Kell shook his head. “She told me she didn’t.”
“Yes, well, good thing she lies,” said Alucard, looking around for a scrying table as Kell pulled off the ring.
“She’d never use it, unless she was in trouble.”
Alucard didn’t see the blade until it was already against Kell’s palm, a line of red welling up beneath the steel. Lila would kill him if he let the Antari use his broken magic.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing Kell’s shoulder, but he was too late, because Kell closed his bloody hand over the ring and said, “As Tascen,” and the room was ripped away, the whole world subsumed by a sudden, infinite dark.
It lasted only a moment.
Less than that.
And then it was back, Alucard’s boots no longer on a rug, but a stretch of paneled floor. The Veil was gone, replaced by a different house, cavernous and still. There was no sign of Lila, but Kell buckled to his knees with a gasp, as the threads around him sparked and frayed. He tore the mask off, dragged in shuddering lungfuls of air, pain scrawled across his face as he struggled up to one knee.
“Where are we?” he gasped.
Alucard was about to say he didn’t know, but the words died in his throat as he looked around. His heart fell down, through his chest, and his feet, and the floor. He knew exactly where he was.
He was home.
VI
Tes worked as fast as she could, trying to ignore the grim truth.
An hour wasn’t enough time.
It wasn’t enough time to make a persalis from scratch—especially since her hands had already begun to shake. She’d cleared the desk, separating the objects by use, and which elements she’d find threaded through each spell. The container itself didn’t matter, so she’d chosen a clock, pried open the back, and studied the inner workings, the twisted ribbons of amber and green. She drew them out, moved them quickly to another box and tied them there, before the light went out.
She wished that she’d put Vares on the desk, so she could at least pretend—pretend that she was back in her own shop, getting lost in the work. But she didn’t trust Calin not to crush the bird for sport, so she kept him in her pocket as she tried, frantically, to reconstruct the spell.
Not enough time, pounded her heart, even as her hands kept moving, weaving threads, holding them aloft.
It had taken so many hours to fix the first doormaker.
But you didn’t know then what it was, she countered to herself. Now you do. It was true, she had learned the pattern of the spell, the warp and weft of the threads that made it up. All she had to do was repeat it.
And if you do? said another voice. What then?
This wasn’t just a piece of magic. It was a weapon, one the Hand planned to use to kill the royal family, and cause a rebellion, throwing the empire into chaos.
If Tes failed, she would die. But if she succeeded, others would instead. And she might still perish anyway. Or worse, the nobleman would keep her. Put her talents to other use, or sell them to the highest bidder. Like Serival.
Tes wouldn’t let that happen, and she couldn’t do nothing, so for the moment, she focused on the work.
She scanned the medley of parts, her vision blurring as the magic tangled in her sight. Across the room, Bex was slumped in a chair, but Calin was still doing his best impression of a doorstopper. On the wall to his right was a shelf with a pitcher.