* * *
The carriage rattled through the city streets. Serak’s mouth was a grim line, his eyes cast down, and when Kosika asked where they were going, he shook his head and said only, “Better if you see.”
If it had been anyone but Serak, she might have suspected malice, might have wondered if this was some attempt at a coup. If the Vir meant to lead her into danger, even death （she wondered briefly if any of the Vir were strong enough to kill her, but she doubted it）。 But this was Serak, loyal Serak, who looked at her and saw the incarnation of power, the heir of a saint.
Still, as the carriage trundled on, she kept her hands folded beneath her cloak, one nail grazing the shallow cut she’d made to grow the cherry tree.
At last, the carriage stopped, and Serak stepped out first, holding the door for her. As Kosika stepped down, she saw they were at the edge of an alley, the city walls rising high to either side. Ahead, the narrow road was interrupted by a white tent.
It struck her as an odd place to pitch a market stall, until she realized, of course, it had been erected to hide something else from view.
A soldier stood waiting for them, and as she followed Serak forward, he drew back the flap, and ushered her inside.
Holland had not followed her into the carriage, but she felt him now, at her side as she stepped into the tent. She blinked, eyes adjusting as sunlight was traded for soft lanterns. She looked down, expecting to see something on the ground—a body, perhaps, or the remains of a spell, something worth hiding from view—but the stones beneath her feet were bare, unstained. Kosika frowned, gaze flicking up to Serak, lips already forming the protest that there was nothing here—when she saw it.
What it was she saw, she couldn’t say. It hung in the air between her and the Vir, rippling his image slightly like a pane of imperfect glass. At her back, Holland drew in a short, sharp breath, and she nearly glanced back, over her shoulder. Instead she reached out, sure her fingers would land on something solid, but they passed through the mark without resistance, as if there was nothing there.
Kosika’s frown deepened. “What is it?” she asked, speaking both to Serak and the Saint.
“We are not sure,” said the Vir. “It was discovered this morning by a soldier’s wife, who told her husband, who came straight to us. Which was fortunate. It’s not in a very public place, and we were able to erect the tent before rumors spread—”
“Rumors?” she asked.
Serak cleared his throat. “The nature of the mark, the way it is and isn’t here. There is a chance—a small chance—that it could be a sign of damage to…”
“The walls.” Holland’s voice was low, and yet it filled the tent, heavy as smoke.
“—the walls,” finished Serak a moment later.
Kosika didn’t understand. And then, suddenly, she did.
The walls. The ones erected between worlds. As she stared at the warping in the air, it took on a different shape, seemed less like a ripple, and more like a crack.
“You think the walls are weakening?”
Serak said nothing, and that was answer enough. Panic pinged through her, tight and sudden as a plucked string. “There must be a way to reinforce them,” she said. “Make them stronger.”
“Perhaps,” said Serak, sounding unconvinced. After all, it had taken dozens of Antari to create the walls that sealed the worlds off from each other. That kept the magic of Black London from spilling out. If the dam was breaking—
“I have soldiers scouring the city,” said Serak. “Searching for other marks.”
Kosika studied the crack in the air. “Leave me,” she said. The words came out tight, and sharp, and so she cleared her throat and added, “For a moment. Please.”
Serak bowed his head, and stepped out of the tent. As the flap fell, Holland took the Vir’s place, his image warping slightly through the mark. Kosika studied the ripple. Perhaps it was nothing, but the longer she stared, the more it resembled a door. A way out. A way in.
She had resolved, long ago, not to dwell on the existence of those other worlds. And yet here they were, pressing in on hers.
“There was a time before the walls,” said Holland. “There will be a time after.” His two-toned eyes scraped over the mark. “If it is a crack, it is the first. Perhaps the walls themselves will hold another hundred years.”
“And if they don’t?”
Holland frowned, one pale hand drifting up, grazing the air around the mark. “Nothing made can last forever.”