As she climbed the stairs, she dug her nail into the cut along her thumb, felt the dull lance of pain as it reopened. She went up, and up, and up, to the alcove and the altar. She expected to feel her king fall in step beside her, but she reached the top alone. She took a candle from the table, slipped behind the statue of the Saint, whispered the word into the door, and went inside, the candle in her hand casting unsteady light across the darkened chamber.
She went to the desk, to the small wooden box that sat on top, expecting Holland’s voice to waft toward her as she took it up. But there was only her heart, and her own voice hissing in her head.
Had she been na?ve, to ignore the other worlds so long?
She had no desire to venture out into them.
But what if the walls failed, and they came in?
What if they came for her magic?
How could she fight what she did not know?
She tucked the box under her arm, and turned away, flinching as she caught sight of her reflection. Her crown shone like a band of molten light in her braided hair, as did the silver buttons that trailed down her front, the polished gemstones at her collar. She tugged the crown free, and then the braids. Loose, her hair rippled and fell into her eyes, hiding the Antari mark behind a brown-blond curl.
Holland’s grey cloak hung from the wall, and she pulled it around her shoulders, shivered as the weight settled on her like a hand. And then she knelt on the stone floor, and drew an X.
Holland himself had shown her this spell. Guided her through it one summer day, when she longed for a way to get out of the castle unnoticed. He almost smiled as he told her how, and she tried to imagine her king, her saint, as a boy her age, slipping through the city, as if he’d taken a map and folded it up, and used a pair of scissors to cut straight through.
As far as she knew, no one had noticed the square of bark she’d peeled away from a courtyard tree, the matching mark she’d carved into the trunk beneath, the lines darkened faintly with blood. The X had long dried to a faint and fading brown, but it was still there, and as Kosika pressed her palm to the mark on Holland’s floor and whispered the spell—“As Tascen”—the king’s chamber fell away, and so did she.
When they both came back, she was no longer kneeling on stone, but grass, her hand pressed to the base of the tree. In the distance, the castle rose, its windows glowing like milky eyes. The grounds were dark, but the night was clear, and the moon was nearly full, so there was enough light to see by.
Kosika pressed her bloody fingers to the box, and said the words to open it.
Her head spun a little with the sudden use of so much magic, and she thought of the cherry tree—another reminder that she was drawing from a finite well.
She lifted the lid of the box, and moonlight fell on the coins inside. Three tokens to three other worlds. One silver. One crimson. One black. Kosika waited, and at last, she felt his presence.
Like a sliver of sun on a cold day, a sudden, welcome patch of warmth.
“Where have you been?” she asked softly as Holland emerged from the shadow of the trees, his white hair shining like moonlight.
“I was here. I am always here.”
“You have not been with me since we saw the crack.”
He reached her side, and stopped, a pale shadow looming over her. “I did not want you to feel my hand at your back.” His gaze dropped to the box in her hands. “I know your mind. I will not push you.”
His brow was furrowed, his eyes taking on a mournful cast. But there was resignation in it, as if he’d known it would always come to this.
Kosika dragged her own gaze back to the open box. The waiting coins. Her hands drifted to the crimson one, but as her fingers grazed the metal, Holland spoke.
“Wait.”
He knelt, laying his hand over hers.
“I mean it, when I say that I am always with you. I am bound to you, Kosika. I go where you go. I cannot go where you don’t. But there is something I must see.” She looked up and found those two-toned eyes—green and black—searching hers. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” she said, the words spilling out without resistance.
Holland’s hand moved from the crimson coin to the shard of black glass. “Then take me here.”
Kosika hesitated. She had been to Black London only once, the year before, and had never wished to go back. The hollow dread of that place had lingered on her skin like cobwebs. But Holland was her king, her saint, and she would deny him nothing, so she drew the token from the box, felt the cold weight of it in her palm before closing her fingers over the shard.