The Crow.
If Alucard Emery’s intelligence was good, then this ship was on its way south, ready to pass cargo off to an Arnesian smuggler bound for London. Alucard wanted to know what it was carrying.
And Kell wanted what he always did these days.
To prove that even now, without the power that had once defined his life, marked him as Antari and made him the strongest magician in the world, he was still worth something to the Grey Barron, and Lila Bard, to the palace and the empire, and himself.
V
THE SOUTHERN POINT OF FRESA
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Kell Maresh had never been this cold.
For years, if he felt so much as a chill, he could conjure flame into his hands, or warm the air against his skin, the gesture as natural as breathing. Effortless. Simple.
But nothing was simple anymore.
The wine’s welcoming warmth had dwindled as the crew made their way down the port house path, as instructed, which led not into a town, but a massive tunnel carved straight into the glacier. A vicious wind whistled through it, singing against the ice, and sinking its teeth into every inch of skin.
And yet, for all the discomfort, there was something extraordinary about this place.
He had seen ice before, but the word did no justice to the scale.
He had stood in the king’s map room when he was young, and studied the empire modeled on the table, the drawings on the wall, wondered how a map could have edges when the world went on beyond it. Where is the rest? he’d asked, and the king had told him, This is the part that matters.
But Maxim Maresh was wrong.
Kell shook himself, not wanting to think about the man who’d raised him, and yet had never seen him as a son. The king who’d fallen, along with so many, at Osaron’s hands, and forced Rhy, too soon, onto the throne.
Ahead, Lila ran her bare fingers along the tunnel wall, and began to hum a sea shanty, the melody ricocheting around them, a song carrying its own chorus. Their footsteps echoed.
Without the eerie dawn haze, the tunnel should have been pitch black. But it wasn’t. In fact, the ice to every side seemed to glow with its own internal light, a pale blue Kell swore was growing brighter as they walked. He slowed, approaching the tunnel wall, a warped reflection taking shape in the ice. A long, pale face. Red hair parted by a single line of silver. The only outward mark of the battle that had changed his life.
He rested one gloved hand against the surface of the ice. And felt it. There was an energy to the ice, like a current in a stream. The water had frozen, but something inside it was undeniably alive.
He realized then what it must be. A source.
Kell knew, of course, that the Isle river back in London was not the only one, that sources of magic were scattered all over the world. But it was still a strange and wonderful thing to find another. To stand inside it. To bathe in the glow as if it were a healing thing. Perhaps, he thought—and hoped—it was.
He closed his eyes, imagined the light curling over him. Stitching back the parts that had torn.
A tremor ran through the tunnel, and Kell recoiled, half expecting to see cracks lacing the wall around his fingers. Vasry turned in a circle, and a knife had appeared in Lila’s hand, and for a single, horrible moment, Kell thought he’d done something to damage the source. But then the crash came again, and this time, he could tell, it wasn’t coming from behind or around them, but just ahead. It was followed by another sound, a tide of voices. Cheers.
They quickened their pace, rounded a bend, and reached the mouth of the tunnel. It yawned open to reveal a city carved in and out of ice.
And in the center stood the lightless fair.
Of course, it was not really lightless. The source’s blue shine met the twilight haze, giving everything a frosted glow. A dreamy, dusk-like illumination.
A hundred stalls rose straight out of the frozen ground, every ice-made shop draped in long, bright lengths of silk, adorned with lanterns and flags. A hundred patrons shuffled through, bundled in their coats, as merchants called out in Fresan, their voices reduced to music in his ears as they offered meat and tea, games and magic. There was laughter, and music, and more people than Kell had seen in months.
They passed through an ornate archway, icicles rising from its top like crown points, moon-like spheres balanced on each. A crowd had gathered just beyond, forming a wide circle around a pale woman in a silver coat.
She stood in the center of a small platform, bare hands raised before her as if holding puppet strings. For a long moment, she stood still, and then, as they watched, her arms began to move, fingers dancing through the air.
And the ice around her grew.