A short drop, a lurch in her chest, and then her boots hit the wood, half a stride from Vasry and Raya, whose heads were bent over a game of Sanct. Vasry yelped and fell backward off his stool. Raya’s mouth twitched in amusement.
“Never get used to that,” said Vasry, getting back to his feet.
Lila rolled her head on her shoulders as she strolled away across the deck, tucking the wooden feather back in her pocket. The thrill of the night had worn away, and she felt suddenly tired, her bones aching from the fight on the Crow, her thoughts churning from Maris’s mission, her skin stained with blood and power. She peeled off her coat and tossed it aside, rinsing her hands and face with a jug of water.
“Stross and Tav?”
“Hesassa,” answered Raya.
“Out cold,” translated Vasry, whose Fresan had gotten understandably better over the years.
“What about our neighbors?” she asked, nodding down the docks to the empty berth where the Crow had been. “Any trouble?”
“Oh, plenty,” said Vasry. “The other four came back, looking for their ship.”
“And?”
“It’s Verose,” he said with an amiable shrug. “If they didn’t want to lose it, they shouldn’t have left it. They did come around,” he added, “asking if we’d seen anything. But it was clear we were rather occupied.” Raya flicked her fingers, and a tiny curl of water splashed his face.
Lila scanned the deck.
“We haven’t seen him,” said Vasry, reading her thoughts. “Not since he came back. Went straight down to his room, and we thought, best to leave him be.”
She nodded. All these years, and the crew still kept Kell at a distance. She couldn’t exactly blame them. Stross wasn’t happy to have a royal prince on board, said it drew too much attention. Tav and Vasry treated him like a piece of precious cargo. Raya acted like he was a cannon that might go off at any moment.
In short, they were afraid of him.
They were afraid of Lila, too, of course. But it was different. They were afraid of what she could do. They were afraid of what Kell was. Even if they were both Antari, the crew managed to forget about Bard’s eye, until she did something like step out of thin air onto the ship.
Lila bid them goodnight, and went down the short flight of stairs into the body of the Barron. She wanted a bath. Wanted a hot meal. Wanted a bed. But when she reached her cabin, it was only to shed her coat, and slip the glass card Maris had given her into the top drawer of her desk.
After that, she continued down the narrow hall to the closed door at the end.
She didn’t bother knocking.
Kell lay on his side in the dark, his hair making small waves across the pillow. His eyes were shut, but she knew he wasn’t sleeping. He never slept, not when she was out. Lila sank down beside him, stretched out long in the narrow bed, and he pretended to stir, rolling first onto his back and then toward her.
“Hello,” he said in English. His voice was soft and low, but she felt herself leaning into the word as much as the sound. All her life, she’d taken the language for granted, but here in this world, English was a royal tongue, reserved for Arnesian nobles and the crown at court, an ostentation born from centuries of Antari magicians carrying missives between London kings and queens. But here, at sea, it was something private. The language they slipped into only when they were alone.
Kell reached out and brushed a clump of hair behind her ear. These days his hands were rougher, but his touch was just as light, as if she were the one who might break.
“Where have you been?” he asked, and she told him. Of Tanis’s warning, of Valick’s arrival, of Maris, and the robbery aboard the floating market, and the mission that she’d been given.
Soon Kell was sitting up, chin resting on his knotted hands as he listened to the story of the persalis, the three thieves who came to steal it, and the one who got away. And when she finished, he did not tell her it was too dangerous, did not say that it was a fool’s errand, a needle in a haystack when you couldn’t find the hay. He did not even ask where they would start. He knew as well as she did. If this was the work of the Hand, it was to only one end. The palace. The crown. The king.
Lila stretched out long beside him, felt her limbs loosen at last.
“To London, then,” he said in the dark.
She nodded, and whispered back.
“To London.”
Part Three
THE KING’S HEART
I
RED LONDON
The city was full of broken things, though few, Tes found, were truly beyond repair.