“You’re not funny,” he muttered. “Why have you come back, then? Planning to go abroad?” He wasn’t referring to Faro or Vesk. He knew that whenever Lila returned to this London, she made a point of visiting the others.
The first time she went abroad, as Alucard put it, it was only because Kell had asked her to. It was in those early months, when he still thought his magic simply needed time to rest. She had gone in his stead, the last Antari with working power, first to Grey London, to make sure Osaron’s remains were still secure in the cellar of the Five Points （they were）， and then to White London, to see what had grown in Holland’s wake （imagine her surprise to discover, of all things, a child queen）。
As far as Kell knew, those had been her last excursions. But they weren’t. Over the last seven years, Lila had gone back again and again, despite having little love for one world, and a wealth of loathing for the other. Call it curiosity. Call it a desire to stretch her legs. Call it twenty-something years of living on guard. But Lila couldn’t seem to choose ignorance, didn’t believe it would ever equal bliss.
She’d only confided in Alucard when one day he’d broached the subject himself, asking if she would keep an eye on the other worlds. Arnes had enough enemies in its own, he’d said. The last thing it needed was another, knocking at the doors.
Now Lila shook her head.
“If you’re not here for the other worlds,” he said, “then what?”
She looked down into her glass. “Fair wine and decent company.”
“I knew it,” said her old captain with a grin. “I’m far more fun than Kell.”
“Without a doubt,” she said, but the humor was bleeding already from her voice.
Alucard leaned forward, bracing himself against the model cliffs. “What is it?”
Lila drained her glass, and set it down on a stretch of open sea. “Have you ever heard of a persalis?”
The look on his face said he hadn’t. So she told him: of Maris, and the thieves who made it aboard her ship, of the two who died, and the one who got away. And the prize that went with him.
Alucard listened, eyes storm-dark, chin resting on his palm, until she was done. “And you think this thief was bound for London?”
Lila chewed her cheek. “He was branded, beneath his clothes. Can you guess the mark?” She fluttered her fingers, and Alucard let out an oath.
“A hand.”
She nodded. “Since they’re intent on tearing down the throne, London seemed the likely place to start.” She rose, and rounded the model. “I don’t suppose you’ve found them yet.”
Alucard shook his head. “And if they have a persalis, it will only make it harder.”
“According to Maris, it was damaged in the taking.” As if damaged things could not be fixed. As if damaged did not still mean dangerous.
Alucard said nothing, his expression clouded with worry. Lila knew those thoughts. She’d had them, too. A weapon that could cut through space, the way Antari did. Only this door could be held open, and let a hundred killers through.
She reached out and rested a finger on one of the palace spires, its tip sharp enough to prick. “The palace is still warded, yes?”
“It is,” he said. “But I don’t know if those wards would hold against a door made inside the walls.”
“According to Maris,” she said, “there’s a ring-shaped key at the core of the persalis. Something that has to be placed, to show the door exactly where to open.”
If Alucard took heart from that news, he didn’t show it. He didn’t even seem to be listening. “I should have found them by now,” he muttered. “I have eyes all over the city.”
“And now you have mine, too,” she said, starting toward the door.
He looked up. “Where are you going?”
“To put them to good use.”
III
The last thief woke to the smell of something burning.
He didn’t remember getting back to the room he’d rented, didn’t remember collapsing, fully dressed, onto the bed, didn’t remember sinking through delirium into the dream.
That beautiful dream.
In it, he’d gone home, and his father hadn’t been mad, had simply folded him into his strong arms and agreed that youth was full of folly, said that he was forgiven; that he was, would always be, the merchant’s son.
And it was going so well, until the world shuddered back, and he was dragged into waking by the acrid scent of smoke. His mouth tasted like ash, and there was a horrible heat beneath his skin, and he had the disconcerting sense that he was burning alive, being eaten from the inside out by some unseen flame, and that, he thought, must be the source of the smell. Until he heard voices, low and muttering, and accompanied by the all-too-real crackle of flame chewing through wood. He dragged his eyes open, wishing still that he was somewhere else, and saw that he wasn’t alone, and his table was on fire.