Esa had wandered into the hall at some point, too, and the cat sat on a cushion, white tail flicking as the rabbit passed, its lavender eyes hanging on the captain who’d usurped its ship. Lila stared back at the beast until a small voice sang her name again.
“Delilahhh,” said Ren, beckoning. Lila sighed, and knelt so she was eye to eye with the little girl. Those eyes, like Rhy’s, burned gold inside their halo of black lashes. Ren simply stared at her, waiting. Lila got impatient.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Ren leaned in and cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered, “Do the trick.” Lila arched a brow. That was the problem with children. If you did a thing once, you had to be willing to do it again. And again. And again.
“Please,” added the princess as an afterthought.
Lila folded her arms. “What will you give me?”
“Come on, Bard,” chided Alucard.
“What?” she said as the girl patted her pajama pockets. “Nothing is free. And your child is a little hoarder.”
Sure enough, Ren shoved a little hand deep into one pocket, and came out with a lin, a ruby earring, a figurine of a palace guard, and single black feather. Lila studied the haul as a greying woman appeared, the rabbit thrust under one arm.
“There you are,” she said, addressing Ren. She shot an apologetic glance at Alucard. “I turned my back for just a moment.” She was coming forward, empty arm out as if she meant to sweep the child up as she had the pet.
But Lila held out her hand. “Wait,” she said. “We’re in the middle of a deal.” She considered the contents of the child’s pocket. “Which is your favorite?”
Ren pointed to the onyx feather.
“It fell off,” she explained, very somber, in case anyone thought she’d come into possession of it by less moral means. Lila took the feather, and slipped it into her coat.
Then she looked around the hall, searching for a flower vase or a pitcher or some other source of water. Finding none, her attention drifted to Alucard’s hands. She’d left her own glass of wine behind, but he’d brought his along, topping it up on his way out. A healthy pour still sloshed inside.
“May I?” she asked, and by the time he said, “No,” the contents were already drawing up into the air, a liquid ribbon of silver wine that coiled around her palm. It twitched, and spasmed, and drew itself into a rabbit.
Ren stared up, delighted, and Lila glanced at Alucard, only to see a strange sadness sweep across his face, the far-off look of someone thrown into a memory. But then he blinked, and looked at her, and it was gone.
The child clapped, delighted, and reached for the watery shape, but it leapt away, escaping from Lila’s right hand into her left, a few wayward drops of wine dripping to the carpet in its wake. It was hard to shape an element, harder still to make it move like this, with any semblance of life.
“You know,” she said, as the rabbit bounded through the air over her head, “I learned this from Alucard.” Seven years ago, in the belly of the Barron, when it was still the Spire, and he was the captain, Alucard Emery had agreed to teach her magic. Taught her to focus her mind, to latch her will on to words.
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright.
Of course, he’d known then what Lila had only suspected—that there was more to her than flesh and blood and grit, more to her missing eye. He had that strange gift of sight, had seen the silver in the air around her the day they met, threads glowing with Antari magic. But he’d taught her all the same. How to hold an element. How to hone it. How to make it hers.
Ren’s eyes widened, her attention swiveling from the watery rabbit to her father. “Luca?”
“Yes, Luca,” said Lila, shifting the animal from hand to hand like a hot stone. “And he can do this trick, any time you like.”
Alucard shot Lila a look over his daughter’s head. Thanks, he mouthed, clearly annoyed, but she just shrugged. It served him right, for having a kid. She could have stopped there, should have stopped there, handed off the trick and freed herself from Ren’s attention.
But for some reason, she didn’t.
For some reason, she knelt, so they were eye to eye again, and cupped her hand beneath the magic. Lila’s fingers twitched, and the rabbit froze midair, crystals of frost tracing its silver skin. It fell into her waiting palm. But she wasn’t done.
“You know,” she said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Luca can do many things. But he can’t do this.”