Unlike most magelings, who were taught to refrain from violence, elemental magelings were actively encouraged to use their fists—far better they punched someone than set the latter on fire.
“I am sure you can knock boys out left and right. And I am sure you are perfectly proficient on stage. But playing a boy for a few hours each term is quite different from playing one twenty-four hours a day, day after day, to an audience of agents.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There are agents of Atlantis at my school,” he said. “I am watched.”
She gripped the armrests of her chair. “You live under Atlantis’s surveillance?”
Somehow she’d thought he must be exempt from it.
“I am better off at school than at home—the castle is riddled with the Inquisitor’s informants—but that is no help to us now.”
She could not imagine the life he led.
“You are safer here,” he continued. “The vestibule is accessible by the hotel staff—that is where we vaulted in—but the rest of the suite is protected by anti-intrusion spells.”
Anti-intrusion spells were no guarantee of safety—her house in Little Grind had had its share of those.
“You are entirely anonymous,” he further reassured her. “Atlantis, great as it is, cannot hope to locate you so easily in a city of millions. And should anything alarm you, go into the laboratory and wait. You already know the password; the countersign is the first paragraph on page ten of the book on the demilune table.”
She would prefer that he quit school to stand guard beside her. If he should be wrong, if Atlantis proved quicker and cleverer than he believed, she would be all too easy a target. He had to stay with her. She’d reason with him—beg him, if she must. Bar the door with her person.
She opened her mouth and out came, “All right.”
Her life hung in the balance and here she was, trying to appear brave and stalwart before this boy.
“Thank you,” he said, and briefly touched her on the arm.
He was impressed. The bright happiness that flared inside her was almost enough to dispel her fear of his absence.
He disappeared a moment inside the laboratory and returned with the brown valise she’d seen earlier and a round-crowned hat. “I will be back after lights-out at school. In the meanwhile, eat and rest. It has been a great deal of trouble finding you; I do not intend to lose you any time soon.”
He had been searching for her? She longed to know more, but that would have to wait until his return.
“May Fortune walk with you, Your Highness.” She dipped into a small curtsy.
He shook his head. “No need to curtsy. And may Fortune abide with you, Miss Seabourne.”
He set the hat on his head and made for the door.
If she hadn’t been staring so intently at him, she wouldn’t have noticed the small, flat disk on his sleeve. She hesitated. Perhaps it was the fashion in England to have such decorations on one’s jacket.
But what had Master Haywood said? You cannot be careful enough.
“One moment, Your Highness. There is something on your left sleeve.”
His expression instantly sobered. He looked down at his arm. “Where?”
She turned her own arm to show him. It was placed at a spot above his elbow where it would be difficult for both he himself and someone else to see it, unless that person was looking squarely at him when he had his arm elevated.
He found the disk by touch, ripped it off, and stared at it, his eyes shadowed.
Closing his fist, he said, “We are in trouble.”
CHAPTER
TITUS YANKED OPEN THE DOOR of the water closet, threw the penny-sized disk into the commode, and tugged a cord to flush.
“What kind of trouble are we in?” asked Miss Seabourne behind him. Her voice was unsteady, but to her credit, she showed no signs of falling apart.
“I have been tracked.”
Lady Callista. He remembered now: she had put her hand on his arm before she took leave of him. And he had been in too much of a hurry to notice.
If they were lucky—and they had been quite lucky so far this day—then Lady Callista’s lackeys would have a frustrating time following the disk as it traveled through London’s sewers.
But they had run out of luck. Murmurs rose outside the front door and outside the French doors that opened to a narrow balcony.
He beckoned Miss Seabourne to come to him. She did not hesitate. To her further credit, she already had in hand not only her own satchel, but also the valise he had dropped in his haste to get rid of the disk.
He pulled her into the laboratory, closed the door, and listened. All too soon, there were footsteps in the suite.
“What of your anti-intrusion spells?” she whispered.
“They were to keep nonmages away.” The suite’s anonymity had been his best defense against Atlantis.
Agents of Atlantis would not find anything belonging to him in the suite—he had always been excruciatingly careful about that. And they would not so easily discover a folded space. All the same, the suite’s safety had been hopelessly compromised.
“Exstinguatur ostium,” he said, destroying the connection that anchored the laboratory to the suite.
They were safe, for now. But what would have happened to her had he already left? Yes, she was alert. She would have had escaped into the laboratory. She would not, however, have been able to sever the connection. By the time he returned, after lights-out at school, Atlantis’s agents might very well have broken through.
“I apologize.” The words burned his throat. “I should have . . .”
The very first day, and already he’d very nearly lost her to Atlantis.
“I should have caught the device before I left the Domain. I thought I had planned for every contingency, but I did not plan for my own carelessness.”
She was tense, her knuckles white about her wand, but she had herself well under control and seemed to be taking their hasty retreat better than he. “How did you know to prepare for anything at all?”
“The prophecies about you—I never doubted their accuracy.” He pulled out a stool for her. “Have a seat.”
She sat down and, betraying more emotion than he had seen from her so far, squeezed her head between her palms. “When I woke up this morning, I mattered to no one except myself. Would that nothing had changed.”
“Fortune cares little for the will of mortals.”
“Indeed.” Her face still lowered, she said, “Please don’t let me keep you from returning to school.”
Dalbert was required to note the time of Titus’s departure from the Domain. The Inquisitor and her agents knew what time Titus should arrive at school—and he was already running late.
But he could not simply leave the girl in the laboratory, a place that had no food or water, no lavatory, and nowhere for her to lie down and rest except atop the workbench.
She pushed her hair back from her face. She had used the Pears soap the hotel provided, with its subtle fragrance of an English meadow. The laboratory was small; he stood quite close to her. For a moment he was completely distracted by her scent—and the ripple of her still-damp hair.
He had seen her before. Where had he seen her before?
She looked up, her eyes dark as ink. “You don’t need to go anymore?”
“I cannot leave you here.”
The laboratory had two other exits. One led to Cape Wrath in the Scottish Highlands, where he sometimes visited in warmer weather, the other to an abandoned barn in Kent. Either way, by taking her out of the laboratory, he would be bowing to the inevitable.
He pulled open a drawer and took out a vial of green powder.
“It seems we will be following the original plan after all, Miss Seabourne,” he said. “I hope you enjoy the company of boys.”
The barn was more or less the same as when Titus had seen it last. Fallen beams, missing doors, patches of gray sky visible through the dilapidated roof. Rain puddled on the floor. The smell of rotting wood and ancient muck assailed his nose.