Its beauty, however, was marred by patches of dense wood that resembled fungal growth from above. Quick pines, they were called: they were not pines at all, but certainly quick, achieving as much height and girth in two years as most trees did in five decades, bred by Atlantis’s botanists to camouflage the blights left behind by death rains.

A familiar column of red smoke rose into the sky, marking the location of the Inquisitory. The Fire of Atlantis had burned steadily since the end of the uprising.

The hour of his meeting with the Inquisitor drew ever nearer.

He turned his face away. They were headed directly into the sunset. The west coast as a whole was rocky and wave-pummeled, especially the stretch along Delamer. Naturally an ambitious, wealthy capital of a great dynasty, full of mages who had enjoyed the balmy pleasures of the Mediterranean realms, had decided to make improvements.

During the reign of Hesperia the Magnificent, the city built five peninsulas, collectively known as the Right Hand of Titus. The peninsulas were rugged in appearance—so as not to look out of place against the craggy coast—but their seeming roughness hid a wealth of gentle slopes and beach enclaves, around which sprang hundreds of blue-roofed villas.

Three of the peninsulas comprised some of the most expensive land in all the mage world. One was a beloved public park. And the remaining one, the ring finger, was a princely preserve upon which stood Hesperia’s Citadel.

The original citadel still rose at the center, but the complex had grown into a sprawling palace with vast gardens, ninety-nine fountains, and dozens of floating balconies.

Soon the Inquisitor would find Titus on one of those balconies.

He steered his chariot in the direction of the landing platform. He was not alone: from all points of the sky, chariots converged toward the Citadel. No turuls or Chinese water dragons this year, just the usual assortment of griffins and mock dragons.

Two young men performed flips and somersaults on a beam held aloft by four massive flights of doves. Beneath the beam hung a swing, with a young female acrobat sitting insouciantly upon it.

Titus wanted to enjoy the view—a fine view even for a prince. But already he had to work to keep his breath even and his hands steady.

The young woman recognized him. She pulled herself to her feet and performed a very creditable curtsy. Titus, as befitting his arrogant and ill-tempered public persona, ignored her altogether.

The path to the landing platform was demarcated with floating torches. Other guests had pulled aside to clear the way for their sovereign. As Titus’s chariot drew to a stop, every single person on the platform bowed.

Alectus and Lady Callista were at the front of the crowd to welcome him. Titus swept past them without slowing down. But he knew that Lady Callista raised her head from her deep curtsy and regarded him with narrowed eyes.

Her device had followed him to a London hotel where he had no business being. How would he explain not only his presence, but also his precipitous departure, leaving behind a half-consumed tray of tea?

Lady Callista caught up to him. “I see you have brought Miss Buttercup, Your Highness.”

“She is more tolerable company than most.”

Fairfax chirped obligingly.

“And how is she enjoying England?”

“Better than I, no doubt. The very air is noxious.”

“Does she like school?”

“School? One of the boys on my floor has a ferret in his trunk. A ferret. Buttercup lives in fear of her life. She is much happier at my mistress’s.”

Fairfax stopped chirping.

Lady Callista blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“What do you not understand? Surely you, of all people, know what a kept woman is.”

“I did not know that Your Highness had such an arrangement.”

“And why should you? She does not cost me nearly as much as you cost Alectus, and she does not host soirees for me. In fact, she bores me already; I plan to replace her with a livelier girl, one whose tastes in lovemaking are not quite so pedestrian. Now if you will excuse me, I need a drink.”

He pushed past her before she could summon one of the floating trays of sparkling blue beverages. Almost immediately, he was being bowed to by the prime minister and several not-so-prime ministers.

“I thought you did not care for such frivolous events,” Titus said to the prime minister.

“Indeed I do not, sire. But I hear the Inquisitor herself is going to attend, and I hope to speak with her concerning the records,” answered the prime minister. “There has been no progress at all on the talks. Unless we come to an agreement, the Inquisitory will begin to destroy records by the fourth week of June. Ten years of records, most likely including information concerning thousands of your subjects who disappeared after the uprising.”

“How awful,” Titus said, and brushed past.

Not that he was entirely unsympathetic, but what did the prime minister think fueled the Fire of Atlantis, the smoke of which rose so steadily from the Inquisitory?

He was next accosted by the current archmage and her two leading disciples, and a steady stream of matrons who wanted to know whether he would appear at their charitable functions.

The first young woman to approach him was a beauty witch.

“Your Highness,” she said with a bright smile.

“Have we met?”

“Diana Fairmyth, Your Highness.”

He was wary of beauty witches; anyone who tried to seduce him could also be spying on him. “What is a girl like you doing at this dreadful party?”

She laughed. “Oh, is it dreadful? I haven’t noticed yet.”

“Alas, you are very beautiful, but I see our tastes diverge too much.”

A few more young women tried, but he dispensed of them with similar efficiency. Then came the one girl he could not dismiss so easily—Aramia, Lady Callista’s daughter.

She held out her hands to him. “Titus,” she said, “it’s good to see you again.”

They had known each other many years—Lady Callista had sometimes brought Aramia to the castle so that Titus would have someone his own age to play with. They should have made perfect playmates: she was patient, uncomplaining, willing to try new things. Not to mention that, like him, she had never known her father. But Titus, a demon child in the years immediately after the loss of his mother, had tormented her instead.

He locked her into cupboards when they played hide-and-seek, snuck stinkbugs under her blouse when they played outside, and asked her why she was ugly when her mother was so beautiful.

But she had only shrugged and said, “Maybe my father was not so beautiful.”

In recent years their paths had not often crossed. But guilt was like a bog. Whenever he did see her, he would realize he was still neck-deep in it.

He kissed her on both cheeks. “How have you been, Aramia?”

“Oh, same as usual. You know Mother, still trying to make a swan out of me,” she answered, not managing to be completely dismissive about it.

She had never been ugly—plain, perhaps, but not ugly. But even otherwise attractive women faded into insignificance next to Lady Callista. He could not imagine what it must be like to live entirely in the shadow of her beauty.

“But you are already a swan,” he said, trying to cheer her up.

“I don’t think inner beauty counts for much with Mother.”

“Who said I was talking about inner beauty?”

This made Aramia smile. “That is very sweet, Titus, thank you. Would you like some snapberry punch? It’s my own recipe, just a drop of snowmint essence as the secret ingredient.”

He wished she had not called him sweet. He sank a little deeper into his bog. “You still enjoy tinkering with recipes?”

“I might as well be useful.”

Since she could not be beautiful, she meant.

It was heartbreaking how much she wanted her mother’s approval.