“I’m not sure. My hands hurt a minute ago, but not anymore. Is it a side effect of transmogrification?”

“No, but it might be a side effect of your breaking the otherwise spell, though.”

“What otherwise spell?”

“The one that was laid on you earlier, to make you believe you couldn’t manipulate air.”

“Maybe I was just late developing it.”

He shook his head. “I read your guardian’s letter to you and—”

She cocked a brow. She had never offered him the letter to read.

“Well, you already know I am unscrupulous.”

She sighed. “Go on.”

“These are his exact words. ‘I can’t help but wonder how your power would have manifested itself. By causing the Delamer River to flow in reverse? Or shearing the air of a sunny day into a cyclone?’ Which tells me that you did have power over air as a toddler.”

“But I thought you couldn’t apply an otherwise spell when the subject already knows about something.”

“Power over air is the easiest to disguise. You cannot explain away the sudden appearance of fire or water, or stones flying off a wall. But movement of air can always be blamed on a breeze from the window. And this way he could pass you off as an elemental mage III—much less noticeable.”

“I still don’t see why my hands should hurt now, after I broke through the otherwise spell, if that’s what it was.”

“Do something with air. Make the curtain flutter.”

She tried, but the curtain moved only the tiniest bit. “I don’t understand. I swung the entire chandelier last night.”

“Now you are no longer in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. An otherwise spell is not easy to cast off completely, when it has controlled you for so long. But you are already much further along than you used to be—the pain is likely a physical manifestation of the potential you have unlocked struggling against what is left of the otherwise spell.”

She tried again to flutter the curtain; the result was not much more impressive. It was disheartening. She’d thought her control over air would be easy and absolute from this point onward. “So what do I do now?”

“Train harder. All of elemental magic is mind over matter. You must keep pushing yourself.” He sat up and winced in pain. “We all must keep pushing ourselves.”

Mrs. Hancock’s smile was as pleasant as ever, her day dress as brown and sacklike. “Your Highness, if you would follow me to my parlor.”

Titus braced a hand on the banister—she had caught him as he was going up the stairs. “What is it with you Atlanteans? Can you not see I have a pounding headache?”

He was not lying: the inside of his skull felt like a nonmage demolition,all crowbars and sledgehammers. He was also feeble from hunger, having had nothing more than a cup of tea since his Inquisition.

“I wouldn’t dream of disturbing Your Highness unless it was of vital importance,” said Mrs. Hancock serenely.

“Who wants to see me?”

“The Acting Inquisitor, sir.”

“Who the hell is the Acting Inquisitor?”

“His name is Baslan.”

Baslan was not usually referred to as Acting Inquisitor, but as vice-proconsul or something of the sort. Titus rubbed his temples. “Is the Master of the Domain not important enough for the Bane’s lackey now? I have to see the lackey’s lackey?”

“You are ever so gracious, Your Highness,” murmured Mrs. Hancock, as she reached out and straightened a frame of embroidered iris that had been knocked askew by a careless boy.

She led the way to an austere parlor of bare floor and unpadded chairs, and not a petal or stem of the printed flowers beloved by Mrs. Dawlish. Baslan’s spectral image—a piece of Atlantean magic that the Domain’s archmages had yet to duplicate—paced in Mrs. Hancock’s parlor, heedless of walls and furniture.

He snapped to at Titus’s entrance. Titus plopped himself into the nearest seat and shaded his eyes with his hand—the sunlight streaming in from Mrs. Hancock’s window burned like acid on his retinas. “What do you want?”

“I need an account of Your Highness’s actions last night inside the Inquisition chamber.”

A question that did not involve Miss Buttercup in any conceivable manner was not one Titus had expected. “My actions? Bleeding from all major orifices and suffering horrific damage to my vision, my hearing, and my cognitive abilities.”

“You seem remarkably healthy for all the inflictions you listed,” said Baslan.

Titus coughed. He turned his face to the side and spat blood all over Mrs. Hancock’s skirts—a good trick if he did say so himself. Mrs. Hancock squealed—at last a genuine reaction—and waved her wand madly to get rid of the stains.

He glared at Baslan. “What did you say?”

Baslan looked baffled. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“The Acting Inquisitor need not hesitate,” said Mrs. Hancock. “If His Highness doesn’t already know what happened, he will very soon.”

Baslan still wavered.

Titus made as if to rise. “You have wasted enough of my time.”

“The Inquisitor has been unconscious since last night.” Baslan’s voice was shrill. “I demand to know what you did to her.”

Titus knew that mind mages abhorred disruptions during a probe, but he’d had no idea a disruption could be that catastrophic. Or was it because what Fairfax had thought of as dainty light spheres had not been so dainty? What if one such light sphere falling from a great height would have given the Inquisitor a concussion even under normal circumstances?

“Her mind is gone?” he asked, knowing that was too good to be true.

“Her mind is not gone,” Baslan snarled. “She is only temporarily incapacitated.”

“That is too bad. It would have been justice from the Angels for all the minds she has destroyed.”

Baslan clenched his hand, restraining himself with difficulty. “You will tell me what you did to Madam Inquisitor.”

Titus looked at him aslant. “So that was the reason you sent Lady Callista to the castle last night. And here I thought she was at last beginning to care about my health.”

And that was why they had tried to prevent him from leaving. Not because they wanted to strip him of his canary, but because the physicians needed to know what had caused the Inquisitor’s unconsciousness before they could formulate a treatment.

He smirked and pulled out his wand, adorned with seven diamond-inlaid crowns along its length. “This is Validus, the wand that once belonged to Titus the Great. I know Atlanteans are culturally isolated and largely unaware of histories beyond their own, but I trust that you, Acting Inquisitor, must have heard of Titus the Great.”

Baslan’s lips thinned. “I am aware of who he was.”

“Titus the Great left behind a unified Domain. But to his family, he also left behind the Titus Benediction, a tremendous protection allied to the power of Validus, which would let no harm come to the heir of the House of Elberon.”

He tapped the wand twice against his palm. Mrs. Hancock rose to her feet, Baslan took a step backward, both staring at the light now emanating from the seven crowns.

“Yes, you behold one of the last of the blade wands. An unsheathed blade wand is one of the most powerful objects around. And Validus unsheathed invokes the Titus Benediction—which I did before I fell unconscious. After that, all the might the Inquisitor aimed at breaking me would have deflected onto herself.”

Baslan was still staring at Validus as Titus sheathed it. Titus pulled himself to his feet. With all the hauteur he could muster—not a great deal as he could scarcely remain upright—he sneered at the Atlanteans.

“And that is why you do not trifle with the Master of the Domain.”

Iolanthe put her arm around him as he was about to start up the stairs.

His reaction was a low growl. “I told you not to come back until I gave you the all clear.”