Titus seldom viewed anything through the same prism as his classmates did. But on this mind-numbing exercise, he and they were in agreement: it was a colossal misuse of time. To make matters worse, although a boy could leave as soon as he had said his lines, sprinting out of the classroom like a puppy that had been kenneled too long, he could not say those lines until he had been called upon to do so. And Frampton invariably kept Titus waiting until almost everyone else had gone.

On the day Titus first returned to class after a weeklong convalescence, however, Frampton called on him second, immediately after Cooper, who always provided a perfect recital to set the standard for the rest of the class.

Titus, who had come to rely on listening to the lines repeated dozens of times during class to memorize them, stumbled badly.

Frampton tsked. “Your Highness, you are shortly to assume the reins of an ancient and magnificent realm. Surely the thought ought to compel you to do better.”

This was new. Frampton might have delighted in making Titus cool his heels, but he had never been openly antagonistic.

“The success of my rule does not rely on my ability to recite obscure Latin verse,” Titus said coldly.

Frampton showed no sign of being humbled by the rebuke. “I speak not of the memorization and delivery of specific lines, but of the understanding of duty. From everything I have seen of you, young man, you have a poor grasp of obligation and responsibility.”

Next to him, Fairfax sucked in a breath. She was not alone. The entire class was riveted.

Titus made a show of examining his cuff links. “It is irrelevant what a lackey such as you thinks of my character.”

“Ah, but times change. Nowadays princes from thousand-year-old houses may very well find themselves without a throne,” said Frampton smoothly. “Next, Sutherland. Let’s hope you’ve prepared better.”

Titus wasted no time in leaving. As soon as he was back in his room at Mrs. Dawlish’s, he inserted a piece of paper under the writing ball. No new intelligence awaited him. Not very surprising—only three hours ago Dalbert had reported that there had been little changes in the Inquisitor’s condition.

But if the Inquisitor remained unconscious, why had Frampton gone on the offensive? Simply to remind Titus that he was now persona non grata in Atlantean circles for having incapacitated one of the Bane’s most capable lieutenants?

He was jittery. More than a week after the Inquisition, he still had no idea how to interpret the rupture view of a skyful of wyverns and fire-spewing armored chariots. Fairfax’s march to greatness had stalled since her breakthrough with air. Their only concrete progress he could point to was an escape satchel that they had prepared and stowed in the abandoned barn.

They could not go on like this, at the mercy of events beyond their control. He had to find a way to neutralize the Inquisitor, exploit the rupture view, and spur Fairfax to firmer mastery over her powers.

He turned to his mother’s diary, hoping for guidance. If there was a silver lining to the dark cloud of the Inquisition, it was that his faith in her had been fully restored. The threads of Fortune wove mysteriously, but he had become convinced that Princess Ariadne, however briefly, had had her hand on the loom.

He lifted the pages carefully, one by one, feeling that peculiar tingle of anxiety in his stomach. It was not long before he came to a page that was not blank.

26 April, YD 1020

Exactly a year before her death.

A strange vision. I am not sure what to make of it.

Titus, looking much the same age as he does when he sees that distant phenomenon on a balcony, but wearing strange—nonmage?—clothes, is leaning out of the window of a small room. It is not a room I have ever seen at the castle, the Citadel, or the monastery, plain but for an odd flag on the wall—black and silver, with a dragon, a phoenix, a griffin, and a unicorn.

The made-up flag of Saxe-Limburg. As far as Titus knew, there was only one in existence.

It is evening, or perhaps night, quite dark outside. Titus turns back from the window, clearly incensed. “Bastards,” he swears. “They need their heads shoved up their—”

He freezes. Then rushes to take a book down from his shelf, a book in German by the name of Lexikon der Klassischen Altertumskunde.

There was nothing else.

Titus read the entry two more times. He closed the diary. The disguisement spell resumed. The diary swelled in size, its plain leather cover metamorphosing into an illustration of an ancient Greek temple.

Beneath the picture, the words Lexikon der Klassischen Altertumskunde.

A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.

So one evening in the not-too-distant future, he would curse from his window, then rush to read the diary again. That knowledge, however, did little to extricate him from his current quagmire.

Three knocks in rapid succession—Fairfax, back from class.

“Come in.”

She closed the door and leaned against it, one foot on a door panel. She had learned to walk and stand with a cocky jut to her hips. He had to rein himself in so his gaze didn’t constantly stray to inappropriate places on her person.

“You all right?” she asked.

“No further news on the Inquisitor. But it does not mean they cannot tighten the noose in the meanwhile.” He tossed aside his uniform jacket and his waistcoat. “I have to go to rowing practice.”

A boy well enough to attend classes was well enough for sports. Fingers on the top button of his shirt, he waited for her to vacate his room.

She gazed at him as if she hadn’t heard him, as if he weren’t headed out for a few hours on the river, but to some distant and perilous destination.

All about him the air seemed to shimmer.

Then, abruptly, she turned and opened the door. “Of course, you must get ready.”

Mrs. Hancock was in the corridor, making sure the boys were in bed for lights-out, when Titus placed one last piece of paper under the writing ball. The machine clacked. He waited impatiently for the keys to stop their pounding.

The report read:

The Inquisitor has yet to regain consciousness, but the latest intelligence has her responding better to stimuli. Atlantean physicians are optimistic she will continue to make headway. Baslan is rumored to have already scheduled a day of thanksgiving at the Inquisitory, so confident is he of his superior’s imminent recovery.

He jumped at the knock on his door.

“Good night, Your Highness,” said Mrs. Hancock.

He barely managed not to snarl. “Good night.”

Of course the improvement in the Inquisitor’s condition and Frampton’s new belligerence were related. Of course.

He looked through his mother’s diary again, but it was blank. He paced for a few minutes in his room, angry at himself for not knowing what to do. Then he was inside the Crucible, running down the path that led to the Oracle.

It was night. Dozens of lanterns, suspended from trees at the edge of the clearing, illuminated the pool.

“You again, Your Highness,” said the pool, none too pleased, as he showed himself. Flecks of golden light danced upon her darkened surface.

“Me again, Oracle.” He had visited her many times, but she had yet to give him any advice.

Her tone softened slightly. “At least you seem sincere—for once.”

“How can I keep her safe, my elemental mage?”

The pool turned silvery, as if an alchemist had transmuted water into mercury. “You must visit someone you have no wish to visit and go somewhere you have no wish to go.”

An Oracle’s message remained cryptic until it was understood. “My gratitude, Oracle.”

The pool rippled. “And think no more on the exact hour of your death, prince. That moment must come to all mortals. When you will have done what you need to do, you will have lived long enough.”