Kell knelt to clean a drop of blood from the marble floor before it stained, and heard the king’s heavy steps before he saw the crowd part around him, Hastra on his heels.
“Master Kell,” said Maxim, sweeping his gaze over the scene. “I’ll thank you not to bring down the palace.” But Kell could sense the approval lacing the king’s words. Better a show of strength than a tolerance of weakness.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” said Kell, bowing his head.
The king turned on his heel, and that was that. A mutiny subdued. An instant of chaos restored to order.
Kell knew as well as Maxim how important that was right now, with the city clinging to every shred of power, every sign of strength. As soon as the magicians had been led or carried out, and the hall emptied of spectators, he slumped into a chair along the wall, its cushion still smoking faintly from the incident. He patted it out, then looked up to find his former guard still standing there, warm eyes wide beneath his cap of sun-kissed hair.
“No need to thank me,” said Kell, waving his hand.
“It’s not that,” said Hastra. “I mean, I’m grateful, sir, of course. But …”
Kell had a sickening feeling in his stomach. “What is it now?”
“The queen is asking for the prince.”
“Last time I checked,” said Kell, “that wasn’t me.”
Hastra looked to the floor, to the wall, to the ceiling, before mustering the courage to look at him again. “I know, sir,” he said slowly. “But I can’t find him.”
Kell had felt the blow coming, but it still struck. “You’ve searched the palace?”
“Pillar to spire, sir.”
“Is anyone else missing?”
A hesitation, and then, “Captain Emery.”
Kell swore under his breath.
Have you seen Alucard? Rhy had asked, staring out the palace windows. Would he know if the prince had been infected? Would he feel the dark magic swarming in his blood?
“How long?” asked Kell, already moving toward the prince’s chambers.
“I’m not certain,” said Hastra. “An hour, maybe a little more.”
“Sanct.”
Kell burst into Rhy’s rooms, taking up the prince’s gold pin from the table and jabbing it into his thumb, harder than necessary. He hoped that wherever Rhy was, he felt the prick of metal and knew that Kell was coming.
“Should I tell the king?” asked Hastra.
“You came to me,” said Kell, “because you have more sense than that.”
He knelt, drawing a circle in blood on Rhy’s floor, and pressed his palm flat, the gold pin between flesh and polished wood. “Guard the door,” he said, and then, to the mark itself, and the magic within, “As Tascen Rhy.”
The floor fell away, the palace vanished, replaced by an instant of darkness and then, just as swiftly, by a room. The ground rocked gently beneath his feet, and Kell knew before taking in the wooden walls, the portal windows, that he was on a ship.
He found the two of them lying on the floor, foreheads pressed together and fingers intertwined. Alucard’s eyes were closed, but Rhy’s were open, gaze fixed on the captain’s face.
Anger rose in Kell’s throat.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he snapped, “but this is hardly the time for a lover’s—”
Rhy silenced Kell with a look. The amber in his eyes was shot with red, and that’s when Kell noticed how pale the captain was, how still.
For a second, he thought Alucard Emery was dead.
Then the captain’s eyes drifted wearily open. Bruises stood out beneath them, giving him the gaunt look of a person who’d been ill for a very long time. And something was wrong with his skin. In the low cabin light, silver—not molten bright, but the dull shine of scarred flesh—ribboned at his wrists, his collar, his throat. It traced paths up his cheeks like tears, flashed at his temples. Threads of light that traced the paths where the blue of veins should be, had been.
But there was no curse in his eyes.
Alucard Emery had survived Osaron’s magic.
He was alive—and when he spoke, he was still his infuriating self.
“You could have knocked,” he said, but his voice was hoarse, his words weak, and Kell saw the darkness in Rhy’s expression—not the product of any spell, only fear. How bad had it gotten? How close had he been?
“We have to go,” said Kell. “Can Emery stand, or …” His voice trailed off as his eyesight sharpened. Across the cabin, something had moved.
A shape, piled on the captain’s bed, sat up.
It was a girl. Dark hair fell around her face in sleep-messed waves, but it was her eyes that stilled him. They were not curse-darkened. They were nothing. They were empty.
“Anisa?” started Alucard, struggling to get to his feet. The name stirred something in Kell. A memory of reading scrolls, tucked next to Rhy, in the Maresh library.
Anisa Emery, twelfth in line to the throne, the third child of Reson, and Alucard’s younger sister.
“Stay back,” ordered Kell, barring the captain’s path but keeping his gaze on the girl.
Kell had seen death before, witnessed the moment when a person ceased to be a person and became simply a body, the flame of life extinguished, leaving only a shell. It was as much a feeling as a sight, the sense of missing.
Staring at Anisa Emery, Kell had the horrible sense that he was already looking at a corpse.