With that, Rhy shoved his brother away again. Kell’s mouth opened and closed, a fleck of blood at the corner of his lip, but the prince turned and marched back toward the palace.

Lila brushed herself off.

“You had that coming,” she said before leaving Kell on the bank, soaked and shivering and alone.

V

“Gods don’t need bodies, but kings do.”

Osaron seethed at the words echoing through his mind. Weeds to be torn out at the root. After all, he was a god. And a god did not need a body. A shell. A cage. A god was everywhere.

The river rippled, and from it rose a drop, a shimmering black bead that stretched and lengthened until it had a form, limbs, fingers, a face. Osaron stood on the surface of the water.

Holland was wrong.

A body was merely a tool, a thing to be used, discarded, but it was never needed.

Osaron had wanted to kill Holland slowly, to tear out his mortal heart—a heart he knew, a heart he’d listened to for months.

He had given Holland so much—a second chance, a city reborn—and all he’d asked for in return was cooperation.

They’d made a deal.

And Holland would pay for breaking it.

The insolence of these Antari.

As for the other two—

He hadn’t decided yet how to use them.

Kell was a temptation.

A gift given, and then lost, a body to break in—or simply break.

And the girl. Delilah. Strong and sharp. So much fight. So much promise. So much more that she could be.

He wanted—

No.

But then—

It was a different thing, for a god to want, and a human to need.

He didn’t need these playthings, these shells.

Did not need to be confined.

He was everywhere.

(It was enough.)

It was—

Osaron looked down at his form sculpted of dark water, and was reminded of another body, another world.

Missing—

No.

But something was missing.

He drifted up from the surface of the water, rose into the air to survey the city that would become his city, and frowned. It was midday, and yet London sulked in shadow. The mists of his power shimmered, twisted, coiled, but beneath their blanket, the city looked dull.

The world—his world—should be beautiful, bright, filled with the light of magic, the song of power.

It would be, once the city stopped fighting. Once they all bowed, all kneeled, all recognized him as king, then he could make the city what it would be, what it should be. Progress was a process, change took time, a winter before every spring.

But in the meantime—

Missing—

What was missing—

He spun in place, and there it was.

The royal palace.

Somewhere inside, the defiant huddled, hiding behind their wards as if wards would outlast him. And they would fall, in time, but it was the palace itself that shone in his gaze, rising above the blackened river like a second sun, casting its spokes of reddish light into the sky even now, its echo dancing on the mirror-dark surface of the river.

Every ruler needed a palace.

He’d had one once, of course, at the center of his first city. A beautiful thing sculpted from want and will and sheer potential. Osaron had told himself he would not repeat that place, would not make the same mistakes—

But that was the wrong word.

He’d been young, learning, and though the city had fallen, it wasn’t the palace’s doing. Wasn’t his doing. It was theirs, the people’s, with their flawed minds, their brittle shapes—and yes, he’d given them the power, but he knew better now, knew the power must be his and his alone, and it had been such a splendid palace. The dark heart of his kingdom.

It would do better here.

Right here.

Then, perhaps, this place would feel like home.

Home.

What a strange idea.

But still. Here. This.

Osaron had risen high into the air now, far above the shimmering black expanse of the river, the lifeless arenas, hulking skeletons of stone and wood topped with their lions and serpents and birds of prey, their bodies empty, their banners still whipping in the breeze.

Right here.

He spread his hands and pulled on the strings of this world, on the threads of power in the stadium stones and the water below, and the massive silhouettes began to draw together, groaning as they came free from their bridges and holds.

In his mind, the palace took shape, smoke and stone and magic prying loose, rearranging into something else, something more. And, as in his mind, so in the world below. His new palace lengthened like a shadow, rising up instead of out, tendrils of mist climbing the sides like vines, smoothing into polished black stone like new flesh over old bones. Overhead, the stadium banners rose like smoke before hardening into a crown of glossy spires above his creation.

Osaron smiled.

It was a start.

VI

Kell had always been a fan of silence.

He craved those too-rare moments when the world calmed and the chaos of life in the palace gave way to easy, comfortable stillness.

This was not that kind of silence.

No, this silence was a hollow, sulking thing, a heavy quiet broken only by the drip of river water hitting the polished floor, and the fire crackling in the hearth, and the shuffle of Rhy’s restless steps.

Kell sat in one of the prince’s chairs, a cup of scalding hot tea in one hand, his bruised jaw in the other, his hair a mess of damp red streaks, beads of river water trickling down his neck. While Tieren tended to his bruised lungs, Kell took stock of the damage—two guards were dead, as well as another Arnesian magician. Holland was back in the cells, the queen was in the gallery, and the king stood across the room by the prince’s hearth, his face shadowed, gaunt. Hastra was by the doors, Alucard Emery—a shade Kell seemingly couldn’t be rid of—sat on the couch with a glass of wine, while his shipmate, Lenos, hovered like a shadow at his back. Blood and ash still stained Alucard’s front. Some of it was his, but the rest belonged to Jinnar.