By the windows, Kell and Rhy stood side by side in silence.

Lenos perched nervously on the sofa’s edge, fiddling with his medallion.

Only Lila stayed with Alucard and watched him translate the pirate’s cipher, all the while thinking she had so much left to learn.

VIII

It took the better part of an hour for the captain to crack the code, the air in the room growing tenser with every minute, the quiet taut as sails in a strong wind. It was a thief’s quiet, coiled, lying in wait, and Lila kept having to remind herself to exhale.

Alucard, who could usually be counted on to disrupt any silence before it grew oppressive, was busy scratching numbers on a slip of paper and snapping at Lenos whenever the man began to hover.

Tieren had left shortly after the captain started, explaining that he had to help his priests with their spell, and King Maxim had risen to his feet several minutes later looking like a corpse revived.

“Where are you going?” Rhy asked as his father turned toward the door.

“There are other matters to attend to,” he said in a distracted way.

“What could be more—”

“A king is not one man, Rhy. He does not have the luxury of valuing one direction and ignoring the rest. This Inheritor, if it can be found, is but a single course. It is my task to chart them all.” The king left with only the short command to summon him when the damned business of the map was done.

Rhy now sprawled across the couch, one arm over his eyes, while Kell seemed to be sulking against the hearth and Hastra stood at attention with his back to the door.

Lila tried to focus on these men, their slow movements like ticking cogs, but her own attention kept flicking back to the window, to those tendrils of fog that coiled and uncoiled beyond the glass, taking shape and falling apart, cresting, then crashing like waves against the palace.

She stared at the fog, searching for shapes in the shadows the way she sometimes did in clouds—a bird, ship, a pile of gold coins—before she realized that the shadows were indeed taking the shape of something.

Hands.

The revelation was unsettling.

Lila watched as the darkness drew together into a sea of fingers. Mesmerized, she lifted her own hand to the cold glass, the warmth of her touch steaming the window around her fingertips. Just beyond the window, the nearest shadows drew into a mirror image, palm pressed to hers, the seam of glass suddenly too thin, humming as wall and ward strained and shuddered between them.

Her brow furrowed as she flexed her fingers, the shadow hand mimicking with a child’s slow way, close but not in time, a fraction off the beat.

She moved her hand back and forth.

The shadows followed.

She tapped her fingers soundlessly on the glass.

The other hand echoed.

She was just beginning to curl her fingers into a rude gesture when she saw the greater darkness—the one beyond the wave of hands, the one that rose from the river, blanketed the sky—begin to move.

At first, she thought they were coalescing into a column, but soon that column began to grow wings. Not the kind you found on a sparrow or a crow. The kind of wings that formed on a castle. Buttresses, towers, turrets, unfolding like a flower in sudden, violent bloom. As she watched, the shadows shimmered and hardened into glassy black stone.

Lila’s hand fell away from the glass. “Am I losing my wits,” she said, “or is there another palace floating on the river?”

Rhy sat up. Kell was at her shoulder in an instant, peering out through the fog. Parts of it were still blossoming, others dissolving into mist, caught in a never-ending process of being made and remade. The whole thing seemed at once very real and utterly impossible.

“Sanct,” swore Kell.

“That fucking monster,” growled the prince, now at Lila’s other side, “is playing blocks with my arenas.”

Lenos hung back, his eyes wide with either horror or awe as he stared at the incredible palace, but Hastra abandoned his place by the door, surging forward to see.

“By the nameless saints …” he whispered.

Lila called over her shoulder. “Alucard, come see this.”

“A little busy,” muttered the captain without looking up. Judging by the crease between his brows, the cipher wasn’t proving quite as simple as he’d hoped. “Blasted numbers, sit still,” he muttered, leaning closer.

Rhy kept shaking his head. “Why?” he said sadly. “Why did he have to use the arenas?”

“You know,” said Kell, “that’s really not the most important aspect of this situation.”

Alucard made a triumphant sound and set the quill aside. “There.”

Everyone turned back toward the table except for Kell. He stayed by the window, visibly appalled by the shift in focus. “Are we just going to ignore the shadow palace, then?” he asked, sweeping his hand at the specter beyond the glass.

“Not at all,” said Lila, glancing back. “In fact, shadow palaces are where I draw the line. Which is why I’m keen to find this Inheritor.” She took in the map. Frowned.

Lenos looked down at the parchment. “Nas teras,” he said softly. I don’t see it.

The prince cocked his head. “Neither do I.”

Lila leaned in. “Maybe you should draw an X, for dramatic effect.”

Alucard blew out an indignant breath. “You’re quite an ungrateful bunch, you know that?” He took up a pencil and, plucking a very expensive-looking book from a shelf, used its spine to draw a line across the map’s surface. Kell finally drifted over as Alucard drew a second, and a third, the lines intersecting at odd angles until they formed a small triangle. “There,” he said, adding a little X with a flourish at the center.