Lila didn’t know whether he wanted to know if she had the strength, or the will.
“If he dies,” she said, “so will Rhy.”
Tieren sighed. “Then the world will be as it should,” he said, sadly. “Instead of as it is.”
Lila swallowed, and nodded, and went to join Kell.
“To White London, then?” she asked when she reached him, holding out the rook. Kell did not move. He was staring out at the river and the palace arching over it. She thought he might be taking in his London, his home, saying his good-byes, but then he spoke.
“The bones are the same in every world,” he said, gesturing to the city, “but the rest of it will be different. As different as this world is from yours.” He pointed across the river, and toward the center of London. “Where we’re going, the castle is there. Athos and Astrid will be there, too. Once we cross through, stay close. Do not leave my side. It is night here, which means it is night in White London, too, and the city is full of shadows.” Kell looked at Lila. “You can still change your mind.”
Lila straightened and tugged up the collar of her coat. She smiled. “Not a chance.”
III
The palace was in a state of upheaval.
Guests were spilling, confused and concerned, down the great stairs, ushered out by the royal guards. Rumors spread like fire through the crowd, rumors of violence and death and wounded royalty. Words like treason and coup and assassin filled the air, only feeding the frenzy.
Someone claimed that a guard had been murdered. Another claimed to have seen that guard fall from the prince’s balcony to the courtyard below. Another still said that a woman in a green gown had stolen a necklace from the gruesome scene and rushed into the palace. Another insisted he’d seen her thrust the pendant into the hands of another guard and then collapse at his feet. The guard had not even called for help. He’d simply stormed away toward the royal chambers.
There the king and queen had withdrawn, their strange calm only adding to the guests’ confusion. The guard had vanished into their room, and a moment later, the king had apparently burst forth, his steadiness cast off as he shouted about treason. He claimed that the prince had been stabbed and that Kell was to blame, demanding the Antari’s arrest. And just like that, the confusion shattered into to panic, chaos billowing like smoke through the night.
By the time Gen’s boots approached the palace, the stairs were crowded with worried guests. The thing inside Gen’s armor turned its black eyes up at the dancing lights and jostling bodies. It wasn’t the mayhem that drew him there. It was the scent. Someone had used strong magic, beautiful magic, and he meant to find out who.
He set off up the stairs, pressing past the flustered guests. No one seemed to notice that his armor was rent, peeled back over the heart, a stain like black wax across his front. Nor did they notice the blood—Parrish’s blood—splashed across the metal.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he drew a deep breath and smiled; the night hung heavy with panic and power, the energy filling his lungs, stoking him like coals. He could smell the magic now. He could taste it.
And he was hungry.
He’d chosen his latest shell quite well; the guards, in their commotion, let him pass. It wasn’t until he was inside, through the flower-lined antechamber and striding across the emptied ballroom, that a helmeted figure stopped him.
“Gen,” demanded the guard, “where have you…” But the words died in the guard’s throat when he saw the man’s eyes. “Mas aven—”
The oath was cut off by Gen’s sword, sliding through armor and between ribs. The guard dragged in a single, shuddering breath and tried to cry out, but the sword cut sideways and up, and the air died in his throat. Easing the body down, the thing wearing Gen’s skin resheathed his weapon and removed the guard’s helmet, sliding it over his own head. When he pulled the visor down, his black eyes were nothing but a glint through the metal slit.
Footsteps sounded through the palace, and shouted orders echoed overhead. He straightened. The air was full of blood and magic, and he went to find its source.
* * *
The stone still sang in Kell’s hand, but not quite the way it had before. Now the melody, the thrum of power, seemed to be singing in his bones instead of over them. Every moment, he felt it in his heartbeat and in his head. With it came a strange quiet, a calm, one he trusted even less than the initial surge of power. The calm told him everything would be well. It cooed and soothed and steadied his heart and made Kell forget that anything was wrong, made him forget that he was holding the stone at all. That was the worst part. It was bound to his hand, and yet it hung at the outside of his senses; he had to fight to remember it was there with him. Inside of him. Every time he remembered, it was like waking from a dream, full of panic and fear, only to be dragged down into sleep again. In those brief moments of clarity, he wanted to claw free, break or tear or cut the stone from his skin. But he didn’t, because competing with that urge to cast it off was the equal, opposite desire to hold it close, to cling to its warmth as if he were dying of cold. He needed its strength. Now more than ever.
Kell didn’t want Lila to see how scared he was, but he thought she saw it anyway.
They had woven back toward the city center, the streets mostly deserted on this side of the river, but had yet to cross any of the bridges that arced back and forth over the Isle. It was too dangerous, too exposed. Especially since, halfway there, Kell’s face had reappeared on the scrying boards that lined the streets.