Kell was halfway across the bridge—and Lila nearly to the other side—when the commoners finally tore down the wall and surged after them onto the structure. The moment he reached the opposite bank, Kell sank to the ground and touched his bloody hand to the floor of the bridge.

“As Steno,” he commanded, just as Holland had, and instantly, the bridge began to crumble, plunging stone and bodies down into the icy Sijlt. Kell fought for breath, his pulse thudding his ears. Lila was standing over him, glaring at Holland’s body.

“Is he dead?”

“Close enough,” said Kell, getting to his feet, hauling the Antari’s body with him.

“I hope you made him suffer,” she spat, turning toward the looming castle.

No, thought Kell as they set off. He suffered long enough.

He could feel the people watching as they moved through the streets, but no one came out of their houses. They were too near the castle now, and the castle had eyes. Soon, it loomed before them, the stone citadel behind its high wall, the archway like a gaping mouth, leading onto the darkened courtyard and its statues.

The stone hummed against Kell’s palm, and he realized it wasn’t calling only to him now. It was calling to its other half. Beside him, Lila drew yet another blade from beneath her coat. But this one wasn’t an ordinary knife. It was a royal half-sword from Red London.

Kell’s mouth fell open. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

“Nicked it off the guard who tried to kill me,” she said, admiring the weapon. He could see the markings scrawled across the blade. Metal that disabled magic. “Like I said, you can never have too many knives.”

Kell held out his hand. “Can you spare it?”

Lila considered him a moment, then shrugged and handed it over. Kell fingered the grip as she drew out her pistol and began to reload it.

“Are you ready?” she asked, spinning the chamber.

Kell gazed through the gate at the waiting castle. “No.”

At that, she offered him the sharpest edge of a grin. “Good,” she said. “The ones who think they’re ready always end up dead.”

Kell managed a ghost of a smile. “Thank you, Lila.”

“For what?”

But Kell didn’t answer, only stepped forward into the waiting dark.

THIRTEEN

THE WAITING KING

I

A cloud of black smoke hung in the air of the white throne room, a patch of night against the pale backdrop. Its edges frayed and curled and faded, but its center was smooth and glossy, like the fragment of stone in Athos’s hand, or the surface of a scrying board, which was exactly what the king had summoned with it.

Athos Dane sat on his throne, his sister’s body in her own chair beside him, and turned the stone over in his hand as he watched the shifting image of Kell and his companion pass into the courtyard of his castle.

Where the stone’s other half had gone, so had its gaze.

The farthest London had been little more than a blur, but as Kell and his companion traveled nearer, the image in the surface had grown crisp and clear. Athos had watched the events unfold across the various cities—Kell’s flight, the girl’s cunning, his servant’s failure, and his sister’s foolishness, the wounded prince, and the slaughtered Antari.

His fingers tightened on the talisman.

Athos had watched it all unfold with a mixture of amusement and annoyance and, admittedly, excitement. He bristled at the loss of Holland, but a spike of pleasure ran through him at the thought of killing Kell.

Astrid would be furious.

Athos rolled his head and considered his sister’s body, propped up on its throne, the charm pulsing at her throat. A London away, she might still be wreaking havoc, but here she sat, still and pale as the sculpted stone beneath her. Her hands draped on the arms of the chair, and wisps of white hair ribboned over her closed eyes. Athos tsked at his sister.

“Ös vosa nochten,” he said. “You should have let me go to the masquerade instead. Now my plaything is dead, and yours has made an awful mess. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Of course, she did not answer.

Athos rapped his long fingers on the edge of his throne, thinking. If he broke the spell and woke her, she would only complicate things. No, he had given her the chance to deal with Kell in her own way, and she had failed. It was his turn now.

Athos smiled and rose to his feet. His fingers tightened on the stone, and the image of Kell dissolved into smoke and then into nothing. Power thrummed through the king, the magic hungry for more, but he held it in place, feeding it only what it needed. It was a thing to be controlled, and Athos had never been a lenient master.

“Do not worry yourself, Astrid,” he said to the spellbound queen. “I will make things right.”

And then he smoothed his hair, readjusted the collar of his white cloak, and went to greet his guests.

II

The White London fortress rose in a column of sharp light out of the shadowed stone courtyard. Lila slipped into the forest of statues to fulfill her part of the plan while Kell made his way toward the waiting steps. He laid Holland’s body on a stone bench and ascended the stairs, one hand curled around the royal blade, the other around the Black London talisman.

Go ahead, Kell, Holland had goaded. Use the stone. It will consume you faster, but you might just win.

He wouldn’t. He vowed not to. His recent use in battle had only spurred the darkness on. Black threads now coiled up past his elbow and toward his shoulder, and Kell couldn’t afford to lose any more of himself. As it was, every heartbeat seemed to spread the poison more.