The broadsword came down and Kay rolled onto his back, got his one remaining sword up in time to block the blow, or rather, redirect its force, up and away from his chest. If it had been any other sword, it would have met only the air over his shoulder, but it was two hands wide, and the bottom edge scraped along his collar, steel skating against bone.

  Pain turned his vision white.

  Kay gasped, and rolled, spinning up onto his feet, one hand clutching his blade and the other pressed to his bloody shoulder. But before he could dodge again, put any space between him and the wall of a man, he was thrown back into the mast, not by wind, but flesh, the Veskan’s hand closing around his throat like steel, like stone. He hacked at the man’s wrist, but the blade glanced off an armored cuff until a gust of air whipped the weapon from his grip. There was another blade, in his boot, but before he could reach it, the Veskan hauled him up until he was no longer standing on the deck, his boots skimming uselessly as the hand crushed his windpipe, the other still clenching the massive sword.

  The man drew back, ready to bury the blade in his chest, and Kay did the only thing his mind could conjure to save him from certain death.

  He reached out and wrapped his bloody hand around the Veskan’s forearm, and said, in a gasping breath, “As Staro.”

  The man’s eyes went wide. The magic rolled over his skin, and through his bones, turning every inch of him from flesh and blood to stone. His fingers loosened at the last instant, and Kay dropped to the deck, gasping, but free.

  For an instant, power rippled through him, as welcome as a warm hearth in winter.

  And then, all he felt was pain.

  IX

  Lila Bard had taken to playing a game.

  Every time she fought, she gave herself a challenge.

  Tonight, she’d think, I will only use fire.

  Tonight, I will only use ice.

  Tonight, I will let them strike first.

  Tonight, I will fight as if I have no magic, as if I am back in London, my London, and I have nothing to lose but my life.

  The man with the hatchet was dead, but she was having a fine time with the ice-wielding woman, watching her conjure shards, a shield, letting her leave a sheen of frost on Lila’s skin, letting her freeze the deck, letting her think she had a chance. It felt good, to fight. Like stretching stiff limbs.

  Until Kay screamed.

  Kay, who would always be Kell in her mind, no matter which coat he was wearing, or how he slicked his hair, or how he’d learned to fight. Kell was the one screaming now, and the sound tore through her like a dull blade, the kind that took its time to kill you, and left a ragged tear in its wake. Lila knew what that sound meant. She wasted no more time, but spun behind the Veskan and slit her throat. The woman fell, and the frost began to melt from Lila’s coat as she strode across the deck, past Tav—who was dispatching one of the men who’d had the misfortune of coming-to in the midst of the fight—to Kell.

  The largest of the Veskans stood in the moonlight, his massive sword drawn back, but both he and the blade were now made of solid stone.

  Beyond the statue, Kell was on his knees, head bowed. His hood had fallen back, his chest heaving as he dragged in ragged breaths, sweat sliding down his face beneath the mask.

  Lila leaned against the statue of the man. “Well,” she said, tapping a bloody knife against the stone. “So much for leaving them alive.”

  Kell’s breathing steadied. Slowly, jaw clenched, he rose to his feet. Behind his mask, she knew, his eyes would be glassy with pain. But all she could see was black. He looked around, as if wondering what to do about the mess, but Lila had an idea. She brought her hands to the stone figure, and pushed. It was massive, but the wind leaned with her, and the stone leaned, too, and the statue fell, crashing straight through the wooden deck, and the hold below, cracking open the ship’s hull like cannon shot.

  The other boats had all lost interest as soon as they realized the fight wouldn’t spill onto their ships, so there was no one on the docks but Stross to see the three shadows disembark, or free the ropes that bound the Crow to its berth. They watched as the boat drifted backward, the one sail Tav hadn’t cut catching a sudden, carefully directed breeze.

  It had already begun to take on water.

  Wouldn’t be long until it sank.

  “Well,” said Tav cheerfully. “I for one am far too sober.”

  Stross cleared his throat. “I could use a drink. Captain?”

  Lila shrugged. They would be gone by daybreak, and Verose sat waiting like an untouched mark. She wanted to search its pockets, skim her fingers down its coat, see if it had anything worth taking. And she could do with a drink. “Why not?”

  Kell’s voice, when he spoke, was little more than a murmur. “I fear I’m not good company right now.”

  Lila cocked a brow. “Who said you were invited?”

  He made a sound that died short of a laugh. He was clearly still in pain, and trying to hide it, but he couldn’t. Not from her. To Lila, Kell had always been a pane of glass tilted toward her just so, so that where others saw only colors and streaks, she saw the truth of it. Of him.

  And in that moment, she knew he wanted to be alone.

  “I won’t be long,” she said, plucking off the Sarows mask and tossing it his way. He caught it, and she saw him wince, his body stiff with pain. Her fingers twitched with the urge to heal him, though she knew he wouldn’t let her.

  Stubborn ass, she thought as he turned back toward the Barron, and she turned to join Stross and Tav. The pain was his, and so she let him have it. But she did look back, more than once, watching his black coat ripple in the cold breeze until he was just another shadow in the dark.

  X

  This, thought Lila sometime later, was the worst drink she’d ever had.

  She’d never considered herself picky when it came to ale, but whatever was in her glass tasted like whoever owned the Black Tide had spilled cheap spirits into piss and called it a pint. It was strong, she had to give it that, but every time she took a sip, it tried to fight its way back up.

  Tav and Stross didn’t seem to mind. At least, not enough to stop drinking.

  “The trick,” offered Tav, “is to hold your breath.”

  “S’not that bad,” grumbled Stross, but then, it was a well-known fact aboard the ship that her first mate had no sense of taste, a truth discovered during his brief stint as cook.

  Lila abandoned the drink and reached instead into her coat, retrieving the blade she’d lifted from the Crow’s hold. She hadn’t used it back on the ship, hadn’t needed to, and it was still in its sheath. It was deceptively small—Veskans tended to favor broadswords, but this was closer to a dagger in shape, and roughly the length of her hand. When she drew the blade free, it was as thin as a ribbon, and shone the color of pearl. A cool breeze wafted off the metal, and when she tipped it toward the nearest light, she could just make out a string of spellwork etched along the edge, though she couldn’t read it.

  “Now that’s a lovely piece of work,” said Tav, who, not having any magic of his own, shared her fondness for sharp things.

  “It is,” she mused. The edge was dazzlingly sharp, but she resisted the urge to test it against her thumb. She sheathed the blade again, and set it down on the table.

  Around them, the Black Tide was brimming with bodies.

  In one corner, a trio of women with a small fortune of silver in their hair leaned forward, heads together over a map. In another, a ship’s crew was getting blindingly drunk over a game of Sanct. There were even a pair of Arnesian soldiers—not dressed as such, of course, but they might as well be branded with the cup and sun and decked in red and gold.

  Between the crowd, the planked walls, and the dark curtains, the place felt less like a tavern and more like the hull of a ship. Or, given the stale air, the belly of a whale.

  She let her gaze drift over the room, though in truth, she wasn’t looking.

  She was listening.

  Verose was a thieves’ haven, a place where the rule of the empire gave way to the will of the people, most of them criminals, pirates, and exiled magicians. It was the kind of place that fostered grudges, and turned them into bad ideas. The kind of place that could easily have produced the rebels that called themselves the Hand.

  So Lila listened. Or tried—most of the patrons in the Tide were speaking a version of Arnesian, but some handled the language like a pen, while others used it like a hammer. Add to that the staccato bursts of laughter, the scrape of chairs, the way the voices rose and fell, and it was like fighting with a wave. Easier to relax, and let the words wash over her.

  Tav, meanwhile, had produced a set of cards, and he and Stross were now engaged in an intense drinking game, one that had something to do with throwing down cards at rapid speed, and shouting loudly when you saw a king or queen. The loser drank. Or maybe the winner. Honestly, Lila wasn’t sure. But she watched them bicker like old maids as they played, and marveled at the easy way they were together, the way they were with her, the space between them all worn smooth. She found herself wishing Kell was there. And Vasry, and Raya.

  How strange.

  Ask her at nineteen the definition of freedom, and it would have been one. One person. One ship. One big wide world. And yet here she was, seven years on, free, but far from alone.

  She liked being alone. She was good at it. Had never trusted or taken to people.

  But these weren’t people, not really. They were something else. Allies. Friends. Family.

  Once upon a time, the thought would have been enough to send her heart lurching in a seasick way, her pulse hitting that old familiar drum, telling her to run, run, run. As if it were a snaring trap, a snake of chain around her legs. As if people were just anchors, dead weight designed to hold you fast, drag you down.

  Caring could drown you, if you let it.

  But it could also help you float.

  Not that she’d ever let the bastards know.

  “Another round?” asked Tav, scraping the cards back into a pile.

  Stross shook his head. “I’m tired,” he said, rising to his feet, and finishing his drink.

  “Tired of losing, you mean,” said Tav, even as he stood and dropped a handful of coins on the table. They looked to Lila. “You coming, Captain?”

  She looked around, shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Tav hesitated, and Stross weighed her with a look, and seemed about to sit down again when she waved them both away. “Oh, fuck off,” she said, “and let me have a drink in peace.”

  If Kell were there, he’d make a fuss, insist on sticking around until she was done, trail her like a moody shadow back to the boat. But Kell wasn’t there, and Stross knew better than to tell her to be safe, or careful. They all knew she could take care of herself.

  “Your orders,” said Tav, tipping an invisible cap.

  Lila watched the two men go, and flagged down another drink.

  * * *

  The coat slumped to the cabin floor.

  The mask, he flung against the wall. The swords came next, the leather holsters stiff beneath his bloodstained hands, but piece by piece, Kay fell away, leaving only Kell.

  Vasry and Raya had parted like a tide when he swept past. They didn’t bother making small talk, or asking how the mission went. The evidence was right there, sinking in the bay. Right there, in the bloodstained steps he left on the Barron’s deck.

  Seven years of practice, and still he slipped. No matter how long or hard Kell trained, there were times when his body still forgot.

  He dragged the sodden shirt over his head, wincing at the pain that lanced across his shoulder, the wound left by the broadsword’s bite. He made his way to the basin, gaze sliding to the large mirror propped behind it. In the glass, his hair fell into his face, a single streak of silver cutting through the red. In the glass, his bare skin was a tapestry of scars. Blood welled from the fresh cut along his collarbone, sliding in a narrow ribbon down his chest. It followed the line of his necklace until it reached the three coins that still hung at the end of the chain. Tokens that had once carried him to other Londons. Other worlds.

  As Travars, he thought grimly, as blood dripped from the coins into the basin, staining the water pink, then red.

  Kell’s hand drifted up, almost absently, toward the tokens, and then past them, to the angry sword wound, which he knew his brother must have felt.

  It was a marvel he hadn’t heard from Rhy—or worse, from Alucard.

  He glanced down at the red ring on his right hand, as if expecting the thought to summon the king of Arnes or his consort, but the band stayed dark and cold. As did the black one beside it. The red ring bore the royal seal—the chalice and rising sun. The black one bore a ship.

  They were rare and precious things, these rings, not one of a kind, but two. Each had a twin, a perfect replica designed to rest on another finger.

  It was a clever piece of magic, gifted to him by the queen four years before, a way to link two people, no matter where they were. One simply had to touch the surface of the ring and say the words as vera tan—I need you—and its twin would burn with light and heat. Place both rings upon a scrying board, and the distance between them disappeared, the flat black surface turned to glass; not a door, but at least a window, a way to see and speak.

  His brother had married well, Kell thought, not for the first time.

  The red ring that he wore belonged of course to Rhy Maresh, who said he’d only wear it if it matched his other finery. The black one, Kell had given to Lila. Or rather, he’d tried. It hadn’t gone well. She’d paled when he’d offered her the charm, recoiled as if it were a serpent, or a bottle of poison he was asking her to drink, and too late, he remembered the customs of her world, the meaning of such a ring to someone in Grey London.

  He’d shown her the one on his own hand, tried to explain how the bands were linked, how in case of trouble, she could call on him, but her gaze had gone flat and mocking.

  “If I’m in trouble,” she’d said, “I’ll get myself out.”

  He had shouted, then, and so had she. He had called her stubborn and she had called him selfish, he had called her frightened and she had called him a fool, and in the end, she had stormed out, and he had slammed the door, and the waves had sloshed angrily against the ship, and he knew she’d cast her ring into the sea.

  They did not talk about it after that.

  And yet, he didn’t take his off. Not that day, or the next, or the next. It was silly, he knew—after all, the ring was useless on its own, nothing but a sentimental trinket, but he wore it, still, to spite her. To say that in his mind they were still linked, that they would always be, that she was one of only two he loved so much, that he would let himself be bound to them like this.

  Kell ran his thumb over the black band, then thrust his hands into the basin, rinsing them clean, before he set to work on his wounds.

  Antari magic was an incredible thing.

  It was the only kind of power that was both element and spell. Chaos and order. A drop of blood, a pair of words, and you could turn a man to stone, open a door into another world, mend almost any injury.

  As Hasari.

  Two words he had said a hundred times, to heal the sick, undo a mortal wound. What a simple thing it would have been, to mend a shoulder.

  Lila would have done it, of course, if he had asked.

  Instead, Kell drew two bottles from the cabinet beneath.

  The first he brought to his lips, drinking long and deep. The second he used to douse a cloth. The sharp smell filled his head, and then the narrow room. As he pressed the cloth to his shoulder, the pain flared, bright enough to steal his breath, and he clenched his teeth against it, but in moments, the bleeding had stopped, and he said a silent apology to his brother as he threaded a needle, and adjusted the light, and leaned toward the mirror.

  As the barb bit into his skin, he forced his mind back to the fight on the Crow. With every pierce, every tug, every tightened stitch, he counted his missteps, his mistakes, reliving every motion until the fight was burned into his memory, and he was certain that next time, he wouldn’t forget.

  XI

  Somehow, the second drink Lila ordered looked even worse than the first.

  It was the color of oil and the texture of silt, and when she lifted the glass to the low tavern light, it was like staring at paint. She brought the glass absently to her lips, was even about to take a questing sip when a nearby voice interrupted.

  “Wouldn’t do that.”

  Lila glanced up to find a woman on the other side of her table, dark hair bundled up into a crown. Her eyes glittered in the tavern light, and when she smiled, only her lips moved, drawing taut over her teeth.

  “Let me guess,” said Lila dryly. “It’s poisoned.”

  “Might as well be,” said the woman, dropping down into a chair as if invited. Her gaze went, almost immediately, to the weapon Lila had left out on the wood.

  “That,” said the stranger, “is a very nice knife.”

  “I know,” said Lila. “Worth the ship I sank to get it.”

  “Ah, a pirate, then.”

  “A captain.”

  The woman glanced around. “And your crew?”

  Lila didn’t know if she was being threatened or wooed. “Minding their own business.”

  The woman didn’t take the hint.

  “Tanis,” she said, by way of introduction. She waited for Lila to give her name. Lila didn’t.

  “What do you want, Tanis?”

  The woman leaned back in her chair, studying Lila. “You’re not from here.” Lila said nothing, and Tanis went on. “Most people aren’t. They’re just passing through, they don’t know how the city works.” Tanis spread her hands. “Sometimes, they need a guide.”

  “Let me guess,” said Lila. “You’re a guide.”

  Tanis smiled again. All lips, no teeth. “That’s me. So, what brings you to Verose?”