“You should have seen her face,” said Kell. He straightened, just a little, injecting a Lila-esque edge in his voice. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with these?” Kell shook his head, remembering. “Vasry wanted to set them free. He even opened a crate, tried to shoo them over the side before he realized—”

  “Chickens can’t fly,” said Rhy.

  “No, they cannot,” said Kell.

  They met each other’s eyes, and laughter bubbled up between them. After a moment, Rhy said, “The pirate life clearly suits you.”

  Kell raised a brow. “Excuse me,” he said with feigned indignance, “I’m a privateer,” and it was such an eerily perfect impression of Alucard, from the quirk of his mouth to the lift of his chin and the tone of his voice, that Rhy lost the last dregs of his composure, and threw back his head and laughed, and then he was on his back, the night sky sliding in and out of focus.

  “I’m going to roll off,” he said, gasping for breath.

  “I’ll catch you,” said Kell without so much as a pause.

  Rhy’s laughter died away. “I know.”

  Kell lay down beside him, looking up. Silence settled over them again, but it was like a silk sheet on a summer night, cool and welcome. And as his heart slowed in his chest, Rhy realized he was happy. For a breath, it was the loudest thing. But then the guilt rushed in. How could he be happy, when the empire stood on a knife’s edge, and the specter of violence hung over his head? How, when his parents were gone, and his brother was broken? And then, right on the heels of that guilt—fear.

  Fear, not for his own life—that was an abstract thing, death impossible, and pain endurable—but the lives of those he loved. Fear that he could not shelter their flames as Kell had sheltered his. Fear that beat inside his chest, wrapped itself around his heart and lungs until he could not breathe. Fear that fed on his happiness, grew strong because of it. And that was the madness, the cruelty, that life was fragile, and he had so much to love, and spent all his time mourning the loss before he suffered it.

  “Love and loss,” he murmured.

  “Are like a ship and the sea,” finished Kell. It was one of Tieren’s favorite sayings. The thought of the Aven Essen made Rhy’s eyes burn.

  Above, the moon was almost full, and when his vision blurred, it looked like one of the paper lamps they launched during Sel Fera Noche.

  Rhy smiled. “Do you remember the year we hauled all those lanterns up here…” Kell had lit the wicks, and Rhy had set them free, and together they had watched the lights float away like newborn stars.

  Beside him, Kell lurched upright. “Sanct,” he hissed. “I’m such a fool.”

  “Hm?” asked Rhy sleepily.

  “I saw them. In the hold of the ship. I saw them, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what they were for.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” said Rhy, the wine weighing down his limbs in a pleasant way. He wanted to hold on to that feeling, but the furrow was back in Kell’s brow, and he seemed suddenly, painfully sober.

  “We raided a Veskan smuggler. They had weapons, and bottles of tark—”

  “I do love tark—”

  “—and a crate of white lanterns, the kind we use on the Long Dark Night.” Kell’s head fell into his hands. “I should have thought to take one, but we were ambushed.”

  “Is it so strange?” asked Rhy. “Smugglers trade in whatever they can sell, and the lanterns are always in demand. Besides, every crate will be searched when it docks for the festival.”

  Kell stared at him, aghast. “You can’t intend to celebrate this year.”

  Rhy stared back. “Of course I do,” he said defensively.

  “You are on the brink of war with Vesk, and a group of faceless rebels is plotting to overthrow you.”

  “Oh really?” said Rhy, sitting up. “I had no idea—”

  “And you would hand them the perfect chance, a night when the city is overrun with strangers and magic, and you are on display.”

  “I have to do it.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” snapped Kell. “You don’t have enough guards, and even if you did, you could not predict where an attack—”

  “Kell,” he said, the name cutting through the air. “I have to.”

  Rhy didn’t look at his brother when he said it, but he could feel the weight of his gaze. A long moment passed. Then, a sharp intake of breath. “Tell me you aren’t planning to use this to draw out the Hand.”

  Rhy rolled the empty wine bottle between his palms. “Fine, I won’t.”

  He did not say that it had crossed his mind, did not say that he had spent the last few months as a prisoner in his own palace, caged by other people’s threats and fears, did not say that he was sick of feeling terrified, and powerless.

  “Three hundred years,” he said instead. “This winter marks three hundred years since the darkness was defeated. By my family. The Maresh.” He met Kell’s gaze. “How will it look if I don’t?”

  Kell’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

  Rhy stared out at the sprawl of the city, bathed in crimson, the buildings jewel-lit in the dark.

  “I am the king,” he said quietly. “There will always be someone trying to kill me. Of course, I know it’s not me—I’m just a crown, a name, a mantle in a fancy chair. But I admit, it’s hard not to take it personally. Especially after the Shadows.”

  The Shadows—not a terribly inventive name for a rebellion, but then, the Hand wasn’t much better. He’d been twelve when the Shadows abducted him from the palace grounds, left him bleeding to death in the bottom of a boat. If Kell hadn’t found him—but of course, he had.

  “I don’t even know why they did it.”

  “Taxes, I think,” said Kell, sipping his wine.

  Rhy sighed. “How horribly mundane.” But then, what drove the Hand? “I’ve wondered, you know, if it could be them. The Shadows, going by a different name.”

  “It’s not,” said Kell stiffly.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I killed them all.”

  Rhy said nothing. He hadn’t known. But he’d suspected. Not because the Shadows had suddenly vanished, though they had. No, there had been a moment the night after the attack. He’d woken up safe in the palace, buzzing with fear in the aftermath, and gone to find Kell. He’d snuck down the secret passage that joined their rooms, expected to see his brother asleep in bed. Instead he’d found him sitting in the copper-plated bath, his head tipped back against the rim. His clothes lay piled on the floor, and the only light was the crimson of the Isle spilling in from the balcony. And in that glow, it was hard to tell, but Rhy swore that the water was red.

  His brother hadn’t heard him, and Rhy had crept back down the hidden hall, and into bed. Now, Kell’s voice dragged him back to the roof.

  “The Long Dark Night is still weeks away,” he said, emptying the bottle. “If you insist on celebrating, we better find the Hand.”

  Rhy swung his arm out, gesturing at the sprawling city and the untold thousands who filled its buildings and flooded its streets. “How hard could it be?”

  * * *

  Their footsteps echoed on the stairs.

  “I don’t suppose you could ask every citizen to strip,” mused Lila, “so you can search their skin for brands.”

  The guards bowed as she and Alucard passed. Not as deeply as they did to Kell, she noticed, but at least none pulled a weapon on her.

  “And drive a hundred more to their cause?” Alucard shook his head. “I think not.”

  “They have a leader,” she said. “They must. All hands need arms, and all arms need a head. Do you have no suspicions?”

  “I have many—but that is all they are.”

  “Care to share your strongest angle?”

  “That for all their talk, they’re not Arnesian at all.”

  Lila’s steps didn’t slow. It had occurred to her already, of course. “You think they’re being funded by a foreign power.”

  “The best war is the one your enemy fights with itself.”

  They walked in silence to the bottom of the stairs. There, Lila rounded on him.

  “Don’t make the Hand more than they are. They are still bodies, and bodies can be found. They can be stopped.”

  Alucard gave a thoughtful hum. In this light, he didn’t just look tired—he looked ill. Hollowed out. Drawn far past taut, a bowstring on the edge of breaking.

  “If you were wound any tighter, you would snap,” she said. “When’s the last time you slept?”

  “Lately, I’ve found it hard to rest.” He flashed his teeth, more a grimace than a grin. “I can’t imagine why.”

  Lila flicked her fingers, felt the cool steel of a blade skate into her palm. “I could try to kill you, if you like.”

  Alucard managed a thin, startled laugh. “And that would help me how?”

  She shrugged. “It gets the blood flowing,” she said. “How long has it been since you had a proper fight?”

  “I spar with the soldiers every day,” he said, a little indignant. “And if that is the only way you unwind before bed, I pity Kell.”

  He started down the hall again, and Lila fell in step beside him, the knife vanishing back into her sleeve. “I suppose there are other ways to burn off energy.”

  Alucard raised a brow. “Is that an offer?”

  “Sadly, I have no desire to bed you. But I’m sure the king would happily oblige if—”

  Just then, a small shape darted out from under a chair into their path. Lila stopped, and looked down. It was, of all things, a rabbit. Floppy and golden-hued, with large black eyes and a twitching nose.

  “Looks like dinner got out of the kitchen,” she said, but Alucard only sighed and hoisted the little beast under one arm.

  “Miros,” he said grimly. “And where there’s a pet, there’s—”

  As if on cue, a child came bounding around the corner, singing a bedtime song.

  “Gentle, gentle, hissed the snake,” she sang, dancing between the patterned lines of the lush hall rug. “Quiet, quiet, barked the dog. Careful, careful, purred the cat, right before it pounced!” On these last words, she leapt as far as she could, landing in a crouch on one of the rug’s golden circles. Right in front of them.

  Ren had grown since Lila last saw her, morphed from a stumbling toddler into a small girl with a pointed chin and a mop of black curls. Perhaps, thought Lila, the child wouldn’t remember her. After all, a year was a long time, when you’d only lived four. But Ren straightened, and looked up, and her face bloomed in delight.

  “Hello, Delilah Bard!”

  “Hello, Ren Maresh,” she said evenly.

  Lila did not like children, and she had decided long ago that Rhy’s daughter would be no exception. She would not coddle the girl, would not fawn, would not make her words small and lace her voice with syrup and indulge the child’s every whim. Unfortunately, Ren Maresh didn’t just like Lila—she adored her, and nothing Lila did seemed to dampen that joy. The child was always so damned happy to see her.

  “We talked about this, Ren,” said Alucard, holding out the rabbit. “Put him away.”

  Ren took the pet, and then turned and promptly set it down again facing the other direction, watching as it bounced away down the hall. Alucard tipped his head back and sighed, the long-suffering sound of a parent who couldn’t be bothered.

  Esa had wandered into the hall at some point, too, and the cat sat on a cushion, white tail flicking as the rabbit passed, its lavender eyes hanging on the captain who’d usurped its ship. Lila stared back at the beast until a small voice sang her name again.

  “Delilahhh,” said Ren, beckoning. Lila sighed, and knelt so she was eye to eye with the little girl. Those eyes, like Rhy’s, burned gold inside their halo of black lashes. Ren simply stared at her, waiting. Lila got impatient.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  Ren leaned in and cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered, “Do the trick.” Lila arched a brow. That was the problem with children. If you did a thing once, you had to be willing to do it again. And again. And again.

  “Please,” added the princess as an afterthought.

  Lila folded her arms. “What will you give me?”

  “Come on, Bard,” chided Alucard.

  “What?” she said as the girl patted her pajama pockets. “Nothing is free. And your child is a little hoarder.”

  Sure enough, Ren shoved a little hand deep into one pocket, and came out with a lin, a ruby earring, a figurine of a palace guard, and single black feather. Lila studied the haul as a greying woman appeared, the rabbit thrust under one arm.

  “There you are,” she said, addressing Ren. She shot an apologetic glance at Alucard. “I turned my back for just a moment.” She was coming forward, empty arm out as if she meant to sweep the child up as she had the pet.

  But Lila held out her hand. “Wait,” she said. “We’re in the middle of a deal.” She considered the contents of the child’s pocket. “Which is your favorite?”

  Ren pointed to the onyx feather.

  “It fell off,” she explained, very somber, in case anyone thought she’d come into possession of it by less moral means. Lila took the feather, and slipped it into her coat.

  Then she looked around the hall, searching for a flower vase or a pitcher or some other source of water. Finding none, her attention drifted to Alucard’s hands. She’d left her own glass of wine behind, but he’d brought his along, topping it up on his way out. A healthy pour still sloshed inside.

  “May I?” she asked, and by the time he said, “No,” the contents were already drawing up into the air, a liquid ribbon of silver wine that coiled around her palm. It twitched, and spasmed, and drew itself into a rabbit.

  Ren stared up, delighted, and Lila glanced at Alucard, only to see a strange sadness sweep across his face, the far-off look of someone thrown into a memory. But then he blinked, and looked at her, and it was gone.

  The child clapped, delighted, and reached for the watery shape, but it leapt away, escaping from Lila’s right hand into her left, a few wayward drops of wine dripping to the carpet in its wake. It was hard to shape an element, harder still to make it move like this, with any semblance of life.

  “You know,” she said, as the rabbit bounded through the air over her head, “I learned this from Alucard.” Seven years ago, in the belly of the Barron, when it was still the Spire, and he was the captain, Alucard Emery had agreed to teach her magic. Taught her to focus her mind, to latch her will on to words.

  Tyger, Tyger, burning bright.

  Of course, he’d known then what Lila had only suspected—that there was more to her than flesh and blood and grit, more to her missing eye. He had that strange gift of sight, had seen the silver in the air around her the day they met, threads glowing with Antari magic. But he’d taught her all the same. How to hold an element. How to hone it. How to make it hers.

  Ren’s eyes widened, her attention swiveling from the watery rabbit to her father. “Luca?”

  “Yes, Luca,” said Lila, shifting the animal from hand to hand like a hot stone. “And he can do this trick, any time you like.”

  Alucard shot Lila a look over his daughter’s head. Thanks, he mouthed, clearly annoyed, but she just shrugged. It served him right, for having a kid. She could have stopped there, should have stopped there, handed off the trick and freed herself from Ren’s attention.

  But for some reason, she didn’t.

  For some reason, she knelt, so they were eye to eye again, and cupped her hand beneath the magic. Lila’s fingers twitched, and the rabbit froze midair, crystals of frost tracing its silver skin. It fell into her waiting palm. But she wasn’t done.

  “You know,” she said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Luca can do many things. But he can’t do this.”

  Her grip tightened; not enough to break the little sculpture, just enough to prick her thumb on the frozen tip of the rabbit’s ear. She whispered, “As Staro,” and the animal in her hand turned from ice to polished stone.

  Ren’s eyes widened, her mouth cracking into a buoyant smile, as someone gasped.

  “Mas aven,” said the nursemaid, dropping the real-life rabbit in her arms, and sinking into a bow as she realized what Lila had done. What Lila was. The look on the nursemaid’s face wasn’t fear, but awe. She was clearly one of those people who believed Antari were more than gifted magicians; they were the true avatars of magic. Chosen. Blessed.

  Lila knew that Kell hated such displays of worship, that they made his skin crawl, but she found it nice, now and then, to be seen as more instead of less. In another London, the woman might have crossed herself. Here, she touched her lips, whispered something against her fingertips.

  “Sasha,” said Alucard gently. “Would you be so kind…”

  The nursemaid came back to herself. “Right,” she said. “Of course.”

  Lila set the figurine in Ren’s outstretched hands, and Sasha hurried forward and lifted the child into her arms. She touched the stone rabbit, running a finger reverently down its back. “Right,” she said again. “Your mother will want to say goodnight.”

  “And that’s my cue,” said Lila, turning on her heel, and heading for the palace doors. “Night night, Princess.”

  “Night night!” Ren called back, as Sasha hauled her off to bed.

  “She’s never bowed that deep to me,” mused Alucard, trailing Lila to the doors.

  Two guards stood waiting there. They each pressed their hands to the wood, and Lila heard the hum of spellwork come to life, the bolts sliding deep within the wood. And then the doors fell open, and the cool night air rushed in. She stepped out, then glanced back and saw Alucard framed by the golden light of the hall.

  “You could join me for a drink,” she said, knowing the answer before he shook his head. Lila clicked her tongue. “Fatherhood has made you a bore.”

  He didn’t even pretend to act wounded. His gaze flicked past her to the night-swept city. “You’re welcome to a carriage.”

  Lila snorted. “How generous! I’ll take a brace of guards and a trumpeter, too.” She spread her arms. “After all, why blend in when you can stand out?”