Serival’s eyes narrowed, the humor vanishing from her face, replaced by something sharp and shrewd. They had all grown up with the glorious bird, of course, and knew how rare the spellwork was.

  “Now that,” she said, reaching for the owl, “is a pretty piece of magic.”

  Tesali lunged, but her sister was faster. She plucked up the little bird in one gloved hand, and turned it over, studying the bones and the silver thread that joined them. Tesali knew she was searching for the marks of a spell, the articulation of magic, knew she wouldn’t find them. The owl ruffled and twitched in Serival’s fingers, as if trying to get free.

  “Give it back,” she said, but her sister’s grip only tightened.

  “You could never afford a thing like this,” she said. “Which means you stole it. The summer-glass, too.”

  “I didn’t,” gasped Tesali, insulted.

  “Don’t lie,” warned Serival, squeezing the owl. She would crush it, and all her hard work with it—and in that moment Tesali didn’t care about the magic—that she could redo—but the dead little owl seemed so alive—she had brought it to a kind of life—and it writhed and opened its beak in a silent plea and—

  “I made it!”

  The words were out, and for the briefest moment, she was proud of the surprise they triggered on her sister’s face. And then Serival’s eyes narrowed, just like their father’s, and she wished she could take it back.

  “What do you mean?” she asked calmly, but Tesali had recovered her senses enough to hold her tongue. Serival looked down at the owl.

  “Perhaps if I smash it,” she ventured, as if to herself. “You did say you had a knack for fixing broken things.” Serival raised the little owl over her head. “I’d like to see how you—”

  “Don’t,” pleaded Tesali, as another voice cut through the house, unencumbered by walls and doors.

  “Serival!” called their father.

  Her sister hesitated, but even she knew better than to ignore a summons. Slowly, almost gently, she returned the owl to the floor between them, and rose to her feet.

  “We’ll talk about this in the morning,” she said, as if this were just a bedtime story or a bit of gossip, something that would keep. “Sleep well, little rabbit.”

  Tesali swept the owl into her arms, and pressed it to her front. She sat, shaking, on her bedroom floor as the door swung shut. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the little owl. “I’m sorry.”

  She knelt there, mind spinning over what she’d done, what she’d said, as she listened to the sound of her sister’s retreating steps, heard her father’s join them, followed by the creak of stairs as they went down into the shop below.

  And then she was on her feet, sprinting into the hall.

  Tesali had always been mature for her age. Independent to a fault. But in that moment, she wanted her mother. Wanted to feel her soothing touch, and hear her say that it would be all right. That it was bound to come out sooner or later, that she had only needed to hide the talent when she was little.

  But as she stood in her mother’s room, and showed her the owl, and told her what Serival had seen, her mother’s face lost all its color. And when Tesali was done, she did not tell her daughter it would be all right, did not say they’d find a way, that Serival would never do her youngest sister harm. No, she turned, and went to her dresser.

  “Where is Serival now?”

  “In the shop, with Father.”

  Her mother nodded and pulled out a pouch. “Good,” she said, pressing the pouch into her hands. It was heavy with coins. “You must go.”

  Tesali stared down at the money. She didn’t understand. Go? She was twelve years old. This was her home. A cloak settled over her shoulders. Quick fingers tied the laces at her throat. She found herself saying all the things she’d come to hear.

  “It will be all right.”

  “I’ll say I stole the bird.”

  “We will think of something.”

  “Look at me,” said her mother, gripping her arms, and when she did, there was fear in her mother’s eyes. Her mother, who mourned each daughter’s absence like a death, who longed to have them all home. Her mother, who often joked that at least she had Tesali. Would always have Tesali.

  “I won’t do it again,” she said, but it was a lie, and they both knew it. When you had a power, not using it was like trying to hold your breath underwater. Sooner or later, something made you come up for air.

  Tesali didn’t know she’d been crying until her mother smoothed the tears from her cheeks.

  There was pain in her mother’s face, but not surprise, and Tesali realized she’d been waiting for this day, had known it would come. Her mother kissed her forehead, and pulled her close, and whispered into the wild of her hair.

  “Your power is yours. Let no one else claim it.”

  And then she pulled back, taking the warmth with her. “Now go.”

  For once, Tesali did as she was told.

  The house was quiet, save for Esna, humming softly in the kitchen. Tesali crept past, down the stairs to the front door, where the shoes were left.

  She started for her soft-soled slippers, then stopped, and changed course. She almost took Serival’s—they were leather with laces that wound like corset bindings up the front, and toes capped in silver—but didn’t, in case her sister might use the boots to track her. In the end, Tesali reached for Esna’s sturdy boots instead, peeled off her socks and pushed them down into the toes to make them fit.

  Then she opened the door and crept out, past the house, and the windows of her father’s shop, before taking off down the street.

  V

  Go, her mother had said.

  Perhaps she should have asked, How far?

  Perhaps she should have asked, How long should I hide? But she hadn’t, afraid the answers would be like rocks in her pockets, weighing her down until she couldn’t move.

  Tesali kept the owl pressed to her chest as her stolen boots sounded on the stone road.

  It was almost dark when she reached the docks. The sun was gone, but not gone out, the waning light hugging the horizon, turning the ships there to shadows. But in Tesali’s eyes, the world was always bright.

  The dock market was shuttered for the day, the stalls collapsed, sailors now loading whatever they’d failed to sell back onto their ships. The vessels looked like birds, some readying for flight, others pulling in their wings, bedding down for the night.

  She found the sailor at the far end of the docks, hefting a crate of unsold things toward a narrow ship. The silver tokens in his hair caught the last of the sun. The pale blue of his magic shone on the air.

  “You again,” he said as she ran up, dragging to a breathless stop. Her cheeks were flushed, her curls escaping. She must have looked as wild as she felt, because he glanced over her shoulder to see if she was being chased. “Are you in some trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take it somewhere else,” he said, turning away.

  Her eyes darted to the ship. “Is that yours?”

  He grunted, a sound that could have been either yes or no, save for the fact he was in the process of carrying a crate up the ramp. She followed in his wake, but he stopped at the top and turned, blocking her way. “Go on. Don’t need you tracking mud on my deck.” She looked down at her boots before realizing it was a turn of phrase.

  “Please—” she started.

  “—is a nice word for fine company,” he said, jerking his head toward Hanas. “Now go home. It’s past your bedtime, little lady.”

  Tesali bristled. “I can pay,” she said, feeling the weight of the coins in her pocket.

  “Not enough for the trouble,” said the sailor.

  Her eyes dropped to the crate in his arms. “You won’t get much for broken magic.”

  He cocked a brow. “Insulting my wares now?”

  “But you could,” she continued, “if it was fixed.”

  What are you worth? her father asked.

  She was about to find out.

  “I can fix broken things,” she said. “Sometimes, I can even make them better.”

  She opened her cloak, revealing the little owl he’d sold her earlier that day.

  “What do you think?” she asked, and before he could say that it looked the same, the owl twitched in answer to the question, and tucked its head under one wing, and began to preen the place where its feathers would be.

  The sailor jumped, and then let out a barking laugh that caught her off guard. It was rich and full, and delighted. “I’ll be a priest,” he swore.

  She tucked the skeleton away. “I have a knack,” she said.

  “I can see that.”

  “If you take me wherever you’re going, I’ll fix everything you couldn’t sell.”

  He studied her. “What is your name?” he asked, and she almost told him. But then she stopped. Names had value. And her father taught her never to give a thing away for less than it was worth. Especially something you couldn’t buy back. She thought of giving him Serival’s name, but the idea left a bitter taste in her mouth, and she knew it would make her jump, every time he said it. So in the end, she bit off the first part of her own, and gave him that.

  “It’s Tes.”

  “Well, Tes,” he said, setting down the crate and holding out his hand. “You have a deal.” They shook on it, her hand swallowed up in his as he drew her aboard the ship.

  His name, she soon learned, was Elrick. His ship was the Fal Chas.

  The Good Luck.

  “Where’s the crew?” she asked, and he spread his arms, as if to say me, but also, perhaps, to say us.

  “She is light, and sweet,” he said, patting the hull. “And she gets jealous easily. But you’re small enough, I hope she won’t be cross and try to drown you.”

  He had a way of flattening his tone when he spoke, which made it impossible to tell if he was joking. (She would learn that while Elrick was a sailor now, he’d been a soldier, first, which had given him a very dry humor.)

  Soon the ship was free of its mooring. It pulled away from the dock. Away from Hanas. Tes stood on the bow and watched the port city drift out of reach. Elrick stood on the other side of the narrow ship, his magic bright as he guided the Good Luck forward through the current, one hand held over the water.

  In his other hand, he held a small stone. It wasn’t spelled, she could tell, not to amplify his magic or focus his mind, but he turned it over and over, its surface long worn smooth, and when he caught her looking, he said, “It’s always good, to have a bit of land on hand when you’re out at sea. Keeps you grounded.”

  Tes thought about that as she turned her gaze back to the retreating coast. Night fell like a shroud, and soon only the lanterns and the lights in the houses traced the shape of the place she had lived all her life. She held up her hand, and the whole port city seemed to fit there, in her palm. Then, on the tip of her finger. Then, gone.

  As Hanas disappeared, and the sea stretched out like a sheet in every direction, the world felt suddenly very, very large. Her heart began to race, and she sucked in, filling her lungs with air.

  She was alone. And though she was frightened, for the first time in years, she was also free. That night, when the Good Luck found its current, Elrick gave her a blanket and a corner of the cabin floor, and she curled up with the little owl, and let the ship rock her to sleep.

  * * *

  The water below the boat had come alive.

  The currents on the open sea had shone a low and steady blue, but since they’d passed the port, trading the ocean for the waterway that would carry them inland, the water had been changing colors. Now it glowed an eerie red, shot through with threads of crimson light.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Tes’s head jerked up. Elrick was leaning over the side now, too, staring down into the current. “You can see it?”

  “Well, I’m not blind, so yes, I can see the light of the Isle. As can everyone, from Tanek on.”

  Tes marveled at the idea of a magic others could see. Elrick was no longer watching the water. He stared at her, turning a question over in his cheek. This time he seemed about to give it voice, but at the last, he swallowed it, turned his gaze back to the river.

  Since picking her up in Hanas two nights before, he hadn’t asked a single question. Not about who she’d been, or what she was running from. Not when she fixed each and every object in his crate. Not even when he came into the cabin once and caught her adjusting the threads around the little owl, her fingers hooking through what must have looked like empty air.

  “Your business,” he’d said, turning on his heel, and walking out again.

  Now they stood side by side, leaning over the rail as the color deepened in the water below.

  “They say it is a source,” explained Elrick. “A place where magic runs so strong the naked eye can see it.” The naked eye, she thought as he nodded at the prow. “It will only get brighter as we near London.”

  London.

  She knew of the Arnesian capital, of course, but back in Hanas, it had felt like the stuff of stories. A city so big you couldn’t see its edges. The jewel of the empire, overflowing with magic. Rosana had once gifted their mother an illustration of the royal palace, which had supposedly been built on a bridge over the Isle, though that seemed a ridiculous place to put a castle.

  Or so she thought, until she saw it.

  Soon the river widened into a crimson thoroughfare, crowded with ships, and on either bank the buildings rose, so many and so close she couldn’t see the streets between, and Tes finally had to close her eyes against the shine and tangle of so many burning strings. Beyond her lids, a shadow, as she felt them pass beneath a bridge, the brief dark like a cool compress. And then, the light was there again, and Elrick telling her to look.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw the soner rast, the city’s beating heart. The palace vaulted over the crimson river, its spires pricking the sky, the sun turning them to flame.

  The docks were crowded with all manner of boats, from small skiffs to massive ships with more masts than the Good Luck had sails. Boats with spellwork carved into their hulls, and streaked like paint along their prows. Everywhere she looked, she saw the lines of magic. An almost blinding tapestry of threads.

  Her spirits sank a little when she scanned the docks, and saw no market, no makeshift stalls.

  “This city has a hundred markets,” said Elrick, at her side. “You will find them all.”

  She threw a mooring rope down to a waiting dockhand.

  Elrick laid the ramp.

  “There you are,” he said, as if he’d simply given her a lift from one port to another. As if he hadn’t saved her, set her free. Her borrowed boots sounded as she crossed the deck, the coin pouch in one pocket and the owl tucked beneath her arm. She felt too light, as if she’d forgotten something instead of leaving it behind on purpose. She set off down the ramp, but Elrick caught her arm.

  “Wait.”

  If, in that moment, the sailor had invited her to stay aboard, she might have said yes. But he didn’t. Instead he took her hand, and placed the small dark stone inside it, the one he held on to as he guided the ship. He curled her fingers around the rock.

  “To ground you,” he said, “whenever you’re at sea.”

  She held fast to the little stone as she descended the ramp, and crossed the dock. Held fast as she reached the steps that led up to the street, and into the vast and vibrant city. Held fast as she plunged into the rippling current of light and motion, and knew that no matter what, she would find her way.

  Part Nine

  THE THREADS THAT BIND

  I

  WHITE LONDON

  NOW

  A knock sounded on the bedroom door.

  Holland’s hand dropped from Kosika’s shoulder. He drifted past her to the window as she said, “Come in.”

  She expected a servant, or perhaps Nasi, but instead it was Lark who entered, holding a tray.

  “My queen,” he said. There was a quirk to his mouth when he said it, not mocking, but playful. A reminder that he had known her back when she was a street rat, and he a scrawny thief. Before she’d gained a black eye and a crown. Before he’d gained that scar at his throat. Before his shoulders had grown wide and his bearing tall and his voice had taken on that rich honey lilt.

  His eyes scanned the room, passed right through Holland before lingering on the blood-soaked cloak she’d thrown off on her way in. “Good thing you’re not squeamish.”

  Kosika shrugged. “Never have been.”

  She didn’t realize how hungry she was until he set the tray down and she saw the food piled high on the plates. Thick-sliced meat, and roast carrots, a loaf of bread and a bowl of stone fruit and a pitcher of cider—easily enough for two.

  In the beginning, she had been unnerved whenever anyone else stood in the presence of her saint, unnerved by their inability to see him as she could. But now, it gave her a kind of thrill.

  “Do you wish they could see me?” asked Holland, and Kosika surprised herself by thinking no. She should want it, she knew, but she liked that he had chosen her. Only her.

  Holland’s mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile.

  And she forced her attention back to her friend.

  “Eat with me.”

  “A soldier, taking from the queen’s plate?” he said, aghast. But she rolled her eyes and split the food between them. She sank into a chair. He perched on a footstool.

  “You’re missing quite a feast,” he said.

  “And now you’re missing it, too. A servant could have brought this tray.”

  “I’m glad for the excuse,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I hardly see you anymore.”

  “You see me every day.”

  “I see the queen.”

  Are we not the same? she wanted to ask. But she knew they weren’t. She would never be a proper queen—a proper queen would be downstairs, smiling and nodding at nobles—but she could not be the reckless, feral girl she had once been.