His brow was furrowed, his eyes taking on a mournful cast. But there was resignation in it, as if he’d known it would always come to this.

  Kosika dragged her own gaze back to the open box. The waiting coins. Her hands drifted to the crimson one, but as her fingers grazed the metal, Holland spoke.

  “Wait.”

  He knelt, laying his hand over hers.

  “I mean it, when I say that I am always with you. I am bound to you, Kosika. I go where you go. I cannot go where you don’t. But there is something I must see.” She looked up and found those two-toned eyes—green and black—searching hers. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course,” she said, the words spilling out without resistance.

  Holland’s hand moved from the crimson coin to the shard of black glass. “Then take me here.”

  Kosika hesitated. She had been to Black London only once, the year before, and had never wished to go back. The hollow dread of that place had lingered on her skin like cobwebs. But Holland was her king, her saint, and she would deny him nothing, so she drew the token from the box, felt the cold weight of it in her palm before closing her fingers over the shard.

  “As Travars.”

  The darkness around her went solid. The world came apart.

  But this time, she did not fall.

  There was no terror, no rush of air, no body plunging down from a tower that was not there. And yet, she seemed to land, the ground around her sending up a plume of ash that hovered, and began to sink, windless, to the ground.

  She rose, and looked around, gripped by the sudden fear that Holland had not followed, that she was alone again in this cursed world. But then the ashes around her settled, and he was there. He stood several feet away, his back to her, staring out at the wasted landscape, and despite the stillness of this place, the strange breeze that always surrounded Holland’s image was still there. His pale cloak rippled, and the white hair rose off his cheeks, and somehow, he seemed even more the saint.

  Until he sighed.

  The breath came out ragged, so undeniably human, as if he were steeling himself against this place, and Kosika remembered the stories he told, of being cast into this place, near death, drawn back from the edge by a demon who promised to resurrect his world, in exchange for his body, his life.

  “Holland.” Her voice carried like a shout in a hollow hall.

  He turned his head, exposing the line of his jaw, his cheek, his black eye. She wanted to ask why they were here, but he held a finger to his lips. The black eye fell shut, his head tipped faintly to one side as if listening.

  Kosika fell silent too, and looked around. They were standing in what once might have been a market square, the stones splintered beneath their feet. The buildings to every side had once been spiked and spired, but most of the points had broken off, and crumbled, taking rooftops with them.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” said Holland softly. “That once, this place was the source of all power.”

  It was hard to believe, looking at it now, as cold and dark as an abandoned hearth.

  But Kosika knew that it was true—that once, all the magic in the worlds had come from here. That it had emanated, rolled across the worlds like heat, cooling the farther it got from the source. Then it was poisoned, and that had carried, too.

  A twitch of movement—she turned to find Holland walking away, stride by careful stride, though his own steps made no sound, and never stirred the ash as hers did.

  He reached the center of the square, and knelt, placed one palm flat against the broken stones, fingers splayed as if he were flesh and blood instead of ghost. After a moment, his lips moved, his voice barely a whisper, though the words still reached her.

  “Do you feel it?”

  She knelt, and touched the ground as he did, expecting a shiver, a dread, a prickle of rotten magic. Instead, she felt only the surface of the stone. No magic, and for a moment she was a child again, before she found Holland’s body in the Silver Wood, before she woke the next day with the world humming inside her skin. And even that was not quite right, since before she had magic of her own, she could still feel it in the world, a strained and straining force, leaning out of reach. This was different. This was like when Kosika was nine, and she had stepped into a warding spell.

  The kind designed to sever a body from its magic.

  It had been one of the first—but certainly not the last—times someone had tried to take the young queen’s life, and Nasi had been there, blade in hand, to cut the killer’s throat, and pull her from the trap, but in the moments after she’d been trapped, and before she’d been saved, she’d been overcome by the strangeness of the spell.

  The warding hadn’t hurt. It had felt like this. She had felt like this—a vessel emptied out.

  An empty thing.

  Holland was on his feet again, moving toward her.

  “Do you feel it?” he asked again.

  Kosika shook her head. “I feel nothing.”

  “Exactly,” said her king, the word rushing out with his breath, his shoulders sloping in relief. “When I saw the crack in the world, I wondered. I did not dare to hope. But now, I know.”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s over.” He stopped before her. His eyes had a glassy shine, his voice tight with feeling. “Osaron’s fire has at last gone out.”

  Osaron.

  The shadow king. The piece of magic that became a god, and ruined everything.

  “Gone out?” It was true, she felt no power in this place. But the mark of Osaron’s ruin was on everything. She found herself holding her breath, unwilling to inhale the ash, lest it have traces of corrupted magic.

  “Do you know what this means?” he said, dragging his fingers through the air. “We can rekindle the fire now. We can restart the source.”

  Kosika recoiled, as if struck. “The magic here is cursed. If we rekindle the fire, we rekindle the blight and—”

  “No,” said Holland, shaking his head. “Raze a forest, and the rot goes with it. Before this became the source of poisoned magic, it was the source of everything. All the power in the worlds began here. It can again.” He brought his hand to rest on Kosika’s shoulder. “The walls were made to shield the other worlds. But they were also a dam. From the moment they went up, no power could flow between. From that moment, the magic became finite. Each place, left to nurture its own store. We had the most, at first, close as we were, but we used it wrong, carved it up into smaller and smaller fires, smothered each until they began to go out. My death was a breath on the embers of a dying world. Your reign, too. Together, we have kept our flame from going out. But, I fear, we have reached the limits.”

  Kosika’s stomach turned as he spoke her fears aloud.

  “There isn’t enough power left,” he said.

  “I know,” she whispered. But Holland did not look defeated. Far from it. There was a light behind his eyes, a power to his voice.

  “Do not despair. If we light the fire here, if we restart this source, our world will burn again, brighter than it ever has. You will not have to choose which tree to water. Our people will not need to bleed to thaw the winter chill. Everything I suffered. Everything I lost—it will have been worth it.”

  In that moment, Kosika saw Holland as he must have been, before the Danes had bound him. She saw the boy who dreamed of healing a dying world. She saw the king, who gave everything to see the power restored. Saw the saint, who even in death could not rest, could not leave his task unfinished.

  “What about the walls?” she asked.

  Holland’s hand fell from her shoulder. “Let them crumble. Or tear one down, and forge the other fresh. Let the other Londons tend their embers, while we enjoy the heat.”

  And then her king did something he had never done before.

  Holland knelt before Kosika. Folded, gracefully, one knee resting on the splintered stones.

  “My queen,” he said. “We can do this. Together.”

  She wanted it. And she saw how badly he wanted it. Holland Vosijk had given so much. Had given everything. And it hadn’t been enough. But it could be. With her help.

  Kosika looked around at the dead world. “How do you rekindle a fire this large?”

  “The same way you do in any hearth,” he said. “Enough kindling, and a well-placed spark.”

  As Holland said it, his face lit with a dazzling thing: hope. If he had asked Kosika, in that moment, to open her veins, and spill every drop of blood onto the dead soil then and there, she would have done it.

  Instead, she simply nodded and said the words that would set the world ablaze.

  “Show me how.”

  II

  RED LONDON

  Kell remembered everything.

  If anyone asked, he would tell them he didn’t, that the last thing he recalled was winding the golden chain around his wrist as he told Lila to use his magic, to close the door. That after that was only darkness.

  But it would be a lie.

  For a merciful moment, after the chain turned to a cuff around his wrist, he had felt nothing at all. The magic blinked out like a candle at the end of its wick, and he was left hollow, an empty vessel, and there was some mercy in that.

  But then, it had started.

  He had thought that maybe, if the magic were in someone else’s hands, it couldn’t hurt him, but as Lila called the spell, he felt it, that wrenching, bone-deep pain, and every second she had poured her power and his into the words it had gotten worse, and worse, and he would have let go, but he couldn’t, because he wasn’t in control.

  The blowback had always been agony, but it had always been brief, only this time, it wasn’t, because it never ended. The pain simply mounted and mounted until he could not breathe, could not speak, and by the time the door was finally closed and the spell was done, and the shackle fell away, he was trapped inside that pain. Inside his skin.

  The world outside his body went away, but he was still there, still screaming.

  And then—finally—it stopped.

  It stopped, and he knew that death had come at last, and it felt wonderful. It felt like his brother’s arms, like Lila’s voice, like floating off to sea.

  Then Kell opened his eyes.

  And saw a rabbit.

  Miros hopped along the foot of his bed. A small face peered over the top of the blankets just beyond it, black curls and gold eyes staring at him.

  “Ren,” said Rhy, crossing the room. “What did I tell you about bothering your uncle?”

  “But he’s awake.”

  Rhy turned, and saw Kell, and several emotions flickered across his face before he hauled the princess into his arms.

  “Go find Alucard,” he said, kissing her hair. “Tell him I said you could have three stories.”

  He set Ren down, and she bounded away, the rabbit hopping in her wake.

  “That should buy us a little time,” he said, watching her go.

  “What happened?” asked Kell. His voice felt raw, as if he’d been screaming.

  “What do you remember?”

  “Nothing,” said Kell, but the way his brother looked at him said they both knew it was a lie.

  “How do you feel now?” asked Rhy.

  Kell shifted, and sat up. His muscles were stiff, but nothing hurt. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. Tes did all the work.”

  Kell’s head shot up. “No.”

  Rhy held up his hands. “We’re both alive. So that is something.”

  “You shouldn’t have risked it.”

  “It wasn’t a choice,” said Rhy darkly. “It was that, or keep you drugged forever. Not that I didn’t enjoy the high, but I do have a country to run.”

  Kell’s hands tightened on the sheets. “Rhy—”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, lifting a candlestick from the table. “We don’t know if it worked.”

  He held out the unlit taper.

  Kell stared at the candle, but made no move, and for a terrible moment the years fell away and he was standing before the ice house game in the lightless fair, terrified to test his power only to find it broken. He was in his narrow cabin aboard the Barron, tearing himself apart, certain if he only tried hard enough, he would break through the pain. He was fighting beside Lila, swords in hand, determined not to reach for that ruined magic, trying to convince himself it wasn’t there. He was right here, right now, sitting in his royal bed, afraid of what would happen if he reached for the power and it did not come. Afraid of the pain he’d feel if it did.

  But Rhy had risked his life for this. A chance to be restored.

  Kell knew he had to try.

  He reached out, and cupped his hand over the unlit taper. Called the warmth to the wick.

  The candle sparked.

  It wasn’t effortless, the way it had been once, when he was young. There was a resistance, the difference between drawing an arm through water instead of air. But it worked.

  The fire bloomed under his fingers, and then, all around, as every taper in the chamber lit at once, bathing the room in flickering light. Rhy sucked in a breath, but Kell’s attention hung on the candle between them, the fragile flame growing hot beneath his palm. He stared at the fire until the pain finally came, not a wave rolling through him, only the burn of a candle against bare skin.

  Kell heard Rhy hiss and he pulled back, shaking the sting out of his own hand. He looked down at his singed palm, the skin pink from the heat, and broke into a smile.

  Tears slid down his face.

  It was the most welcome pain Kell had ever felt.

  * * *

  Over the years, Lila had explored most of the soner rast, from the five ballrooms to the secret halls that ran between the royal chambers, the sunken baths and the training grounds, and the courtyard. But there was one place she always went out of her way to avoid.

  The queen sat at a table in the middle of her workshop, her back to Lila and her head bowed over a notebook, and yet, as Lila slipped, silent as a thief, between the counters piled high with papers and pieces of half-formed spells, Nadiya Loreni cleared her throat.

  “Delilah Bard,” she said without looking up. “What brings you to my chambers?”

  “Well,” said Lila, running her hand over half a dozen stoppered jars. “You keep inviting me. I thought it was time to take you up on the offer.”

  The queen stopped whatever she was doing, and rose to her feet, turning as she did to face her. “Is that so?” Her voice hovered on the line between distrust and curiosity.

  Lila shrugged, continuing toward her. As she did, her hand slipped into the pocket of her coat.

  “I heard Tes’s work on Kell was a success,” said the queen. “I would have liked to see the process for myself.”

  Lila’s fingers closed around the metal pooling in her pocket. “Yes, well,” she said, drawing out the two gold chains, “it turns out she and I have something in common.”

  Nadiya’s eyes dropped to the glinting metal. “And what is that?”

  “We don’t like you very much,” said Lila, letting the chains pour from one hand to the other. “And we trust you even less.”

  She held out the gold chains, but as Nadiya reached to take them, Lila’s hand closed over the top, and they glowed, and then melted, dripping between her fingers.

  “No,” yelped the queen, lunging forward, too late, but instead of stepping out of her path, Lila stepped in to meet her, free hand vising around Nadiya’s throat.

  The queen tensed beneath the grip, tried to pull back, pull free, but Lila took hold of Nadiya’s bones and forced them still.

  “How does it feel?” she growled. “To be helpless? To be bound? At the mercy of someone else’s will?”

  “I’m sorry,” gasped Nadiya.

  “You’re sorry?”

  “Alucard told me,” rasped the queen, struggling for breath. “About Berras. What he did.”

  “Someone gave those chains to Berras Emery.” Lila’s grip tightened on the queen’s throat. “Was it you?”

  Something flashed in Nadiya’s eyes, then. Not guilt, but righteous anger. “I would never.” Lila scowled, but didn’t let go. Nadiya’s face colored. Her pulse raged beneath Lila’s hand. A heart, like a candle, so easy to snuff out.

  And then the queen met her gaze. “So keen to do—” she gasped, “—the Hand’s work—for them?”

  Lila sighed and flung the queen away. She crashed back into the table, caught herself there. She lifted a hand to her throat. Her fingertips were shaking.

  “You and I may not see eye to eye,” said Nadiya, “but I am not your enemy. The chains were stolen.”

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit,” hissed Lila. “Nothing happens in this place without your knowing.”

  Nadiya scowled. “Someone betrayed my trust. Believe me,” she said. “I want to find out who.”

  “That’s the problem, Your Majesty,” said Lila, the wind picking up around her as she spoke, sweeping clear the tables and emptying the shelves. “I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you. And the next time you even think of creating something like those chains, I will turn you to stone and use your lifeless statue as a coatrack.”

  With that, Lila turned and left the workshop, the wind dying in her wake as the remnants of paper and spell fluttered down like ash around the queen.

  * * *

  Alucard forced himself down the prison steps, one by one by one, steeling himself for what he’d face when he reached the bottom.

  Of the four cells that composed the royal jail, three again were empty. There, in the last, where Tes had briefly been, was Berras. He sat on the stone floor, his back against the wall, his face in shadow. A heavy bandage was wound tight around one hand, where the fingers were missing. The cloth was red where the blood had wept, a patch of wall stained too, as if he had been hitting the same place, over and over, wondering which of them would crack first.

  There were no soldiers standing guard. Alucard had sent them all away. His brother had already poisoned enough minds against the palace. He would not get the chance to ruin more.