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  “I—who?” I asked. “Rook?”

  He nodded, finding it perhaps harder than he’d anticipated to hide his amusement without a full beard. “None of those women are even anyone else’s wives.”

  HAL

  The city was alive.

  That wasn’t to say that there were more living things in it than in the country, for all during the carriage ride away from Castle Nevers, Royston waxed enthusiastic about the lack of small winged insects, and sheep, and ducks, and trees, until I was forced to ask—with impossible fondness, and not at all the exasperation I’d aimed for—what it was they did have in the city, if not these things.

  I should have known better.

  My curiosity was rewarded with a sermon that approached the zeal of a man deeply religious or deeply in love; it spanned the length of our ride into Thremedon, transporting me out of our bumping carriage where my elbows jostled against Royston’s. (The proper way to ride in a carriage I knew was to sit opposite your companion, but I found after the first mile or so, I was opposed even to this small distance between us, and had wedged myself quite firmly between him and the little window. I shouldn’t have demanded so much, but he at least seemed untroubled by it, and was too caught up in speaking about the city to notice how I clung to his every word, or peered out the window like a child each time we turned a new corner.)

  He spoke of the Crescents—a district filled entirely with magicians—and the structurally unsound homes they built for beauty and kept aloft with magic. From his descriptions, I constructed in my head some approximation of their long, crooked towers and crabbed iron spires, with staircases that spiraled within as well as without and balconies on the rooftops. Most magicians, he explained, liked to be high up; it made them feel important. He laughed, and I imagined the buildings, crowding in on one another like children huddled together to keep out of the rain. Royston said that the enchantment set in place to hold the houses in the air was older than his grandfather, though the technology was in some ways a precursor to the dragons themselves. It had been the first Esar who’d gathered all the magicians with related Talents to place a lasting magic on the district, so that he would always know exactly where his most powerful magicians were living.

  “He likes to have all his chickens in one coop, so to speak,” Royston explained, a fleeting stoniness in his eyes and around his mouth. “In case he is ever feeling less than favorably disposed toward them.”

  I nodded, wishing I hadn’t asked in the first place.

  Just off from the Crescents was Moon Street, he said, which was a bit of a step down as far as magic went. The people on Moon Street dealt in charms mostly, smaller Talents that could be bought or borrowed for a fee. They weren’t true magicians—though their ancestors had been once—but the Well’s influence in their blood was long diluted over the years. When Royston first spoke of Moon Street it was clear that he didn’t think much of it, but after a time he paused, traced the outline of his mouth with long fingers and beseeched me not to be influenced by his snobbish prejudices.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ve not had that problem yet.”

  He laughed, and for what I felt was the first time turned away from the window to look at me and not the city. I felt the same as I always did when confronted with his complete attention, frightened and selfish all at once, as though I didn’t want it, yet couldn’t bear to lose it.

  “Hal,” he said, “now that we are speeding toward the city with all alacrity, there are some things that may become . . . much simpler, given Thremedon’s relative tolerance, and what may or may not be done without igniting the fury of one’s own brother and his shrewish wife.”

  Despite all the rules I’d set down for my own best interests, I felt something excited twist within my stomach. “Oh?” I managed.

  All I could see of him then was his stark profile, framed in shadows and by the carriage window, and completely unreadable.

  The trouble with Royston was that, for all the words he knew, he so rarely managed to employ them properly. They got in the way of what he wanted to say rather than aiding him. I was left next to him in the carriage, jostled with every bump beneath us, watching his face eagerly for some hint as to his deeper meaning—or rather, for some hint as to what he wanted.

  It was as though he didn’t know I would gladly offer it. It was as though he didn’t know I already had.

  “What I mean to say,” Royston said, picking his words very carefully, “is that my invitation is not necessarily a shrewd business proposal, in need though I am of an assistant, nor is it solely academic, delighted though I am at the prospect of a student. That is . . .”

  I hesitated, then reached out to cover his hand with one of my own. It was difficult to swallow, as though my collar were buttoned too tightly, but now that I had taken Royston’s hand with my own I could hardly move, much less to do anything so mundane as check the clasps at my throat.

  “What you mean to say is that the city is nothing at all like the country,” I supplied, nerves making me cheeky, “and more than nomenclature alone separates them so distinctly.”

  Royston turned to me at that, at last, some measure of amusement and surprise in his eyes.

  “Something to that effect,” he agreed. “Thremedon requires a certain amount of charades, it is true, but nothing so complicated as the tragicomic scenes we enacted in my brother’s house.”

  I thought of his discomfort in the boathouse, his excuses in the pantry, how well he’d played his part. I thought of how educated he was and how much he had seen in comparison to my limited scope. Royston was a Margrave of the Esar; I had been a tutor to the reluctant, boisterous children of a country estate. There was a great deal for me to feel awkward about and a great deal to separate us, but right then all I could think was that we were heading away from the country, and there was only half a carriage seat’s width between us.

  A rush of giddiness at what lay before me—before us—flooded me. Royston was just about to say something further, some clarification that would no doubt have been even more convoluted, when I put my hands against the sides of his face and kissed him.

  I would have liked for it to be less awkward than the first, when my elbows almost knocked over the cinnamon and I nearly thrust him backward into an open bag of flour. It wasn’t. At that very moment the carriage hit a bump and our teeth scraped; our noses banged. I was ready enough to pull away, humiliated and blushing fiercely, just like the first time.

  Only then Royston’s fingers were in my hair, his palm against my throat.

  He was better at this than I was.

  I should have felt ashamed, or even more nervous; I should have frozen where I was, for all I’d been thinking about this since I’d tried and failed the first time. Instead, I scrambled forward, clutching at Royston’s shoulders against the jostling of the carriage. His left knee knocked against my right.

  If this was what Thremedon promised, then I was glad to have left the country, for all my littler fears. How had I failed to know all this time what I’d been stifling, and, in turn, how I’d been stifled?

  It took me too long to notice Royston’s hand moving from my throat to my shoulder, until I realized all at once with a sudden punch of disappointment that he was encouraging me to stop, or, at least, to pause.

  “Hal,” he said gently. I let my cheek remain pressed next to his for a few seconds longer before I allowed myself to move away. And still we were much closer than we might have been, so that I was distracted even by the smell of him.

  I let out a long, unsteady breath. “Yes?”

  “Thremedon’s allowances aside,” Royston said carefully, “I would like it very much if we might refrain from . . . rushing into anything. Recently, I have had a great many rushed and ultimately disastrous liaisons, and you . . .” He paused for a moment, to turn his face against my hair; I thought, from the deep breath he drew in, he might have been doing the same as I was—savoring the moment. His words disappointed
me but, I found, they did not surprise me. When I thought of the rumors surrounding the Arlemagne prince and Royston’s reason for leaving the city in the first place, it wasn’t only jealousy I felt, but a deep protectiveness, as though Royston were in some ways my ward. It was little wonder he was so reticent now.

  “I see,” I said, just as carefully.

  “More than that,” Royston continued. “Hal, you have never been beyond Nevers, and I am only a small piece of a very large city. There is a great deal more for you to see before you—Before you make any decisions.”

  It would do no good to protest, or to argue with Royston’s meticulous, if somewhat faulty, logic. At present, he was pinching the bridge of his nose as though the headache that had been plaguing him for some time now had returned. This time, however, when I felt the urge to run my fingers against the few gray hairs at his temple, I did.

  As my father used to say, you can’t ask the summer flowers to bloom in the spring. This would be a different sort of hesitation, and I was willing to wait—long enough, at least, to prove to him that my exodus from the countryside was more about following him than anything else.

  “All right,” I said.

  Royston leaned into the light touch of my fingers at his temple. “Thank you,” he replied.

  After what seemed like an age—though it was surely my own impatience that made it so—the city rose into view, nestled back against the land as if she were reclining, crowned with proud towers in the Esar’s own colors.

  There was another building farther off, built in the same style as the palace but with many more towers, and the swirling domes that topped them seemed to come alive, shimmering in the sunlight.

  Royston rested a hand against my shoulder, leaning over to look out the window as well.

  “That’s the Basquiat,” he said, and his voice held a low note of wonder that I’d scarcely heard before.

  I’d never considered myself a jealous person before, but the look I saw on Royston’s face when he spoke of Thremedon was enough to stir something decidedly wistful and selfish inside me.

  “Oh,” I said only. “Well, it’s very nice.”

  He moved his hand down my shoulder to lace his fingers through mine. I felt reassured, even if I was still nervous.

  “It is even nicer,” he said, “from up close.”

  I didn’t have the privilege of seeing the Basquiat that day, and on the next the invitation arrived.

  There was only one, as the Esar had no reason to know or even care about a country boy barely into manhood, but Royston insisted I accompany him to the tailor’s anyway, disappearing during my fitting and returning with triumph flashing in his eyes and a real, embossed invitation on stiff white paper. Even as he handed it to me, he refused to say where or how he’d come into possession of it, but it was the first intimation I had that Royston was a man with considerable power in the city. It wasn’t any wonder he’d hated the country and his place in it.

  High collars, it appeared, hadn’t gone out of style during Royston’s absence from the city, and mine was clasped against my throat with some strange silver-laced thread.

  The moment my clothes were sewn into place, we were hurrying into yet another carriage before I could get a satisfactory answer out of Royston as to what, exactly, I was expected to do at a ball, and what did he mean dance?

  It was all I could do not to stroke the plush fabric of my jacket when we stepped out together onto the main walk. It led narrowly to the palace, lit on both sides with countless flickering paper lanterns on high black stands. Before us was the palace itself, brighter than the sun; I had to resist the urge to shield my eyes against the sight of it.

  I’d thought before that Royston had been going somewhat overboard by spoiling me with such finery, but as we mixed in with the other guests, I saw that I’d been quite mistaken. The truth of the matter was, Royston had actually been rather restrained in recommending solid blues for me.

  Royston himself was dressed all in black, with gold detailing over his jacket and in a single stripe down the length of his trousers.

  I hesitated when we came to the door, but he took my hand, entwining my gloved fingers with his own.

  The main doors of the palace opened directly onto a balcony above the ballroom, which was so enormous that I felt certain it would have fit the entirety of Castle Nevers with room to spare. High tables had been arranged to overlook the floor on a more complicated set of balconies below the entranceway, where the noblesse sat drinking and eating all manner of very tiny foods.

  The very best wine, Royston said to me in an undertone as we crossed the room, was made by the Ke-Han, and it was dark and red as blood.

  I wondered if it been taken as the spoils of battle, for all I’d heard since I’d arrived in the city was how the war was almost certainly over, and how the Dragon Corps had assured us a swift and total victory. I didn’t understand why Royston had been called back at all, if that was the case, but I didn’t want to expose my ignorance to the people of the city so immediately. Surely, if they said the war was close to an end—and if the opinion was shared by a man as great as the Esar—then that was the truth of the matter. I couldn’t bring myself to ask Royston what his opinion was, but I privately cherished the idea that he might not have to go away to war at all, however foolish that was.

  Above the floor, at the very center of the ceiling, hung an enormous, three-tiered chandelier—not unlike an upside-down approximation of Thremedon, made all in crystal and spun gold. Its light illuminated the dancers with perfect clarity, and yet left many shadowy places in the corners where a person might hide.

  I lost count of how many times I was introduced to complete strangers as we descended the steps halfway to the second-tier balconies, where the noblesse stood together talking, both men and women hiding their laughter elegantly behind lace fans. There were people staring at us, I realized. Or to be more accurate, they were staring at Royston.

  “I didn’t think he’d ever come back,” a lady to my right whispered to her keen-eyed companion.

  “I didn’t think he’d ever be asked back,” said a man dressed all in blue. He wore a mask over one side of his face.

  “Never mind the Margrave,” murmured the lady next to him. “Have you seen who came in after them? It’s Caius Greylace! I’d have sworn up and down that the Esar would have abdicated his throne before he asked him back to court. And without any grand incident, either!”

  “Perhaps it’s for our grand victory,” the masked man replied, in a tone that revealed he was delighted to show off his knowledge of the proceedings. “The Esar wants this victory to be decisive. That, and he wants it to be as flamboyant as possible.”

  The lady struck him on the shoulder with her fan, and I felt Royston’s hand underneath my elbow, drawing me away from the whispering clutches to make further introductions. I didn’t ask if he’d heard the people gossiping. Surely, if he had, then he had his own reasons for ignoring it. If he hadn’t, then there was no need to upset him by drawing attention to it.

  After that, I had little time to think about it, as I became lost among the sea of faces that Royston propelled me through. He introduced me to everyone, as though I belonged there just the same as they did. Amidst the complicated names of the Margraves and the velikaia, my own name seemed to retreat to one of the many small, dark shadows.

  I wished very much to be able to follow it.

  I knew—despite my valiant efforts to sit still in the elegant, wing-backed chair next to Royston and listen as his friends discussed political matters, the state of the Basquiat, and a great many other subjects I had no way of understanding—that I no more belonged here than did a sheep from the country.

  Royston pointed out certain people of note as they entered and were announced, warning me away from some and gossiping about others.

  “And those,” he said at last, sitting forward somewhat in his chair, “are the airmen of the Esar’s Dragon Corps.”

 
I sat up with interest, curious to see the men who had featured so often in the romans I’d read that they were almost like legends themselves.

  They were very striking indeed, dressed all in uniform save for a man in green who stood with them at the rear. He had a look of forced calm that I knew meant he was in fact frightfully uncomfortable, and I felt an immediate kinship with him. We were in the same dire straits, and I wished there was some way I could inform him there was at least some company for his suffering.

  The airmen filtered through the crowd like royal-blue water, dispersing like rain through the cracks of pavement, though they weren’t any the less noticeable while separated than when they were together. Every now and then I would catch sight of a gold epaulette or a dark blue jacket moving through the crowd—the chandelier light glinting off a silver button—and I knew who it must be before I even turned my head to get a closer look at him.

  There was one who was especially striking. He wore his blue-streaked golden hair braided and loose around his face. When the corps split up, the crowd surrounding that particular airman seemed largely female, and the man in green was left standing alone.

  “The man in green,” a pale woman murmured to her escort. “Who do you suppose he is?”

  “Not one of their escorts, I’m sure,” the man replied, with an expression that made me rather uncomfortable.

  “I assume it’s the poor soul the Esar assigned to nanny them,” Royston replied, stifling a yawn with one hand. “Don’t you think? He looks very much like a ’Versity student.”

  “I can’t imagine why he’s been invited,” said another woman at our table. She fanned herself wearily, though I saw her crane her neck to follow the movements of the poor man in green. “He seems rather . . . young, don’t you agree?”

  “Well,” said the first woman, “it wasn’t a real punishment, was it?”

  Everyone dissolved into laughter, even Royston, who chuckled politely for a moment, then returned to watching the man in green with a keener interest than the rest.