The Perilous Sea (31 page)

“I certainly hope n—”

A movement at the periphery of his vision made him turn to the west; she mirrored his motion almost in unison. Someone was hurtling toward them on a flying carpet.

They had their wands at the ready.

The flying carpet came to a sudden and complete stop. “Can you not see what is coming?” cried the rider. “Why are you two just standing there? Get moving!”

Titus and Fairfax glanced at each other. They could not see him very well in the dark, but his voice was that of a young man.

“We have no steed and she cannot be vaulted,” said Titus.

The rider seemed flabbergasted. “What happened to the carpet I gave you?”

He leaped off his own carpet and came toward them. “Can you give me a spark or two, Fairfax?”

She was so stunned by his calling of her name she almost did not do what he asked. But she recovered in time to produce the faintest flicker of fire, which lit a slim, handsome young man of about their age in the robe and keffiyeh of the Bedouin tribes.

In one swift, violent motion, he ripped off the outside of the satchel that she carried across her person, making her gasp.

The outside of the satchel was in fact not a part of the satchel, but a shell with pockets. And the shell was a larger piece of fabric that had been folded thinly and tightly so as to fit around the body of the bag without gaps or bulges.

With a vigorous shake of the rider's wrists, the shell unfurled entirely. And with a murmured password, it rose off the ground, a flying carpet ready for use.

Titus and Fairfax exchanged another look, stupefied.

“Hurry up!” the rider shouted again, physically pushing them toward the flying carpet. “What is wrong with the two of you? Let's go!”

CHAPTER
28

England

“I DON'T UNDERSTAND,” IOLANTHE SAID,
dumbfounded. “What is
she
doing here?”

Was
Lady Callista
the memory keeper?

“Quick,” said the prince. “I need everyone's help for a containment dome.”

A containment dome did not protect the mage inside against forces outside, but the other way around: it was to shield those outside from the one inside.

They barely finished the dome before the time-freeze spell wore away. Lady Callista blinked, finding herself suddenly surrounded.

“I guess my secret is out,” she said, seemingly unconcerned, but her fingers clutched tightly around a jeweled wand not unlike the one that belonged to Iolanthe.

Lady Callista had been the one giving birth on the night of the meteor storm. Lady Callista had been the one conducting an affair with Baron Wintervale. Lady Callista, the last one to walk into the library at the Citadel before Master Haywood, had been the one to distribute the vertices of a quasi-vaulter that whisked him away.

“It can't be you,” Iolanthe heard herself say. “You've been working against us all along.”

“If you refer to the instance on the day you brought down lightning, when I set a tracer on the prince's sleeve, that was done purely at Atlantis's behest. I had no idea that I would lead them to you, until I myself arrived on the scene and saw agents of Atlantis working to undo the anti-intrusion spells His Highness had put in place.”

“You were there?”

“Of course—I had made your wand into a tracer. I should have scooped you up that day and been done with all this nonsense a long time ago.”

But she hadn't been able to. Titus and Iolanthe had escaped into the laboratory. Ever since then, Iolanthe's wand had been stored in the laboratory, a folded space that could not be located—and so Lady Callista had lost track of Iolanthe.

“I do not believe you,” said Titus. “You gave me truth serum at your spring gala, just before my Inquisition. What could you possibly have hoped to achieve? For the Inquisitor to learn of your daughter's whereabouts even sooner?”

“For that you have only yourself to blame, Your Highness,” Lady Callista shot back. “Yes, I made Aramia administer the truth serum to you—the Inquisitor had told me in no uncertain terms to see that accomplished. But what the Inquisitor didn't know was that I had substituted a different type of truth serum, a slow-acting one.”

Titus narrowed his eyes.

“You were to have your interview with the Inquisitor as soon as she arrived,” Lady Callista went on. “She would see the drink in your hand and know that you'd been dosed. But the serum would have no effect on you for almost an hour, by which time you would be done with her and no worse off than when you'd begun. Then I could ask you questions just as the truth serum began acting, and find out my daughter's whereabouts.

“But you didn't have your chat with her at the Citadel. Instead, over everyone's objections you went to the Inquisitory. And didn't begin your Inquisition until after the truth serum had taken effect.”

Something still didn't make sense for Iolanthe. “You were there at our school on the Fourth of June. The Inquisitor could have hauled me away. You just sat there. You did nothing.”

“What could I have done? I was there, as you said. I had to suppress all my memories to not give myself away. And I risked everything to get him out of the Citadel that night, didn't I?”

Lady Callista pointed to Master Haywood, who looked completely stunned by the goings-on.

“Only because you yourself were in danger of being unmasked,” Iolanthe shot back, growing angrier with each word. “You were afraid that if the Inquisitor could really see past the memory spells, your own position would be in jeopardy. If you cared about him at all you would not have escrowed his memory in such a way as to never allow him access.”

Lady Callista's features hardened. “Difficult decisions must be made sometimes. You are too young and you don't know men. When they want you they will say and do just about anything, but you can't expect constancy on their part. How could I trust that if I let him remember, he would still continue to keep my secret, or to keep you safe?”

Iolanthe's fingers clenched into a fist. “Is that how you treat people who love you, who give up everything for the love of you?”

“Yes. Because he”—Lady Callista again jabbed a finger in Master Haywood's direction—“does not love me. He loves a figment of his own imagination. The real me uses people, discards them, and has absolutely no regrets. Does he love that?”

Iolanthe was speechless.

“And you, you little ingrate.” Lady Callista was only becoming more vehement. “Do you have any idea how difficult it was, how frightful, to figure out how to do everything my future self was telling Haywood we needed to do?”

A clanking sound. The prince opened his hand and his wand, which had fallen to the floor, returned to his palm. Iolanthe stared at him: he was no more likely to drop his wand than he was to lose his mother's diary.

“And for what?” Lady Callista went on. “Never have I had a single thank you from you. All you ever do is whine about how I am not helping your precious Master Haywood.”

There was no arguing with self-justification of such magnitude and Iolanthe did not bother to try. “Break the fear circle. You let him go, we will let you go. It's a fair enough trade.”

“Absolutely not. I will not have you running about and causing me more trouble. You will come with me. You will lie low. And you will not be heard from again until either the world ends or I go to the Angels.”

The prince tapped Master Haywood on the arm and whispered in his ear. Master Haywood looked irresolute. But Titus spoke again. And Master Haywood nodded at last.

He came before Lady Callista and began to chant a long series of spells.

“How dare you?” shouted Lady Callista.

She fired various spells to stun and silence him, but the containment dome rendered them ineffectual.

“How dare you!” she shouted again.

But Master Haywood went on doggedly with his spells. And when he fell silent, Lady Callista dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Titus put her under another time freeze before he undid the containment dome. Lifting her from underneath her arms, he began dragging her toward the front door.

“What did you do to her?” Iolanthe asked Master Haywood.

“The prince asked me to put away all her memories having to do with you. When she comes to, she will know how to return to the Citadel. But she will not think to come back and pursue you.”

“Not that she would, in any case,” said Titus. “All her memories having to do with the two of you have probably been suppressed for a while, since Atlantis has been interrogating her day in and day out.”

Iolanthe shook her head a little. “Then how did she know to come here?”

“You can make special provisions. For me, my memory of reading the vision of my death will return in full force when I step onto Atlantis itself.” He propped Lady Callista up against the door and placed her hand on the handle.

“What are you doing now?” Iolanthe asked.

“I need her hand on the door to break the fear circle. Thank goodness she did not set a blood circle—that would not be so easy to break. But then again, the authorship of a blood circle can be verified, so she probably would not take that kind of a chance unless she felt she had no other choice.”

He murmured the necessary incantations. Iolanthe watched him carefully, wondering what exactly Lady Callista had said earlier to cause him to drop his wand. He looked a little grim, but other than that, he seemed normal enough.

When he was done, he and Master Haywood together carried Lady Callista to the chaise longue in the sitting room.

“Master Haywood,” Iolanthe said. “Is there any chance you might have changed your mind about leaving this place?”

Master Haywood began to shake his head, but then he stopped. A smile slowly broke out on his face. “Now that you asked again, Iola, I do believe I have had quite enough of this place.”

 

Lady Callista remained unconscious after the time freeze expired.

“Not to worry,” said Titus. “As memory spells take effect, it is not uncommon for a mage to remain unconscious for up to an hour.”

Master Haywood sighed. “Alas, I had thought her so very charming.”

“We need to check you for any tracers that might be on your person,” Titus said to Master Haywood.

As they searched, Iolanthe asked, “How did you meet Lady Callista, Master Haywood?”

“Through my friend Eirene. You might know her as Commander Rainstone, the regent's chief security adviser, Your Highness,” said Master Haywood, with a deferential half bow toward the prince.

Strange how she knew both men so well, yet they were essentially strangers to each other. And Master Haywood, at least, seemed determined to observe every etiquette.

“I do know her in that capacity. Please go on,” said Titus.

“I met Eirene—Commander Rainstone—for coffee and she told me that she was meeting her friend Lady Callista at Eugenides Constantinos's bookshop afterward and asked if I'd like to come along. I said I did, so that was how it happened.”

Iolanthe removed Master Haywood's shoes and socks to make sure they were free of tracers. “And what was Lady Callista doing at the bookshop? She does not strike me as someone with a keen interest in books.”

“She said she was there to buy a book that a friend of hers had defaced. Her company was such a pleasure, I volunteered to buy the book for her.”

“The Complete Potion.”

“Yes, how did you guess?”

Iolanthe bit the inside of her cheek. “You always hauled that book everywhere with us, even though you said it was a terrible book.”

“Yes, sentimental value. She was beautiful, but I was struck by the vividness of her presence. I always thought it was a shame that I never saw her again, though I had every intention of doing so.” Master Haywood fell silent as he realized that he was speaking from incomplete memories. “Perhaps it would have been better if I really never saw her again.”

“Speaking for myself, this is the most charming I have ever seen her,” said Titus. “At least she was truthful, for once. My guess is there is still truth serum remaining in her system from her latest interrogation.”

Once they were satisfied that Master Haywood did not have any tracers on his person, and that they themselves had not picked up any either, Iolanthe suddenly realized she had not planned for where to take him.

“Should we put you up at a different hotel for now, until we find a more permanent lodging?” she asked.

“I have a place that I would gladly put at your disposal,” said Titus to Master Haywood. “If you do not mind that it is on the other side of the English Channel.”

On the other side of the English Channel?

Paris.

 

Autumn in Paris bore little resemblance to its counterpart in London. The air was cool but crisp, the sky blue, and the tall, clear windows up and down the quiet boulevard ablaze with the light of the lowering sun. The apartment the prince had chosen had spacious rooms, high ceilings painted a soft gold, and enormous paintings of nonmages dressed in clothes from a different era, frolicking in a nostalgia-tinged countryside.