The Perilous Sea (5 page)

Titus had created a good background for Archer Fairfax, the identity she assumed when she was at Eton, by setting Fairfax's family in Bechuanaland, a place where other Eton students were unlikely to visit. But that otherwise spell, as effective as it was at school, would disintegrate if agents of Atlantis took it into their heads to discover the exact location of the Fairfax family farm.

She did not stay long in Cape Town, but she spent her entire time there conducting a fervent campaign of disinformation via a battery of new otherwise spells. Now, should inquisitive agents of Atlantis come through, they would be told that the Fairfaxes had just departed: a distant relative had died and left Mrs. Fairfax a decent sum of money, and the family decided to enjoy their good fortune by getting rid of the farm and taking a trip around the world—without the son, of course, who had to go back to Eton for Michaelmas Half.

Rather pat, as a story, but then Iolanthe had always imagined these fictional parents of Fairfax's to be the sort who were lured to Africa by romantic notions, only to become disillusioned that the agricultural life yielded little romance—or profit, for that matter. With an unexpected windfall, they would gladly take off for parts unknown, for the adventure and thrill Africa had long ago ceased providing.

With her “family” out of the way for the foreseeable future, Iolanthe booked herself a berth on the next Liverpool-bound steamer out of Cape Town. For the next three weeks hope and fear battled for supremacy in her heart. One moment she would be ecstatic at the thought of seeing Titus again, the next minute, overcome by uneasiness. What if he did not come back to Eton? It made more sense, didn't it, for him to be kept in the Domain and on a much shorter leash?

The closer she was to Eton, the worse the pins and needles became. Reaching Mrs. Dawlish's and finding no trace of him flooded her with dread. She escaped the commotion of the house by latching on to Cooper, who was leaving to put in orders for tea stuff on High Street.

Cooper chattered happily about the other pupils who had made the twenty-two, especially West, the boy who everyone believed would be the next captain of the school team. Iolanthe heard very little of what he said. She hadn't traveled nine thousand miles on her own for the game of cricket, no matter how enjoyable.

“Can you believe there are only four months left in 1883?” said Cooper as they neared Mrs. Dawlish's door again.

“Is it 1883?” Iolanthe swallowed. “I keep forgetting.”

“How can you forget what year it is?” Cooper exclaimed. “I sometimes forget the day of the week, but never the month or the year.”

She gathered up the courage to push open Mrs. Dawlish's door. In the midst of the parlor, surrounded by junior boys, Titus's voice carried to her. And suddenly she was ready to win a hundred cricket matches, write a thousand Latin papers, and live among dozens of noisy and sometimes smelly boys for the remainder of her life.

He was back. He was safe. She scarcely knew what she said or did for the next few minutes, until they extricated themselves from the other boys, with the excuse that the prince needed to unpack his things.

The moment the door closed behind them, he kissed her. And went on kissing her until they were both breathless.

“I am so glad you are safe,” he said, his forehead against hers.

She spread her fingers over his shoulders, over the warm, slightly scratchy wool of his daycoat. Beneath her hands, his frame was spare but strong. “I was afraid they wouldn't let you out of the Domain.”

“How did you get out?”

She touched the top of his collar. His clothes had been laundered with some kind of evergreen essence; the faint fragrance reminded her of the spruce-covered ridges of the Labyrinthine Mountains. “I'll tell you after you make me a cup of tea.”

The Master of the Domain started to pull away. “I will do it now.”

But she wasn't ready for him to leave her embrace yet. She caught his face between her hands. When she'd passed through Delamer, she had bought a pendant with his portrait on it. The whole of summer, she'd only had that tiny image for company. But now she could drink him in—the dark hair, slightly longer than she remembered, the straight brows, the deep-set eyes.

She rubbed a finger across his lower lip. His eyes grew dark. He pushed her against the wall and kissed her again.

“So . . . cream or sugar in your tea?” he asked after a few minutes, his breaths uneven.

She smiled and rested her cheek against his shoulder, her breaths as ungoverned as his. “I have missed you.”

“It was a mistake for us to go back to the Domain together. I should have realized that when agents of Atlantis could not locate you here at school, they would come to believe that you must still be in the Domain. I should have known they would watch me relentlessly.”

She laid a hand on the front of his jacket. “It wasn't your fault. We were both lulled into a false sense of security.”

He took her hand in his. “Of course it was my fault. My task is to keep you safe.”

“But I am not meant to be kept safe,” she said, rubbing the pad of her thumb along the outside of his palm. “I am meant for fearsome risks and epic clashes. Remember? It's my destiny.”

He leaned back, surprise written over his face. “So you believe it now?”

After all the harrowing and marvelous events of the previous Half, how could she not? “Yes, I do. So don't apologize for not guarding me every second of the day. I am but walking the path I am meant to—and a little danger here and there serves to keep my reflexes sharp.”

Wonder came into his eyes—wonder and gratitude. He touched his forehead to hers again, his hands warm on her cheeks. “I am so glad it is you. I cannot possibly face this task with anyone else.”

At the catch in his voice, unexpected tears stung the back of her eyes. They would be at each other's side until the very end—she cherished that certainty even as she feared it. “I'll keep you safe,” she said softly. “Nothing and no one will take you away from me.”

Because it was far too early in the Half for actual crying, she added, “Now make me some tea and tell me all about how terrible it was to spend your summer in the same opulent palace as the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Huh,” he said.

And delayed the tea-making some more.

CHAPTER
5

The Sahara Desert

PAIN BURNED THROUGH THE BOY'S
flesh. He clamped his teeth over his lower lip, not sure whether he was trying to keep quiet or remain conscious. It did not help that the dark beneath the makeshift sand dune was thick and impenetrable—it made him think that all he had to do was close his eyes and sweet oblivion would be his.

“I've set a one-way sound circle so no one can overhear us,” came the low, slightly scratchy voice of the elemental mage he could not get rid of. “Now I'm going to amplify outside voices.”

Instantly a gruff voice boomed in the boy's ear. “—sibility, Brigadier?”

“We will have our elemental mages clear as much of the area as possible, to improve visibility,” answered a woman. “A one-mile radius has been set. Man the stations and start the dragnet. One regiment from the center out, two from the periphery in.”

Part of him wanted to turn himself in—Atlantis would give him something to dull the marrow-rotting pain. But the desire to remain free was so great, it was almost primal.

It was the only thing he knew.

Not his name, not his past, not a single event that might shed light on how he came to be in the middle of a desert, badly wounded, only this: he could not allow himself to be captured by Atlantis or its allies, or all would be lost.

The calls and shouts were now only those of soldiers obeying orders. The elemental mage countermanded the earlier spell for voice amplification. An abrupt silence descended, still and suffocating.

The boy weighed his scant options. Without any memories, he could not vault away, even if he had the vaulting range to put himself beyond this radius Atlantis was establishing. Were he able to see to any distance, then he could blind vault. But with the sandstorm obscuring everything, that too was out of the question.

If only he had had the presence of mind earlier to ask the elemental mage to punch a tunnel of clear air in the sandstorm, then he would have been able to distance himself from that torrent of suspicious solicitude.

He had been almost entirely convinced that the elemental mage had been responsible for his injury. Who else would be so close at hand, if not an enemy? Who else would continue to prowl at the periphery of his dome, despite his express wish to be left alone?

The elemental mage's fear of Atlantis could have been an act. The blackmail to get under his dome certainly could have been a feint for finishing him off. The elemental mage's willingness to give the first drop of blood, however, had taken him aback.

One could wreak much mischief with voluntarily offered blood. Only a fool—or someone with absolutely no ulterior motive—would have dared as the elemental mage had. Now, from an almost certain enemy, he had become an unknown in the equation.

“Did you hear their plan of action?” said the elemental mage.

He grunted an answer.

“I'm going below the surface—it's what I should have done in the first place, instead of getting involved in any kind of blood magic.”

“Then why did you not?”

“I'm sure you always think lucidly and from every angle when there are armored chariots bearing down on you,” the elemental mage said, with an arch tone. “In any case, my earlier failure to consider this particular alternative is your good luck. I can take you below with me.”

The offer stoked his suspicions anew. Was the elemental mage a bounty hunter of some sort, concerned that a cash prize might be spoiled by Atlantis's arrival on scene? “Why do you insist on clinging to me?”

“What?”

“You push your company on me.”

“Push my—have you been raised to walk on by when there is a severely wounded mage lying on the ground?”

“So asks the one who engages in blackmail.”

The elemental mage muttered something that verged on obscenity. “I guess you'd prefer to stay here then. Good-bye and long may Fortune shield your most charming self.”

He could not see in the dark but he could feel the sand to his right shift—the elemental mage was sinking down. “Wait.”

“What do you want?”

He wavered for a moment. “I will come with you.”

A nonharming covenant was not as airtight a bond as a blood oath: nothing prevented the elemental mage from turning him over to a third party that wished him ill. But under the surface, where there were no third parties, he should be safe enough.

“Are you sure? I might take it as permission to further push my company on you.”

The elemental mage's voice dripped with sarcasm. Reassuring, that: he vastly preferred someone who wanted nothing to do with him. “I will have to endure it for your remedies.”

The elemental mage burrowed beneath him, the movement causing a wave of agony. He ground his teeth and concentrated on modifying the tensile dome into a normal, mobile shield, which should keep a bubble of air around them and prevent sand from falling onto his back.

The elemental mage wrapped one arm around his neck and hooked a leg behind his knees. They began to sink, sand excavated from underneath flowing up either side of the shield to the top.

“And how do you know my remedies aren't poisoned?” said the elemental mage as they descended.

“I assume they are.”

“I look forward to applying them to you then.”

They sank more rapidly. Something was not quite right. The elemental mage had seemed rangy of build, but with their torsos pressed tightly together, he did not feel nearly as much skeleton as he had anticipated. In fact . . . in fact . . .

He sucked in a breath—and hissed at the pain that shot through him. But there could be no doubt about it. “You are a girl.”

She was unmoved by his discovery. “And?”

“You are dressed as a man.”

“You are dressed as a nonmage.”

He did not know that. When he had come to, he had been lying on his back, hot sand digging into the open wound on his back. It had been all he could do to turn onto his stomach and build the tensile dome—he had paid no attention to what he wore. And later, when he needed a sharp implement, he had simply tried a pocket, without thinking about whether mage attire would have a pocket at that particular place.

The whole thing was becoming more incomprehensible by the minute. Waking up in the middle of a desert, injured, with no idea how he had come to the place was bad enough. Now nonmage clothes too?

They stopped.

“Bedrock in three feet.” She slipped out from underneath him.

His nails dug into the center of his palm, fighting against the fresh, searing pain brought on by her movement.