“Sir,” said Hastra, “a word.”
Kell stopped. Rhy paused in the doorway and looked back. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll catch up.”
“If you don’t show, I’m likely to do something foolish, like throw myself at Aluc—”
“I won’t miss the stupid ball,” snapped Kell.
Rhy winked and shut the door behind him.
Kell turned to his guard. “What is it, Hastra?”
The guard looked profoundly nervous. “It’s just … while you were competing, I came back to the palace to check on Staff. The king was passing through, and he stopped and asked me how you’d spent the day….” Hastra hesitated, leaving the obvious unspoken: the king wouldn’t have asked such a thing if he’d known of Kell’s ruse. Which meant he didn’t.
Kell stiffened. “And what did you say?” he asked, bracing himself.
Hastra’s gaze went to the floor. “I told him that you hadn’t left the palace.”
“You lied to the king?” asked Kell, his voice carefully even.
“It wasn’t really a lie,” said Hastra slowly, looking up. “Not in the strictest sense.”
“How so?”
“Well, I told him that Kell didn’t leave the palace. I said nothing about Kamerov….”
Kell stared at the young man in amazement. “Thank you, Hastra. Rhy and I, we shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
“No,” said Hastra, with surprising firmness, and then quickly, “but I understand why you did.”
The bells started ringing. The ball had begun. Kell felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and strongly suspected Rhy of making a point.
“Well,” he said, heading for the door, “you won’t have to lie much longer.”
* * *
That night, Lila had half a mind to go to the ball. Now that she knew the truth, she wanted to see Kell’s face without the mask, as if she might be able to see the deception written in the lines of his frown.
Instead, she ended up wandering the docks, watching the ships bob up and down, listening to the hush of water against their hulls. Her mask hung from her fingertips, its jaws wide.
The docks themselves were strangely empty—most of the sailors and dockworkers must have ventured to the pubs and parties, or at least the Night Market. Men at sea loved land more than anyone on shore, and they knew how to make the best of it.
“That was quite a match today,” said a voice. A moment later Alucard appeared, falling in step beside her.
She thought of their words that morning, of the hurt in his voice when he asked why she’d done it, stolen Elsor’s identity, put herself—put them all—at risk. And there it was again, that treacherous desire to apologize, to ask for her place back on his ship, or at least in his graces.
“Following me again?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”
Alucard tipped his head back. “I had no taste for it tonight. Besides,” he said, his gaze falling, “I wanted to see what you did that was so much better than balls.”
“You wanted to make sure I didn’t get into trouble.”
“I’m not your father, Bard.”
“I should hope not. Fathers shouldn’t try to seduce their daughters to learn their secrets.”
He shook his head ruefully. “It was one time.”
“When I was younger,” she said absently, “I used to walk the docks back in London—my London—looking at all the ships that came in. Some days I imagined what mine would look like. Other days I just tried to imagine one that would take me away.” Alucard was staring at her. “What?”
“That’s the first time you’ve ever volunteered a piece of information.”
Lila smiled crookedly. “Don’t get used to it.”
They walked in silence for a few moments, Lila’s pockets jingling. The Isle shone red beside them, and in the distance, the palace glowed.
But Alucard had never been good with silence. “So this is what you do instead of dancing,” he said. “Haunt the docks like some sailor’s ghost?”
“Well, only when I get bored of doing this.” She pulled a fist from her pocket and opened it to reveal a collection of jewelry, coins, trinkets.
Alucard shook his head, exasperated. “Why?”
Lila shrugged. Because it was familiar, she might say, and she was good at it. Plus, the contents of people’s pockets were far more interesting in this London. She’d found a dream stone, a fire pebble, and something that looked like a compass, but wasn’t. “Once a thief, always a thief.”
“What’s this?” he asked, plucking the sliver of white stone from amid the tangle of stolen gems.
Lila tensed. “That’s mine,” she said. “A souvenir.”
He shrugged and dropped the shard back onto the pile. “You’re going to get caught.”
“Then I better have my fun while I still can,” she said, pocketing the lot. “And who knows, maybe the crown will pardon me, too.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath.” Alucard had begun rubbing his wrists and, realizing it, stopped and smoothed his coat. “Well, you may content yourself with haunting docks and robbing passersby, but I’d rather have a hot drink and a bit of finery, so …” He gave a sweeping bow. “Can I trust you to stay out of trouble, at least until tomorrow?”
Lila only smirked. “I’ll try.”
* * *
Halfway back toward the Wandering Road, Lila knew she was being followed.
She could hear their steps, smell their magic on the air, feel her heart pick up in that old familiar way. So when she glanced back and saw someone in the narrow road, she wasn’t surprised.
She didn’t run.
She should have, should have cut onto a main road when she first noticed them, put herself in public view. Instead, Lila did the one thing she’d promised Alucard she’d try not to do.
She found trouble.
When she reached the next turn in the road, an alley, she took it. Something glinted at the far end, and Lila took a step toward it before she realized what it was.
A knife.
She twisted out of the way as it came sailing toward her. She was fast, but not quite fast enough—the blade grazed her side before clattering to the ground.
Lila pressed her palm against her waist.
The cut was shallow, barely bleeding, and when her gaze flicked back up, she saw a man, his edges blurring into the dark. Lila spun, but the entrance to the alley was being blocked by another shape.
She shifted her stance, trying to keep her eyes on both at once. But as she stepped into the deeper shadow of the alley wall, a hand grasped her shoulder and she lurched forward as a third figure stepped out of the dark.
Nowhere to run. She took a step toward the shape at the alley’s mouth, hoping for a drunken sailor, or a thug.
And then she saw the gold.
Ver-as-Is wasn’t wearing his helmet, and without it she could see the rest of the pattern that traced up above his eyes and into his hairline.
“Elsor,” he hissed, his Faroan accent turning the name into a serpentine sound.
Shit, thought Lila. But all she said was, “You again.”
“You cheating scum,” he continued in slurring Arnesian. “I don’t know how you did it, but I saw it. I felt it. There was no way you could have—”
“Don’t be sore,” she interrupted. “It was just a ga—”
She was cut off as a fist connected with her wounded side and she doubled over, coughing. The blow hadn’t come from Ver-as-Is, but one of the others, their gemmed faces masked by dark cloth. Lila’s grip tightened on the metal-lined mask in her hand and she struck, slamming the helmet into the nearest man’s forehead. He cried out and staggered back, but before Lila could strike again, they were on her, six hands to her two, slamming her into the alley wall. She stumbled forward as one wrenched her arm behind her back. Lila dropped to one knee on instinct and rolled, throwing the man over her shoulder, but before she could stand a boot cracked across her jaw. The darkness exploded into shards of fractured light, and an arm wrapped around her throat from behind, hauling her to her feet.