“There is no magic behind it, but it is not entirely natural either—a consequence of Britain’s industrialization. Here: this is to relieve the effects of vaulting.”
The prince held a vial with a fine midnight-blue powder inside. He took her by the chin, his fingers warm and strong, and tipped the blue powder into her mouth. The flavor reminded her of seawater.
“There is no counter-remedy for suffocation, exactly, but this is good for your general well-being.”
He held out a second vial. The wellness remedy, silver-gray granules, tasted unexpectedly of oranges.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she murmured.
He was already walking away, back into the room full of shelves.
“What is that room?” she asked.
“My laboratory,” he answered, opening a drawer.
“What do you do there?”
With his back to her, he shrugged. “What anyone does in a laboratory—potions, distillations, elixirs, things of that sort.”
She conducted practicals at the village school for Master Haywood—practicals, in one form or another, were compulsory until a pupil reached fourteen. But it wasn’t as if mages made their own potions at home. Commercial distilleries and potion manufacturers adequately supplied their needs. In fact, many households didn’t even possess the necessary implements to make the recipes she taught.
Was it just princely eccentricity that had him equip an entire laboratory for himself, or was it something else?
The prince came out of the laboratory and closed the door behind him. He was tall and lean—not thin, but tightly built. When she first saw him in her collapsed house, he’d had on a plain blue tunic and dark trousers tucked into knee-high boots. Simple country attire, nothing like the elaborate state robes he donned for his official portraits.
Now he wore a black jacket with a hunter green waistcoat, black trousers, and shoes of highly polished black leather—the jacket was more formfitting than the tunics men wore in the Domain, the trousers, less so.
Her gaze returned to his face. Official portraits were notorious unreliable. But in this case, the pictures hadn’t lied. He was handsome—dark hair, deep eyes, and high cheekbones.
In his portraits he always sneered. She had once remarked to a classmate that he came across as mean-spirited, the kind of boy who would not only tell a girl she looked like a bumpkin but deliberately spill a drink on her. In person he appeared less cynical. There was a freshness to his features, an appealing boyishness, and—as far as she could see—no malice at all.
Their eyes met. Her stomach fluttered.
Without a word, he opened the door behind him again. But instead of the laboratory, he walked into what appeared to be a bathroom.
“What happened to your laboratory?”
Sound of water running. “That is a folded space, not part of this hotel suite.”
“Is that where we are, in a hotel?” She’d thought, for some reason, that they were at one of his lesser estates, a hunting lodge or a summer cabin.
The sound of even more water running. “We are less than two miles from where you were when you came out of the trunk.”
“We are still in London?”
“Very much so.”
Now that he mentioned it, she saw that real flame—rather than light elixir—shone behind the frosted glass mantles of the wall sconces. She’d have noticed sooner had she been less preoccupied.
He emerged from the bath with a towel. Crouching before her, he pressed the damp towel against her temple.
“Oww!”
“Sorry. The blood is a bit caked on by now. But you should not need more than a good cleaning.”
She endured the discomfort. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
Why was she here? Why was he here? Why was the sky falling today of all days?
“Later. I would be remiss as your host if I did not offer you the use of a tub first.”
She’d forgotten the state she must be in, dirty and battered.
“Your bath is filling as we speak. You will be all right in there by yourself?”
He’d asked a perfectly legitimate question, given that he’d had to carry her a great deal of late. But all the same, what a thing to ask.
“And if I’m not all right?”
She immediately regretted her question. It was far too cheeky. And before her sovereign, no less. She might not have received much parental guidance of late, but she still liked to think of herself as better brought up than that.
He tapped his fingers against the armrest of the chaise. “Then I suppose I will have to watch over you.”
There was no inflection to his tone; not even a flicker of anything in his expression. Yet the air between them drew taut. She heated.
“Now, will you be all right—or will you not?” asked the prince.
She became aware for the first time that his eyes were blue gray, the color of distant hills.
Now she had no choice but to brazen it out. “I’m sure I will be fine,” she answered. “But should I need you, sire, please don’t hesitate.”
The gaze of her sovereign swept over her. She’d seen that look of interest from boys. But his was so swift that she wasn’t quite certain she hadn’t imagined it.
Then he inclined his head, all pomp and formality. “I am at your service, madam.”
Even without the caked blood, when Iolanthe finally caught sight of herself in a mirror, she still flinched. She looked awful, her face filthy and scratched, her hair coated in dust and bits of plaster, her once-white blouse the color of an old rag.
At least she was safe. Master Haywood . . . Her heart tightened. Her intuition had been exactly right: it had been on her account that everything had gone wrong for him.
She washed quickly. Afterward, she dressed in the change of clothes the prince had supplied—slippers, undergarments, a blue flannel shirt, and a pair of matching trousers, everything for a boy four inches taller and a stone and a half heavier.
When she came out of the bath, her battered clothes in a bundle in her hand, there was a tray of food waiting in the parlor and a fire in the grate. So it really was true, fireplaces were not mere decorations in the nonmage world.
The prince looked at her oddly, as if seeing her for the first time. “Have we met before? You look . . . familiar.”
Every year there were children selected to meet him, but she’d never been among the chosen. “No, we haven’t, sire. I’d have remembered.”
“I could have sworn . . .”
“You are probably thinking of someone else.” She extended her hand. “Here’s your pendant.”
“Thank you.” The prince shook his head, as if to clear it. He pointed at her clothes. “If you do not mind, we need to destroy them—I would prefer as little evidence of your mage origins lying about as possible. Same with the contents of the satchel. Is there anything you particularly wish to keep?”
A reminder that she wasn’t quite as safe as she would like to be. She didn’t know how the prince remained so calm. But she was grateful for his aplomb—it made her less afraid.
He motioned her to sit down and handed her the satchel. Master Haywood’s letter she set aside. Digging through the clothes, she found the pouch of coins she’d felt earlier—pure Cathay gold, acceptable tender in every mage realm.
“I think there is a false bottom,” she said, feeling along the linings, her fingers discerning the shape of something cylindrical.
The prince produced a spell that neatly removed the cover of the false bottom to reveal a hidden tube.
He astounded her—not so much the spell, though it was deft, but his demeanor. Had he been an orphan who’d had to fend for himself from the youngest age, perhaps she would not be surprised at his maturity and helpfulness. But his must have been the most privileged upbringing in all the Domain; yet here he was, always thinking one step ahead, always anticipating her needs.