So much thought, so much effort, so much futility.
He should have bent his mind to duplicity. He was the best actor of his generation, was he not? He could have said that he must protect her at whatever cost because she had been prophesied to be the love of his life. There, an easy, marvelous lie, perfect for deceiving a girl. She would have stayed, and he would have proceeded with her training, no further questions asked.
But she had wanted truth and he, in a fit of derangement, had wanted honesty and fair dealing. And truth, honesty, and fair dealing had brought him to this fine wreck.
He bolted out of the chair. That sound, what was it? He turned off the light and rushed to the window.
Bloody hell—as his classmates would say.
Bloody hell.
He vaulted for it.
One of the mages pointed in Iolanthe’s direction. They all loped toward the coppice.
She panted, the sound of her fear fracturing the silence.
Could she take on all the mages come to hunt her? Or was it better to vault back to the hotel and hope that fewer agents of Atlantis awaited her there? And did she dare throw all caution to the wind and call down a second bolt of lightning, if it should come to that?
Another mage materialized on the lawn, a woman in nonmage clothes. Iolanthe shrank farther inside the coppice. The woman strode purposefully toward the agents of Atlantis.
They spoke softly. Iolanthe could not make out their conversation, except to note that despite their low voices, they exchanged some heated words.
At last the Atlantean agents vaulted away, probably back into the armored chariots. And the woman, with a final look around, also disappeared.
Someone tapped her on her shoulder. She leaped in sheer terror. But it was only the prince.
“They are gone for now. I am not sure if they will remain gone. Leave fast if you want to leave.”
Ask me to stay, just a few days, until the worst passes.
He did nothing of the sort. And why should he? She’d made it abundantly clear that nothing could induce her to stay.
“What happened just now?” she asked, her voice holding more or less even, as if she hadn’t been petrified.
“A jurisdictional dispute.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “What does that mean?”
“It means that the mages from the chariots were dispatched by the Inquisitor. But Mrs. Hancock here has her orders directly from Atlantis’s Department of Overseas Administration, and she does not care for the Inquisitor’s minions barging in on her territory without express invitation. They know it, which was why they tried to conceal themselves right here, where you are.”
Her heart pounded even more violently than before.
“Go,” he said.
She had no choice but to admit the obvious. “I don’t know where to go.”
He took her hand and placed it on his arm. The next moment they were on a brightly lit street, across from a long, pillared building with curved mansard roofs.
“Where are we?”
“Slough, a mile and a half north of Eton. That is the railway station.” He pointed at the long building. “You have a timetable in your bag and more than enough money to go anywhere. Take a steamer to the Americas if you want.”
He was angry with her, but he was still helping her. Somehow that made a future without him even bleaker. Her heart was full of strange pains she could not begin to name.
He turned her around. She now faced a squat two-story house. “That is an inn. You can buy your supper there and stay the night if you prefer to leave in the morning. Make sure you monitor what goes on outside and know the location of the rear exit.”
“Thank you,” she said, not quite looking him in the eye.
“And take this.”
He pressed a wand into her hand.
“But it’s yours.”
“Of course not—it is an unmarked spare. I cannot have my wand in your possession when you are captured.”
Not if, but when.
She raised her head. But he’d already disappeared.
The inn was small, but cheerfully lit and scrupulously clean. A fire blazed in the taproom. The aroma was of strong ale and hot stew.
Mrs. Needles often railed against the evils of an empty stomach: it sapped warmth, drained courage, and decimated clear thinking. Iolanthe had been cold, confused, and disheartened when she pushed open the doors of the inn. But now, with her supper laid out on the table before her—chunks of beef and carrots swimming in gravy, slices of freshly baked bread with a huge mound of butter, and the promise of a pudding to come later—she felt slightly more herself.
She had selected a table next to the window, within view of the back door, which led out to an alley. Upstairs a spare but decent room awaited her. And in front of her, the railway timetable. She had already circled the train—a very crude form of expedited highway, from what she could gather—she intended to take in the morning.
She reached for a slice of bread and slathered it with butter. At his residence house, the prince would soon also be sitting down to supper. Would he think of her, as she thought of him? Or would he secretly rejoice, relieved not to have to take on the Bane?
Master Haywood would be pleased that she’d wisely turned away from the prince’s extravagant schemes to concentrate on her own survival. She stared at the bread in her hand, glistening with melting butter, and wondered whether the food offered to Master Haywood in the Inquisitory was as palatable. And would the agents of Atlantis do anything for him when symptoms of merixida withdrawal began? Or would they simply let him suffer?
“What are you thinking, you handsome lad?”
Iolanthe jumped. But it was only the barmaid, smiling at her.
Smiling flirtatiously.
“Ah . . . a brimming mug of ale, served by the prettiest girl in the room?”
The girl giggled. “I will fetch that ale for you.”
Iolanthe stared at the barmaid’s retreating back, wondering how to keep her away. She couldn’t afford even the possibility of a situation where someone might find out she wasn’t such a handsome lad after all.
The barmaid glanced over her shoulder and winked. Iolanthe hastily looked out the window. At home a hub of the expedited highways usually had more than one inn. Perhaps she’d see something else nearby.
Across the street, high above the railway station, hovered two armored chariots. On the ground, a team of agents—easy to distinguish from the startled English pedestrians by their uniform tunics—fanned out from the station. Several of them headed directly for the inn.
The fear that seized her made time itself stretch and dilate. The man reading a timetable under a streetlamp yawned, his mouth opening endlessly. The diner at the next table asked his mate to “Pass the salt,” each syllable as drawn out as pulled taffy. The mate, moving as if he were inside a vat of glue, set his fingers on a pewter dish with a small spoon inside and pushed it across.
With a loud thump, a great tankard of ale was plunked down before Iolanthe, the froth high and spilling. She jerked and glanced up at the barmaid, who winked again meaningfully. “Anything else for you, sir?”
Her illusion of freedom crumbled.
She was not safe here. She was not safe anywhere. And she had no choices except between dying now or dying slightly later.
She threw a handful of coins beside her largely untouched supper and ran for the back door.
He was a bastard. Of course he was: he lied, cheated, and manipulated.
She would not like him very much when she realized what he had done.
It did not matter, Titus told himself. He did not walk this path for flowers and hugs. The only thing that mattered was that she should come back. The hollow feeling in his chest he ignored entirely.