“She’s actually all right most of the time. I just never know when she won’t be.” Wintervale took the towel from Kashkari and wiped away the spilled tea. He tossed aside the towel, poured more tea for himself, and sat down. “I think we should do something about your bowling technique, Fairfax. You’ve great attack, but your arm and shoulder don’t quite align as they should.”
Through Titus’s half-open door, the din of thirty-some boys at leisure washed in wave by wave: boots and brogues stomping up and down the stairs; junior boys hauling trays of dirty dishes, plates and silverware jangling; the house officers, in their common room across the passage, debating the differences between the Eton football game and the Winchester football game.
He sat on his bed, his back against the wall. The Crucible lay open on his lap, and a stranger’s face stared at him. If he had ever doubted the efficacy of the Irreproducible Charm that had been cast on Fairfax, here was his proof. He was usually competent with pen and ink, but the rendering he had attempted of her face was outright unrecognizable.
He tapped his wand against the page. The ink lifted from the illustration in a swirl and returned to the reservoir of his fountain pen. Sleeping Beauty now lay on her bed without a face, amidst all the details of dust and cobweb he had added over the years. He tapped his wand again, and her original features returned, pretty and insipid.
A rap at his door. He looked up to see Fairfax closing the door behind her. She pointed at the wand in his hand. He set a sound circle.
“When were you going to tell me that the woman who tried to kill me is Wintervale’s mother?”
He enjoyed the sight of her on the warpath, her eyes narrowed with indignation—a girl who emanated power with her very presence.
“I did not want your views of Wintervale, who is perfectly sane, colored by what you think of his mother.”
“What would have happened if I were to run into her?”
“You would not. She does not come to school, and none of us are ever invited to visit her house. Besides, even if you do, she has no idea what you look like.”
She was far from mollified. “Is this something you would have wanted to know, were you in my place?”
“Yes,” he had to admit.
“Then extend me the same courtesy.”
He sighed. It was difficult for him, having so long held everything close to the chest, to share all his secrets and hard-won intelligence. But she had a point—and not everything needed to wait until he was dead.
“Besides, you give me too little credit if you think I am going to judge a boy by his mother. If I can bring myself to see you in a sympathetic light, Wintervale has nothing to fear.”
Warmth crept up the back of his neck. “You see me in a sympathetic light?”
She drew back and cast him a scornful look. “Sometimes. Not now.”
He patted the bed. “Come here. Let me change your mind.”
She made a face. “With more fairy tales of your wand’s powers?”
He smiled. Her arrival might have turned over the hourglass on what remained of his life, but before she came, he never smiled. Or laughed.
“You are still my subject, so sit down on the command of your sovereign. He will show you his domain.”
He taught her how to get in and navigate the Crucible by herself—not only the practice cantos, but also the teaching cantos, which she hadn’t even known existed.
The teaching cantos was a small palace built of pale-pink marble, with clear, wide windows and deeply receded loggias. Inside, a double-return staircase led to a gallery that encircled the soaring reception hall. Along the gallery marched doors of different sizes, colors, and ornateness.
The first one they came to was black and glassy, an entire slab of obsidian that glittered with grape-sized diamonds arranged in constellations.
“This is Titus the Third’s classroom.”
“Titus the Third himself is inside?”
Titus III ranked as one of the most remarkable rulers of the House of Elberon, alongside Titus the Great and Hesperia the Magnificent.
“A record and a likeness of him. He was the one who constructed the Crucible, so his is the first classroom.”
Next to the obsidian door was a plaque that that bore Titus III’s name. And beneath that, a list of topics that stretched all the way to the floor.
“He was an expert on all those subjects?”
“Most of them—he was a learned man. But his knowledge was for his time.” The prince tapped on the list, and a bramble of annotations spread over the original engraved letters.
Iolanthe peered closer. On the subject of Potions, a number of comments had been left.
Archaic recipes. Go to Apollonia II for simpler, more effective recipes.—Tiberius.
Do not go to Apollonia II for recipes unless you intend to pluck eyes out of live animals. Titus IV—I know, shocking—has a number of very reliable recipes.—Aglaia.
Aglaia has adapted Titus IV’s recipes to more modern tools and processing methods.—Gaius.
“So this is how you have been educated in subtle magic, by your ancestors.”
“Many of whom were capable mages, though only a few are also good teachers.”
The gallery turned. And turned again. She stopped paying attention to the individual doors and studied the boy next to her. He looked slightly less ravaged, though he still walked hesitantly, as if worried about his balance.
And everything would only become more difficult.
This was why he wanted her to love him, because love was the only force that could compel him onto this path—and hold him to it.
There came a prickling sensation in her heart, a weight with thorns.
They were approaching the stairs again. The last two doors belonged to Prince Gaius and Prince Titus VII, respectively. “Your mother doesn’t have a place here?”
“She was never on the throne. Only a ruling prince or princess is allotted a spot in the teaching cantos.”
Prince Gaius’s door, a gigantic block of basalt thickly studded with fist-sized rubies, bore an unmistakable resemblance to that of Titus III’s—except everything had been done on a showier scale. On his plaque, he listed one of his areas of expertise as Atlantis. “Have you spent much time here?”
The prince cast an icy look at his grandfather’s door. “I do not call on him.”
Sometimes he was sixteen years old. And sometimes he was a thousand, as cold and proud as the dynasty that had spawned him.
She tapped on the door of his classroom. “And what do you teach?”
Next to Prince Gaius’s, his door was almost laughably plain—and looked exactly the same as the door to his room in Mrs. Dawlish’s house. “I teach survival—for you. When I am gone, this is where you will come if you still have questions.”
Suddenly she understood the dread in her heart. If the prophecy of his death had been properly interpreted, it would mean he had very little time left. A year, perhaps. A year and half at best. How would it feel to push open that door, knowing he was gone, to speak with “a record and a likeness” of him?
She made herself say something sensible. “Would you mind if I asked your grandfather a few questions—in case he knew something about Atlantis that could help us free Master Haywood?”
“Go ahead. Although—”
“What is it?”
He didn’t quite look at her. “I think you should first consult the Oracle of Still Waters.”
A flagstone-paved path led out from behind the pink marble palace, flanked on either side by tall, stately trees with bark that was almost silky to the touch. Pale-blue flowers drifted down from the boughs, twirling like tiny umbrellas.
Iolanthe caught one of the blue flowers. “Are we still in the teaching cantos?”