The Burning Sky

Her birthday was a day after his, in fact. It had been fun, when she’d been small, to pretend that the festivities surrounding his birthday had been for her also.

“Show me your birth chart.”

A birth chart plotted the precise alignment of stars and planets at the moment of a mage’s birth. It was once a crucial document, for everything from the choice of school to the choice of mate: the stars must align. In recent years it had become fashionable in places like Delamer to break with tradition and leave one’s birth chart to molder. But not so in Little Grind. When Iolanthe had volunteered to contribute the fire hazards for the village’s annual obstacle course run last autumn, her chart, along with those of all the participants, had been requisitioned to determine the most auspicious date on which to hold the competition.

As she dug the cylindrical container out of the mostly empty satchel, it occurred to her that if she had used her birth chart only months ago, then it could not possibly be in the satchel, the contents of which hadn’t been disturbed in more than a decade.

She’d unrolled only the top six inches of the birth chart earlier, when she’d checked to see that it was a birth chart. Fully unfurled, the three-foot-long chart had no name at the center, only the time of birth, five minutes past two o’clock in the morning on the fourteenth of November, YD 1014.

Something gonged in her ears. “But I was born in September. I’ve seen my chart before—many times—and it’s not this one.”

“And yet this is the one that had been packed, for when the truth came out and you were forced to leave,” said the prince.

“Are you saying that my guardian counterfeited the other? Why?”

“There was a meteor storm that night. Stars fell like rain. Seers from every realm on earth predicted the birth of a great elemental mage. Were I your guardian, I would have most certainly not let it be known that you were born on that night.”

She’d read about that night, when one could not see the sky for all the golden streaks of plummeting stars.

“You think I’m that great elemental mage?” she asked, barely able to hear her own voice.

She couldn’t be. She wanted no part of what was happening now.

“Until you, there has never been anyone who can command lightning.”

“But lightning is useless. I almost killed myself when I called it down.”

“The Bane just might know what to do with such power,” said the prince.

She didn’t know why the idea should make her more frightened than she was already, but it did.

“It has been an exhausting day for you. Take some rest,” the prince suggested. “I must go now, but I will return in a few hours to check on you.”

Go? He was leaving her all alone?

“Are you going back to the Domain?” She sounded weak and afraid to her own ears.

“I am going to my school.”

“I thought you were educated at the castle.” More precisely, at a monastic lodge farther up the Labyrinthine Mountains that was used only for a young prince or princess’s education, or so Iolanthe had learned at school.

“No, I attend an English school not far from London.”

She couldn’t have heard him right. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. The Bane wished it.”

“But you are our prince. You are supposed to be one of our better mages. You won’t get any proper training at such a school.”

“You understand the Bane’s purpose perfectly,” he said lightly.

She was appalled. “I can’t believe the regent didn’t object. Or the High Council.”

His eyes were clear and direct. “You overestimate the courage of those in power. They are often more interested in holding on to that power than in doing anything worthwhile with it.”

He did not sound bitter, only matter-of-fact. How had he handled it, the utter insult of having the Bane dictate his movements, when he was, on paper at least, the Bane’s peer in power and privilege?

“So . . . what should I do while you are at school?”

“I was hoping to take you to school with me, but it is a boys’ school.” He shrugged. “We will make new plans.”

He couldn’t have been more cordial about it, but she had the distinct sensation it did not please him to have to make new plans.

“I can come with you. I went to a girls’ school for a while, and every term I had the male lead role in the school play. My voice is low, and I do a good imitation of the way a boy walks and talks.” She’d acquitted herself so well some of her classmates’ parents had thought a boy had been brought in to act the part. “Not to mention I can fight.”

Unlike most magelings, who were taught to refrain from violence, elemental magelings were actively encouraged to use their fists—far better they punched someone than set the latter on fire.

“I am sure you can knock boys out left and right. And I am sure you are perfectly proficient on stage. But playing a boy for a few hours each term is quite different from playing one twenty-four hours a day, day after day, to an audience of agents.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There are agents of Atlantis at my school,” he said. “I am watched.”

She gripped the armrests of her chair. “You live under Atlantis’s surveillance?”

Somehow she’d thought he must be exempt from it.

“I am better off at school than at home—the castle is riddled with the Inquisitor’s informants—but that is no help to us now.”

She could not imagine the life he led.

“You are safer here,” he continued. “The vestibule is accessible by the hotel staff—that is where we vaulted in—but the rest of the suite is protected by anti-intrusion spells.”

Anti-intrusion spells were no guarantee of safety—her house in Little Grind had had its share of those.

“You are entirely anonymous,” he further reassured her. “Atlantis, great as it is, cannot hope to locate you so easily in a city of millions. And should anything alarm you, go into the laboratory and wait. You already know the password; the countersign is the first paragraph on page ten of the book on the demilune table.”

She would prefer that he quit school to stand guard beside her. If he should be wrong, if Atlantis proved quicker and cleverer than he believed, she would be all too easy a target. He had to stay with her. She’d reason with him—beg him, if she must. Bar the door with her person.

She opened her mouth and out came, “All right.”

Her life hung in the balance and here she was, trying to appear brave and stalwart before this boy.

“Thank you,” he said, and briefly touched her on the arm.

He was impressed. The bright happiness that flared inside her was almost enough to dispel her fear of his absence.

He disappeared a moment inside the laboratory and returned with the brown valise she’d seen earlier and a round-crowned hat. “I will be back after lights-out at school. In the meanwhile, eat and rest. It has been a great deal of trouble finding you; I do not intend to lose you any time soon.”

He had been searching for her? She longed to know more, but that would have to wait until his return.

“May Fortune walk with you, Your Highness.” She dipped into a small curtsy.

He shook his head. “No need to curtsy. And may Fortune abide with you, Miss Seabourne.”

He set the hat on his head and made for the door.

If she hadn’t been staring so intently at him, she wouldn’t have noticed the small, flat disk on his sleeve. She hesitated. Perhaps it was the fashion in England to have such decorations on one’s jacket.

But what had Master Haywood said? You cannot be careful enough.

“One moment, Your Highness. There is something on your left sleeve.”

His expression instantly sobered. He looked down at his arm. “Where?”

She turned her own arm to show him. It was placed at a spot above his elbow where it would be difficult for both he himself and someone else to see it, unless that person was looking squarely at him when he had his arm