The Burning Sky

Wintervale’s other passion, besides returning the barony of Wintervale to its former glory, was cricket. He had convinced himself—and a fair number of other boys—that Archer Fairfax was the veriest cricket prodigy whose return would propel the house team to the school cup.

“Strange. He’s been gone only three months, and already I can’t remember what he looks like,” said Wintervale.

“Lucky you,” said Titus. “Fairfax is one of the most ferociously ugly blokes I have ever met.”

Kashkari chuckled, catching up with Titus on the steps down. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Please do.”

Mrs. Dawlish’s house, despite its overwhelming majority of male occupants, had been decorated to suit Mrs. Dawlish’s tastes. The wallpaper in the stairwell was rose-and-ivy. Frames of embroidered daisies and hyacinths hung on every wall.

The stairs led down to the entry hall, with poppy-chintz-covered chairs and green muslin curtains. A vase of orange tulips nodded on the console table beneath an antique mirror—a boy was required to examine himself in the mirror before he left the house, lest his appearance disgrace Mrs. Dawlish.

Titus was two steps above the newel post when Fairfax came into the entry hall, a slim, tall-enough figure in the distinctive tailed jacket of an Eton senior boy. Immediately he was appalled by his abysmal judgment. She did not look like a boy at all. She was much, much too pretty: her eyes, wide-set and long-lashed; her skin, needlessly smooth; her lips, red and full and all but shouting girlishness.

She saw him and smiled in relief. The smile was the worst yet: it brought out deep dimples he had not even suspected she possessed.

Dread engulfed him. Any moment now someone was going to shout, What is a girl doing here? And since everyone knew Fairfax as his closest friend, it would take no time for the agents stationed at Eton to put two and two together and conclude that there was far more than just cross-dressing going on.

“Fairfax,” he heard himself speak—his voice almost did not quiver. “We thought you were never coming back.”

Almost immediately Kashkari said, “My goodness, it is you, Fairfax!”

“Welcome back, Fairfax!” hollered Wintervale.

With the repetition of her name, other boys swarmed out of the woodwork and took up the chorus of “Look, Fairfax is back!”

At the sight of so many boys, her smile disintegrated. She did not say anything, but looked from face to face, her hand tightening upon the handle of the valise. Titus could not breathe. For eight years he had lived in a state of slow-simmering panic. But he’d never known what real terror was until this moment. He had always depended on himself; now everything depended on her.

Come on, Fairfax, he implored under his breath. But he knew it. It was too much. She was going to drop the valise and bolt. All hell would break loose, eight years of work would circle the drain, and his mother would have died for nothing.

She cleared her throat and beamed, a smug, lopsided grin. “It’s good to see all your ugly faces again.”

Her voice. Lurching from one emergency to another, he had paid no mind. Now he truly heard it for the first time: rich, low-pitched, and slightly gravelly.

But it was her grin, rather than her voice, that steadied his heartbeat. There was no mistaking the cockiness of that grin, absolutely the expression of a sixteen-year-old boy who had never known the taste of defeat.

Wintervale bounced down the rest of the steps and shook her hand. “You haven’t changed a bit, Fairfax, as charming as His Highness here. No wonder you two were always thick as thieves.”

Her brow lifted at the way Wintervale addressed Titus. Wintervale knew who Titus was, but to the rest of the school, Titus was a minor Continental prince.

“Do not encourage him, Wintervale,” said Titus. “Fairfax is insufferable enough as it is.”

She looked askance at him. “Takes one to know one.”

Wintervale whistled and slapped her on the arm. “How’s the leg, Fairfax?”

One of Wintervale’s thwacks could snap a young tree. She managed not to topple over. “Good as new.”

“And is your Latin still as terrible as your bowling?”

The boys snickered good-naturedly.

“My Latin is fine. It’s my Greek that’s as ghastly as your lovemaking,” she retorted. The boys howled, including Titus, who laughed out of sheer shock—and relief.

She was good.

Brilliant, in fact.

CHAPTER 7

AFTER RUNNING THE GAUNTLET OF handshakes, backslaps, and general greet-and-insults, Iolanthe hoped for a moment to breathe. But it was not to be.

“Benton!” Wintervale called. “Take Fairfax’s bag to his room. And make sure you light a good fire there. Fairfax, come with us for tea.”

A smallish boy, wearing not a tailed coat but one that stopped at the waist, whisked the valise away.

“Work him hard.” Wintervale smiled at her. He was as tall as the prince, blond and strapping, almost spinning in place with nervous energy. “Benton hasn’t done much in your absence.”

She didn’t ask why she had to work Benton hard—the prince would explain everything later. She only grinned at Wintervale. “I’ll make him regret that I ever came back.”

Before Little Grind, Master Haywood had taught at a school for boys. Each evening, after sports practice, a group of them would walk past Iolanthe’s window, chatting loudly. She’d paid particular attention to the most popular boy, carefully noting his cheerful swagger and good-natured insults.

Now she was acting the part of that happy, affably cocky boy.

The prince, walking a pace before her, turned his head and slanted her an approving look. Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t think he was the kind to approve easily.

Entering Wintervale’s room, however, stopped her dead. On his windowsill bloomed a sizable weathervine —terribly useful for knowing when an umbrella would be required for the day.

Only it couldn’t be a weathervine, could it? The weathervine was a mage plant. What was it doing in—

The prince put his arm about her shoulder. “Forgot what Wintervale’s room looks like?”

She let him ease her inside, knowing that she shouldn’t have stopped to gawk. “I was just wondering whether the walls were always so green.”

“No, they weren’t,” said Wintervale. “I changed the wallpaper just before the end of the last Half.”

“You are lucky—and good,” the prince whispered in her ear.

His breath against her skin sent a jolt of heat through her entire person. She couldn’t quite look at him.

The room was soon filled to capacity. Two small boys crouched before the fire, one making tea, the other scrambling eggs with surprising expertise. A third delivered buttered toast and baked beans.

She observed the goings-on carefully: the young boys, no question about it, acted as minions to the older boys.

Benton, who’d earlier been tasked with taking her valise to her room, now returned with a plate of still sizzling sausages.

“You didn’t burn them again, did you, Benton?” Wintervale asked.

“I almost never burn them,” Benton responded indignantly.

Wintervale poked Iolanthe with his elbow. “The new boys, they do get so ornery by the third Half.”

His elbow rammed a very tender spot in her chest. She would always be proud that she only sucked in a breath in reaction. “They’ll learn their places yet.”

She walked to the plant and fingered its soft, ferny leaves. A weathervine, no doubt about it. “Did you always have this?”

“I raised it from a seedling,” Wintervale answered. “It was probably only three inches tall when you went