The Burning Sky

cavernous space. The two chairs were on opposite sides of the desk, one chair low and plain, the other high and elaborate. Either Titus chose the chair denoting greater status, and gave the Inquisitor yet another reason to bring him down a peg, or he submitted to the reality of the situation, selected the lesser chair, and endured the interview being looked down upon by the Inquisitor.

His solution was to step onto the lesser chair and perch on its back. Fortunately, the top of the back was flat. Had it had a few finials, like the dining chairs in which Mrs. Dawlish and Mrs. Hancock sat, he would have had to settle for sitting on the armrest, which would not give nearly the same jaunty, careless impression.

The Inquisitor frowned. Titus had ceded her the greater chair, but now he had the advantage of height.

She sat down and placed her hands, laced together, on top of the desk.

He drew a deep breath. And so it begins.

“Now, Your Highness, what have you been doing with Iolanthe Seabourne?”

He had prepared for this exact question, but still it jolted, as if he had gripped a live wire. “You mean the missing elemental mage you are looking for?”

“Last time we met, you did not believe she was an elemental mage.”

“Lady Callista told me Atlantis is seeking her with all its might,” Titus said with as much breeziness as he could muster. “She even encouraged me to look for her, since the girl is, after all, a subject of mine.”

The Inquisitor ignored his insinuation. “You were at the village of Little-Grind-on-Woe immediately after the lightning. After your visit, you changed your plans and left for England half a day earlier than originally scheduled. And when you arrived there, instead of heading directly to your school, you went to London, to a hotel where you maintained a suite of rooms as Mr. Alistair McComb, from which place you departed just as abruptly. Care to explain your movements, Your Highness?”

He wanted to taunt her. And where was I between the time I arrived in London and the time I arrived at the hotel? Care to tell me that also?

“I see you are fixated on the least of my doings,” he said. “Very well, my abrupt departure from the Domain is easily enough explained: I am not at your beck and call, Madam Inquisitor. You cannot simply say to me, ‘May I call on you this evening, Your Highness, to discuss what you have seen?’”

The Inquisitor thinned her lips.

“Besides, if you had taken the time to inquire from my attendants, you would have learned that I had decided to go back to school at an earlier time, before the lightning came down.

“Now, the hotel suite. I am a young man and have needs that must be met. Since that slum of a school Atlantis so strenuously recommended does not allow for such activities, I keep a place outside of school. As for why I left, I cannot imagine why I should remain once the deed is done.”

“And where was your accomplice in . . . the deed?”

“Left before I did. No need for her presence once she had served her purpose.”

“There was no report of anyone coming or going.”

Of course not, since she left with me.

This time he had to swallow the words as they rose on his tongue.

“Were you watching all the service doors? A large hotel has many.”

“Where did you find her?”

In a certain house in Little-Grind-on-Woe. Very well suited to wielding lightning, that girl.

“In a certain—”

What was the matter with him? He was an accomplished liar. Truth should never approach his lips.

“—district of London. Have you ever been to London, Madam Inquisitor? There are nasty parts that teem with girls who must make a living on their backs. The bargains to be had there, you have no idea.” He rubbed his thumb across his chin. “And frankly, after my encounter with you, I was in the mood to punish someone.”

A small muscle leaped at the corner of the Inquisitor’s eye. “I see,” she said. “Your Highness gives precocity a whole new definition.”

Quite the opposite. I cannot afford to get close to anyone. And Fairfax will never have me now, will she?

Alarm pulsed through him. What was the matter? Why was he overwhelmed with the need to confess?

Truth serum. He had been given a dose of truth serum. But how? He had taken nothing at the gala, not even Aramia’s snapberry punch.

He might not have ingested Aramia’s snapberry punch, but he had most certainly touched the glass—held it in his hand for far longer than he would have, had someone else offered him that glass. The glass had not been ice-cold, as he had thought—he would have realized it had he actually taken a sip of the punch itself. The coldness had come from a gel brushed onto the outside of the glass, and the truth serum had made its way into him via his skin.

That was what Fairfax, pecking at him, had tried to warn him about.

He dreaded being slipped truth serum, so much so that he never took anything but water at the meals Mrs. Dawlish provided and rarely drank tea he hadn’t prepared with his own hands. He even practiced telling lies while under the influence of truth serum. One drop. Tell a lie. Two drops. Another lie. Three drops. Keep lying.

But he had never suspected Aramia. She was the good one, gentle and self-effacing, tolerant, eager to please.

In hindsight everything was blindingly obvious. She longed for her mother’s approval. If she couldn’t be beautiful, she could still exploit Titus’s guilt and make herself useful. She had said as much, had she not? He had felt not the least tingle of alarm, only sympathy so sharp it hurt.

Friendship is untenable for people in our position, he had told Fairfax. Had he thought it applied only to Fairfax?

The Inquisitor stared at him. “Your Highness, where is Iolanthe Seabourne?”

Right here in this room.

He was on guard, very, very much on guard. Yet he still felt his lips part and form the shape necessary to pronounce the first syllable of the truth. “I thought we had already established that I have neither interest in nor knowledge of your elemental mage.”

“Why are you protecting her, Your Highness?”

Because she is mine. You will have her over my dead body.

“Because—”

He yanked himself from the precipice. A sharp pain slashed through his head, nearly tumbling him off his perch on the chair. He righted himself; the chair wobbled with his effort. “Because I have nothing better to do than run afoul of Atlantis, apparently?”

The Inquisitor’s brow knitted.

“There is something you should know about me, Madam Inquisitor. I do not give a damn for anyone except myself. I dislike Atlantis. I despise you. But I am not going to harm a hair on my head over mere irritants such as yourself. Why should I care whether you find the girl or not? No matter what happens, I am still the Master of the Domain.”

The words hurt. His throat burned. The inside of his mouth felt as if he had been chewing nails. And the pain in his head distorted the vision in his left eye.

The Inquisitor considered him. Gazing into her eyes was like looking at blood running down the street. “You mentioned Lady Callista a minute ago, Your Highness. I’m sure you are aware that Lady Callista and your late mother were close friends. Do you know what Lady Callista told me just after your coronation? She said your mother fancied herself a seer.”

Titus swallowed with difficulty. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“One of the things Princess Ariadne predicted was that I would be the Inquisitor of the Domain.”

“You are,” said Titus.

The Inquisitor smiled. “I am, but Her Highness played a crucial part.”

Titus narrowed his eyes. He had never heard anything of the sort.

“About eighteen years ago, a new Inquisitor named Hyas was appointed to the Domain. He was young,