THE PRINCIPALITY CIARAN

“What’s that? What’s with the arms?” Brand demanded.

I stopped in the middle of a staff exercise, gasping for breath. “I’m keeping my balance, asshole.”

“That’s not balance, that’s the fucking dance chorus for a 1950s musical. You’re supposed to be a fighter, not a sailor on shore leave.”

I waited until he moved down the line to criticize one of the kids, and glared daggers at his back.

It was Sunday, two full weeks after the events in the rejuvenation center. It was a day we usually reserved for family training sessions before the kids went back to Magnus for a four-day session.

Max was practicing staff work. Quinn and Addam sparred, trying to retrain Addam’s weapon grip now that he was fighting with the weight of a metal hand. Corbie was dancing around Corinne, trying to snag an extra graham cracker out of her hand. And Anna was sulking by herself. She’d been punished since yesterday, after she’d made Corbie eat a teaspoon of popcorn kernels, locked him outside in the afternoon heat, and told him the popcorn was going to pop in his stomach. By the time an adult got involved, he was reciting a tear-filled litany of who needed to adopt each of his stuffed animals.

“Look at where your hands are,” Brand barked at Max after a quick exchange of staff blows. “You’ve exposed them. I’m not even trying to hit you—I’m trying to hit them—and when I hurt them enough that they’re not doing their job, you’re finished.”

“Anything else?” Max asked through gritted teeth.

“Yes. Sweep your feet along the ground when you move, don’t pick your foot up and put it down like that. If something is behind you, you want to bump into it, not put your foot on it and lose balance.”

Max stopped swinging his staff, bent over, and took a few lungfuls of air. I watched the look on his face fade from irritation to determination, and he launched into another series of horizontal strikes.

Brand eventually came back to stand next to me, watching Max. “He’s good,” he whispered.

“He has a good teacher.”

“Don’t butter me up. You’re not done yet.”

“You know,” I said, “I’d like a little credit. I’m here, aren’t I? Have you seen my stomach? You can actually see which muscles might be a six-pack.”

“A six pack of what? Plush stuffed animals?” When I opened my mouth to argue, he waved his hand in the air. “No. No. You keep saying you’re getting your six-pack back. What does that mean to you? It’s not like they’re a leaf blower you lent to a neighbor. This is a daily commitment.”

“I—”

“Dad bod,” Brand enunciated.

“What?”

“You want me to be okay with your dad bod.”

“I . . . I . . .” Each I started with a different outraged inflection, which simmered into a baleful what-are-you-saying gesture with my arms.

“You want a dad bod,” Brand repeated. “And that’s fine. I get it. You’re an administrator now. Fine. I’ll be the only one who keeps in shape. You’re the Arcana—it’s your decision if you want to leave me behind and do something different.”

My anger doused. “Guilt trip? You’re pulling out a guilt trip?”

“Quinn!” Brand yelled. “Leave the butterfly alone! Go hit your brother with the sword!”

“Do you think we need to get Max more training?” I asked.

Brand gave me the look he usually gave me when I was changing the subject. He let it happen with an eye roll. “So you’re actually saying I’m not good enough?”

“You are, but I’m wondering if we need a fae fighter.”

“You think he should be using his shapeshifting?”

“We know he can manipulate his nails and skin color. I keep wondering what if he could do more than just grow his nails. What if he could sharpen or thicken them?”

“That almost sounds like Beast Throne stuff,” Brand said, and damned if he didn’t shudder a little. Lord Devil’s court was the home of the island Weres, where he was as well known for his shapeshifting magic as he was his brutal reign.

“The fae used to have ranks of fighters, long ago. Maybe some of the training still exists? Nothing to do with the Beast Throne.”

Brand stared at Max another long moment, then said, “Let’s think about it.”

He was about to head back over to Max when Corbie tugged on his sleeve. He had cracker crumbs on his upper lip, and Quinn’s old 3CUPS T-shirt hung to his knees. “I want to train,” he said in his hoarse voice.

“You want to train,” Brand repeated.

Corbie nodded.

“Okay,” Brand said. “Show me what to do when a strange man comes up and offers you a bag of candy.”

Corbie’s eyes went wide. Then he squinted in concentration, and stood straight with his hands folded politely behind his back.

Brand sighed. “Okay, a strange man who looks like a really bad guy comes up to you and offers you a bag of candy. What do you do then?”

Corbie mimicked chopping at the air with a series of martial arts moves while deftly swiping an invisible bag out of the bad guy’s hands.

“I appreciate your honest priorities,” Brand said. “You’re in. I’ll train you.”

“Oh, boy!” Corbie shouted, dancing from foot to foot. Then he shouted, “I need to pee!” and ran for the edge of the field.

That, apparently, was too much for Anna. She stomped over to us, taking special care to raise clouds of dust. She planted herself in front of us and said, “If you won’t let me train with staves, let me practice my magic. I need to practice my magic.”

“You told Corbie his stomach would explode,” I said.

She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “My magic is getting worse, not better. It’s harder to use it since you started training me.”

“That’s because you had no skill or discipline. Your use of magic was tied to your emotion. I’m giving you control, Anna. Do you want to be reliant on temper tantrums to cast spells?”

Her face shut down. Gods, she reminded me of Brand. That same neutral fury when challenged. “Anna,” I said, but calmer. “I need you to trust me.”

“And why do you think magic is more important than staff work?” Brand demanded.

“Can you smash a bottle with the power of your mind?” Anna said.

Brand looked around him and spotted an empty glass iced tea bottle on the arm of a lawn chair. He went over, picked it up, and smashed it against the pavement. He said, “Mind move hand. Hand move bottle. Bottle smash. And by the way, Anna, that’s the sort of reasoning that keeps scions from fighting their way out of a paper bag. But I’ll tell you what—we’ll flip for it. Heads, you go tell Queenie we’re ready for breakfast, then sweep up that glass. Tails, we have a one-on-one training session, however you want.”

“Fine,” she said, and the two of them squared off for a coin toss.

After Brand won, she hopped a nearby railing onto a patio, and vanished into the house without complaint. I watched her go with a worried expression, and turned to Corinne. Corinne beat me to the conversation by saying, “Would you let Brand run the coin toss?”

“Hell no. He cheats. And that’s not like Anna,” I said. “She’s never rude. She’s got opinions, sure, but she’s not usually angry like this. What’s going on?”

Corinne gave me a troubled look. “I don’t know. I used to know every thought in her head, but now… Have you talked with her about being your heir? Does she understand what that means?”

“It doesn’t mean anything right now. I just want her to be a kid.”

“Perhaps that is what you should talk about,” Addam suggested. He settled onto the ground and tugged me to a sitting position beside him. When we were level, he grinned at the sweat on my forehead and drew a smiley face in it.

Not long after that, we all gathered our things and headed to breakfast. Sunday brunch had become a Thing. Everyone was welcome—family, friends, staff. We didn’t have a big budget, so it was mostly a large spread of cereal, huge jars of yogurt, and juice from concentrate. Queenie splurged on one item, usually, and today was eggs and seasoned hash browns.

She even kept separate plates of shredded hash browns for me, Brand, and Max. We gave her a Sunday peck on the cheek and retreated to a corner of the western veranda. In good weather, we sat there. It was the largest outdoor space facing the ocean.

I’d barely shoveled one plastic forkful into my mouth when Mayan walked through the French doors. His braids were knotted into a bun at the back of his head, and he had an accordion folder in his hands.

A year ago, I would have pretended not to perk up. Now, I perked up.

Mayan went over to Corinne first, kissed her on the cheek, and said something that made her smile. Brand and I, plates in hand, casually edged closer. We were in earshot when Corbie ran up to Mayan and said, “Did you give me a pony ride when I was a baby?”

“Was this photographed?” Brand said. “Corbie, ask him to do it again.”

Corinne put a gentle but firm hand over Corbie’s mouth, whispered the words chocolate chips, and pointed to some pancakes that Queenie had made special for him. He ran off.

Mayan glanced around at the crowd milling about the banquet table. “Sorry to come calling unannounced. I’d like to borrow the three of you.” His gaze took in me, Corinne, and Brand.

“Rejuvenation Center?” I guessed.

“Rejuvenation Center,” he agreed.

* * *

We climbed into a minivan, which may have led to many jokes, except it was armored to its grille with tech and spells. It even had a built-in desk and laptop. Mayan instructed the driver to circle the neighborhood, then raised the partition.

“It’s been two weeks since the incident,” he began. “The Arcanum has kept a lid on public reaction and is in direct communication with the affected families. For all that, we’re hitting dead ends. I’d like to review what we know.”

“Thanks for including me,” Corinne said, which was slightly edged, but quickly lost in a frown. She looked at me hesitantly. “That’s all right with you?”

“Of course,” I said, and meant it.

“I’ll start by letting you know that the pharmacist died. He never regained consciousness in the hospital.”

“Damn,” Brand whispered. “What about the video I found near him?”

“I’ll play it in a moment. Other new info includes the sigil audit, and a debriefing with the center’s daytime manager.” Mayan opened the accordion folder and shuffled through the contents. He laid some paperwork on the built-in desk’s surface. “Much of our follow-up confirms on-site speculation. The only sigils that were ultimately taken were tied to individual guests who died in the massacre. Seventeen in total. None of the sigils had a legacy bond to the individual’s family, which means they could be claimed in conquest. There’s also a psychological profile here based on the usable sigils that were discarded. It seems to align with what Rune suggested: if the individual in question needed sigils, then dismissing usable ones due to personal preference indicates a . . . mindset we traditionally associate with the nobility.”

“Then why wear simple clothes? With mud on her shoes?” I murmured.

Mayan pulled out another report. “The mud is a type of clay found in the deepest parts of the Warrens. You know as well as I do that infiltrating the Warrens for information is not an easy mission. And we’ve turned up little. Lord Fool’s court has representation there, so we’re trying to locate him for discussion.”

There were two known subterranean areas of the city. The Warrens were a mishmash of translocations gone horribly wrong. And beneath the Warrens were the Lowlands, an area as much cave as translocation. Neither was a safe place, and no maps of them existed.

“Trying to locate him?” Brand asked. “Is he missing?”

“Lord Fool is unpredictable. And highly mobile. Being unable to reach him is not so unusual as to suggest a critical concern at this juncture.”

“You mentioned the daytime manager,” Corinne said. “That would be Jane Bludrick. She and I had coffee every morning I wasn’t in the machine. Honest sort.”

“She’s been cleared, and her debriefing did provide a few interesting items. We’ve created a composite sketch of the woman we’ll call Subject Jade.” He put a finger on one piece of paper and slid it from the rest, angling it toward Brand.

Brand picked it up and showed us. A pencil sketch depicted an old woman—a genuinely old, heavily wrinkled woman. I’m not sure I’d seen an Atlantean so ravaged by mortality, and certainly not a noble. None would risk letting their body age to such a state before seeking rejuvenation treatment.

“Any pictures of post-rejuvenation?” I asked. “I know it didn’t work, but did it change her face at all?”

“Yes. But I have no composite of that. Anyone who saw it is dead. I only have an email from the tech saying that rejuvenation yielded minimal results, and was deemed a failure. The matter was flagged for Lady Priestess’s personal review given the extremely unusual results.”

“What else did the daytime manager say?” Brand asked.

“Trying to backtrack the identity of Subject Jade through payment was a dead end. She used an extremely expensive and private package.”

“Jane mentioned that some guests check in under anonymity,” Corinne said. “But it doesn’t make sense, in this context. The package costs as much as . . . what, a sigil? Six figures, at least. If this Subject Jade is hard up for sigils, how can she afford the treatment?”

“Maybe she had to spend money to make money,” Brand said. “Maybe someone else paid for it.”

“I suspect that,” Mayan said. “But, again, the nature of the transaction precludes tracking the source of money. There was one other interesting detail. Apparently, at the time of the murders, the center had a low client list, and follow-up research shows that none of those clients were particularly strong spell-casters.”

“That’s too neat a coincidence,” Corinne said. “She picked this time deliberately.”

“If she did, it means Subject Jade could have always intended to kill witnesses,” Brand said.

I shook my head. “Maybe. But that certainly wasn’t in her head when she snapped. That was rage. That was a tantrum. That woman is a noble, I think we’re right about that.”

“I agree,” Mayan said. “And we also suspect, based on other details, that she’s a principality-level power. Corinne, that is highly privileged information, and please don’t ask questions on how we know that.” He looked at Brand and I as he said it, though very subtly. The message was received: Arcana Majeure was not to be discussed.

“But this is where it gets interesting,” he said. He opened a heavy panel in the desk to reveal a video screen and keyboard. A video app was already queued up to play. He pressed a button, then leaned back so we had an unobstructed view of the screen.

It was not long.

A man’s arm blocks the screen. It snakes back, showing a freshly damaged face. There is a woman’s body in the edge of the frame.

In audio only, a voice—a woman’s raspy voice. “You wretched dogs! You foul, useless dogs!”

The man opens his mouth and says something as his fingers spasm against the ground, then he reaches out again and pushes the camera away. The vid spins—man, desk, wall, darkness.

I reached past Mayan and rewound the footage four more times before I felt I’d seen it enough. No one stopped me.

Finally, Brand said, “Our guest.”

“That’s what I heard him say too,” Corinne said.

“He’s telling us it was a guest,” I said. “Did you hear the woman’s accent?”

Mayan smiled at me. “Wretched. She said it in one syllable—retched.”

Old Atlantean was a strange language. It heavily adopted English and Latin words, yet truncated some, and expanded others. People still pull the word wrecked into two syllables; but in this case, wretched was crammed into one.

“Old Atlantean,” I said to Brand. “So she’s likely a centennial.” I leaned back in the soft minivan seats, resting my brain against the headrest. “I understand why. Anger over lack of rejuvenation? That sense of superiority thwarted? What I don’t understand is how. How the hell does a principality who is also a centennial—who may have been alive hundreds of years if she uses an Old Atlantean accent like that—stay off the radar this long? And how do they suddenly wind up on the radar?”

“Exactly,” Mayan said. “I need you to talk with Ciaran, Rune. He’s the friendliest principality we have available to us. He refuses to talk to the Tower about this directly, but is willing to discuss it with you alone. I know it’s rude to ask you to go anywhere without Brand, but Lord Tower will lend this to you.” He tapped a hand on the roof of the minivan. “It’s one of his personal rides. You’d survive a tornado hit in it.”

I looked at Brand, who shrugged uncomfortably and said, “The driver will wait and bring Rune back too, right?”

“My word,” Mayan said,

Brand looked at me, and opened his mouth, but I beat him by saying, “I’ll look up and down. Total three-sixty.”

He gave me a quick, one-side-only smile. It was a bit of an Addam gesture, but it looked good on Brand, too.

Then the smile dropped off my face. “Wait. Ciaran is inviting me to his home? I get to see where he lives?”

Ciaran’s home. Holy shit.

The outside was a half dome, with no windows, on the southeastern end of the city. It was set back in a small, wooded area off Nazaca Road, a powerful global ley line. My skin itched as I walked through my friend’s dense, protective wards, toward the ornate front doors. Inside, I stared at a tiny marble mudroom, until a quiet fae staff member ushered me down a short hallway, up a flight of stairs, and into an explosion of colorful gaudiness.

“What the fu . . .” I whispered, turning in a slow circle once I was left alone.

It was some sort of bathhouse from an earlier century. Turkish, I think? There were shiny green and blue tiles, polished teak wood beams, bronzed lanterns. The ceiling was glorious: arched and painted a rich red. There were no windows, but small, circular panels of wall had been painted in bright colors and covered in gauzy muslin.

I went to a wall, where a plaque said the baths were available to women until noon, and men until six o’clock. Below, on a smaller plaque, were rates for admission in shillings.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Layne said behind me.

I turned in surprise. Layne was wearing calf-length boots and a yellow sundress. Their light brown hair, fresh with pumpkin-colored highlights, was pinned back away from their face.

Ciaran and Layne had formed a tight, unconventional friendship. I had no idea how old Ciaran was, but I strongly suspected he was as old, if not older, than Lord Tower—and I’d seen memories inside Lord Tower’s head that were centuries old. Layne, on the other hand, was a teenage trauma survivor. I’d learned recently that Ciaran had used his dreamwalking ability to help Layne navigate their night terrors.

I refused to be alarmed by their friendship: the evidence of Ciaran’s good intentions was too manifest, and I trusted him. Corinne was another story. She was coming to accept Ciaran’s role as a mentor, but the amount of time Layne spent away from Sun Estate bothered her.

“Hey you,” I said. “Does Corinne know you’re here?”

It was both the right and wrong thing to say. I watched their face close down.

“Layne,” I said.

“What?”

“Do you really need me to put this into words? You are fifteen. I give you a tremendous amount of freedom, but there are limits.”

“You don’t trust Ciaran to keep me safe?”

“I trust you to tell your aunt where you are at all times.”

“And if she has a problem with me being here?”

“Then you need to do a better job convincing her,” I said, which was harsh but true. I softened my tone and said, “Deal?”

Layne nodded. “Ciaran is on his way. We were making a snack. I’ll bring some to you.”

They turned and left too quickly for goodbyes. I barely had time to sigh before Ciaran slid in the room through a different doorway, timed too closely for an accident.

“Darling,” Ciaran whispered. “I am so hungover today that even my thumb hurts from the number of times I flicked my lighter. You must bring Layne home so I can stop pretending to be a role model.”

I gestured around me. “This? This is a translocation. Right?”

“Mmm,” he said, and went over to one of the chaise lounges. I’m not sure I’d ever seen a chaise lounge that Ciaran declined to drape himself over.

I took one of the brightly painted seats near him. “Is Layne inviting themself over too much?”

“Ach, no. Not to worry about that. They’re lovely. I just happened to have a bit of an all-night soirée since last Thursday.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Thanks for inviting me. I’m guessing you don’t like having people here?”

He looked around him. What he saw wasn’t what I saw; the emotion in his eyes was guarded and very real. “You are discreet.”

I decided to change the subject. “You know why I’m here?”

“Oh, yes. Lord Tower was somewhat vexed I refused to run to the Pac Bell at his bidding. Bless his scratched little heart.”

He sank back into the lounge and folded his hands on his stomach. Ciaran was a thin, tall, handsome man of indeterminate age. He always looked as if he’d just bit his tongue and licked his lips. His hair was green today, not the normal blue, which nevertheless matched the room and chair fabric.

“Are you excited about your gala next week?” he asked.

“People keep asking me that. What’s to be excited about? It’s like a zoo benefit to show off the new exhibit. Brand is excited because he got to pick half of the gift registry.”

Ciaran pulled out a pack of cigarettes and field stripped one. He handed me the filtered end, and took the unfiltered half between his lips. He lit the end with a rhinestone-covered Zippo.

Passed the lighter, I lit the cigarette and enjoyed a highly forbidden treat.

“Very well,” Ciaran said. “No more small talk. Tell me what happened. All of it. From the very start. I want to know what color boxers you chose when they woke you up in the wee hours. Details, Sun.”

So I told him. It took the better part of forty minutes, because I respected Ciaran enough to make it a thorough debrief.

Mayan had sent copies of both videos to my phone using a secure app. Ciaran appeared to play both videos several times, until I realized he’d only watched them once and then swiped into my photos, where he was thumbing through recent pics.

“Godsdamnit,” I said, grabbing it back.

“Addam has quite a toned backside,” he remarked. He blew smoke on the tip of his latest cigarette to make the ember flare. “You caught that Old Atlantean accent?”

“One of the reasons I’m here. Plus the suspicion that she’s a principality. Do you know of any other reason rejuvenation magic would have failed?”

“Why would I? I have little to do with Lady Priestess and her niche economy.”

“But you know more about magic than anyone else on this island,” I said, which made his eyes flick to me. “Can you think of any other reason rejuvenation magic would fail so spectacularly?”

“Yes,” he said after a pause. “Someone could be actively working against it. Sabotage, in other words. But in such a circumstance there would be signs, and Lord Tower’s team would not miss them. You’ve arrived at a rather secure assumption—it’s likely related to Majeure use.”

I leaned forward in my chair, careful not to ash my cigarette on the beautiful tile. “How is this possible, Ciaran? An unknown principality who is potentially centuries old?”

“Perhaps she didn’t come into her abilities until late in life. There are stories, old stories, about trauma triggering latent abilities. Perhaps she’s been abroad. Perhaps . . .” He trailed off, and narrowed his eyes. “But that barrier. That barrier. If it really took both Lord Tower and Lady Death to break it? Strength like that has faded from fact to rumor to history to myth. We’re simply not the people we were in our own legends.”

“Do you have any thoughts?”

“I do, actually. You came to me because I’m an old principality.”

“But beautifully maintained.”

He managed to curtsy from his sprawled position. “You should widen your circle, if you’re asking for information. There are people not in power who are as old as Lord Tower and I.”

“The Empress?”

“Well, certainly. But I’m thinking more local. She is not on this island. I believe I would know if it were otherwise.”

I didn’t ask how, but that was interesting, if not entirely surprising given what I suspected about Ciaran’s true origins.

“Lady Death took over from her mother, the Dowager Lady Death, during the Atlantean War,” Ciaran reminded me. “Her mother was never a great power, but she was a massive gossip. And she is old. Very, very old. Perhaps we can all share a vodka gimlet at your gala.”

“Sounds like a plan. Unless the Tower wants to talk with her sooner. Can I ask you something else?”

“Of course.”

“Have you spent much time in the Warrens? I heard you have.”

Ciaran made a face I didn’t quite understand—a bit reluctant, a bit acknowledgement. “Those of us with power have a responsibility to those without. There are people who need and deserve help there. There is so much life there. So much potential. Such a great need for help and hope. I would hate to think anything I say to you results in Lord Tower deploying phalanxes of armed guards into the Warrens.”

“If this Subject Jade is there, I’m not sure we have a choice. She’s dangerous and powerful, and she nearly set off a house war.”

“It’s hypocritical, Rune Sun. Do you know how many people die of starvation or violence or drug overdoses in the Warrens and Lowlands every day? Many, many more than those who died in that pampered facility.”

“I don’t disagree, but if we do nothing, they’re just as much at risk from collateral damage. This isn’t over. Whatever happened, it’s not the beginning, and it’s certainly not the end.”

Ciaran spread his fingers in one of his as you say gestures. “Then yes, to answer your question. I am familiar with the Warrens. The areas closest to the surface, generally, where people haven’t quite given up completely.”

“Is anything new happening there? Mayan mentioned his people have been looking for Lord Fool.”

“Lord Fool does spend quite a bit of time there. His Revelry is . . . well, transient. Unpredictable. He is an Arcana with only one rule: thou must abide anarchy.”

“And have you heard anything?”

“No. No, I haven’t. But I can try.”

“Fair enough.”

Layne came in at that point with an ornate silver tray, on which were two fancy plates of bone china with oranges on them. Or orange products? The tops had been cut off, and the insides were filled with a type of pudding or custard.

“Buttered oranges,” Ciaran said with relish. “Such a shame they’re out of vogue. You’re a peach, dearest. Thank you.”

Layne nodded and withdrew from the room. That interested me, because they didn’t try to stay or speak. They behaved like an apprentice.

Absentmindedly, I took a bite of the custard. Then I groaned. “Oh, my gods. Oh, my gods.” Spooning more into my mouth, I said, “Is there an entire stick of butter in here? We need to put this everywhere. Everywhere. We need to put this in soap dispensers and toothpaste tubes.”

Delighted, Ciaran nibbled on his own.

With my spoon, I pushed the orange aside to admire the plate. It had arched patterns of blue and red around the edge. In the exact center, below the orange, was a tiny red ship with a white star in the middle.

My spoon clattered to the plate. I stood up. I looked around me with new eyes, and didn’t even realize I was chewing on a nail until apple bitter swarmed my taste buds.

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Ciaran, is this the Titanic?”

He shrugged.

“Ciaran,” I repeated, louder, because a shrug just didn’t cut it. “Am I standing in the Titanic?”

“A part of it. Just a little part. These are the first-class baths. And I may also have a first-class smoking room. Down there.” He waved a lazy hand behind him.

“Oh, my gods, Ciaran, this is . . . Do you know how furious the human world would be if they knew you’d . . . you’d . . .”

He blew a raspberry.

I went over to a wall of photos. I don’t think they were part of the original design: they were reproductions—or actual?—photographs from the voyage. Mostly the launch, where the photographers were able to escape the doomed vessel before it sailed from England.

I looked at the black and white faces, shaking my head. “I’m in the Titanic. You have a piece of the Titanic in a big cement bunker. How did I not know this? How—”

I slammed a hand next to one of the photos and leaned close. Pressed my nose to the glass. There was Ciaran, waving from a railing.

“You were on the Titanic,” I whispered.

“I don’t like talking about it. I was ill and recovering at the time. But yes. I saved who I could. It was . . . Well. In its own way, that night was a war, and one never forgets one’s wars.”

It was too much. I hadn’t come here with the intention of spilling secrets, but this was too much. It was amazing, and extraordinary, and spoke to the depths of the person eating a dainty bite of buttered orange. It loosened my tongue, and the words just tumbled out.

“Godsdamnit, Ciaran, I know who you are.”

He beamed. “Do tell. Use adjectives.”

“Ciaran, I’m serious. Do . . . do you not trust me? Do you think I wouldn’t keep your secret? I would. I value you so much.”

The coyness washed out of his face. Slowly, he placed his spoon alongside the plate.

“My secret,” he finally said.

“I figured it out ages ago. I’m half-convinced you deliberately left me clues.”

“Clues,” he said. “Because I am?”

“You’re the Magician, Ciaran,” I said on an exhale. “I don’t know who that man is who sits on the Hex Throne seat, but he’s not in charge. He’s not the real Magician. You are.”

Ciaran stood up, went to the other side of the room, and stared at one of the round wall murals. Portholes. I now saw that they were painted like portholes.

“Does he know?” Ciaran asked after a very long minute.

I knew who he meant. There were certain people in Atlantis who you spoke of in pronouns, and it was simply understood. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I never told Lord Tower. I’ve never even had a discussion with him about it. But why—”

“Clues,” Ciaran repeated. “What clues did I leave?”

“When we were fighting Rurik, you had a strong reaction to the idea that Ashton could breach the defenses around the Magician’s Westlands compound. You got mad about that a couple times, actually. And in the Sunken Mall that time, you were really interested in the elementals’ version of the Hex Throne. And then back when I was fighting Lord Hanged Man, you didn’t just pull favors from the man I call Lord Magician. You overruled him, Ciaran. You pulled his leash. Who is he?”

He did not answer. Instead, he asked, “Why would you think I deliberately left clues for you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the same reason I took up my father’s mantle.”

“And you did that because?”

“Because I have people. So many people to protect. And I think, now, you do too. We owe you so much.” My voice thickened with memory. “You saved Brand. That time in the Westlands, when he was fighting on the patio and I couldn’t get to him, and you broke through the wall . . . You saved him. I would have lost him without you. Do you think I could ever repay that?”

He turned to face me, and his Aspect rose.

We were in a room, but not. There was the wall of a ghost ship behind him, and also a river current—a river of shining mercury, of magic in its purest form. The ripples of light I always saw in his eyes were now everywhere—sunlight playing across this imbued torrent of energy.

For a moment—for just the sliver of a second—I thought I understood that which we were not allowed to know on this side of the grave.

His Aspect faded into shining eyes.

“Lord Magician,” I whispered. “Brother. Ciaran. I see you.”

“I see you too, Lord Sun. Guard my secret, and respect my taciturnity. I do not wish to speak of this further right now.”

“I understand. I’ll gather Layne and leave. I will guard your secret, and I will guard your secret, and I will guard your secret.” The force of my words flowed around us.

Ciaran sat down in a chair. His gaze fixed in the middle distance, and he said nothing else.

I picked up my buttered orange and hoofed it out of there, calling Layne’s name.

Diana waited for me at the gates by the staff parking lot. As the minivan rumbled away behind us, Layne and I walked up to her.

“I didn’t realize you would be off-site,” she said evenly, with a quick glance at Layne.

“Things don’t always fall apart the moment I leave,” I said. “That’s why you’re here.”

“That is not why I am here, right now, at this instant,” she said. “I am here to address that which fell apart once you left. Are you familiar with the shed that was inside the elasmotherium’s pen?”

“Did you just use the past tense?”

“Your youngest ward appears to have been teaching the elasmotherium to play fetch with a Frisbee, and the Frisbee landed on the roof of the shed. The elasmotherium made considerable effort to retrieve the Frisbee. There is no more shed.”

My heart stopped, started, stopped, started.

Layne said, “Do you mean Corbie? Corbie was inside the pen?”

“Alone, yes. Apparently, he learned how to gain access by moving a specific sequence of wardstones.”

“Where is he,” I said.

“Still by the pen.”

* * *

Corbitant Dawncreek hadn’t had the easiest life.

He had no memory of his mother. His father died when he was just a baby. He’d lived in near-poverty, and nearly watched his sibling consumed by the Hanged Man’s court. Two of his homes had been destroyed. Two of them. One of the fires had damaged his vocal cords to the point where he spoke in a constant hoarse voice.

For all that, he was a happy child. He was loved. He spent the weekends in ecstasy, when Max, Quinn, and Anna returned from school. He was morose when they left on Mondays, but we took turns keeping him occupied.

I’d known he was a curious child. Corinne and I, as a secret project, once magically tracked his movements on an average weekday morning. It amounted to this:

Jumping out of bed at dawn. Hopping around his room. Running down to the kitchen in his pajamas to see what was being made for breakfast. Then he would run from window to window on the first floor, excited to see if anything had changed. Then he did the same on the second and third floor, which presented challenges, because many of those rooms were occupied. Apparently, he’d been racing in and out of my bedroom without waking me up; but I’ve heard Brand bellow more than once.

Then Corbie would put on giant Wellington boots he’d found in the basement and go see if there were tadpoles in the garden pond; or if the new groundskeeper would let him throw hard corn at the chickens; or if the waves in the ocean looked particularly bouncy.

I knew he visited Flynn constantly. He’d even been the one to name the dinosaur after an old neighbor’s much-loved cat.

I did not know he’d ever, ever been past the wards without a chaperone.

It’s possible I would laugh about this someday, but not now. There was nothing humorous about this now, not when it involved a six-year-old boy, not when it involved a several ton creature with a horn that could crush concrete.

* * *

The boy in question was standing by the warded pen with two guards and Quinn. His face was fixed into his crafty I’m-just-a-little-kid-and-don’tunderstand-any-of-this expression of carefully scrubbed innocence. Behind him, on the other side of the wardstones, stood the Siberian unicorn. It had a florescent orange Frisbee in its giant mouth.

I stood and stared at Corbie until his eyes widened and he realized the little kid act wasn’t working. Then I crooked a finger at Quinn and stepped away from everyone. Layne ran over to Corbie and started hissing words of angry worry.

“And you are here because?” I said to Quinn.

“I sort of saw it? It doesn’t always happen this way.”

“What doesn’t happen this way?”

Quinn hesitated. “I don’t think it’s my story to share. It seems rude to talk about people before they become the people they become. If it helps, Flynn won’t hurt Corbie. Flynn is . . .” Quinn chewed on his lip for a moment. He settled on, “Flynn is smart.”

“Flynn is a wholly inappropriate pet for a child. Even if Flynn wouldn’t deliberately hurt Corbie, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t crush or hurt the boy by accident. Did you know this might happen, Quinn?”

Quinn’s worry faded into surprise, and not a good type of surprise. “I thought you understood me,” he said in a hurt voice.

“I thought we understood each other,” I countered. “Why did you not give me a heads-up?”

“Because you won’t do what I tell you, and sometimes that makes the worst things happen. The worst things.”

This didn’t seem like the type of thing we were going to resolve on the spot, and I didn’t want to get angrier than I was. I turned from Quinn and went over to Corbie.

Squatting down, I asked, “What did you do wrong? Can you tell me that?”

Corbie nodded quickly. “I threw bad.”

I held out my arms. Corbie rushed into them like he was getting a hug, but I picked him up instead and walked us over to the enclosure. Flynn made a high-pitched sound and dropped the Frisbee in the grass. He sounded, nearly exactly, like a dehydrated porpoise.

“He would never mean to hurt you,” I said, “but he’s very big, and you are very small, Corbitant. What if you’d been standing next to the tool shed when it collapsed?” I turned to our left, so we could see the pile of splintered wood that had once held animal feed. “Plus, Flynn is old. He could have broken a leg. He could have been hurt.”

Corbie sniffed.

“And now I need to find the person who told you how to get inside the pen, and I need to fire them.”

“No one showed me!” he said in a raspy rush.

“But you saw someone else do it, right? Someone let you watch. That is irresponsible. I cannot afford to have anyone on this estate who would be so unintentionally careless.”

More sniffles. Corbie rubbed his eyes with the sides of his hands. He buried himself against my neck and cried for a little while. Then he said, “Can I go lie down please? Please Rune?”

“I’ll take him,” Queenie said. I looked over my shoulder to see that she and Brand had joined the group.

There was also a third person with them, a strange man, though he’d remained standing at a discreet distance. I passed Corbie over to Queenie with a murmured thank you, and tucked my T-shirt back under my belt so that I looked presentable.

At a close distance, the strange man cleared his throat. I cut my eyes at Brand, who whispered, “Vadik Amberson. The late Lord Amberson’s youngest son.”

Shit. Vadik’s aunt Elicia had died at the rejuvenation center. I’d extended an invitation to them for my coronation gala.

He was older than Addam, appearing as a man in his late thirties, perhaps early forties. He was almost handsome—a strong nose, lips, jaw—except there was just too much face around his face. A large forehead, cheeks that seemed to swallow his cheekbones.

“Vadik Amberson,” I said.

“Lord Sun.” He bowed from the neck.

“Welcome to Sun Estate. Have we offered you refreshments?”

“Oh, yes. Your girl was most kind and efficient. She’s a credit to your new staff.”

“That’s Queenie. She’s been with us forever.” I shook my head, and refocused. “Please accept my condolences for the loss of your aunt. It was tragic.”

The politeness flickered in his eyes—a tightening that may have been honest grief. “Thank you. That’s why I stopped by. I wanted to thank you for the floral arrangement you sent, as well as the invitation to your coronation. It was most generous of you to remember my family.”

“The Ambersons were a loyal and valued part of my father’s court. It was my pleasure to reestablish contact.”

“I was hoping we may speak more of that,” he said. “Over the last few years we’ve . . . recovered our status, you might say. My father’s death was a heavy blow, but recent investments have placed us in a much less precarious position. We remain unaffiliated.”

The invitation laid there, and I did not pick it up. From the corner of my eye, I saw Diana watching me closely, and she nodded at my lack of an immediate response. Her advice was in the front of my head—along with a gut reaction I couldn’t entirely decipher, except that I hadn’t liked when he called Queenie your girl.

“I’m afraid I have some estate matters to handle at the moment, but we’ll make time in the near future. Will you be attending the . . .” Fuck if I was going to say coronation. “The party?”

“It will be our honor. My dear aunt would want it that way, I’m sure.” He reached out and touched a sigil on his neck—a silver teardrop. “This was hers, actually. A family sigil. It’s like she’s with me. She would be pleased to see your estate looking so alive again. When she was younger, she spent—”

Layne cried out. They were bending down next to Quinn, who was on his knees. Quinn’s eyes showed wide, shocked whites, and blood began to pour from his nose.

I had barely taken a step toward him when he yelled, “Assassin! Now! Inside! Blades and bombs—healing sigil! Healing sigils now-now-now gogo-go! Go! Run!”

“Layne, get Addam from the beach, he’s got healing sigils!” Brand shouted and took off at a sprint.

I paused only long enough to watch Layne pull a box cutter from their pocket, expose the razor blade, and cut an abscess that was hidden beneath their yellow sleeve. Magic flared—Layne’s unique form of necromancy activated by exposure to air, helping them cultivate and kill bacterial infections to fuel their abilities. When they began to run, it was supernaturally fast.

A whispered cantrip gave strength to my legs, and I took off. Brand was already half a soccer’s pitch away. I let him go, and focused on my own pace, swiping fingers across a sigil to release a Shield. The sabre was already melting into hilt form, urged by my unconscious command.

I poured more speed into the sprint. I didn’t bother with the front entrance: I vaulted over the patio balustrade, through the open doors, into the ballroom. All of my senses—magical and mortal—were on alert for signs of disturbance or struggle.

I passed a group of Germanic dweorg smoothing raw material into wall cracks, yelled at them to shelter in place. Turned a corner into the main hall, just as Brand ran out of the kitchen on the other side. “Clear,” he shouted.

We heard voices from the back of the house, and raced toward the solarium. Both of us reared back when we saw a person in dirty jeans and a tank top—a woman, young—standing in the archway, her back to us.

“Feet,” Brand hissed just as I saw she wore no shoes, and they were flaking with olive-colored mud.

It happened so quickly. The woman shouted, “Too many glows!” She ran into the room just as Brand reached her, and his hand missed snatching her sleeve by an inch. I ran in the room and saw Anna, Corinne, and Queenie. Corinne had Corbie in her arms.

The girl was running at them with a knife.

Anna dove in the way, and the knife went into her side.

The woman staggered back from Anna, who went pale and began to fall. Corinne was already shoving Corbie at Queenie and grabbing Anna, turning her body to protect the girl from more injury.

The woman spun on me and I saw she had something in her other hand—a round sphere that glistened like liquid.

She threw it at me as I raised my Shield. The sphere sheared off at an angle and burst, so that only my shoulder was splattered by the liquid inside it. I didn’t even stop moving—I spun into a kick that took the girl in the solar plexus, just as the hilt of a thrown knife slammed into her temple. She collapsed with an airless grunt.

I didn’t worry about the shining liquid until it seared my T-shirt into burning threads, and began to dissolve my skin.

The pain was unreal. I lost track of what was happening. Shouts, orders, the sound of chairs being flung out of the way. I saw Addam arrive and go for Anna, his hands already simmering with Healing spells.

Brand, panicked, was saying, “Hold on, he’s coming for you next, oh, fuck Rune, oh, fuck.” I tried to look at my shoulder, but my body screamed in protest. It felt like the flesh was being fried from the bone. It was doing that, I could smell it.

Corinne was there. She grabbed me, kicked the back of my knees, made me crumble to the ground. When Brand tried to stop her, she screamed, “It’s rainfire! It sinks with gravity—turn him around, turn him around, before it burrows to his heart!”

I was manhandled so that the point of my melting shoulder was facing the swept tiled floor. Orange droplets began to fall and burn through the stone.

My eyes closed.

They opened and Diana was there, her hands wreathed in their own healing energies.

My eyes closed, and opened, and Layne was there. Addam, Diana, Layne crowded around me. My shoulder felt like someone was grinding a torch into it. I said Anna’s name, but my eyes shuttered right afterward.

And then they opened. I blinked, and stayed awake.

I felt the intense tingling of either Healing or shock.

I was on the table that Addam had bought me. He was on one side, Brand on the other. Addam was massaging my wrist; Brand had his hand on my head. I let my head fall to the left, and saw the woman—who did not look like an assassin—restrained in a chair.

Her arms were covered in infected scratches, and they wavered in my sight, because there was magic in the drugs. The Agonies. I’d seen marks like that before, down in the Green Docks. The woman looked like an addict of the Agonies.

“Her feet,” I whispered. Then alarm brought back my memory. “Anna!”

“The stab missed all her vitals, she’s fine. She’s fine, Rune,” Brand said. “Take it easy.”

The woman was moaning. Sobbing. Every word was weaker than the one before it. She cried, “They said they would glow the most, but there were so many glows, there were so many glows.”

I tried to tell them to heal her, because I could see that she was in danger. It wasn’t just the drugs that pulsed with magic. She was under a spell, and her failure had triggered the shortest of fuses. Every admission pulled her further down the River.

I tried to tell them. I really did. But she died before I pushed a word through my numb lips.