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She plucked her bag from him and slapped him, hard, on the cheek. His soul trembled in her grasp, wriggling—gasping for air, for breath—for release. Aelwyn sighed. He hadn’t deserved this. It was wrenching to perform an extraction on so small a child. He was only a little boy, a desperate, hungry street urchin, and his gang leader probably wouldn’t have even known what to do with the treasures he carried. Most likely he would have tossed the jars of tonics and herbs into the garbage, broken the crystal glass, and sold the stones for a tenth of what they were worth. She turned away. When she was a few blocks safely past, she released her grasp on him and let his soul back into his body.
St. James Palace, the home of the sovereign, was a monolith: heavy, brown, and solid. It lacked the symmetry of Parliament and the Crown’s other great structures, as its twin towers were located off to one side, their octagonal turrets standing like two sentries at the ready. The red-and-blue Franco-British flag flew proudly from the roof and whipped in the air. Above, the sky was gray, as it always was; the clouds stirred and streaked across the horizon, but never parted to reveal the sun. Perhaps the great palace would look less dour if the sun ever shone on it, but it rarely did. The gray of London made the castle look darker, more ominous. Aelwyn felt increasingly small and insignificant as she got closer to it. St. James was the seat of the queen, and had been home to centuries of British and Franco-British rulers. Its architecture spoke of unquestioned power, of a strength that had stood for centuries without interruption—of a power that would never bend, never compromise.
Her father was in his study, she was told by his unsmiling secretary. It was the same dour old woman who had ushered her out of the castle four years before. The chamber was tall and narrow; like the castle itself, the proportions of the room were designed to intimidate anyone who entered. Slender pilasters dressed the walls, their thin golden lines interspersed with panels of rich red cloth. In the early morning light, the cloth reminded her of blood. A brazier of candles made the darkness of the room even more intense, more foreboding. Her father’s desk occupied a faint patch of light below the flickering candles. The mighty table could seat a dozen men, and the desk nearly dwarfed the man sitting at its head. A globe decorated one side of the tabletop; it spun slowly, apparently of its own accord, and she guessed it was her father’s magic that made it spin. Indeed, it was the power of the Merlin that made all things turn. Behind the desk hung a loosely knit tapestry embroidered with a map of the empire. The map’s size, its age, its glorious detail, all said one thing to anyone who braved a visit to the first magician of the realm: Our empire is vast, our power unquestioned; our rule will stand forever.
She had not seen him in four years, but Emrys Myrddyn looked exactly the same, with his stern countenance and trim white hair and beard. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored morning suit, his gold cuff links catching the light. “Ah, there you are,” he said, looking up from his paperwork with a distracted smile, as if she had just disappeared for a moment and not been sent away for four years.
“Hello, Father,” she said politely.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the chair in front of his desk. “How was your journey? Are you hungry?”
She shrugged. “I’ll get something from Cook later.”
Emrys took an apple from behind his desk, peeled it, cored it, and cut it into fourths. She was touched by the gesture. He’d remembered that as a child she had always preferred her fruit this way: peeled, prepared, cleaned of skin and pits and stones, which was the way the princess’s fruit was always served. When she was a child in this castle, she had insisted that everything she had be exactly like the princess’s. She had never settled for less than what Marie received.
She accepted the plate gratefully and took a bite from one piece.
“How is my sister?” Emrys asked.
“Viviane is well. She sends her regards.”
Emrys snorted. Aelwyn knew that Viviane believed Emrys had sold out the enchanters of the world by making them servants to the throne. “Your father is nothing but a glorified civil servant,” the Lady of the Lake liked to grouse. Viviane had chosen exile over subservience. “I will not bow to some lesser creature,” she’d told her niece, and made it clear what she thought of Aelwyn’s decision to return to the palace. “What is outside this mist that calls to you so? There we are but chattel, performing monkeys. Let them find someone else to create their fireworks and call for rain.”
“Is my sister as stubborn as ever?” Emrys asked in a bemused tone.
Aelwyn smiled. Other than inquiring about Viviane, her father did not mention Aelwyn’s long absence or its cause; he did not ask about her health or her happiness. Then again, Emrys had never been particularly affectionate. Her father was the nearly thousand-year-old wizard who had
advised Artucus, the first King of England, and all his heirs—including Henry VI, for whom Emrys had brought the kingdoms of England and France together to create the foundation of the empire.
Emrys settled back into his chair and drummed his fingers on his desk. “I had to convince the Order to take you in; you know they aren’t very fond of Viviane, and were wary of her influence upon you. I had to assure them of your obedience. Do not fail me.”
“My will is to serve,” she said, showing him she had already learned the vows of her future station.
He nodded, pleased. “Run into any trouble on your journey?” he asked, taking a pipe out of his pocket and lighting it.
“No, Father,” she said with a shrug, fiddling with the obsidian stone on her chain. She thought of the little thief, and how she’d held his soul in her hands. “None at all.”
The prettiest room in the castle was built like a jewel box: all pink, white and gold, with gilt molding, pink damask wallpaper, fat cherub murals painted on the ceiling, and a crystal chandelier above the bed. It was a room fit for a sleeping princess. Except the princess, Marie-Victoria, was only pretending to be asleep. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing even as her ladies-in-waiting gathered around the bed, trying to make as little noise as possible. Marie wondered how long they had been standing there—since dawn? Or for only a few minutes? She never knew; only that they were always there when she woke up. There was an audience for everything she did, even the most mundane of activities, from rising to dining to strolling in the gardens. The practice had been handed down from the French side of their family, and even though the court was in London they kept to the French ways.
She supposed she should get up soon. She could sense that her ladies were getting impatient; she could hear them coughing and murmuring to each other. But she also knew what was awaiting her that day, and so she wanted to stay in her soft warm bed for as long as possible. One of her ladies—Evangeline, most likely, the highest-ranking one—cleared her throat loudly, and Marie decided it was time to put everyone out of their misery.
“Good morning,” she said, pulling open the bed curtains and yawning.
“Good morning, Princess,” her ladies chorused as they curtsied.
“No breakfast today?” she asked, noticing that no one had set the little table at the edge of the room by the windows.
“No, my lady. You have been asked to join the queen this morning.”
Marie sighed. It meant that the rumors were true, then—her mother had plans for her. The formal request to join her at breakfast in front of the whole court meant that Marie would discover what those plans were, along with everyone else, in public—with no opportunity to talk about it in private beforehand. Which could only mean that her mother did not want to take any chances, and that any objections Marie might have to her designs would not be taken into account. She began to cough violently into her handkerchief, staining the white linen with blood and scaring her ladies.
“I am all right,” Marie said when the coughing subsided, and the ladies helped her dress. Paulette, the Lady of the Robes, decided on the crimson silk.
“Better for your coloring.” She smiled as she helped Marie pull the gown over her head. “There, you see? You carry it well—you can hardly tell you are sick.”
“Paulette! Watch your tongue!” Evangeline reprimanded.
“Oh! Forgive me, Your Highness,” Paulette said fearfully, with a bow.
