who’d been half a step behind, ran into him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, pushing off his arm. And then she saw it, too. “Oh …”
An old man stopped a few feet away to read the board, oblivious to the fact that the missing man stood just behind his shoulder. Beneath the wavering image of Kell’s face, an empty circle drew itself in chalk. The instructions beside it read:
If seen, touch here.
Kell swore under his breath. Being hunted by Holland was bad enough, but now the whole city would be on alert. And they couldn’t stay invisible forever. He wouldn’t be able to lift a token, let alone use it, as long as they were under the veil.
“Come on.” He picked up his pace, dragging Lila with him until they reached the docks. All around, his face stared back at them, frowning slightly.
When they reached Fletcher’s shop, the door was shut and locked, a small sign hanging on its front that read RENACHE. Away.
“Do we wait?” asked Lila.
“Not out here,” said Kell. The door was bolted three ways, and likely charmed as well, but they didn’t need to be let in. They passed straight through the wood, the way they had half a dozen people on the street.
Only once they were safe within the shop did Kell will the magic to release the veil. Again it listened and obeyed without protest, the magic thinning and then dissolving entirely. Conviction, he mused as the spell slid from his shoulders, the room coming into sharper focus around him. Holland had been right. It was about staying in control. And Kell had.
Lila let go of his hand and turned back to face him. She froze.
“Kell,” she said carefully.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Put down the stone.”
He frowned, looked down at the talisman in his grip, and caught his breath. The veins on the back of his hand were dark, so dark that they stood out like ink against his flesh, the lines tracing up toward his elbow. The power he’d felt pulsing through him was actually pulsing through him, turning his blood black. He had been so focused on his renewed strength, and on the spell itself, on staying hidden, that he had not felt—had not wanted to feel—the warmth of the magic spreading up his arm like poison. But he should have noticed, should have known—that was the thing. Kell knew better. He knew how dangerous the stone was, and yet, even now, staring down at his darkened veins, that danger felt strangely faraway. A persistent calm pressed through him stride for stride with the stone’s magic, telling him that everything would be all right, so long as he kept holding—
A knife buried itself in the post beside his head, and the room snapped back into focus.
“Have you gone deaf?” growled Lila, freeing another blade. “I said put it down.”
Before the calm could close over him again, Kell willed himself to release the stone. At first, his fingers stayed clasped around the talisman as warmth—and in its wake, a kind of numbness—seeped through him. He brought his free, untainted hand to his darkening wrist and gripped hard, willing his resisting fingers to uncurl, to release the stone.
And finally, reluctantly, they did.
The stone tumbled from his grip, and Kell’s knee instantly buckled beneath him. He caught himself on a table’s edge, gasping for breath as his vision swam and the room tilted. He hadn’t felt the stone leeching his energy, but now that it was gone, it was like someone had doused his fire. Everything went cold.
The talisman glinted on the wooden floor, a streak of blood against the jagged edge where Kell had gripped too hard. Even in its wake, it took all Kell’s will not to take it up again. Shaking and chilled, he still longed to hold it. There were men who lurked in dens and in the dark corners of London, chasing highs like this, but Kell had never been one of them, never craved the raw power. Never needed to. Magic wasn’t something he lusted for; it was something he simply had. But now his veins felt starved of it, and starving for it.
Before he could lose battle for control, Lila knelt beside the stone. “Clever little thing,” she said, reaching for it.
“Don’t—” started Kell, but she’d already used her handkerchief to sweep it up.
“Someone’s got to hold on to it,” she said, slipping the talisman into her pocket. “And I’d wager I’m the better choice right now.”
Kell clutched the