A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) - V.E Schwab Page 0,75

coming. Rhy would sulk at that, too, spiteful of anything that might dampen the splendor of his day.

“Come on,” said Kell, “we’re almost there.”

Lila sheathed her blade and followed, this time with fewer daggers in her eyes.

“This place we’re headed,” she said. “Does it have a name?”

“Is Kir Ayes,” said Kell. “The Ruby Fields.” He had not told Lila yet that her journey would end here. That it had to. For his peace of mind and for her safety.

“What are you hoping to find there?”

“A token,” said Kell. “Something that will grant us passage to White London.” He parsed through the shelves and drawers in his mind, the various trinkets from the various cities glittering behind his eyes. “The inn itself,” he went on, “is run by a woman named Fauna. You two should get along splendidly.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re both—”

He was about to say hard as tacks, but then he rounded the corner and came to a sharp stop, the words dying on his tongue.

“Is that the Ruby Fields?” asked Lila at his shoulder.

“It is,” said Kell quietly. “Or, it was.”

There was nothing left but ash and smoke.

The inn, and everything in it, had been burned to the ground.

IV

It had been no ordinary fire.

Ordinary fires didn’t consume metal as well as wood. And ordinary fires spread. This one hadn’t. It had traced the edges of the building and burned in a near-perfect inn-shaped blaze, only a few tendrils scorching the street stones that circled the building.

No, this was spellwork.

And it was fresh. Warmth still wafted off the ruins as Kell and Lila waded through them, searching for something—anything—that might have survived. But nothing had.

Kell felt sick.

This kind of fire burned hot and fast, and the edges suggested a binding circle. It wouldn’t simply have contained the flames. It would have contained everything. Everyone. How many people had been trapped inside? How many corpses now in the wreckage, reduced to bone, or merely ash?

And then Kell thought, selfishly, of his room.

Years of collecting—music boxes and lockets, instruments and ornaments, the precious and the simple and the strange—all gone.

Rhy’s warning—give up this foolishness before you’re caught—echoed in his head, and for an instant, Kell was glad that he’d been robbed of the bounty before it could be discovered. And then the weight of it sank in. Whoever did this, they hadn’t robbed him—at least, that hadn’t been the point. But they’d stripped him of his loot to cut him off. An Antari could not travel without tokens. They were trying to corner him, to make sure that if he managed to flee back into Red London, he would have nothing at his disposal.

It was a measure of thoroughness that reeked of Holland’s own hand. The same hand that had ripped the London coins from Kell’s throat and cast them away into the dark.

Lila toed the melted remains of a kettle. “What now?”

“There’s nothing here,” said Kell, letting a handful of ash slide through his fingers. “We’ll have to find another token.” He brushed the soot from his hands, thinking. He wasn’t the only person in Red London with a trinket, but the list was short, as he’d been far more willing to trade in artifacts from the novel, harmless Grey than the warped and violent White. The king himself had a token, passed down over the years. Fauna had one, a trinket as part of their deal (though Fauna, he feared, was now buried somewhere in the rubble).

And Fletcher had one.

Kell cringed inwardly.

“I know a man,” he said, which wasn’t the half of it, but was certainly simpler than explaining that Fletcher was a petty criminal who’d lost a bounty to him in a game of Sanct when Kell was several years younger and several shades more arrogant, and Kell had gifted him the White London trinket as either a peace offering (if he felt like lying to himself) or a jab (if he was being honest). “Fletcher. He keeps a shop by the docks. He’ll have a token.”

“Yes, well, let’s hope they haven’t burned his shop down as well.”

“I’d like to see them tr—” The words died in Kell’s throat. Someone was coming. Someone who smelled of dried blood and burning metal. Kell lunged for Lila, and she got out half a word of protest before he clamped one hand over her mouth and shoved the other into her pocket. His fingers found the stone and folded over it, and power surged through his body, coursed through his blood. Kell caught