if I managed to get the disruptor to work properly, we might materialize within fifty miles of Atlantis.”
Once upon a time, mage realms could only be found by those who had seen them with their own eyes. In other words, no outsider, mage or nonmage, could locate a realm without the help of a guide who had already been there. But as commerce and travel between mage realms increased, the ancient system became increasingly unwieldy.
So a new system was put into place. Under the new system, one only had to know the exact location of a realm and its proper name to be able to make one’s way there. The era of hidden realms was at an end; the age of the worldwide mage community had dawned.
Then, with the development and explosive growth of instantaneous travel, mages forgot altogether that a global accord ever existed to facilitate the tracking down of distant places—who needed to know how to locate a faraway realm when one could simply step into a translocator and be whisked there in seconds?
No one had bothered to update the protocol—not even Atlantis—and this meant that Titus, Fairfax, and Kashkari could grope their way to the shores of the Bane’s stronghold, if they had the guts to do so.
Kashkari blew out a breath. “So we drop into the ocean somewhere around Atlantis—we hope—and then simply . . . approach?”
The coast of Atlantis was heavily guarded—Titus had heard rumors of floating fortresses that would make run-of-the-mill armored chariots look like gnats. To “simply approach” would give them odds of success roughly the same as those of a nonmage walking into a barrage of gunfire and emerging unscratched on the other side.
He shrugged. “It is the best plan I have been able to put into place.”
Kashkari looked at Fairfax, something that was almost outright fear on his face.
She met his gaze squarely. “If I’ve learned anything since I brought down my first bolt of lightning, it’s that you never need a mythical amount of courage—just enough to get through the day. And I’m fairly certain that today we will not end up off the coast of Atlantis.”
She turned toward Titus. “If we are to implement this plan of yours, we need to go back to the Domain. I don’t suppose you can send for your valet to come and get you.”
In the upper reaches of the castle that was Titus’s home, there was a translocator that had been built to resemble a nonmage private rail coach. It was how he always traveled from the castle to their school and vice versa.
“No.”
“Then how? The sea route?”
The summer before, when they had been separated and Fairfax stuck in the Domain, she had left via the old-fashioned method of sailing on a sloop until she came to the nearest nonmage island, where she could catch a steamer and continue her journey.
“We could if we must, but the sea route takes a long time.”
Kashkari picked up a handful of sand. “Do I remember you saying once that you must account for your movements every twenty-four hours?”
“I do, under normal circumstances. But when the war phoenix has been deployed, the rules change: I have seven days before I need to make my location known again. I summoned the war phoenix our first night in the desert, three days ago. So four more days before I must report in.”
“Atlantis will know where you are then?”
“Alectus, the regent, will know where I am. And regrettably, as he is Atlantis’s puppet, when he learns my whereabouts, it will be no time before Atlantis does too.”
“And what if you don’t report in?”
“The regent assumes the crown. I am not terribly fond of the crown, but there are many advantages to being the Master of the Domain, where our task is concerned. Not to mention Alectus would hand over the reins of government to Atlantis—and it would take many years and many lives to wrestle those back. So for both of those reasons, I do not wish to give up the throne unless I must.”
“Does that mean we have to succeed in killing the Bane before your four days are up?” asked Kashkari.
Titus hesitated longer than he wanted to before he said, “More like seven days—four days until I make my location known plus the seventy-two hours’ grace period before Alectus becomes the Master of the Domain.”
The fire wavered again, a more agitated movement this time.
Kashkari might not understand it yet, but Fairfax knew what going to Atlantis portended: Titus’s