death.
“There is no absolute requirement that it must be done in seven days,” she said. “And if the crown should go to Alectus because you can’t reveal your whereabouts for a while, well, that can’t be helped.”
There was a silence.
“In any case, I must find out more about what is going on. If I can get back to my laboratory, I will be able to access reports from my spymaster and have a better understanding of the situation.”
It worried him that his allies had revealed their capacity to take down armored chariots from the ground. At the time, of course, it seemed they had no choice but to do so. But now the decision appeared to have been premature.
In the heat of the battle, the Atlanteans might believe Iolanthe Seabourne to have summoned the kind of lightning strikes armored chariots could not withstand. But in retrospect, they would ask themselves whether the lightning strikes had not been a distraction for a different kind of weapon.
You cannot surprise Atlantis twice.
If the rebels lost this element of surprise, they would be deprived of a major advantage. Now more than ever, Titus needed Dalbert as his eyes and ears. Perhaps his lips and tongue, even, to direct those still loyal to the crown when he could not.
“Where is your laboratory?” asked Kashkari.
“It is a folded space. There are two access points—one close to Eton, one in Cape Wrath.”
Kashkari let the sand in his hand slide down, a drizzle of a seemingly random pattern on the ground. “In Cairo there is a one-way portal my brother rigged up that goes directly to Mrs. Dawlish’s. But it might not work if there is still a no-vaulting zone in place at Eton.”
Titus shook his head. “Obviously Atlantis does not expect us to go back, but I would not be surprised if they still have people watching the place.”
“And I’d have set a loophole for it in the no-vaulting zone,” said Fairfax. “If you really want to find someone, you don’t eliminate the possibility that they just might fall into your hands.”
“Then how?”
“We do not all need to go to Britain.” Titus took out the map from the emergency satchel and laid it on the sand. Their location appeared as a dot in the eastern Sahara. “If we proceed from here at about seventy degrees on the compass, we will reach Luxor some time before noon. You and Fairfax can probably find a place to stay for the day and I will vault to my laboratory.”
“Scotland is at least three thousand miles away,” Kashkari pointed out, sounding incredulous.
“I can vault that much in twenty-four hours without killing myself.”
On the day he had discovered that the Chosen One in his mother’s visions had referred to Wintervale, rather than Iolanthe, he had vaulted four times from Norfolk to Cape Wrath and back, and then once more for good measure from Eton, which added up to approximately forty-five hundred miles.
“Doesn’t mean you should,” said Fairfax.
Her voice was low and controlled, but the flames before her shot up several inches.
“I’ll go out and make sure it’s safe to leave,” said Kashkari, with his exquisite sensitivity. “You two can discuss our route a bit more.”
“Don’t go,” she said as soon as Kashkari had vaulted out. “Don’t go any place where I can’t keep an eye on you.”
“You know I would do anything not to leave your side, but I must know what is going on. And even if you were in perfect health, you still cannot vault that much distance in a short time.”
“You don’t need to be in that big of a rush. So what if we take our time getting to the laboratory?”
She rarely objected to his decisions so vehemently—most of the time she trusted him to look after himself. “What is the matter?”
She turned her face away, but not before he saw the grimace that she could not quite suppress. He caught her by the chin and tilted her face until she was looking at him again. “Tell me what is the matter, please.”
“If we only have seven days left, then I don’t want you out of my sight for a second.”
“We do not know that we only have seven days left. Besides, did you not tell me that you are convinced I will outlive everything that is coming our way?”
“I did and I am. But . . .”
He knew what she could not quite bring herself to say. But what if she was wrong and his mother exactly