Domain, without the aid of our usual translocator.”
“And?”
Titus exhaled. “He had.”
Haywood rose as Titus reentered the parlor. “Sire.”
“We are leaving.” The words lacerated him, as if he spoke with pieces of broken glass on his tongue. “And so we have come to say our farewells.”
Haywood bowed. “May Fortune ever smile upon you, sire.”
“Fortune already did, when your ward became my friend.”
And now everything that had been given would be taken away.
As Haywood wished the kindness of Fortune upon Kashkari and Amara, Titus knelt down by Fairfax and took her hand in his. She looked peaceful, unencumbered by care, like Sleeping Beauty in her hundred-year slumber. Yet the image that flashed across his mind was one of himself prostrate before her lifeless body.
Even now he had no hope. He was certain that no matter what he did, disaster was barreling toward her. But he had to do something, had to at least make an attempt, however idiotic, to keep her safe.
To keep her alive.
Let this be their final farewell. Let him not see her again, ever. He could handle leaving her behind, if he must. He could not bear walking into a future in which she had been murdered by the Bane—the end of everything worthwhile, the beginning of all his nightmares.
“Live forever,” he said softly.
And then, to Haywood, “Long may Fortune walk beside the two of you. And when she awakens, tell her that I do not regret my decision this day, only—only that we will never share a picnic basket from Mrs. Hinderstone’s.”
CHAPTER 11
THE LABORATORY HAD ONE MORE exit than it had entrances, and that exit led to a dilapidated barn in southeast England. From there, Titus vaulted his companions to London.
They made their way to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Among the exhibits of Renaissance France, there stood a large and elaborate wardrobe with marquetry doors and ormolu trims.
“This is the one,” said Titus.
It was early in the day and late in the year; the museum was not crowded. They had no trouble clearing out that particular gallery with a few keep-away spells. The wardrobe was big enough that the three of them—and Amara’s bulky coat—had no trouble fitting inside.
Titus murmured the password and the countersign Dalbert had given him. Almost instantly they found themselves in a more cramped space, bumping up against stacks of crates and buckets. When Titus opened the door a crack, the tang of the sea greeted him, as well as the sound of waves.
He waited a minute to make sure there was no ambush, before he opened the door more fully. They were in a large, natural cavern. The mouth of the cavern was hidden behind an outcrop, but there was light slanting in from outside, glinting on the tips of the wavelets.
A twenty-foot-long sloop, swaying slightly, was suspended from the ceiling of the cavern.
“So we sail?” asked Amara.
“We sail,” answered Titus.
He called for mage light. With the help of the blue illumination, he was able to find where Dalbert had wound the chain that kept the boat up high. Together, the three of them lowered the boat down into the water.
Titus took out the map from his satchel and placed it against the damp cavern wall. A red dot appeared on the silky map, just outside the Domain’s maritime borders.
As he had thought. Dalbert, unlike Lady Callista with her connection to Atlanteans, could not create a loophole through the barriers Atlantis had erected around the Domain against unauthorized entries and exits by instantaneous means. So he had opted to get them as close as possible.
In the small structure that served as the portal, which looked more like a nonmage bathing machine than anything else—except without wheels—they found oars, poles, and fishing implements, as well as food cubes, water, and changes of clothing.
The equipment was moved easily enough to the boat with levitation spells. They themselves managed to board without falling into the water. Since it had long been Titus’s plan to approach Atlantis via its coast, he had trained himself to sail in a number of the stories in the Crucible that involved sea voyages.
But it was one thing to steer a vessel in open ocean, quite another to get it out of the narrow and cramped cavern, with waves rushing in and creating unpredictable currents that threw the sloop this way and that. They rowed. They pushed with oars and poles. At one point, Titus and Kashkari jumped into the frigid water to get the boat unstuck.