But he had not even found the great elemental mage yet. And there was no telling how much longer it would take him. He buried his face in his hands. He would have to be far more prepared than he was.
Far, far more prepared.
A burst of laughter came from somewhere outside his door. A gaggle of other junior boys were talking together in the corridor, planning for something fun. With a needle-stab in his heart, he remembered his brief hour of almost-happiness, of the possibility of a normal life.
There was no question of that now—no newly made friends or legendary outings on the hot air balloon. There would be only work. And then, after that, more work.
He pulled out his wand, pointed it at the corner of the last page of the vision, and marked it with a skull symbol. And then he pointed the wand at his own temple.
Titus swayed.
He had lied to himself. The suppression of the memory had never been about forgetting its particular details, but all about not remembering his mother’s utter heartbreak—and that soap-bubble-in-the-sun moment when he could have taken his life down a very different path.
Someone squeezed his hand—Fairfax. “Are you all right?”
He nodded.
No one else seemed to notice him. They were all busily—and warily—examining their new surroundings. He had hoped they would find themselves in the cavernous interior of a state library, housed in a palace so opulent that it bankrupted the royal treasury and caused the downfall of the last king of Atlantis.
What he had not expected was a cramped, disorderly study, full of books on every horizontal surface. The light spilling in from the gap between the curtains illuminated plates littered with cake crumbs and bits of bread crust, cups with dried rings of tea at the bottom, and a miscellany of slippers and socks under the big desk before the window.
Fairfax touched her palm to his face. “Are you sure you are all right?”
He shook his head. He was only so brave—and no braver.
“I’ll keep you safe,” she said.
His heart leaped a little. “Have you forgiven me?”
“You overestimate my magnanimity. I’m not done slapping you yet—and that’s why you aren’t going to die anytime soon.”
The corners of his lips lifted slightly.
The pad of her thumb caressed his cheek. “Remember that.”
Kashkari was the first to state the obvious. “I don’t believe we are in the grand library of Royalis—at least not in the stacks.”
“Is that where we are supposed to be?” Aramia asked, her voice squeaky. “If so, could we be in a librarian’s office?”
Haywood, who was peering out from behind the curtains, answered, “Doesn’t seem like it, unless the library at Royalis is surrounded by an ordinary residential street. We are several floors up, by the way.”
Titus looked out the window himself. The street below was lit as if for an evening event, except it was echoingly empty. Lining the sidewalks were perfectly spherical bushes trimmed to less than two feet in diameter. The apartment buildings opposite, of fewer stories than the one in which he stood, were joined at the seams and smooth of facade. The communal garden on the roof was nice enough, even in the harsh light that flooded it; but it, too, offered no nooks or crannies where a toddler could conceal himself, let alone a full-grown mage.
Then he realized that the buildings across the street were not shorter, but were situated lower—they were on a slope. And he had a clear view all the way to the waterfront and the sea beyond. The maelstrom of Atlantis was fifty miles from the coast and too far to see, but Lucidias was a rather remarkable place in and of itself, a great metropolis built on the slenderest ribbon of workable land, a city that was largely new and seemingly perfectly regulated.
There were certain districts in Delamer that never slept—at most they quieted for an hour or so before dawn. The waterfront near Delamer Harbor was one such place. But its equivalent in Lucidias was as empty as a classroom during school holiday.
Little wonder, when it too was lit like an outdoor stage. Where was the source of the light? He looked up—and the hair on the back of his neck rose. Something hung high above the waterfront, something enormous. A floating fortress that was very nearly the size of the Citadel, light flooding out from its belly.
Across the room, Kashkari opened the door a crack and peered out. “Looks like an apartment of some kind.”