watched during the day and even more so during curfew hours, because they might have features that can offer places of concealment. We need to get out of the park.”
“And then what?” demanded Titus.
Even if they could find someplace to hide until morning, the original plan of being carried out of the city in the Crucible by Mrs. Hancock was no longer feasible—Mrs. Hancock herself would now be considered a fugitive from the law.
Mrs. Hancock led them closer to a high retaining wall, above which was another terrace like the one they were traversing—the park had been carved out of a hillside. And if Iolanthe listened carefully, she could almost hear the roar of the river referenced in the name of the park.
“There are some colleges in this direction,” said Mrs. Hancock. “Usually colleges are allowed to police their own campuses. The Interrealm Institute of Languages and Cultures is said to be lax about enforcing the curfew. I hope we can stay there until sunrise.”
“There are actually places on Atlantis where mages are interested in the languages and cultures of other lands?”
Mrs. Hancock stopped. “Your Highness, with all due respect, of course. Just because you have met a few philistines who happen to be Atlanteans doesn’t mean the rest of us are all ignorant and incurious. It means that we live in conditions hostile to our way of thinking and we are less inclined to join the bureaucracy that sends mages abroad because we tend to disagree with the official position of disdain and brutality.”
A moment of silence. Iolanthe felt ashamed of herself: she hadn’t said it aloud but she’d thought the same thing.
“My apologies, ma’am,” said Titus. “I will remember your admonishment.”
Mrs. Hancock resumed her hurried walk. “Apology accepted, Your Highness. And thank you for—”
A thump. Iolanthe glanced up as Titus took hold of her arm. A fraction of a second later, two uniformed guards fell at Mrs. Hancock’s feet. She leaped back, her hand clasped over her mouth.
“I might have stunned the guards too late,” said Amara, cool and unflappable. “They could have already spread the word.”
Mrs. Hancock’s jaw worked. “There’s a flight of steps ahead. Let’s move the guards there.”
The flight of steps had been cut into the retaining wall to permit access from the lower terrace to the upper terrace. The steps were broad and shallow—again, designed to offer as little place to hide as possible. But at the edges of the steps they were less likely to be seen, unless from directly overhead.
They pushed the unconscious Atlanteans beneath the handrails. Titus peered out from the top of the steps; Kashkari and Amara did the same at the bottom. Mrs. Hancock had her hand over her heart, catching her breath. Master Haywood leaned against the stone wall that held back the hillside from the steps, his hand in a fist and the flat of the fist against his forehead.
Iolanthe took his hand. “It’s all right. We might be luckier than we think. If those guards had already informed their superiors or sent for reinforcements, they’d be here by now.”
But his shoulders only slumped farther. “If only I hadn’t failed to suppress Miss Tiberius’s memories. If only I had managed that . . .”
She gaped at him. At the back of her mind, bits and pieces of information that had refused to come together to make sense did just that in an avalanche of insight. Her grip on his hand tightened. “You never could have done it, because she wasn’t the one you held for hours and hours. It was me. I’m not Lady Callista’s daughter—I am the real Iolanthe Seabourne.”
Master Haywood stared at her. “But that’s impossible. I switched the two of you myself.”
In her excitement she grabbed Titus by the back of his tunic and pulled him toward her. “Remember when we encountered the blood circle in the Sahara? We each sent a drop of blood toward the blood circle. Yours reacted with the blood circle, if weakly; mine didn’t at all.”
Now he too was slack-jawed. “Fortune shield me. My blood reacted with the blood circle because Lady Callista and I are distantly related. But yours . . . and hers . . .”
“Exactly! I should have put two and two together the moment I remembered everything. But we were so busy with the battle and everything that followed—there was no time to stop and think.”
She was giddy: the supremely selfish Lady Callista and the supremely cowardly Baron Wintervale were not her parents.