Celestine was barely mentioned, and neither was magic. One document dated ninety years ago questioned the value of Alyssinia as an ally, with their magical resources seemingly gone, and a far older paper commented on a drought that had been blamed “on some witch often accused of blighting the kingdom.” “Evidence, it seems, is lacking,” the ambassador had noted, “but the Alyssinians are a superstitious bunch.” Aurora and Finnegan arranged every mention of magic by date, trying to build some sort of timeline of its decline, but several hours’ work yielded few results. Celestine had been blamed for horrors, magic had faded away—nothing they had not already known.
Finnegan held out a page to Aurora. “I think this one will interest you,” he said.
It was a letter, dated two days after Aurora’s eighteenth birthday. The princess, it said, had fallen into a cursed sleep. The ambassador warned of potential instability to come, as the king hunted the witch responsible, and commented that those “superstitious Alyssinians” were searching desperately for any way to awaken her. It had been suggested that a prince’s kiss might be the cure—perhaps Vanhelm could find someone to send. Waking her would be a diplomatic coup.
It was unsettling, to see her own plight described with such analytic detachment. Aurora lay the paper in its place in the timeline and reached for another one, trying to ignore the way her hand shook.
Finnegan was watching her. She refused to look up at him again.
“Why don’t we go out?” he said. “Take a break?”
“We’ve got work to do,” she said. “There are so many more pages to read.”
“And they’ll still be here when we get back.” He gently pried the next report from her hand. “We should clear our heads a bit.”
She let out a breath. Her shoulders were tense, and her head throbbed slightly, but they needed to work quickly. They couldn’t just wander off now.
“I need a break, at least,” Finnegan said. He stood. “Come on. I’ll show you more of the city.”
She knew what he was doing. He had seen the tension in her shoulders, had seen how unsettled she was, by the letter, by Celestine’s rose, by everything that had occurred. There was something strangely considerate about the gesture, an attempt to distract her without insisting that she needed to rest.
But going out would still be risky. “Nettle showed me some of it,” she said.
“Oh, but Vanhelm is always changing,” he said. “Who knows if everything is still what it was yesterday?” He took her hand.
“And King John’s spies?”
“If they know you’re here, then they know you’re here. They won’t be able to do anything with me and my guards there too.”
“Because you’re so imposing?”
“Of course.”
She did want to see the city. To escape the pressure, the need to understand her magic, to be as everybody hoped, for a few hours at least. Her responsibility would still be here when she returned. And there was a part of her that wanted to see where Finnegan would take her. To see his grin and hear his laugh without the pressures of courts and dragons around them.
A small break could not hurt.
“All right,” she said. “Show me your city.”
TEN
THE WIND BATTERED THEM AS THEY WALKED DOWN the street, flapping Aurora’s cloak and tangling her hair in front of her face.
“It’ll settle down,” Finnegan said, shouting slightly to be heard. He grabbed Aurora’s hand, his palm warm after the bite of the wind. They headed north, a few guards trailing several feet behind them. The wind stung Aurora’s cheeks. She burrowed her chin under the fastening of her cloak.
“So, traveler,” he said. “What would you like to do first?”
“I thought you were going to show me Vanhelm,” she said. “So show me Vanhelm.”
“I know just the place.”
The crowds grew thicker. The preachers were out on the street corners again, shouting about the end of days to passersby, but few people even glanced at them. Finnegan’s guards vanished into the crowd. Some of the people they passed seemed to recognize Finnegan—one girl elbowed another so sharply that her friend nearly fell over—but nobody tried to stop them.
They approached a square building, about ten floors high, with busts of different creatures lined up outside. A unicorn held its head midtoss, and a dragon bared its teeth near the door, nostrils flared.
One boy was attempting to clamber up the unicorn’s spiked mane. He slipped, and his friends laughed.
“What is this?” Aurora asked.
“The museum,” Finnegan said. “I thought you’d fit in here.”
She was so