Chapter 29

H aving been directly confronted by the princess, Huxley had yet to regain his blustering confidence. Instead, he slunk around the manor, giving more suggestions than orders, making no comment when Corvin disappeared for long stretches. At times, Baron caught the man squinting at him, as if trying to reason through exactly how a Caster had won the favor of a princess.

Baron wasn't certain himself, but he found Aria was all he could think about. He remembered the panic on her face as she crashed through the kitchen door, remembered it melting into relief as he held her, and even as he logically knew the relief came from not falling , the most fanciful part of himself held it as something else. Relief at being in his arms. For a moment after the joust—after she'd saved him , repaying the kitchen and then some—he'd thought perhaps she'd glanced at his lips, held his gaze with longing.

She sent a new letter the night of the joust, and Baron woke at dawn to receive her falcon because he heard it the instant it tapped at the window. Sometimes he heard that tapping in his dreams.

It was the shortest letter she'd ever sent, speaking about nothing in particular, and at the end, her valediction both lifted and pierced his heart.

I miss you,

Aria

In his mind, Baron returned to the palace hallway, sitting beside her, feeling the softness of her fingers wrapped in his. Hearing something in her blood roar. It began to live in his memory beside the image of his father thrashing in bed. The last time he'd needed his Casting to save someone, he'd failed.

Was he going to fail again?

"Do you have to practice in my kitchen?" Leon whined.

Baron ignored him, waiting for the pot above the flames to boil.

"Go to the lake or something. Stop hogging my fireplace."

"I need moving water," said Baron. One of the difficulties in working with blood was the constantly changing nature of it, the combined tangle of motion and life not present in any other liquid. The living aspect he couldn't replicate, but movement he could. He had to begin somewhere.

"Then find a nice river!"

"Oh, we have one lurking in the house I was unaware of?"

Leon hissed, then turned to quiet grumbling, apparently remembering Baron's traveling restrictions.

The water began to tremble and shake, bubbles rising with the haste of drowning sailors to reach the surface. Baron dipped his fingers in. The water couldn't burn him—though the pot could if he brushed it by accident—but neither did it calm at his touch. He closed his eyes and breathed. The song of the water was not a smooth melody but an agitated staccato of notes, hard to grasp, harder to predict, but he caught it at last.

He opened his eyes to a pot holding a soft golden glow, smooth as a waiting canvas.

"Congratulations," said Leon. "Now make it boil again because I need it. And it better not taste like your fingers."

Unfortunately, it was not nearly as easy to strain out a curse as it was to filter a temperature.

"Do you ever practice your Artifacts?" Baron asked absently, heating the water as requested.

Leon's stare gave the impression of a cat flattening its ears. "What's the point of making little night-vision trinkets? Who's gonna use them? Waste of cooking time. If you're looking for help with some other weird training exercise, bird-boy is the one you want."

Artifacts worked quite differently for Affiliates than for Casters. Perhaps Artifact wasn't even the proper term. Without the ability to practice openly and confer with others sharing their talents, the boys had discovered the possibilities of their magic through accident more than anything. Corvin had been the one to discover they could imbue certain objects with attributes from their Affiliated animal. He was still hoping he could create an Artifact that gave the power of flight. Baron hoped he didn't accomplish it, because Corvin would undoubtedly use it to launch Leon into the sky to see if he landed on his feet.

"I was only curious." Baron stepped away from the fire. "The persistence of a cat would benefit me at the moment."

"I've seen you swing a sword for hours without even fighting a real person; you've got persistence enough. All a cat-ribute would give you is the overwhelming urge to nap in a puddle of sunlight."

He made a good point. After pulling his gloves back on, Baron headed for the training yard.

Baron's ears rang with the echo of every connection between his practice blade and the dummy's battered armor. At least temporarily, the rigorous activity banished his fears.

Something darted through the grass. Baron spun on instinct, already swinging. The long, gray snake dodged his wooden sword point with unnatural swiftness, and in the next moment, the adder vanished in a swirling column of gray mist, transforming into his best friend. Silas stood with vest unbuttoned and hands in his pockets, smirking as if he'd never left. As if it hadn't been two years .

"Silas!" Baron dropped his sword. His ears rang as much with the sudden silence as they had with his strikes. "I could have killed you!"

"Not with this tree branch, you couldn't." Silas wiggled the toe of his boot beneath the practice sword and kicked it up, stumbling to catch it. He gave the blunt weapon a few dramatic swings with terrible form. Though he stood tall and broad-shouldered, Silas was an academic, not an athlete. He probably had a small book or at least a collection of folded notes squirreled away in each of his pockets.

"How was the university?"

"I told you in my letter."

Baron snorted. "Your letter had barely a dozen words in it."

"You imply a dozen words can't speak the truth?"

He must have driven his instructors to madness with similar debates. Baron found himself smiling. "It's good to have you back."

Silas laughed, turning the sword so Baron could take its handle. "You are the only person in the entire kingdom who would say that. Even Maggie only gave me an earful for missing her birthday."

"I believe she was expecting a dance from her brother. You can make up for it next week by bringing her to the event I'm hosting."

"Since when do you host anything ? That's one of the reasons I come here: the seclusion. Don't tell me you've been consumed by society in my absence." His dark eyes widened. "Don't tell me you've married ."

"I haven't." To his surprise, Baron's chest pinched as he said it. He'd never looked forward to marriage, knowing well its pitfalls—after all, he'd witnessed his father's second marriage from hopeful start to devastating finish. Yet he found himself considering things he never had before.

"Come inside." Baron nodded toward the manor house, hidden by trees and the long weapons shed. "I'll try to keep the truth to a dozen words, but no guarantee."

Leon nearly burst a vein at another intrusion in his kitchen, at least until Silas produced a leather pouch of some spice unique to Pravusat—then the boy happily accepted the bribe. Baron could have spoken to Silas in the parlor, but there was always the chance Huxley would happen in; the man never came to the kitchen or other servant areas.

They discussed the removal of Baron's title, the unrest in Northglen, and finally, Aria.

"Morton's right," Silas said.

Baron raised an eyebrow, surprised not to find a sympathetic friend in Silas. "Did you miss her attack on Aria?"

"Did you miss her son's brutal murder? Gilly, look." Silas leaned forward in his chair, resting one elbow on the table. "Revolution is ugly, and it comes with blood, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. For centuries now, Loegria has clung to prejudiced tradition rather than progress. That prejudice branded you, and it nearly killed me."

He was referring to the event that had sent him abroad. While arguing with his father, Silas had lost his temper and transformed, revealing his nature as an Affiliate. Without a moment's hesitation, Lord Bennett had tried to kill his own son.

Luckily, Baron and his father had been present, and while his father restrained the man, Baron broke the law by forcing Lord Bennett to drink a Cast. The action still shadowed his memory, but he would rather break any number of laws than see his friend dead. Baron hadn't been able to make the man forget everything—otherwise, he risked Lord Bennett's mind breaking the Cast—so he'd confused the viscount into thinking the reason for his rage was that Silas had struck him. Silas had been banished abroad for two years, wounded but alive.

He bore the scar on his neck—not a brand like Baron's, but a thin slash beneath his jaw from his own father's sword. Had Baron's father moved any slower, the matter would have been decided in that single blow.

"Aria isn't like your father," Baron said.

"No one's like my father, Gill. The man's a dragon parading human skin. That's not the point. I'm sure your princess is darling as a hummingbird, but she's royalty, and when royalty won't bend, some Morton rises up to break it." Silas shook his head, black hair swishing against his forehead. "I witnessed two revolutions in Pravusat. That country is like a plate that keeps getting thrown to the floor and scraped back together into a new shape. Loegria will survive this, and the new shape might be better for everyone."

"Not for Aria."

"That's a cost, but is it too high? Not in my estimation. Pravusat and Cronith and a dozen countries I barely have a concept of—all just one ocean away. If you could see it. Their architecture when they let Stone Casters freely build. Their medicine, Gilly, when they let Fluid Casters do the healing. They're developing new germ theories around the understanding of blood—their research papers would amaze you —and they're even restarting failed hearts. They're saving more mothers in childbirth, and ..."

He closed his mouth into a grimace. Silas often got carried away in excitement, but he knew Baron better than anyone.

Softly, Baron said, "Good for them."

"I'm sorry." Silas shook his head. "That's the thing, though. Imagine what you could do in a society that encouraged you, that trained you properly."

"Society didn't prevent me from saving my parents. The failing is entirely my own."

Silas heaved a sigh. "What's so enticing about her anyway? Your princess."

Baron thought of Aria asking after the well-being of kitchen servants, offering ointment for Corvin's wrist, barking a sharp dismissal to soldiers on his behalf. Most of all, he remembered her sitting in the silence with him, rubbing his back, offering support when he didn't even know he needed it. For a moment, his voice deserted him.

He'd never known the claws of longing could sink so deep.

At last, he said, "She cares."

The message buried in a thousand words across a dozen letters, in her questions about his interests, in her sympathy about his missing stepmother. Aria cared about him in a way he'd never imagined any girl would.

"If she cares enough to change an entire kingdom for you, then take my blessing. It's just an awfully big gamble to make, Gilly."

"She's already promised to eradicate the branding law."

"That's a start." Silas raised an eyebrow. "And how does she feel about your resident cat-and-crow?"

Baron's eyes darted toward Leon at the other end of the kitchen. The boy gave no indication he was listening, but he had sharp ears.

Silas nodded. He let the silence say it all.

Then he pushed back his chair. "Before I leave, I'll pay my respects to your father. Maybe see if I can summon an angel. Broker a deal to switch my father's life for your father's, because whoever's running life and death in the world really, really made a mistake." He gave another small grimace. "I'm sorry I wasn't here."

"There wasn't anything you could have done." Baron forced back the memory of the physician, the haunting voice always one step from his awareness— There's nothing I can do —and cleared his throat. "You won't stay for dinner?"

"Maggie would have my head if I abandoned her for the evening, but I'll make sure she knows about your party ." He made a show of rolling his eyes. "At least that will satisfy my mother that I'm socializing again. She and Father both intend to see me married off yesterday, never mind I'm still two months from twenty, but at least she pretends it's about happiness instead of hierarchy."

He paused on his way out to talk to Leon about Pravish cuisine, and then he was gone.

Leaving Baron alone with nothing but questions and memories.