A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire #1)(63)

“Ah, no.” I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t. This wasn’t Magnus with his normal, silly flirtations. “I suppose it’s unattractive.”

“Hardly. It draws attention to your eyes, which are brilliant.” He leaned in. “I think you have the loveliest eyes I’ve ever seen, come to think of it. They’re so dark they’re almost black, which gives you a very fierce expression in battle. But if I draw closer”—and he did, gently—“I see warm brown. When your gaze is soft, there are flecks of gold. Nothing about you is ever quite how it appears.”

“I look tired. I know I do,” I murmured. His arm tightened around me.

“That’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.” He cupped my cheek in his hand for one brief moment. “You’ve a beautiful face, Howel,” he whispered. He stroked my chin with this thumb. I closed my eyes.

What about Rook?

“Thank you. That is, for teaching me,” I said, pulling away from him. I gathered Porridge, fumbling a bit.

“You did well for a first-timer. You’ll play the game in the end, though not as well as I.” He bowed. The softness of his look and voice disappeared, but we both knew what had happened. I felt as if the portraits, the books, even the fire, bore witness.

“You can win the games, and I’ll win the battles,” I said, exiting at a brisk pace. I took the stairs at a run.

Back in my room, I sat by the window, my breath fogging the glass. I closed my eyes. Magnus thought I was beautiful. The way he’d looked at me and touched me. What would have happened if I hadn’t pulled away?



He’s a flirt. I knew that, and I’d never taken his teasing seriously before. But this had felt like more.

Did I want more?

What was I talking about, after what had nearly happened with Rook in the kitchen? What was I doing, entertaining these ridiculous ideas of Magnus?

But Rook was still being distant with me. His disappointment in my refusal to run away was evident, no matter what he said. His disappointment in me was evident.

What was I doing considering any of this? Rook was my friend; Magnus, my ally. That was all they were, all they could be. There was commendation, and if I got that far, there would be war afterward. Life was complicated enough. I resolved to stop thinking about the pair of them immediately.

It took an hour of tracing patterns on the fogged window before I finally did.





Hargrove placed the teapot on the table and rolled up his sleeves. “Your training begins. Turn this into a mouse, and be quick about it. I want it back into its regular form in time for tea.”

This was far more than I’d expected from my first proper lesson. It was the following day, Sunday, where all that was required of Agrippa’s Incumbents was to attend church. I had used my freedom to rush right back to Hargrove’s.

“Do I just poke at it?” I murmured, gesturing with my stave. Hargrove’s five children circled us, seated on the floor with their faces cupped in their hands.

With an impatient huff, Hargrove knocked four times on the lid of his wooden chest. It sprang open in an explosion of paper and parchment. He burrowed his way through scrolls and letters and scraps of notepaper, until, with a cry of triumph, he held up a leather-bound book. Dusting it, he threw it onto the table and riffled through the pages until he alighted on the desired one. “Here,” he said. I squinted and stared at the watery, handwritten text.

“I can’t read it.”

“Must I do everything myself? It clearly says, ‘Whisker from a steaming spout, handle to a tail, china cracks to beating heart, fur and tooth and nail.’?”



I pointed my stave at the teapot and repeated the words. Hargrove wailed in exasperation. “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“No two magicians are the same. We’re like delicate snowflakes, or ears. That line was originally written in Latin—something muris fumo, something—well, I knew a magician once, Peg Bottleshanks, who used some Latin and some English and some musical notes from her nose whistle. You see? Total madness!”

“Master Agrippa says a system is needed.”

Hargrove blew a rude noise that thrilled the children. “We don’t bother with rules.”

“But how will I know what’s correct?”

“Far as you’re concerned, the word correct no longer exists. For instance, what say I walk on the ceiling?”

“Gravity doesn’t work that way,” I snapped.

Hargrove billowed his multicolored cloak about him, mumbled “Flibberty bop, to the top, allons-y, charge,” and to my surprise fell upward. Upside down, he danced a jig along the rafters, shaking free dust and a few cobwebs. The children applauded and cried with joy. After a moment, he returned in triumph. “You were saying, young upstart?”

“How do I do that?”

“I don’t know if you can. Play around with it; see what you find.”



“I don’t like this,” I said, shaking my head. “The sorcerers have traditions.”

“You like traditions?”

I moved around the table to the wooden chest and rummaged through piles of crumpled rubbish. I winced at the mess. “I don’t enjoy this much disorder.”