The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(9)

People scrambled to follow that particular order.

I could go with them. Leave Connor with instructions and go apprehend Patrick myself. But the words wouldn’t come. I needed to be somewhere else.

“In the meantime, take me to Captain Rayner and Prince Tobiah.”





FOUR


“WHERE DID YOU get a knife?” James didn’t bother to greet me as I entered the prince’s bedchambers. The gas lamps were dark, but the wood-paneled walls gleamed in the candlelight.

“It just appeared.” I touched the handle; my escorts had tried to take it from me, but I’d asked if they’d seen what I’d done to the Hawksbill wall and they spent the rest of the silent ride eyeing me warily.

There was a question in the way James lifted an eyebrow: had I made it appear?

I snorted. That would have been a handy magic. “Someone gave it to me.” I shut the door behind me and moved toward Tobiah’s bed. He was still and sallow, barely breathing. Brown curls fanned across his forehead, and strain carved a line between his eyes. He was so still. “Has he awakened at all?”

“No.” James walked up beside me, his elbow brushing mine. If anyone knew what happened between Black Knife and me in the breezeway, it was James. “The physicians have made him as comfortable as possible, but it’s only a matter of time. Hours. Perhaps minutes.”

“Good thing I brought help.”

James shifted his attention to Connor, who’d been hovering by the door with a feigned look of meek amazement at the splendor surrounding us. As though the last thing on his mind was which items to pocket and fence.

I gave a small shake of my head. I’d taught him that look. “I need you to do anything you can to save Crown Prince Tobiah.”

His manufactured expression faded into honest surprise. “Anything?” And the implied word: magic?

“If he dies, there will be a war and no way to stop it. Aecor will be crushed, and we will be prisoners or worse. He must live.”

Connor swallowed hard and moved toward the bed. He peeled down the blankets concealing Tobiah’s chest and stomach, revealing clean bandages and dark veins spiderwebbing his too-pale skin. Shadows circled his eyes. His lips were ashen.

“You brought a ten-year-old to heal the future king?” James didn’t quite scowl, but the uncertainty was there.

“I’m twelve,” Connor said.

“Well that makes all the difference.” James stared at his cousin, expression hard. He must have been terrified; he wasn’t usually mean. “Can you help?”

“I’m not sure.” Connor closed his eyes and seemed to search; whatever he saw made him shudder. “He’s really bad.”

“Try anyway.” My voice sounded hoarse.

“I’ll do what I can.” He rested his hands on the bandages. “This will take a while.”

“Another of the infamous Ospreys.” James pulled away from the bed as Connor grew as still as the prince. “And another flasher.”

“We aren’t all flashers. Connor’s the only other one.” As far as I knew. And it was only an accident I knew about Connor. Even among friends, we had to be careful.

“A healer and an animator. Powerful duo.” At my sharp look, James smiled a little. “Tobiah told me about a girl he’d met during the One-Night War. When your identity was made public, I figured it out. Besides, I already knew you’re a flasher.”

“I see.” I motioned at a chair near the bed, a basket of yarn and needles beside it. “Does the prince knit?”

James shook his head. “The queen regent has been in and out. Lady Meredith visited briefly.”

“And his uncles?”

“They were here long enough to see Tobiah’s condition and begin memorial preparations.”

Disgust turned my stomach. “He’s not dead.”

“There’s no reason to expect him to live.”

“But he will. He must.” I glanced at Connor and Tobiah, neither boy moving. “No one can know about this.”

“Count on silence from all quarters.” James excused himself to speak with the stone-faced soldiers in the parlor, and through the closed door I heard orders for discretion, an oath, and someone ask what was happening.

Which meant the only thing they knew was that the foreign flasher princess had brought in a boy in the middle of the night, and they were being sworn to never speak of it again.

As though that wouldn’t evoke more curiosity.

I paced the room, weary but restless as I listened to footsteps thudding in the other rooms of Tobiah’s apartments. Guards and maids and physicians. Connor muttered to himself, something about arteries and ligaments and organs. Sweat formed and dripped down his face.

This was taking so long. True, I’d seen Connor use his magic only once, and that was to heal a rabbit’s broken leg—nothing nearly like this—but shouldn’t he be finished by now?

I moved toward the oak bookcases. Gilt-lettered spines shone behind small curios: a golden spyglass, an aged wooden box with intricate carvings on the lid, and a framed paper behind glass. The paper was yellowed, and the writing so exact and regular it couldn’t have been made by hand.

“Pre-wraith artifacts,” James said, returning to the room. “Tobiah is fascinated by the things people created with magic a hundred years ago. Common things, like paper and clothes and trinkets. There were bigger things, too, of course: trains, faster methods of communication, and ways of clearing the land for farming. But it’s the smaller items that really intrigue him. Everyday conveniences we’ve abandoned.”