Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(65)

The sudden burst of energy he felt simmered, falling from a roaring flame to a spark.

Luka gritted his teeth. No, he was done letting Alfie’s nonsense drag him down into anger and frustration. He and Alfie needed to talk. Now.

Luka burst out of his bedroom doors and darted down the long, winding hall, his bare feet cold against the tiled floor. He nodded at the guards and servants, who scarcely spared him a second glance regardless of his disheveled attire. Luka walking about wearing last night’s clothes was hardly a spectacle.

When he reached Alfie’s double doors he raised his fist to knock. Then he chided himself with a sharp exhale through his nose. As if Alfie deserved such courtesies! Luka burst into Alfie’s room and shut the doors behind him.

“Alfie,” Luka began, his voice sounding annoyingly hesitant. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “We need to—”

The room was empty. The bed was made and littered with the overly formal clothes Alfie had no doubt been choosing between for last night’s dinner party.

Which meant he hadn’t gone to bed last night. Luka’s stomach tightened.

With the ball tomorrow, Alfie should be here. He always spent the days before a ball pacing in his room, carving out the time and space to commit to his anxiety. He didn’t even go to the library on days like this. If he wasn’t here, then he was likely somewhere he shouldn’t be.

Luka massaged his temples with his hands. Was this a sign? Did this mean he ought to just tell the king and queen what Alfie had been up to?

He sighed at the thought. He’d never been a maldito snitch and he didn’t really want to start now. But if Alfie was still dabbling in dangerous games for illegal goods, telling his parents could save the prince’s life; it would be worth it, wouldn’t it?

“Co?o,” Luka cursed the empty room. He didn’t want to go to the king and queen without giving Alfie one last chance. That was the trouble with loving one’s brother. It made you allow the stupidest things.

An idea sparked in Luka’s mind. He darted to Alfie’s armoire. Behind layers of finely made clothes was a box of cambió game materials. Luka pulled the hourglass out, balancing it on the soft of his palm. Its base filled his palm and it was scarcely longer than his hand.

He flopped onto Alfie’s bed and set the hourglass on the bedside set of drawers.

“If this hourglass runs out before you get here,” Luka said, watching the sand pour, “then I alert the guards that you’re missing and tell the king and queen everything you’ve been doing. It’s up to you, pendejo.”

Now it was a game of chance. If Alfie wasn’t home when it ran out, then he would tell the king and queen everything. It was a fair deal, he decided. There was still a chance for Alfie to come home and listen to Luka for once. But as he waited, he couldn’t stop himself from dwelling on the tangle of dark questions that slithered like snakes between his ears, hissing the worst. What if he’s at one of those illegal games right now? Is he even alive? What will you tell the king and queen if he isn’t?

He clapped his hands over his ears. The act of it was somehow comforting, though it did nothing to muffle his thoughts. He shot upright and stared at the hourglass, his eyes darting between it and the wall. The wall that Alfie always came home through.

“If you’re dead, I’ll kill you,” Luka said to the wall. He was an optimist, so he usually took silence as affirmation. Alfie always took silence as an opportunity to fill the quiet with self-doubt. Today, Luka found himself doing the latter, his mind overflowing with images of where Alfie could be—somewhere dark fighting for his life or lying still, already having lost it.

Sweat gathering at his temples, Luka watched the hourglass. The sand dribbled slow as honey. There were still so many long minutes to wait.

He got up and paced, his eyes still glued to the hourglass. He strode across the room to Alfie’s armoire and thumbed through his clothing to distract himself. With nothing else to do, Luka tried on one of the prince’s shirts. As he pulled it over his head, it ripped at the shoulder where Alfie was slimmer. Luka quickly wriggled out of it, rolled the shirt into a ball, and stuffed it in the back of the armoire. As he shoved the torn shirt in, his fingers brushed against something warm and familiar. Behind the rows of clothing was Alfie’s fur-lined winter cloak. He’d lent it to Luka when they’d traveled to Uppskala last year. Luka smiled at the memories of going ice rafting in the winter kingdom’s rapids and dining on the freshest, most delicious fish that either of them had ever tasted. They’d even watched the famed northern lights while sipping mugs of mulled wine and chatting up the good-looking Uppskalan nobles who came their way. Things had been so different then.

Before Dez had died, Alfie had still been Alfie—a little too sullen for his own good, but his laugh came easy. He could let himself be reckless, be free. Now, to Luka, it felt like Alfie was too cautious to laugh, let alone live his life. Before everything had happened, Alfie had loved going traveling with Luka and trying new things. It was something Luka liked to call adventuring, and though Alfie was hardly as bold as him, he’d tagged along with Luka on more journeys than he could count.

Of course, Luka knew why Alfie was so keen on getting out of the palace after he’d finished his bruxo studies. The prince had always had a hard time watching his father fawn over Dez. Alfie had spent his adolescence training intensely under Paloma in hopes of catching his father’s attention, but Dez had always been the apple of the king’s eye. Whenever Alfie wanted to escape his feelings of inadequacy by having some fun, Luka saw no harm in lending him a hand. Luka’s fingers dropped from the winter cloak, guilt knotting tight in his stomach.