The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

“I was going to wait a few days. But after your rooms—and Wintervale’s—had been cleared out, a man came to Mrs. Dawlish’s and said he was the prince’s valet. He asked to speak with some of your friends. After he was gone, I found a piece of paper inside the pocket of my waistcoat. It could be a message for you, prince. I couldn’t decipher it, but it made me nervous that he had singled me out.

“The Atlanteans had also looked into the other boys’ rooms for suspicious items. They took a rug from my floor, a nonmage rug that doesn’t fly any more than it speaks. But now I wondered whether this man had recognized that my curtain was actually a flying carpet—and whether some agent of Atlantis wouldn’t realize the same thing.

“That night I bewitched all the seat cushions to fly out of the window of the common room, creating a distraction. While the Atlanteans were preoccupied with that, I slipped away and took the last train out.” Kashkari took a piece of paper from his inner pocket and gave it to Titus. “And this is that message.”

Titus called for a small sphere of light, scanned the message, and passed it to Iolanthe. “Have a look?”

The note read: Lady Callista was interrogated under the effect of truth serum at a time coinciding with the resurfacing of certain memories. Apparently she has surrendered information crucial to the potential capture of the elemental mage who can control lightning.

So Lady Callista had been caught after all.

It was possible her memory was protected, which meant Master Haywood’s spell suppressing all her recollections of Iolanthe had only a temporary effect—and expired at an inconvenient time, in the middle of an interview with Atlantean investigators.

It was also possible that while Lady Callista was being questioned under truth serum, Iolanthe and Titus used the quasi-vaulter, the operation of which served as a special provision to trigger the return of Lady Callista’s suppressed memories.

This implied Lady Callista had been the one to place the target of the quasi-vaulter in the Sahara Desert—and attach a memory spell to its activation: an Iolanthe who didn’t know her own identity would be easier to deceive and control. The blood circle would have been a precautionary measure, so that Iolanthe did not wander off before Lady Callista could find her; as unflattering as her opinion of Lady Callista was, Iolanthe didn’t think the latter actually meant to kill her.

An illumination much brighter than the blue mage light flickered on the message. Iolanthe raised her head to see a silver-white beacon expanding.

“Good!” said Kashkari. “Amara is calling back my brother and the others who raided the Atlantean base.”

Iolanthe felt a leap of excitement. “And isn’t that how you break a bell jar dome? By having allies approach from the outside?”

But the beacon dissipated as it touched the top of the dome.

Kashkari groaned. “It needs to rise much higher. Or they won’t see it.”

Titus gripped her hand. Even with the breathing mask, she could see that he was grimacing. She braced her weight against his just as he stumbled.

“I—I remember everything now,” he said, leaning into her. “And I have made up my mind: Cooper is undoubtedly an idiot, but an invaluable one.”

She grinned from ear to ear. “Should I ever see him again, I will tell him you said he was invaluable.”

He laughed quietly and touched his forehead to hers. “You, and you alone.”

She took his hands in hers. “Live forever.”

They needed to say nothing more.

He raised his wand. A flame-colored beacon flared into existence, well above the bell jar dome.

“What is it?” Kashkari asked.

“The war phoenix,” said Titus, “released when the Master of the Domain himself is under attack.”

“Will it be any use?” asked Iolanthe. “We are thousands of miles from the Domain.”

“True, but we are not without friends nearby. The first night we were in the desert, armored chariots were coming too close, so I released two phoenix beacons to distract them, without knowing exactly what I was doing. And one of the beacons was a war phoenix. When that happens, my exact location becomes known to the war council at home. Remember I told you that the second night there were riders on pegasi? Atlanteans forces do not make use of pegasi, but we do. And remember the bewitched spears? Guess who has that many bewitched spears?”

Iolanthe gasped. “Of course! You even said it was like watching a historical reenactment. Titus the Great Memorial Museum has thousands of them for that purpose.”

“So we just have to hold out long enough for relief to get here. And then we will have you disappear into the crowds of a nonmage city until the danger is past.”

“How long do you think it will be before relief gets here?”

“The sooner the better,” said Kashkari, his voice tight. “Looking at what’s coming, I’m not sure we can last long.”

Two more groups of rebel defenders took to the air just then, obscuring Iolanthe’s view of the sky. And then she saw it, entering the bell jar dome, a mountainous swarm of winged beasts, an ominous flamelike sheen to their scales in the light of the war phoenix.