Kell’s pulse surged at the sight of him, while the king hid his relief almost as well as the prince hid his ordeal.

“Rhy,” said Maxim, voice nearly betraying him.

“Your Highness,” said Sol-in-Ar slowly, “we heard you were hurt in the attack.”

“We heard you fell victim to the shadow fog,” said Prince Col.

“We heard you’d taken ill before the winner’s ball,” added Lord Casin.

Rhy managed a lazy smile. “Goodness, the rumors fly when one is indisposed.” He gestured to himself. “As you can see …” A glance at Kell. “I’m surprisingly resilient. Now, what have I missed?”

“Kell was just about to tell us,” said the king, “how to defeat this monster.”

Rhy’s eyes widened even as a ghost of fatigue flitted across his face. He’d only just returned. Is this going to hurt? his gaze seemed to ask. Or maybe even, Are we going to die? But all he said was, “Go on.”

Kell fumbled for his thoughts. “We can’t evacuate the city,” he said again, turning toward the head priest. “But could we put it to sleep?”

Tieren frowned, knocking his bony knuckles on the table’s edge. “You want to cast a spell over London?”

“Over its people,” clarified Kell.

“For how long?” asked Rhy.

“As long as we must,” retorted Kell, turning back toward the priest. “Osaron has done it.”

“He’s a god,” observed Isra.

“No,” said Kell sharply. “He’s not.”

“Then what exactly are we facing?” demanded the king.

“It’s an oshoc,” said Kell, using Holland’s word. Only Tieren seemed to understand.

“A kind of incarnation,” explained the priest. “Magic in its natural form has no self, no consciousness. It simply is. The Isle river, for instance, is a source of immense power, but it has no identity. When magic gains a self, it gains motive, desire, will.”

“So Osaron is just a piece of magic with an ego?” asked Rhy. “A spell gone awry?”

Kell nodded. “And according to Holland, he feeds on chaos. Right now Osaron has ten thousand sources. But if we took them all away, if he had nothing but his own magic—”

“Which is still considerable—” cut in Isra.

“We could lure him into a fight.”

Rhy crossed his arms. “And how do you plan to fight him?”

Kell had an idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice it, not yet, when Rhy had just recovered.

Tieren spared him. “It could be done,” said the priest thoughtfully. “In a fashion. We’ll never be able to cast a spell that broad, but we could make a network of many smaller incantations,” he rambled, half to himself, “and with an anchor, it could be done.” He looked up, pale eyes brightening. “But I’ll need some things from the Sanctuary.”

A dozen eyes flicked to the map room’s only window, where the fingers of Osaron’s spell still scratched to get in, despite the morning light. Prince Col stiffened. Lady Rosec fixed her gaze on the floor. Kell started to offer, but a look from Rhy made him pause. The look wasn’t refusal. Not at all. It was permission. Unflinching trust.

Go, it said. Do whatever you must.

“What a coincidence,” said a voice from the door. They turned as one to see Lila, hands on her hips and very much awake. “I could use some fresh air.”

IV

Lila made her way down the hall, an empty satchel in one hand and Tieren’s list of supplies in the other. She’d had the luxury of seeing Kell’s shock and Tieren’s displeasure register at the same time, for whatever that was worth. Her head was still aching dully from whatever she’d been slipped, but the stiff drink had done its part, and the solid plan—or at least a step—had done the rest.

Your tea, Miss Bard.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been drugged, but most of her experience had been of a more … investigative nature. She’d spent a month aboard the Spire collecting powder for the tapers and ale she intended to take onto the Copper Thief, enough to bring down an entire crew. She’d inhaled her share, at first by accident, and then with a kind of purpose, training her senses to recognize and endure a certain portion because the last thing she needed was to faint in the middle of the task.

This time, she’d tasted the powder in the tea the moment it hit her tongue, even managed to spit most of it back into the cup, but by then her senses were going numb, winking out like lights in a strong wind, and she knew what was coming—the shallow, almost pleasant slide before the drop. One minute she’d been in the hall with Kell, and the next her balance was going, floor tipping like a ship in a storm. She’d heard the lilt of his voice, felt the heat of his arms, and then she was gone, down, down, down, and the next thing she knew she was bolting upright on a couch with a headache and a wide-eyed boy watching from the wall.

“You shouldn’t be awake,” Hastra had stammered as she’d thrown the covers off.

“Is that really the first thing you want to say?” she’d asked, staggering toward the sideboard to pour herself a drink. She hesitated, remembering the bitter tea, but after a few searching sniffs, she found something that burned her nose in a familiar way. She downed two fingers, steadied herself against the counter. The drug was still clinging to her like cobwebs, and she was left trying to drag the edges of her mind back into order, squinting until the blurred lines all hardened into sharp ones.