So he wasn’t dropping it.

“Enjoy the challenge,” said Kell, wondering why he was still there, why he’d come in the first place.

“If you’re planning an attack against Osaron, then let me help.” The other Antari’s voice had changed, and it took Kell a moment to realize what he heard threaded through it. Passion. Anger. Holland’s voice had always been as smooth and steady as a rock. Now, it had fissures.

“Help requires trust,” said Kell.

“Hardly,” countered Holland. “Only mutual interest.” His gaze burned through Kell. “Why did you bring me?” he asked again.

“I brought you along so you wouldn’t cause trouble in the palace. And I brought you as bait, in the hopes that Osaron would follow us.” It was a partial truth, but the telling of it and the look in Holland’s eyes loosened something in Kell. He relented. “That container you heard about—it’s called an Inheritor. And we’re going to use it to contain Osaron.”

“How?” demanded Holland, not incredulous, but intense.

“It’s a receptacle for power,” explained Kell. “Magicians used them once to pass on the entirety of their magic by transferring it into a container.”

Holland went quiet, but his eyes were still fever bright. After a long moment he spoke again, his voice low, composed. “If you want me to use this Inheritor—”

“That isn’t why I brought you,” cut in Kell, too fast, unsure if Holland’s guess was too far from or too close to the truth. He’d already considered the dilemma—in fact, had tried to think of nothing else since leaving London. The Inheritor required a sacrifice. It would be one of them. It had to be. But he didn’t trust it to be Holland, who’d fallen once before, and he didn’t want it to be Lila, who didn’t fear anything, even when she should, and he knew Osaron had his sights set on him, but he had Rhy, and Holland had no one, and Lila had lived without power, and he would rather die than lose his brother, himself … and around and around it went in his head.

“Kell,” said Holland sternly. “I own my shadows, and Osaron is one of them.”

“As Vitari was mine,” replied Kell.

Where does it start?

He got to his feet before he could say more, before he seriously began to entertain the notion. “We can argue over noble sacrifices when we have the device in hand. In the meantime …” He nodded at Holland’s chains. “Enjoy the taste of freedom. I’d give you leave to walk the ship, but—”

“Between Delilah and Jasta, I wouldn’t make it far.” Holland rubbed his wrists again. Flexed his fingers. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. At last he crossed his arms loosely over his chest, mimicking Kell’s own stance. Holland closed his eyes, but Kell could tell he wasn’t resting. His guard was up, his hackles raised.

“Who were they?” Kell asked softly.

Holland blinked. “What?”

“The three people you killed before the Danes.”

Tension rippled through the air. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It mattered enough for you to keep track,” said Kell.

But Holland’s face had retreated back behind its mask of indifference, and the room filled with silence until it drowned them both.

III

Vortalis had always wanted to be king—not the someday king, he told Holland, but the now king. He didn’t care about the stories. Didn’t buy into the legends. But he knew the city needed order. Needed strength. Needed a leader.

“Everyone wants to be king,” said Vortalis.

“Not me,” said Holland.

“Well, then you’re either a liar or a fool.”

They were sitting in a booth at the Scorched Bone. The kind of place where men could talk of regicide without raising any brows. Now and then the attention drifted toward them, but Holland knew it had less to do with the topic and more to do with his left eye and Vortalis’s knives.

“A pretty pair we make,” the man had said when they first entered the tavern. “The Antari and the Hunter. Sounds like one of those tales you love,” he’d added, pouring the first round of drinks.

“London has a king,” said Holland now.

“London always has a king,” countered Vortalis. “Or queen. And how long has that ruler been a tyrant?”

They both knew there was only one way the throne changed hands—by force. A ruler wore the crown as long as they could keep it on their head. And that meant every king or queen had been a killer first. Power required corruption, and corruption rewarded power. The people who ended up on that throne had always paved the way with blood.

“It takes a tyrant,” said Holland.

“But it doesn’t have to,” argued Vortalis. “You could be my might, my knight, my power, and I could be the law, the right, the order, and together, we could more than take this throne,” he said, setting down his cup. “We could hold it.”

He was a gifted orator, Holland would give him that. The kind of man who stoked passion the way an iron did coals. They had called him the Hunter, but the longer Holland was in his presence, the more he thought of him as the Bellows—he’d told him once, and the man had chuckled, said he was indeed full of air.

There was an undeniable charm about the man, not merely the youthful airs of one who hadn’t seen the worst the world has to offer, but the blaze of someone who managed to believe in change, in spite of it.