The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas Page A

accompanied by a squeak of the hinge. A lantern made its way into the attic, followed by a woman with a wand. She raised the lantern. It glowed brighter and brighter, rivaling the blinding brilliance of noonday. 
    Iolanthe squinted against the glare. The woman was about forty and quite lovely: deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, and wide lips. Her hair was very fair, almost white in the eye-watering light, swept up to the top of her head. Her pale-blue gown was of a fashion Iolanthe had never seen. It buttoned all the way to her chin and cinched to a tiny handspan at the waist, with tight sleeves that ended below her elbows in swishes of lace.
    Who was the woman? Was she, by happy chance, the memory keeper who should find Iolanthe?
    â€œSo, you are finally here,” the woman said, speaking as if through clenched teeth.
    Iolanthe’s stomach dropped. The woman’s tone was grim, hostile even.
    The woman pointed her wand at the trunk. Things snapped and clanked to the floor. Locks? No, chains. Iolanthe could see thick metal links from the peephole.
    â€œAperi,” said the woman, using the simplest opening spell now that the restraints had been removed.
    Some deep-seated instinct made Iolanthe clutch at the latch. She had not moved three times in seven years without learning a thing or two about reading people: whoever this woman was, she did not mean well. 
    The latch twitched against Iolanthe’s hand, but she kept it in place.
    â€œAperi,” the woman repeated.
    Again the latch fidgeted.
    The woman frowned. “Aperi maxime.”
    This time the latch twisted and bucked like a caught animal bent on escape. Iolanthe’s fingers hurt with the strain of keeping it from disengaging.
    At last the latch stilled. But she barely caught a breath before the woman called, “Frangare!”
    Frangare was a mason’s spell, used for cleaving boulders in two. The trunk must have been protected: it did not crack open, not even the smallest of fractures.
    â€œFrangare!” the woman cried again. “Frangare! Frangare! Frangare!”
    Iolanthe’s fingers were icy with fear. The trunk remained intact. But for how much longer? She tried to vault—and moved not an inch: no self-respecting mage dwellings allowed vaulting within its perimeters. 5
    The woman set down the lantern and clutched the bodice of her dress, as if exhausted. “I forgot,” she said slowly. “He made the trunk indestructible so I could not get rid of it.”
    So there was a man about. Could he help Iolanthe?
    â€œOn his deathbed he asked me to swear a blood oath that I would protect you as I would my own child, from the moment I first saw you,” the woman said softly. Then she laughed, a sound that chilled Iolanthe’s blood. “He wanted much, did he not?”
    The woman lifted her head; her face was cold and blank, her eyes burning with fervor. “For you he gave up his honor,” she said. “For you he destroyed us all.”
    Who was this madwoman? And why had anyone believed this house to be a secure location?
    The woman raised her wand. The chains slammed back into place around the trunk. Her lips moved silently, as if she were praying.
    Iolanthe held her breath. For a long minute, nothing seemed to happen. Then the ends of her hair fluttered. The trunk was shut, she herself was still—how could air move? Yet it moved. In only one direction: out of the trunk.
    The woman intended to suffocate Iolanthe right in the trunk.
    And air was the only element over which Iolanthe had no control whatsoever.
    Â 
    Titus’s pendant had warmed appreciably as he reached England. It had warmed further after he materialized in London. 
    Many Exiles from the Domain, accustomed to the urban life of Delamer, had chosen to settle in London, the closest thing Britain had to an equivalent. The girl had likely arrived at the home of an Exile.
    The city was in the throes of one of its infamous