Chapter 1 — Tarik



I discovered I was a jurzy at the age of five, when the world loved me and my father still loved me. At the time I didn’t realize what it meant—what it meant for me. I’d been proud of my ability. I remembering running to Father to show off how I could make my face look different, how I could change the color of my hair or my eyes or the shape of my chin on a whim. I never expected the reaction I got from him. I never expected his fury.

Of course, if my father had understood then what my gift really was, he might have had me quietly killed instead of putting me under house arrest for what felt like an eternity.

Or maybe not. Killing the Crown Prince is generally bad for public opinion, after all—not to mention it would have displeased my mother, and my father loved her almost as much as he loved his country.

We always came second, Mother and I. It never seemed to bother her as much as it did me. At least, not until my blunder outed her secret, too—that she carried the hated magery gene I’d inherited—and we found ourselves both shuffled, privately, to the bottom of the heap. She endured like she always endured, strong as a widow at home, but the smiling and happy queen for the public because the public mattered.

And I did what my father told me. I tried to forget what I was.

* * * *



It rained the day before I turned seventeen, but then, it always rained on my birthday. In fact, sometimes it felt like it didn’t stop from one birthday to the next. This was Cavnal, the rainy center of the universe, where even sunny days felt damp, and the streets of Brinmark never dried.

We stood just off the landing strip at the palace airfield, shivering and drenched despite all our wool and leather wraps, watching as Gram whipped his creaking plane through drill after drill. Land, take off. Land, take off. Even at our distance we could hear the plane’s airscrew clack and whir, sputtering complaints through the sheeting rain. I didn’t blame it.

If I hadn’t promised Gram I’d stay and watch, I would have left half an hour ago.

Samyr looked miserable beside me, but she smiled brightly when she caught me frowning down at her. Her nose and cheeks had gone red—not the charming rosy kind, but the raw, chaffed red that prickled now and burned later. She must have realized it, because after a moment she reached up and covered the bottom half of her face with her thick woolen mittens. Only her eyes showed then, grey and shining as raindrops.

“Do you want to go?” I asked her.

She laughed through the wool, and shivered on top of it. “You don’t look cold.”

I scowled and leaned my arms on the wooden rail, managing to soak the only part of my coat that had so far stayed dry.

“I’m frozen stiff.”

“Really, Tarik, you don’t fool me.”

Gram brought his plane in for another brief landing, the wheels churning up a chalky spray. I held up my hand to wave at him like I’d done ten times already.

“I think he’s just showing off, now,” Samyr said. “Wasn’t he only supposed to practice for an hour?”

I snorted. “He thinks that if he flies the wheels off that thing, his father will give him a commission in the Air Patrol a whole year early.”

“Will he?”

“Not a chance. Try telling that to Gram, though.”

“Tarik,” Samyr said, leaning against the railing beside me. “Don’t you want to learn to fly? My brother does. Seems like all the Ministry boys do.”

“Of course they do. If Gram decided jumping off bell towers was a fun way to spend a holiday, they’d all be lining up for that too.”

“Not you?”

“What, do you really figure me for a modoc?” I asked, donning my best imitation of the cocky aviator swagger.

Samyr giggled and shoved me playfully. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my guard take half a scowling step toward us.

“Relax, Zagger,” I said. “Does she look like she’s trying to kill me?”

Zagger shifted his gaze from me to her and back again, but he never said a word. He never did. Just stood there dark and frowning, with his black hat tipped down too far over his eyes the way he said made him look more intimidating.

Samyr stifled laughter, then she touched my arm and slipped under the railing. Gram had finally landed—and stopped—the damn plane, and was making his best attempt at a suave dismount as the screw wound down to a whimper. I clapped Zagger on the shoulder and vaulted over the rail.

Gram pulled off his goggles when we got close, eyeing us with feigned surprise.

“Your Highness!” he said, and mocked a bow at me.

“Hullo, Gram.”

Then he ignored me and took Samyr’s muffled hand to kiss it. “Shhhamyr,” he said, exaggerating the affected sh sound some of the society snobs gave their s’s. “I had no idea you two would be gracing me with your presence today.”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Just happened to be passing by. If I’d realized that was you up there, I would have kept going.”

Gram smirked, ruffling the rain through his hair until it stuck to his head like some kind of drowned animal.

“Zagger still shadowing you?” he asked, peering past my shoulder. “Can’t we steal you away for a while? It’s your birthday tomorrow, Your Rrrroyal Highness. A celebration is in order, and you shan’t escape it.”

I opened my mouth to remind him about tomorrow’s rrrroyal birthday gala hanging over my head like a bad idea, but he held up his hand before I could breath a syllable.

“Gad, Tarik, that’s not what I mean. I mean a celebration! You’re turning seventeen! You could study law or join the army if you actually had to get a job. You could even run for some petty public office, if you actually had to get elected! Isn’t that something to celebrate in a manly fashion?”

I shoved my hands in my trouser pockets, glaring at him until he shut up. After I’d let ten full seconds of silence drip away, I asked,

“I don’t suppose you had any great plans in mind?”

Gram looped his arms through mine and Samyr’s and ambled back toward the railing, where Zagger waited with my motorcar.

“It was supposed to be a surprise, but fine. I’ll tell you. I am planning on kidnapping you and dragging you down for a night of mayhem round about South Brinmark Station. You know the area?”

“Gram!” Samyr cried, clapping a hand over her mouth—trying to appear scandalized but only looking cute and indignant in her schoolgirl mittens and my black cap.

He gave her a roguish grin and elbowed me, hard, in the ribs. “Well, Your Highness, what d’you say?”

Samyr shifted her wide-eyed stare to me, and I quirked a smile at her.

“It won’t happen,” I said.

“What? Why do you say that? Come on, you haven’t even heard my argument. My dear Tarik, there will be music and wine, and enough of that that even the alley girls down there will look pretty.”

“Gram,” I said, gravely, “you know children aren’t allowed in those sorts of places.”

Gram turned a few shades redder at that. He was younger than me by a mere four months — but what an eternity when I was about to be a man, and he was still a boy.

“Well,” he sputtered. “Who’d know?”

“You’re not taking Tarik down to South Brinmark,” Samyr said, stomping her foot and narrowly missing a puddle.

“Look who’s so upset!”

“He’s the Crown Prince, Gram! He can’t be seen in places like that! Besides, he doesn’t even want to go.”

Gram ignored her. “Listen, Tarik, you could slip me in, right? Come on...you know you want to. One little jaunt of fun before you have to start acting responsible and royal and all of that muckery.”

“No,” I said.

“Have you ever even been down there, Gram?” Samyr cried, wrinkling her nose.

“Sure have, doll.”

“Don’t call me that. It’s obscene.”

Gram gave her a lazy grin, and she balled her hands up in fists. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she actually punched him; he deserved it, and she’d done it before.

“He means he got driven to the Station once,” I said, before the bearcat came out of her. “With his father and three armed guards.”

“There were only two guards,” Gram muttered.

“I would’ve taken three,” Samyr said. “All the jurzies live down there.”

I hid a flinch in a shiver and kept walking.

“And Rivano.”

What?” I cried, startled. “What do you know about him?”

She gave me a pretty pout and said, “Just his name, I swear. It’s all my father and your father ever talk about these days.”

I shrugged. She apparently knew only about as much as I did. I didn’t know whether to find that an annoyance or a relief.

“Jurzies, cultists, who cares. They don’t bother me,” Gram said. “You know, I once heard of a jurzy who could light a fire with just his fingers. Tell me that isn’t a useful skill.”

“Disgusting,” Samyr said. “It’s not normal.”

Gram waved his hand, and I — hating myself — pulled a slim ferrosteel lighter from my pocket and grated the rod across the rasp. Samyr jumped at the little tongue of flame that flicked out beneath my thumb.

“Useful, maybe,” I said. “But not so impressive.”

“Oh,” Samyr breathed. “Can I see that?” and bit the tip of her mitten to pull it off.

I dropped the lighter into her hand and she flinched as if she expected it to be hot.

“Papa told me Doctor Baisell was developing some kind of small fire-starter. I didn’t know he’d actually done it.”

Gram was staring at it, too. I could tell he wanted it. Wanted to hold it, try it out. Wanted to take it home with him. Doctor Baisell had given me the thing for a birthday present, but I’d already guessed he meant it more for my father’s eyes than my happiness. If he could get the lighter under the King’s nose, maybe the King would favor him with more funding for his new research lab. Baisell never gave up anything without a reason.

For a few moments we stood silent, while she tried to make a spark and Gram peered greedily over her shoulder.

“See,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as sick as I felt. “No need to be a damn jurzy Flint to make fire.”

“Tarik, language!” Samyr chided, but she didn’t look at me. She’d given up on trying to light the thing, and now just ran her little pale fingers over the steel the way someone might stroke a snake.

Finally she held it out, but Gram moved quicker than me and snatched it from her hand.

“That’s...well. Isn’t this something,” he said, rapturously. “Tarik, what d’you say to taking this down southside and showing that jurzy chizzer a thing or two?”

“No,” I said. I slipped under the railing this time, catching Zagger’s stone-faced stare briefly before turning back around. “See you tomorrow?”

Samyr reached up to take off her — my — cap, but I waved her away and climbed into the motorcar. The stiff seats smelled like rain and new leather, and the air inside wasn’t any warmer for being dry. I settled back as Zagger slammed my door shut, but Gram vaulted the railing to hang over its lip as Zagger circled round to the cab. He still had my lighter; I plucked it from his fingers and shoved it into my coat pocket before he could snatch it back.

“Come on, Tarik. We need to do something. Just you and me.”

“I’ll see you at the gala. I’m sure it’ll be charming.”

“You said that last year.”

“I lied, then.”

“And now?”

“We’ll see.” I rapped my knuckles on the glass, and the engine roared to life in a cloud of steam. “Afternoon, Gram. Samyr.”

Samyr waved enthusiastically at me while still trying to pull her mitt back on, but Gram just gave me a long-suffering glance and tipped his fingers at his temple in a mock salute. Once the car was underway, I leaned up and pushed the glass window back.

“Zag, who’s coming for dinner tonight?”

“Minister Farro and his family, Your Highness, and Minister Batar.”

I sat back with a laugh, raking my hands through my still-sopping hair. “Gram’s coming to dinner and he didn’t even mention it. That doesn’t surprise me, somehow.”

Zagger made a small sound like a cough.  “He likely doesn’t even know, or remember."

The car chattered over the cobblestone road, splashing in puddled pits now and then with teeth-knocking force. I’d never gotten used to the bumping and jarring of the motorcar. It always felt so much harsher than the carriages I remembered growing up. But they were the newest, most progressive thing, and of course the royal family had to lead the way into the future for all of Cavnal. Just like my little ferrosteel lighter and the electrical lamps that now annoyed the eyes of every person in the palace.

Or maybe I was the only one annoyed by it all. Maybe because, for all I lied and tried to hide it, I really was a jurzy. Backwards...un-progressed. Like something born out of time. Something that didn’t belong in all this madness.



Chapter 2 — Hayli



From my perch on the high stone wall, I had a good look at two whole different worlds.

On my right, the city street threaded away between rainy buildings and rainy trees, with inky newspapers sticking like skin to the cobblestones and lampposts. Not many people out today. Too wet, too cold. Sensible folks stayed in when the weather turned, come autumn and all its bad attitude. At least, the folks who had a place to go stayed in. Maybe they were sensible, or maybe they were just rich and spoiled. I sure couldn’t say.

I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet and peered to my left, trying to get a better look onto the palace grounds. The half-bare branches of the avenue beeches blocked some of my view, like a twisty kaleidoscope of golds and coppery reds, but I could see bits of the street and the walkway well enough.

Derrin had told me before that the palace was like its own little world, and I believed it now. I switched my gaze back and forth a couple of times for the full effect: To the right, everything sulked grey and sullen as a wet cat. And to the left, the fallen leaves made a glimmery carpet of the street, as if rain inside the Oval Wall was made of fire instead of water.

“Hayli!” a voice hissed from somewhere below, city-side, grey and wet.

I waved without looking.

“Hayli, what d’you see?”

“Shut up, Jig!” I said, talking through my teeth.

“Can you get in? Are there too many guards?”

“I said shut it!”

I pulled my knees up to my chest, watching a guard stroll into view. Rainwater streamed off his helmet, the once-white plume drooping all scraggly and pathetic as a stray dog’s tail. He wore a grey wool greatcoat that I wanted bad, but one look at the rifle on his shoulder and the muscles in his neck convinced me I didn’t. Jig could’ve taken him out, but Jig couldn’t get onto the wall. It was a miracle I was up there at all, myself.

“Go on, Hayli! Get in there and get me through sometime this year!”

Through the golden mesh of beech leaves, I just glimpsed the next patrol coming our way. His steps matched the first guard’s so perfectly, it was like they were copies of each other. Left, right, left, right.

“Too many,” I whispered—mostly to myself, since Jig was too far down to hear me.

I watched for a minute more. Then I inched around and stared down at Jig, his dark head swiveling back and forth as he scanned the street.

“Can’t,” I said, when he stopped long enough to glance up at me.

He arched one black brow, his little-boy mouth all pursed up in a frown, and waved both hands as if that could push me over the edge. I could tell he had half a mind to try running up the wall at me, but he’d make an idiot of himself if he did. Three meters was his limit, and only then if he had some handholds. Maybe he was three years older than me, but he was hardly two inches taller. And I sure wasn’t the tallest girl in the clan.

Shift, Hayli. You can do it if you Shift.”

I ground my teeth and jerked my felt cap down, hard, over my hair. Shift. Easy for him to say. Easy for me to do, too, but that didn’t mean I wanted to. Maybe I’d end up where I wanted to go, or maybe I’d wake up in Ridgemark two weeks from now. Jig wasn’t a Moth. He’d never understand.

“C’mon!” he cried, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “You want to tell Kantian why you didn’t get me in? Or Derrin?”

I jerked back like he’d smacked me. I’d displeased Kantian before, but something inside me wilted at the thought of disappointing Derrin. Funny. It should have been the other way around, really.

“Fine,” I snapped, but I said it too loud.

The guard below heard me. I saw his head yank toward me the last moment before I plunged off the wall.

* * * *



Someone was shaking me, and it hurt like the devil in a doghouse. Everything hurt. My head throbbed and my tongue was bleeding, and everything was all damp and tumbling. Even when I pried open my eyes, everything kept swirling around till I thought maybe my eyeballs had got knocked loose. I got that land-legs sensation sometimes after I Shifted, but this was different. This was wrong.

“Hey, kid! Are you all right?”

I shoved back onto my side and tried to find something to focus on. Wet clouds and wet trees and clouds of steam puffing away like my thoughts… Then, finally, a face. Thirties, maybe. Short blonde hair, military style. Uniform.

The guard! I’d fallen. I’d fallen and hadn’t Shifted at all...

But this uniform was different. Black on black, long coat, tall boots. Two revolvers on his hips instead of a rifle. A faint silver shield emblem on the sleeve, a plain black coach hat tucked under one arm.

Bodyguard.

A bodyguard? That made no sense. Not out here, out in the trees and the rain, all alone...

I dug my hands against my head, wincing. Nothing made sense.

“Damn it, Zagger, I told you these things are death-traps,” another voice said, coming from somewhere behind me.

And right then all I could think about was how it sounded the way jet stone would sound if it had a voice: smooth and rich and a little dark. Refined.

I rolled my head back. My gaze drifted over a smart black motorcar, its grilled nose uncomfortably close to my back, snorting steam at me like a hard-worked horse. A boy just older than me was climbing out of the back seat, slim even in his long coat and wool scarf. One hand hung onto his neck under a shock of unruly dark hair. It must have been slicked back smooth at some point, before the rain hit.

He took one look at the bodyguard, then down at me, and came running.

“What the devil! Are you all right?” he asked, crouching down beside me.

The bodyguard took a step toward him, but the boy waved him off, blue eyes flashing.

“Death-trap’s right, hackie,” I snapped, glaring at the older man. My voice tasted like gravel. “Don’t y’ave eyes? What got you in such a rush? On the get, you and the kid?”

“Come again?”

I almost didn’t catch the look he exchanged with the boy, half-amused, half-angry. And the boy, staring at me like I spoke a different language than him.

“What are you doing on these grounds?” he asked, stern suddenly, like Derrin. “How did you get past the guards?”

Well, that relieved me a bit, anyway. At least I’d made it inside the palace walls this time.

“Maybe I flew over them,” I said, and giggled through all the pain.

“Maybe you should smarten up and learn some manners,” the bodyguard said.

But the boy waved at him again, and the man backed a few steps away. That sort of struck me as odd, but I couldn’t quite figure how.

Then, to me he said, “You’re hurt. Is it bad? Anything broken?”

I wanted to glare at him, but he actually sounded concerned. And he wouldn’t have seen it anyway, because his gaze had already left me.

“You hit the kid?”

“I didn’t even see him,” the guard said, quiet.

Him. I snorted inside.

“Look, I’m sorry,” the big man said, attempting pity. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

The boy reached out a hand, all gentleman-like, offering to help me up. I swiped at it, and jolted. The boy jerked back, too, and stared at me. Even for seconds after that touch, my hand buzzed like I had a little hive of insects under my skin.

“Something wrong?” the guard asked.

“Nothing,” the boy said, standing up and brushing off his hands, facing aside. “Just a static shock.” (Which didn’t make sense, with the rain, but I didn’t say anything.) “Come on, we need to get going. Get her off the grounds.”

Her?”

“Really, Zagger?” He stared at me a moment, then shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and swung away again.

Zagger bent and pulled me to my feet, scowling at me like I’d Shifted right in front of him. I wanted to tug my filthy grey shirt straight and fix my cap, but what was the point? As if either of these people cared that I looked like a patched up sewer rat. A minute later the boy turned and flicked his hand at Zagger: Get on with it.

“Guard!” Zagger bellowed, so loud that I flinched.

Swell. My luck never got any better, it seemed. I’d finally managed to get inside the palace walls, and of all the things that could possibly go wrong, I had to get hit by one of those blasted new motorcars. Now they’d toss me back onto the streets, and maybe I’d lost my one and only shot. Poof, gone. And Kantian would bedpost me without food for a week, as if that could make things better.

I could make a run for it. Shift when their backs were turned, and they’d never know what happened.

I stumbled a step.

No. Too much pain. I’d never be able to take off.

One of the guards came sprinting up and saluted, not at Zagger, but at the boy. I jutted my lower lip and frowned.

“Your Highness?” the guard asked. “Shall I arrest him?”

Your Highness? I bit my tongue on a cry of surprise. I felt my face turn white, then red, and I’m sure my eyes bugged as big as the headlamps on the motorcar.

Zagger must have seen it, because he kind of smirked at me before facing the new guard. The prince didn’t move at all. He stood turned a little aside, so I only saw his profile. All quiet lines and tanned skin, like he’d been born somewhere that actually saw the sun once in a while.

“Just send her off,” he said finally. A second hitched past and his eyes drifted back toward me. “She won’t be back.”

“No, no, no,” I cried. “Wait, please! I have to be here. You don’t get it! I have to—”

I screwed my mouth shut. Babbling like a moonbrained idiot, and the Crown Prince not five steps away from me. The prince. I’d seen his picture in the papers before, of course. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him from the beginning. Maybe because the pictures always had him looking dashing in sport gear or three-piece suits, not mucked up with rain and mud and his cheeks all ruddy from the wind.

I didn’t realize I was staring at him until Zagger cleared his throat.

“His Royal Highness visits the public on specific, pre-appointed days. You can ogle him on the next such occasion, if you like, but at the moment I have to return him to the palace.”

The prince spun around. My face was on fire, but still, he looked so baffled I almost laughed.

The new guard clamped a hand on my arm, and I twisted once and stood still. Jig could’ve gotten free. He was the fighter, lean and quick and mean as a tom, with those slick moves that could turn a man inside out before he knew what had hit him. Not me. I was stuck, and furious.

The boy — the prince — glanced back at me one last time before climbing into the motorcar. Zagger gave me a parting smirk for good measure, and launched himself into the cab. For half a moment nothing happened, and I just stood there staring at the car and the quiet face of the prince inside, then the engine bucked into life with a snarl and gust of steam. I backed off the road far as the guard would let me, and then they were gone.

The guard nudged me. Wincing, I fell in step with him. He didn’t talk to me, not a word. Palace guards never talked for all you did. Every kid in Brinmark knew it. We’d all tried to get them to, of course — talk or even just flinch. Maybe if I Shifted he’d flinch. Maybe even swear. Or maybe he’d shoot me with that rifle before I’d flown a meter.

I wouldn’t die a crow. Never.

So I walked in silence all the way through the gate and out onto the street. Then, soon as the guard let me go, I turned and ran, limping, into the nearest alley.  Scurried into the shadows like a whipped dog before Jig could see my failure.