The Immortal Heights by Sherry Thomas Page B

notebook. His expression changed.
    Iolanthe rose. “Is everything all right?”
    He looked at her, his face now blank. “Vasudev writes that they are married. As of five minutes ago.”
    Iolanthe was stunned, and she wasn’t even in love with one of the parties. “I take it today wasn’t when the wedding was scheduled.”
    â€œNo, they’d never set a date.”
    But she and Titus had brought Atlantis to the rebels’ doorstep. What was the point of waiting longer, when there might not be a tomorrow, let alone a next week?
    â€œI’d better tender my congratulations,” he said.
    Impulsively she stepped forward and hugged him. “I’m sorry it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sorry for all the pain this has brought you. And I’m sorry it will hurt worse before it gets better.”
    He stood quiet and motionless in her embrace. She let him go, feeling a little self-conscious that perhaps she had overstepped the bounds of their friendship, which made it all the more surprising to see the sheen of tears in his eyes.
    â€œThank you,” he said. “You have always been a very kind friend.”
    Something about his response disconcerted her. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “You get on with your reply. I’ll put up some anti-intrusion spells.”
    Anti-intrusion spells were immaterial in their situation: even those that could hold off a determined housebreaker were of no use against the might of Atlantis. But she wanted to give Kashkari some space to grieve, without her standing next to him.
    She went into the adjoining room and pulled out her wand from her boot. No lamps had been lit in this room, but as soon as her fingers closed over the wand, she remembered that she still had Validus. Titus had given it to her before the battle in the desert, hoping that the blade wand would be a magnificent amplifier of her powers.
    And it had been.
    She hesitated over whether to call a bit of flame, decided against it, and murmured a few spells with Validus pointed at the window. The diamond-inlaid crowns along the length of the blade wand were barely visible in the feeble light that drifted in from the other room. The facets of the gems seemed to . . .
    She opened her eyes wider. Were the crowns growing brighter and then fainter in turn? The second-lowest one was now perceptiblybrighter than the rest, now the third lowest one, going up in an orderly procession, then coming down again.
    â€œKashkari.”
    â€œYes?” he answered immediately, his voice reflecting the tightness of her own.
    â€œExtinguish the lantern and come here.”
    The outer room fell into darkness. Kashkari arrived silently. “What’s the matter?”
    â€œI need you to take a look at Validus.”
    He took the wand from her. She waited, a nameless dread trickling down her spine.
    â€œIs it always like this?” he asked, after a minute.
    â€œI don’t know. The wand belongs to Titus. He gave it to me last night because he thought I might put it to better use.”
    â€œCould it be a signal from him?”
    â€œIf it is, he has never told me about such a use for this wand.”
    â€œHave you checked your tracer?”
    Titus had a pendant that broke apart into a pair of tracers. At the moment he held one, and Iolanthe the other.
    â€œI have and I can’t tell the difference.” Titus was so far away that the tracer had been ice-cold for hours.
    Kashkari was silent for some time. “What does your gut say?”
    She was slow to answer, not wanting to speak aloud the words gnawing at her nerves. “That it can’t be good.”
    Kashkari did not disagree, but moved closer to the window. Shejoined him there. The window opened onto a dim, quiet courtyard, illuminated only by light from the surrounding guest rooms.
    He opened the window a crack and murmured something in a language she didn’t understand—Sanskrit, probably. She