All That Burns by Ryan Graudin

The boy in the hoodie is long past.
    “Today is new. Think of it as a fresh start. You’ll be fine.” A smile pries across my face. I wonder if Richard can see how strained it is. “We’ll be fine.”
    He leans down, and our foreheads touch. A pinpoint of skin drawing all my focus into him the way vision tunnels through a telescope. Making him larger than life. Today he smells like spices: the exotic kind which Queen Victoria used to have shipped in from faraway places like India and China.
    His lips brush mine—velvet whispering against skin—just the barest of kisses. I want to dig my fingers into his ermine cape and make the kiss last longer. Hold him like this forever.
    “You’re proving quite a distraction. I should be waving to the crowd,” he whispers when we break apart. “Belle’s going to murder me.”
    “Probably not. Because then she’d have to plan awhole other coronation—”
    And then I feel it. Like a stab or a lightning strike. Cutting me off midsentence.
    Magic.
    Not the soft, flowery freshness of the younglings’ spells. Or the rich powerful tint of mahogany, soil, and shadow which flavors Herne’s presence. Or even the acrid, metallic sting of the soul feeders’ magic.
    It’s the tension of opposites. Sky and earth. Birth and death. The rust and the gleam . . . It’s only a hint. Just a taste, but it’s enough for me to remember. To know I’ve felt it before.
    In the walls of an empty cell. On the Isle of Man.
    My spine grows rigid against Richard’s hand.
    “What’s wrong?” he asks.
    “I don’t know. . . .” My voice trails off.
    There’s a stretch of shadow as the carriage pulls through the other side of the Admirality Arch. The horses’ hooves clop hollow against the pavement as they tug us past the vast expanse of Trafalgar Square. The crowd is pressed so tight I can’t see any of Trafalgar Square’s stones. Only its fountains are visible, twin jewels of spewing water.
    But I don’t stare at them long. I’m scanning faces, honing in on dim echoes of auras. Nothing. The feeling hasvanished: come and gone like a wave of nausea.
    I don’t feel any magic. Any at all.
    “Richard,” I try to keep my question casual. Just in case I’m wrong. In case the paranoia is ruining even this victorious moment. “Where are the Frithemaeg?”
    “Anabelle said they should be all around the convoy!” Richard has to scream for me to hear him. The crowd has gotten louder. Much louder. But they aren’t just cheering anymore. There’s a new franticness to their energy.
    The Gold State Coach jerks to a stop. My heels dig into the floor, but my stomach feels like it’s still plummeting. The royal procession is supposed to keep going. Forward. All the way to Westminster Abbey.
    I look out the window. Outside is a mass of hair and wool coats and Union Jacks: moving, churning chaos. People are running in the street, up to the carriage and around it.
    As hard as I try, I can’t see what’s making them run. There’s too much panic. Too many screams.
    “Richard!” I clasp his arm, make sure he’s still here, next to me.
    The pack and press of the crowd can’t dodge our carriage anymore. People are running against it. Shaking and jolting us from our seats. I even see a horse flash by—grayand dappled. The plume on its halter tells me it was one of the beasts pulling our coach. Now loosed.
    The door to our carriage bursts open: an explosion of gilt and hands. My fingers punch into Richard’s arm the same way Guinevere’s clenched mine. The men come anyway.
    These are no random spectators—the people who climb into the carriage. They’re clothed like night: black jackets and ski masks. They clamber into our compartment, fill it so only four of them feel like an army.
    The whole world is shouts and kicks. Richard’s mouth is moving, but I can’t hear what he says. I can’t stop him from being torn away.
    Or am I the one being torn? Arms hook around me, pulling with raw