Free A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab Page B

caught his arm.
    “Promise,” the prince whispered under his breath. “Promise you’ll come back empty-handed this time.”
    Kell hesitated. “I promise,” he said, wondering how many times he had said those words, how empty they’d become.
    But as he pulled a pale piece of silver from beneath his collar, he hoped that this time they might prove true.

II
    Kell stepped through the door in the world and shivered. Red London had vanished, taking the warmth with it; his boots hit cold stone, and his breath blossomed in the air before his lips, and he pulled his coat—the black one with the silver buttons—tightly around his shoulders.
    Priste ir Essen. Essen ir Priste.
    “Power in Balance. Balance in Power.” Equal parts motto, mantra, and prayer, the words ran beneath the royal emblem in Red London, and could be found in shops and homes alike. People in Kell’s world believed that magic was neither an infinite resource nor a base one. It was meant to be used but not abused, wielded with reverence as well as caution.
    White London had a very different notion.
    Here, magic was not seen as equal. It was seen as something to be
conquered
.
Enslaved. Controlled.
Black London had let magic in, let it take over, let it consume. In the wake of the city’s fall, White London had taken the opposite approach, seeking to bind power in any way they could.
Power in Balance
became
Power in Dominance
.
    And when the people fought to control the magic, the magic resisted them. Shrank away into itself, burrowed down into the earth and out of reach. The people clawed the surface of the world, digging up what little magic they could still grasp, but it was thin and only growing thinner, as were those fighting for it. The magic seemed determined to starve its captors out. And slowly, surely, it was succeeding.
    This struggle had a side effect, and that effect was the reason Kell had named White London
white
: every inch of the city, day or night, summer or winter, bore the same pall, as though a fine coat of snow—or ash—had settled over everything. And everyone. The magic here was bitter and mean, and it bled the world’s life and warmth and color, leaching it out of everything and leaving only the pale and bloated corpse behind.
    Kell looped the White London coin—a weighty iron thing—around his neck, and tucked it back beneath his collar. The crisp blackness of his coat made him stand out against the faded backdrop of the city streets, and he shoved his bloodstreaked hand into his pocket before the rich red sight of it gave anyone ideas. The pearl-toned surface of the half-frozen river—here called neither the Thames, nor the Isle, but the Sijlt—stretched at his back, and across it, the north side of the city reached to the horizon. In front of him, the south side waited, and several blocks ahead, the castle lunged into the air with knifelike spires, its stone mass dwarfing the buildings on every side.
    He didn’t waste time, but made his way directly toward it.
    Being lanky, Kell had a habit of slouching, but walking through the streets of White London, he pulled himself to his full height and kept his chin up and his shoulders back as his boots echoed on the cobblestones. His posture wasn’t the only thing that changed. At home, Kell masked his power. Here he knew better. He let his magic fill the air, and the starving air ate it up, warming against his skin, wicking off in tendrils of fog. It was a fine line to walk. He had to show his strength while still holding fast to it. Too little, and he’d be seen as prey. Too much, and he’d be seen as a prize.
    In
theory
, the people of the city knew Kell, or of him, and knew that he was under the protection of the white crown. And in
theory
, no one would be foolish enough to defy the Dane twins. But hunger—for energy, for life—did things to people. Made
them
do things.
    And so Kell kept his guard up and watched the sinking sun as he walked, knowing that White London