Now he could work her likeness into any story of his choosing.
Now he could fight dragons for her.
And now he could kiss her again.
CHAPTER 
19
Titus seldom viewed anything through the same prism as his classmates did. But on this mind-numbing exercise, he and they were in agreement: it was a colossal misuse of time. To make matters worse, although a boy could leave as soon as he had said his lines, sprinting out of the classroom like a puppy that had been kenneled too long, he could not say those lines until he had been called upon to do so. And Frampton invariably kept Titus waiting until almost everyone else had gone.
On the day Titus first returned to class after a weeklong convalescence, however, Frampton called on him second, immediately after Cooper, who always provided a perfect recital to set the standard for the rest of the class.
Titus, who had come to rely on listening to the lines repeated dozens of times during class to memorize them, stumbled badly.
Frampton tsked. Your Highness, you are shortly to assume the reins of an ancient and magnificent realm. Surely the thought ought to compel you to do better.
This was new. Frampton might have delighted in making Titus cool his heels, but he had never been openly antagonistic.
The success of my rule does not rely on my ability to recite obscure Latin verse, Titus said coldly.
Frampton showed no sign of being humbled by the rebuke. I speak not of the memorization and delivery of specific lines, but of the understanding of duty. From everything I have seen of you, young man, you have a poor grasp of obligation and responsibility.
Next to him, Fairfax sucked in a breath. She was not alone. The entire class was riveted.
Titus made a show of examining his cuff links. It is irrelevant what a lackey such as you thinks of my character.
Ah, but times change. Nowadays princes from thousand-year-old houses may very well find themselves without a throne, said Frampton smoothly. Next, Sutherland. Lets hope youve prepared better.
Titus wasted no time in leaving. As soon as he was back in his room at Mrs. Dawlishs, he inserted a piece of paper under the writing ball. No new intelligence awaited him. Not very surprisingonly three hours ago Dalbert had reported that there had been little changes in the Inquisitors condition.
But if the Inquisitor remained unconscious, why had Frampton gone on the offensive? Simply to remind Titus that he was now persona non grata in Atlantean circles for having incapacitated one of the Banes most capable lieutenants?
He was jittery. More than a week after the Inquisition, he still had no idea how to interpret the rupture view of a skyful of wyverns and fire-spewing armored chariots. Fairfaxs march to greatness had stalled since her breakthrough with air. Their only concrete progress he could point to was an escape satchel that they had prepared and stowed in the abandoned barn.
They could not go on like this, at the mercy of events beyond their control. He had to find a way to neutralize the Inquisitor, exploit the rupture view, and spur Fairfax to firmer mastery over her powers.
He turned to his mothers diary, hoping for guidance. If there was a silver lining to the dark cloud of the Inquisition, it was that his faith in her had been fully restored. The threads of Fortune wove mysteriously, but he had become convinced that Princess Ariadne, however briefly, had had her hand on the loom.
He lifted the pages carefully, one by one, feeling that peculiar tingle of anxiety in his stomach. It was not long before he came to a page that was not blank.
26 April, YD 1020
Exactly a year before her death.
A strange vision. I am not sure what to make of it.
Titus, looking much the same age as he does when he sees that distant phenomenon on a balcony, but wearing strangenonmage?clothes, is leaning out of the window of a small room. It is not a room I have ever seen at the castle, the Citadel, or the monastery, plain but for an odd flag on the wallblack and silver, with a dragon, a phoenix, a griffin, and a unicorn.
The made-up flag of Saxe-Limburg. As far as Titus knew, there was only one in existence.
It is evening, or perhaps night, quite dark outside. Titus turns back from the window, clearly incensed. Bastards, he swears. They need their heads shoved up their
He freezes. Then rushes to take a book down from his shelf, a book in German by the name of Lexikon der Klassischen Altertumskunde.
There was nothing else.
Titus read the entry two more times. He closed the diary. The disguisement spell resumed. The diary swelled in size, its plain leather cover metamorphosing into an illustration of an ancient Greek temple.
Beneath the picture, the words Lexikon der Klassischen Altertumskunde .
A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities .
So one evening in the not-too-distant future, he would curse from his window, then rush to read the diary again. That knowledge, however, did little to extricate him from his current quagmire.
Three knocks in rapid successionFairfax, back from class.