Now everywhere she looks there were banners hanging from balconies, and storefronts were flying the red-and-blue flags of the empire.
She walked along the mall, a broad boulevard lined with flowering trees, pretty shops, and gardens shopping once in a while to peek into dusty book emporiums and bakeries with Cornish pasties in the windows. That is what she wanted—to live in the movement to live in London again to matter. She has cherished her experience in Avalon, but couldn't imagine living there for the rest of their life as a person out of time, living in an endless present. Alone and apart from the world she would have watched the ages going by through her aunt's crystal glass. Avalon, for all its glories and beauty was not enough. She was her father's daughter after all.
During her exile she had yearned for the city, like a missing limb. She wanted to experience all it had to offer: live in the great palace, participate in the hectic preparations for the coming season, and dance at the Bal du Drap d'Or, the Ball of the Gold Cloth—an annual gala to commemorate the unification of the two kingdoms and the foundation of the empire. She wanted to see the queen again. Emry's magic might be the shield of the realm, but Eleanor was its center, its great beating heart.
Aelwyn took a shortcut down an alley that led directly to the royal mews, heading towards the side and back entrances for staff, ministers, and courtiers. The elaborate and heavily guarded front gates and reception halls were reserved for honored guests only. Here she slowed down her pace, nervous about seeing her father again. Four years ago, he had sent her away as if she had been nothing to him; as if she'd been just a girl from the kitchen, and not his only daughter, she knew she had done something wrong by losing control of her powers and starting a fire, and she understood expulsion was the only punishment the court would accept for the threat and harm done. But because Emrys never once wrote her while she was away, never once indicated that she was forgiven, Aellwyn had taken her banishment to heart.
In his letter, Emrys had invited her back to the palace, but she was still apprehensive about her reunion. When she was a child, she had sobbed bitterly at their parting; and when she was almost grown-up now, as well as Avalon-trained, thinking about him made her feel like that sad little girl once more. She wasn't that different, really, from the group of street kids—grubby little urchins with dirty faces—that had just emerged from the back of a fry shop into the alley. "Want some?'' one of them asked with a grin, holding out mushy peas wrapped in greasy newsprint. She shook her head with a smile, and he shrugged, turning back to his meal and accidentally bumping her shoulder.
"Oh, excuse me!" she said, dropping her bag. But when she leaned to pick it up, it was no longer there.
It was gone.
She stood there, staring at the ground, and realized she had been had. That bump had been no accident. She looked up to see the little thief running away with it, his foot scattered everywhere. "STOP!" she cried, horrified. "STOP, boy!" But he paid no attention to her, darting into the busy streets, of dark coats, hats, and parasols.
Her precious stones, tonics, and herbs. Viviane's crystal glass: her treasured inheritance from avalon.