“We would like to see Lucas and Zora December,” said Petra. This time her high-class accent was perfect. “We’re friends of their aunt.”
They were invited into a hallway lined with tapestries and asked to wait.
What artistry! said Astrophil after the servant had left. Those tapestries must have been sewn two centuries ago. Do you see how that dragonfly almost blends into the trees? You have to have a careful eye to notice it. And there is a frog, too, hidden in the grass. Why, it is like a seek-and-find game!
Astrophil, please. I’m too nervous to talk about tapestries.
Astrophil burrowed deeper in Petra’s hair as a girl came down the hall. She looked about fifteen years old, Petra guessed, and was marked by a quiet confidence. Petra recognized younger versions of Iris’s tiny hands and feet, and the narrow chin that seemed to make this girl’s eyes bigger. They were clear, intelligent eyes, and there was a smile on the small flower of her mouth.
“I’m Zora December,” she said, “and I know exactly who you are. I have told the servants to unpack your bags from the carriage. The driver will be sent home to Aunt Iris. You will no longer need him. You will stay here until I say you can go.” She turned and began to walk away.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tomik hissed at Petra. “Are we under arrest?”
“Perhaps we are her guests,” Astrophil whispered back, “and she is a rather bossy hostess.”
“Come along,” Zora called behind her. “The spider, too!”
Astrophil squeaked. His legs bit into Petra’s earlobe.
Petra ran to catch up with Zora, and pulled the other girl’s arm so that she swung around to face her. “We’ve come here for help,” Petra said, “but no one’s going to make us stay here. We need to know if we can trust you.”
Tomik was right behind her. The three of them stood at the foot of a stone staircase. “The Academy—”
Zora tugged her arm out of Petra’s grasp. “The hallway,” she murmured, “is not the place to discuss this. A servant can pass by at any time, and I can’t promise you that the whole of my household is loyal to my brother and me. I can’t promise you anything. All I can say is that I want what my aunt Iris wants. If that’s not good enough for you, you’re welcome to leave. Otherwise, please follow me to my finest spare bedrooms. I’d lock you in the attic, but that would cause far too many tongues to wag. It’s better if the servants think you are my dear friends.” At that, the maid who had answered the door walked through it, carrying a trunk by one handle as a valet brought up the other end. “And you are so dear to me,” Zora added in a loud voice. “It’s been such a long time!” She kissed Petra’s cheek, then Tomik’s. “You must be glad to see me, too.”
Tomik looked a little dazed. “Yes.” Petra sighed. “I guess we are.”
Zora led them to an upstairs room with dark walnut furniture and red hangings. A brassica lamp burned at a small table that was already set with three plates and a covered silver platter.
“Well,” said Tomik after the servants had left, “if it’s a prison, it’s a nice one.”
Zora smiled. “Petra, you’ll sleep here. There’s an adjoining room”—she pointed at a door near the fireplace—“for Tomik. Now, Astrophil, are you going to come out and say hello? It’s not very polite to hide from your hostess, and I was led to believe that you are the very soul of politeness.”
Astrophil crawled out from under Petra’s hair and onto the top of her head. He executed a many-legged bow.
“Astrophil!” Petra, who could feel what he was doing, was a bit shocked that the spider was so forward.
“Zora does seem nice,” he said in a small voice.
“I don’t know about ‘nice,’” said Zora, “but I like things to be as they should. Right now, very little in Bohemia is as it should be. I’m going to change that, and so are you, Petra, which makes us partners.”
“Iris told you everything,” said Petra.
“Actually, no. And she didn’t tell me you’d turn up on my doorstep. She didn’t tell me that your so-called disguises were this bad.”
“But she dyed my hair,” Tomik protested. “It has smelled like oil and licorice for a week now. It’s got to do something.”
Zora raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I love Aunt Iris. Since our parents died, she’s the only family my brother and I have. But she is blinded by her obsessions with her work. She thinks color changes the world. Maybe it can, sometimes. You, Tomik, would probably escape notice if you weren’t standing right next to Petra. There are leaflets with your faces all over the country—hers, especially, and when yours appears it’s sketched next to hers. We’ll be lucky if one of the servants doesn’t notice who Petra is and decide to send us to Prince Rodolfo’s dungeon.”
“I might have been spotted by one of the Academy students,” Petra said.
Zora grimaced. “Let’s hope, then, that student couldn’t guess where you were headed.”
“It was chaos there,” said Tomik. “The Academy’s in ruins, and—”
“I know.”
“It just happened. How can you possibly already know?” asked Astrophil. “What is your connection to Bohemia’s school of magic?”
“None, really,” said a new voice. They turned to see a fair-haired young man enter the room and shut the door behind him. He looked so much like Zora that it was immediately clear to Petra that this was Lucas, the older December. “None,” he continued, “except for the fact that she and I are the leaders of the rebellion.”
There was a pause, and someone would have said something eventually, if the silence hadn’t been interrupted by a distant boom.
All eyes darted to the window. There was the sound of another explosion. On a dark hill above the city a green fire began to burn.
29
The Rebels
“BEAUTIFUL!” said Lucas as he lifted a curtain to see the fire better.
“Lucas,” his sister scolded. “Stop staring at the pretty inferno. Introduce yourself to our guests.”
“Sorry.” He gave them a sheepish grin. “But it’s silly to do that now, isn’t it? We all know who the other is. You’re Petra and Tomik, and I’m Lucas. Er … Lucas December, duke of Moravia, I guess, if you want to be precise.”
Petra didn’t care about his title. “What is that?” She pointed at the green fire.
“Prague’s biggest brassica warehouse,” Lucas said.
“No.” Astrophil was appalled. “It is not true. It cannot be true. A fire like that … the amount of oil it would take to cause it … oh! Barrels and barrels of delicious oil!” His gaze fixed upon Zora and Lucas. “You … you caused this. Do you care nothing for the tin spiders of the world?”
“I think you’re the only one,” Zora said with a smile.
“Did you set the Academy on fire?” asked Petra.
“Not personally,” said Lucas, “but we planned it.”
Petra stared. “How could you do that? People died.”
“No.” Lucas looked confused. “We were careful to prevent that. We only wanted to destroy the building. Our agents set off an explosion in the cellar—but after everyone had escaped. In fact, two of the agents are Academy professors. They made sure everyone was safe.”
“Everyone except Fiala Broshek.”
“She fled the building. A rebel saw her.”
“Are you sure?”
Lucas frowned at the excitement in Petra’s voice. “It’s nothing to be glad about. Believe me, Petra, there’d be no loss to the world if she’d stayed inside. She’s one of the reasons we destroyed the Academy. Broshek was experimenting in the cellar laboratories. She’s been using her power over human flesh to create new monsters. She had to be stopped.” He sighed. “The truth is, she’s probably carrying on her experiments someplace else. But at least her laboratory is gone, and so is the influence she had over Bohemia’s magical youth.”
“But so is the Academy,” said Tomik. “The best school for magic in the whole H
apsburg Empire.”
“Exactly,” said Zora. “And who will inherit the empire? Emperor Karl still has a choice between two sons: Rodolfo and Frederic. We want him to choose Frederic. That’s partly why we planned to destroy the Academy. That’s also why Lucas blew up the brassica warehouse.”
“That one I did myself,” Lucas said with pride.
“Karl’s old, but he’s refused to name an heir because it gives him power over his children,” Zora said. “His sons have always sought his favor. But now Prince Maximilian is dead, and Rodolfo is becoming a greater threat than ever. Do you know how many countries in Europe fear his army of Gray Men? Can you imagine what will happen if Rodolfo becomes the Hapsburg emperor, and takes possession of Austria, Hungary, and countless other territories? He could rule the world. We know what kind of ruler he would be. That can’t happen.”
A storm began to gather inside Petra.
“I know nothing of Prince Frederic,” said Astrophil. “Is he really a better choice?”
“He has to be. Anybody would be better.”
Petra squeezed her eyes shut.
“We have to make Emperor Karl see this,” said Lucas. “So we attacked Prince Rodolfo where it would hurt the most. The loss of the Academy will be huge. Bohemia’s biggest export is brassica oil, and that warehouse fire means Prince Rodolfo will have much less money to fund his army. It means that he’s been weakened, and that his people hate him enough to make their own country bleed. Maybe now the emperor will understand that he has to name an heir, and that it has to be Frederic.”
“Stop,” said Petra. “Please stop talking about your plans and your politics and your efforts to change the world. I hate Rodolfo more than you can imagine, but don’t you see that you can’t control the fate of an entire empire? I wish you could. I wish for a lot of things. But right now I just want to find Fiala Broshek.”
The room went still. Petra turned her back to everyone. She faced the window, trying to wrangle her emotions into something she could manage. Outside, the fire flared and cast an eerie green light over the city. Astrophil silently held on to her hair.
Tomik cleared his throat. Petra knew he was exchanging glances with Zora and Lucas. “I’m not sure how much Iris told you…” Tomik said hesitantly.
“Almost nothing,” Lucas answered. “Just that she was helping you disguise yourselves, and that she had given you our address.”
Petra watched the fire as Tomik explained why Petra needed Fiala Broshek so badly.
When Zora spoke, it was with sympathy. “We can find her, Petra. Lucas and I have court connections. We’ll use them.”
Petra looked over her shoulder at Zora.
“In fact, I have an idea,” Zora continued. “We’ll try it out tomorrow morning, at the Hall of Education. Tomik can help me.”
Petra said, “I want to help.”
“Sorry, but no. You’re too recognizable. You can’t leave this house.”
At that, Petra wheeled around to face the Decembers. She couldn’t believe that, yet again, she was trapped in a beautiful house by someone who claimed it was for her own safety. John Dee had done exactly the same thing.
“Petra,” Lucas said, “it’s for the best. You’re too tired now to see things clearly. Sleep, and in the morning you’ll realize that sometimes you have to sacrifice things to get what you want. Your personal freedom is a small price to pay for capturing Fiala Broshek.”
With that, the Decembers left the room.
I think they are right, said Astrophil.
“Petra.” Tomik rested a light hand on her shoulder. It felt soft and warm, and part of her wished she could accept this gesture and relax into it. Yet she knew this would be a mistake. He said, “Can we talk?”
There was so much to discuss, but Petra sensed what haunted his mind. There are things I can’t feel, she had told him.
“Not now,” she said.
“Not ever, you mean.”
Astrophil glanced between the two of them. He tried very hard to seem invisible. Petra watched him shrink, gathering in his shiny legs.
Petra hated her mind-magic. She hated what it showed her sometimes, and how, even when it lined up perfectly with what her heart would have guessed anyway, she couldn’t rely on it. She couldn’t be sure that the Decembers were good people who wanted to protect her. She couldn’t believe the tenderness that sometimes seeped through Neel’s silent words to her.
And she couldn’t know, for certain, that Tomik was now struggling to swallow his disappointment and say that everything would somehow still be all right.
“I’m tired,” she said.
Tomik’s hand slipped away. Just before he passed through the door to the bedroom next to hers, he murmured, “Sorry, Petra, about tomorrow morning. I know you don’t like having to stay put.”
Petra had nothing to say to that, because she had no intention of staying put.
30
The Horseshoe
THE DECEMBERS trusted Petra—or at least they trusted her sense of self-preservation.
She and Tomik breakfasted with them, watching Lucas fuss with his doublet and rub fingertips against the sides of his face. “I must not smile, I must not smile,” he muttered to himself. He was going to Salamander Castle. A messenger had come in the night from Prince Rodolfo, who was calling together the most powerful aristocrats in the country to discuss yesterday’s attacks.
He left, and Zora and Tomik followed soon after that. “I’m going to squirrel the whereabouts of Fiala Broshek out of the secretary of education,” Zora said cheerfully. “Just you wait.” Then she and Tomik were gone.
Petra stood from the table. There was a determined glint in her eyes.
Astrophil jumped from a chair to her shoulder. He sighed. He wished, as he had wished many times and would do so again, that he was big enough to hold Petra. He wished he could hold her back from danger.
She plucked Astrophil from her shoulder and set him on the polished, dark surface of the table.
“Petra.” His voice was small. “I am going with you.”
She shook her head. “Not this time, Astro.”
Petra opened the unlocked door of the dining room. She walked freely through the many-roomed house and passed through the front door to the street. She remembered how John Dee had posted guards outside her bedroom in London, and how cautious he had been to prevent any attempt she might make to flee. She thought of the Decembers’ unlocked doors, and of the fact that Dee had, at least, understood her.
She walked through the morning bustle of Prague’s streets. The air was glassy and cold, but there were signs that the city was inching toward spring. It was early March. The Vltava River was no longer frozen solid, though a thin lace of ice still clung to its banks. Petra crossed the river to Staro Square, where she tried not to look at the tall, magnificent clock her father had built. She turned down a street lined with shops and hugged the edges of the crowd until she found it: the Riven brothers’ silk stall.
“Master Riven?” She approached the man standing behind piles of jewel-colored fabric.
He nodded. “That’s me. Joel Riven. Who are you?”
Petra untied the leather string of her necklace, and set it on a square of blue silk so that the man could see the Romany words scratched on the tiny horseshoe dangling from its string. This is Petali Kronos, the words read. Be kind to her, for she is bound by blood to Indraneel of the Lovari.
Petra said, “I want to talk with Sadie.”
* * *
“BE CONFIDENT,” Zora whispered in Tomik’s ear as he looked across the street at the doors to the Hall of Education. The entrance was flanked by statues of giants. They looked as if they were holding the weight of the building on their stooped shoulders. Tomik imagined them coming to life and swatting him down with their huge, stone hands.
“You can even be a little arrogant,” Zora added. “All aristocrats are.”
But he was not an aristocrat. He was ordinary. A fifteen-year-old b
oy from the countryside. “Don’t I need a title?” he asked Zora. “Shouldn’t I say I’m Sir Something from Somewhere Important?”
“No. You’d be caught in a lie. Don’t worry, Tomik. You’re dressed like a rich and powerful person.” Her eyes studied him. “You look the part. And you’re with me. Say as little as possible and let the secretary assume the rest. Whatever you do, don’t say what your magical ability is. Be mysterious about it. I don’t think that someone will guess who you are, but one thing everyone knows about Tomik Stakan is that he’s got a magical gift for glass.”
Zora led him inside. She smiled at the guards, who seemed to recognize her, and wove her way down halls lit by candles stuffed into lamps designed to burn brassica oil. It looked as if Prague was already feeling the pinch of the oil shortage. Tomik didn’t mind. The Decembers, who had known what was coming, had set aside barrels of oil. Astrophil would have plenty to drink. Anyway, there was something cozy about candlelight. It flickered merrily, and shone on Zora’s blond hair.
A boy in a gray-blue uniform opened the door to the secretary’s office. Tomik’s heartbeat fumbled and raced. He would be caught. Of course he would. He would be punished for having always tried so hard to be better.
“Lady Zora.” An old man rose from a velvet chair to greet them. He took one of Zora’s gloved hands and pressed it with both of his. “On any other day, the sight of you would bring a smile to my face. Alas, I have no smile to give you today, nor even very much time.”
“The Academy.” Zora shook her head sadly.
“I’m heartbroken, dear. And overwhelmed with meetings. Parents across the country—even across the empire—are demanding to know what will become of their children’s studies. We’re trying to locate a suitable building to hold classes, but it will never be the same.” He bit his lip. “Did you ever ride in one of the Academy hot-air balloons? I used to love that.”
“No, sir. I never attended the school. You forget I have no magical talent.”