“Elephants?” This was starting to sound familiar to Petra.
“Them, too,” said Neel. “And there happened to be an Ursari named Danior, who was as keen-eyed and handsome as a hawk. He—”
“I know this story,” Petra interrupted. On the first day she had met him, Neel had told her about Danior, who had the same magical talent as he.
“Well, don’t you know everything,” said Neel. “Guess I’d better not breathe another word.”
But the story was new to Tomik, who pressed Neel to continue.
Petra listened as Danior was cast out by the Ursari and left to die in the desert. A cruel desert king sliced off every one of Danior’s fingers and, even as the blood dried, Danior discovered that his dead fingers had become magic ghosts. They were longer, stronger, and quicker than any human fingers could be. Danior rode his loyal elephant into the king’s city with vengeance on his mind.
Neel said, “Danior hatched a plan, and had something to do before he could take revenge on the king. He strode into a merchant’s shop and offered to swap his one valuable possession, a jewel that shone like a star on his right ear.”
“You never told me that,” said Petra. “About the jewel.”
“What’s the fun in telling the same tale twice? Every story’s got to change, or it dies.” Neel frowned. “Interruptions aren’t great for its health, either.”
Petra stayed silent as Neel resumed his story. “Danior wanted a large wagon like a house on wheels. The merchant asked to inspect the jewel, so Danior suggested that the merchant’s pretty daughter take it out of his ear. ‘I can’t rightly do it myself,’ he said with a grin. The girl passed the earring to her da, who agreed to Danior’s trade as soon as he clapped eyes on the jewel.
“That night, Danior used his ghost fingers to pick every lock in the wicked king’s palace. He stole ten of the king’s children and led them to the wagon he had hitched to his elephant. But Danior had a surprise waiting for him. For who was in the wagon but the merchant’s daughter, with the jewel in her hand? A touch of Danior’s ear and she was mad for him, and swore to go where he would go.
“With his new wife and children, Danior founded the fourth Roma tribe, the Kalderash. You might guess that a kidnapper wouldn’t be kind or wise, but Danior was a good father, husband, and leader. He had the idea of binding all the Roma tribes together by creating a homeland. With the help of the other tribe leaders, he built the Vatra and became its first king.”
“In London, you told us that the Romany queen is a Kalderash,” said Tomik. “Why do the other tribes let the Kalderash rule all the time?”
“They don’t,” said Treb, who had appeared behind them. He picked up one of the shrimp squirming on the deck and popped it into his mouth, tail and all. “We rotate.”
“The leader of each tribe gets to rule for four years,” explained Neel. “Queen Iona’s got about two years left.”
“Unless she dies first,” Treb said, chewing. “Which is likely, from what I’ve heard.”
“Her husband’s dead and she’s got no kids,” said Neel. “She refuses to name an heir, so if she croaks now there’ll be no Kalderash to take over, and the next tribe will get two years plus the usual four.”
“Which tribe is next in line?” asked Tomik.
“The Maraki,” said Treb.
There was a glint in the captain’s eye that made Petra gasp. “Not you?”
“King Treb!” Neel snickered. “Oh, I can’t breathe, that’s too funny.”
“I’d make a fine king,” Treb growled.
“Treb’s older brother will take over,” said Neel, still giggling.
“It’s no laughing matter. The Maraki have been waiting years for this, and we’ve got plans.”
“It’s a shame, though.” Neel caught Treb’s furious glance. “Not that the Maraki will rule, but that no one knows who’ll speak for the Kalderash after Queen Iona keels over.”
“True,” said Treb. “She is a direct descendant of Danior, and the line’s been unbroken for hundreds of years.”
“And you”—Neel wagged his finger at Tomik—“who’s so sure there are no facts in fairy tales, just wait until you meet the queen.”
“Which won’t happen,” said Treb. “Not one of you is important enough to rate an audience with the queen. I, on the other hand—”
Neel ignored his cousin. “I’ve never met the grand lady myself, but word has it that she wears Danior’s earring. The very same one of the legend. They call it the Jewel of the Kalderash.”
“How close are we to the Vatra?” Petra suddenly asked, staring straight off the ship’s prow.
The others turned, and saw the green, scribbled outline of an island.
“Why, very close,” said Treb. “Very close, indeed.”
3
The Queen’s Command
THE SETTING SUN looked like a juicy orange, dripping color onto the mountainous island as the Pacolet sailed toward the Vatra. The shelves of limestone just beneath the waves created a natural defense around the island that caused unfriendly ships to crash and sink miles off the Vatra’s shores. The Pacolet’s captain, however, knew the secret dance to reach the island safely. The ship swerved left, bore right, and swooped around the cove.
“What if there is no place in the Vatra for me?” Astrophil murmured to Petra.
“What do you mean?” She gently lifted the spider from her ear so that she could face him as he stood on her raised palm. “You will always belong wherever I am.”
“Yes, but … what will be my role? When Prince Rodolfo stole your father’s eyes and you decided to retrieve them, my purpose was to keep you as safe as possible. When we were trapped in John Dee’s London house, I helped you analyze an air spirit’s cryptic prophecies. How can I aid you here? I cannot even do research for Master Kronos’s cure.” He added woefully, “The Roma do not like books. They will have no libraries.”
“They use writing for special occasions,” Petra pointed out. Dangling from a leather cord around her neck was a miniature iron horseshoe that Neel had had engraved in Romany. “Some of them can read and write, and maybe they do have books. They just don’t trust the written word. The Roma believe that it makes things seem permanent, when they’re not.”
“I know,” said the spider, but still looked glum.
“Astro, I’ll always want your advice, whether there are books or not.”
“Really? Even though you are now an adult? Perhaps you do not need me anymore.”
Sternly, she said, “That is the only absolutely brainless thing you’ve ever said.”
“Ah. Well. Very good.” He relaxed on her palm, leaning his shiny back legs against her curled fingers.
They heard the rattle and splash of the ship’s anchors being dropped and knew it was time to disembark with the crew, who began boarding small boats strapped to the Pacolet’s sides. Petra and Astrophil climbed into a launch with Tomik, Neel, Treb, and the globes, and watched the island grow larger as they rowed to shore. Through the twilight, Petra saw a palace etched into the island’s mountain. The cliffs were encrusted with man-made walls and terraces.
“Queen Iona is going to praise me to the pearly skies,” Treb said gleefully, patting the two chests that each contained a globe.
“Us,” said Neel. “Us to the skies.”
The launch’s hull scraped against the shore, and the passengers leaped into the shallow water. Dark, warm waves lapped against Petra’s calves as she helped push and then drag the launch onto the beach.
“Of course, Neel. Us.” Treb beckoned for another sailor to help him lift the trunks out of the bottom of the boat. They were heavy, for the globes were not made of merely wood and paper. Each globe had a large glass sphere hidden at its center. “Our gift’s going to let the Roma wander the world wide with a speed like we’ve never known, now that the globes can show us how to get through Loopholes,” he said, referring to hidden gaps in space that allowed someone to travel instantaneously
between two places, even if they were thousands of miles apart. “The globes will go to the queen, but whatever she decides to do with them won’t be worth more than a fish bone since the Maraki will soon inherit the throne, and then the game changes.”
Petra glanced at Tomik. He didn’t care about Roma politics or the globes, she could tell. His smile was like a lit candle behind a screen that showed his thoughts clearly: he was thrilled to be here, for his own sake as well as Petra’s. In the Vatra he might be able to study his magical ability to manipulate glass, an opportunity he would never have in Bohemia. Their country boasted an excellent university for the practice of magical arts, but only students from high society were admitted to the Academy.
The crew plodded up the beach, some carrying the two chests, others holding Tomik’s colored lanterns high so that they could see their way to the foot of the cliffs. Cut into the rock were winding stairs that would lead them through the stone city and up to the palace.
After what felt like an eternity of steep steps, sweat oozed down Petra’s back and her feet ached. She was grateful when the rough stone stairs became smooth marble trimmed with coral tiles. She heard the sailors behind her lowering the two chests to the ground, and looked up to see the pillars of the Romany palace.
Someone was waiting for them: a man who stood like a thirsty flower, his body slender and his shoulders slightly stooped. He was framed by the palace entryway, which had no doors. Torches blazed inside the hall, transforming the entrance into a rectangle of red-gold light.
“I am Arun,” the man said. “Queen Iona’s chief adviser. You must be the Pacolet’s sailors.” His gaze flicked over them, pausing at Neel and then resting uncertainly on Petra and Tomik. “The Vatra has heard that two gadje sail with you. Bohemian, are they not? Prisoners, passengers, or crew?”
“Well, Tom’s a bit of the first and last,” said Treb. “For a while, we planned on selling him in Morocco, but then he became too valuable to part with. As for Petra…” He studied her. “She’s a passenger,” he concluded, but Petra had seen his features soften for a second, and suspected that he didn’t want to hurt her by telling the truth: she was a refugee.
Arun pointed to Astrophil, who clung to Petra’s shoulder. “And what, precisely, is that?”
“I am a spider,” Astrophil gravely replied.
Arun lifted one brow. “If you say so.” He turned again to Treb. “You are the Pacolet’s captain, I assume?”
“Well spotted,” said Treb. “Guess you couldn’t miss my air of authority. I’m a natural leader, like my brother. You know him, I’m sure: Tarn of the Maraki, heir to the Roma crown.”
An emotion flashed across Arun’s face, too quick for Petra to identify. “Tarn happens to be here in the Vatra, and”—Arun spoke over Treb’s noise of delighted surprise—“we are also well aware of the gifts you bring for your people.”
“That’s right,” Treb said proudly. “I suppose the queen would like to feast her eyes on the Mercator Globes.”
“All in good time. She has more important matters to attend to first. There is someone among you she needs to see right away. A youth. Perhaps you’ve left him on the ship, or down by the shore, but I think he’s here with you now.”
“Him? What? Who?” Treb spluttered. “What could be more important than the Mercator Globes?”
“Indraneel of the Lovari,” Arun said.
4
Before the Blue Wall
“ME?” NEEL WAS AGHAST. “What’d I do?”
“The queen will explain,” said Arun. “If you’ll just follow me—”
“Yeah, follow you like a lamb to the slaughter. And that’s what I am, got it? An innocent, sweet little lamb who’s done nothing wrong. Baa.”
“You have nothing to fear, Indraneel.”
“Neel. And like I said: baa.”
“If you don’t trust me, perhaps you’ll trust your mother, who is waiting for you inside the palace. Damara was summoned—”
“You summoned my ma?” Neel shrilled the last word, then whipped around to face Tomik and Petra. He seized them. “I’m in trouble.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Tomik said.
“Trouble,” Neel insisted. “Ghastly, boil-you-in-oil trouble. You two are coming with me. Astro, too.”
“Of course we will,” said Petra. “But—”
“Good.” Neel sucked in his breath and marched toward the entrance, dragging Petra and Tomik after him, ignoring their protests that they could walk on their own, that they wouldn’t abandon him, and would he please let go? Arun and Treb followed on their heels, Arun arguing that it wasn’t Treb’s place to intrude uninvited on a queen’s audience. Treb fired back that he was going to intrude on Arun’s face if the man didn’t get out of his way.
Inside, the palace echoed with the sound of trickling water. Petra saw that while some of the walls were glossy marble dotted with mosaics of wriggling octopi, at least one side of every hallway showed the untouched surface of the mountain on which the palace was built.
Neel blindly turned a corner, and the others followed him down a wide chamber. On their left, a natural fountain poured from a jagged rock wall. Water spilled down and rushed across their path in a stream that cut through the floor. Neel forged ahead, pulling Petra and Tomik after him into the water.
“Stop!” Arun moaned from where he and Treb stood at the stream’s edge. “That’s drinking water, and you’re absolutely filthy! Besides, there’s a bridge, if you’d only let me show you…”
Petra tugged her arm free of Neel’s grasp, and Astrophil squeaked as her foot slipped against the stream’s tiled bottom, plunging her and the spider beneath the water’s surface. But the river was shallow, and when Petra scrambled to her feet, the water only came up to her waist.
Neel had finally stopped his mad dash through the stream. He looked at Petra and Astrophil. “Are you all right?”
Fury mounted in Petra’s bones and spread through her blood. This evening wasn’t supposed to be about Neel. Meeting the Roma queen was supposed to have nothing to do with him. Petra had imagined what would happen when they reached the Vatra. This is what she had seen in her mind, so many times: that the queen would be grateful for the globes, and to Petra for her role in obtaining them. As a reward, Queen Iona would offer any resources her country had to help find a cure for Petra’s father.
Neel wasn’t part of this picture, and he certainly had no business tearing around the palace in a panic over nothing. He wasn’t the one with problems. She was. “No, I’m not all right!” She shoved wet locks of hair out of her face so she could glare at Neel better. “And you’re behaving like an idiot!”
“Really?” Neel grew calm, thoughtful. “I’m an idiot?”
“Yes!” cried Petra, Tomik, and the spider.
“But it’s strange.” Neel’s voice dropped. “The queen wanting to see me. Maybe I stole something of hers without realizing it, or … I don’t know … this is a surprise, and an odd one, odd as a two-headed dog, and that kind of beast bites twice as fierce.”
“Surprises are not always bad,” Astrophil said hopefully, but in Petra’s experience they often were.
She looked at Neel’s dripping face and remembered when he had helped her steal her father’s eyes from Prince Rodolfo’s Cabinet of Wonders almost a year and a half ago. A sudden flood had swept Petra, Astrophil, and Neel through the prince’s castle, and they were as wet then as they were now. Neel hadn’t been afraid that time—or, if he had been, he had hidden it well. But here in the Vatra, anxiety lurked in his yellowy eyes. Petra realized that fear doesn’t strike everyone in the same way. With a sense of shame, it also occurred to her that her anger had a selfish edge, a belief that her worries were more important than his.
Tomik sighed. “Can we please walk through the palace like normal human beings and not members of an underwater circus?”
“Indeed,” said Astrophil, shaking water from his legs one by one.
They turne
d and waded back to Arun and Treb.
Every step Arun took seemed louder than necessary as he led them over the bridge. His feet stamped against the planks. “No respect”—stamp—“the glory of our homeland”—stamp—“a pair of outsiders”—stamp—“dirty children”—stampstampSTAMP.
“We’re not children,” Tomik objected. “We’re all of age,” he added, though none of them knew if his statement truly applied to Neel, whose exact birthday was a mystery. He had been abandoned by a Lovari campsite as an infant.
Arun stepped onto the stone floor on the other side of the river and swept ahead to a broad staircase that led into a deep-bellied cave. A torch-lit tunnel glowed at the back of the cave, one so narrow that all of them had to enter singly, and the space inside was so tight that smoke from the torches stung Petra’s eyes. She heard Neel shuffle behind her and glanced back to see whether his fear had returned. He moved ahead silently, his face grim.
Tomik, walking behind Neel, looked past him to catch Petra’s look of concern. Tomik reached forward to lay a steady hand on Neel’s shoulder, and the other boy seemed to breathe more easily.
Why is Neel acting like a trapped animal? Petra asked Astrophil after she had turned to continue down the tunnel.
We know very little of the Roma queen, the spider replied. She may be … cruel.
Petra thought of Bohemia’s prince: a twenty-year-old with a brilliant smile and an ambition as cold as winter. What would happen if she were brought before her country’s ruler? Death, or maybe something worse. I am not going to kill you, he had told her when they last stood face-to-face. I am going to keep you.
Petra wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her invisible rapier. She knew what it was like to be at the mercy of a ruler’s whim. But would she defend Neel, if it meant shattering her hopes that the Vatra could offer a cure for her father? Would she and Tomik share Neel’s fate, whatever fate it was that waited for him in the queen’s reception hall?