“You’re not going to surrender.”
“Of course I won’t. When we’re so close to getting her?” Petra didn’t need to say Fiala Broshek’s name. “But I want you to jump first.”
Tomik’s laugh was a little wild. “I guess I always do what you want,” he said, and jumped.
He landed perfectly.
“Now, Petra,” said Astrophil. “Let me tell you a little something about leaping across long distances. After all, I know a great deal on the topic, and—”
Petra jumped.
Her feet slapped down on the nearby roof. Her toes ran forward with the momentum from her leap, then tripped over the hem of her nightgown. She fell against the hard ceramic roof tiles, and the hilt of her sword rammed into her side. “Stupid nightgown,” she muttered as Zora helped her up.
“It’s not ideal for running across rooftops,” agreed Zora, who had had the sense to put on a pair of her brother’s trousers.
“This is why I do not wear clothes,” said Astrophil.
Petra laughed. As the sound flew from her throat, Lucas pointed at the prince’s men swarming around the bathing room window. “At least you’re not wearing armor, Petra. There’s no way they can jump after us with all that weight on them. We could stay here the whole night, if we wanted.” He began to crow, shouting his words so that the soldiers would hear him. “We could watch the sun rise, and take breakfast and tea—with sugar! We could—”
A man hurtled through the air and slammed onto the roof.
“Or we could run,” said Lucas.
They tore across the red tiles.
The soldier slipped after them, cursing, as they crossed from one house to another, jumping across gaps that were sometimes narrow, sometimes as wide as a creek. They were fleet and nimble and far faster than the lumbering guard, but he doggedly trailed behind them. Finally, they reached the end of the houses.
“The drainpipe,” said Lucas, pointing. “Hold on to it with both hands, and put your feet on the rivets that bolt it to the wall. There are rivets all the way down, like steps on a ladder.”
Zora went down first. “I get the feeling you’ve done this before, Lucas,” she shouted up at him in a voice that was annoyed, amused, and ever so slightly frantic.
“Maybe.” Lucas pulled Tomik to the edge and almost pushed him down the pipe. The soldier was closing the gap between him and them. “Just for fun, you know. To see if I could. Now, Petra: your turn.”
“Got you!” The soldier snatched Petra’s wrist and hauled her to him.
Petra heard Lucas shout her name and felt Astrophil pinch her ear. Her mind ground to a halt and stopped. She looked at the man’s meaty face grinning at her over his metal breastplate. Then Astrophil shouted, “Petra, do you remember how you saved my life?”
Her brain roared to life again. Yes, she remembered. She remembered zapping the spider’s metal body with magical energy, and had a good idea what something like that would do to a human encased in metal.
She placed her palm flat against the man’s steel breastplate. She sucked in her breath, and pulsed power through her fingers and into the shiny armor.
The man’s hand on her wrist jittered, then locked, then jerked open. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he keeled over with a groan.
As soon as the man had flopped down onto the roof tiles, Petra could see the rest of the soldiers, not very far away, running along the roofs.
She and Lucas scrambled down the pipe. When Petra’s toes touched the ground, everyone broke into a run, ducking down alleyways so that the guards’ view of them was blocked by tall buildings.
“To the river!” Petra shouted, and they skidded down streets so steep they could have been slides.
When they burst onto the banks of the Vltava, and were sure they were no longer being followed, their pace slowed. They picked their way along the wharf, past piers and late-night rowboats with hanging lanterns.
“… and then she zapped him!” Lucas chuckled as he told the others how he and Petra had escaped the soldier. “Just like that! He fell down flat.”
Tomik dragged at Petra’s elbow so that she’d trail behind the Decembers. “I didn’t know you could do something like that,” he said.
“I didn’t either,” she confessed.
“That must have taken a lot of power. You keep getting stronger.”
“I hope so.” She thought of Fiala Broshek’s laboratory. “I hope it will be enough.”
Tomik looked at her, and Petra realized that something had changed in the chase across the rooftops. There was still a stiffness between them, one that had been there since the carriage ride to the Academy. Yet it no longer felt painful. Their friendship felt like a muscle that had been pulled or stretched past its limits. But Petra thought it would get better.
“It’ll be enough,” Tomik said.
“There it is!” Zora called. She pointed at a dark, looming silk factory.
“Petra,” said Tomik, “I want to show you something.” He shrugged off his bag and opened it. Inside were balls of fabric. Tomik lifted one out and unwrapped the rough cloth.
He held a Marvel. A large one, about the size of a fist. Inside glowed something that looked like fire.
“I made a lot of different kinds over the past week,” said Tomik. “And trust me—these are very special.”
* * *
NEEL SHUT THE DOOR to his mother’s room behind him. He stood in the hallway, listening to the dulled sounds of her sobs. He put a hand to his face, then let it fall away. Neel stiffened his shoulders and walked down the hall.
He hadn’t gone very far before John Dee turned down a corridor and joined him.
“Your Majesty,” Dee said, “I am very sorry for your loss.”
Neel didn’t look at him. He pulled a golden coin from his pocket and rubbed a thumb over the bird of prey stamped on its surface. He considered the sign of his ancestor, Danior. “I’ve been thinking,” Neel said, studying the coin and his hands and the ghostly fingers no one could see.
“Yes?”
“There is one other option for how to deal with Rodolfo.”
* * *
THE SPACE BEFORE THE PALACE entrance was flooded with people, for Neel had ordered that the entire city be present to hear his announcement.
Neel held the golden scepter carefully. He had dressed in what Karim had chosen for him: deep blue, embroidered with silver. He did not fiddle with the sapphire on his ear. He had only raised his hand to block Karim when the man produced a stub of kohl to rub around his eyes. “No,” Neel had said.
“But, Your Majesty, you look—”
He knew. He had seen a mirror. He looked awful. His eyes were grieving and stained with shadows. “The Vatra needs to see me for what I am,” he had said.
Now he stood as tall as he could, and addressed the throngs of people. “I know what you think of me,” he said. “But I want to say what I think of you. You are gifted and beautiful and brave and clever—and you are doomed. The Roma are doomed if we keep thinking that we are four tribes, and that we all need to fight for our own little corner of a four-pieced people. Am I really supposed to fight only for the Kalderash? I’m Lovari at heart. And I’ve sailed long enough with the Maraki to tie every sailor’s knot. Sure, my ancestor was Danior of the Kalderash, but who was he, before he founded the Vatra? He was an Ursari. So I guess that means I’m Ursari, too, and if you doubt that I’ll outride you all.
“My point is that we need to start thinking like one people. My sister gave her life for the Roma. Not for the Lovari or for me or for any one of you, but for our safety. It’s time for us to step forward and show the world that we are a force to be reckoned with. We will storm down on Europe. We will fill its people with wonder and fear.”
Neel took a deep breath. “The Roma are going to war.”
36
Lady’s Lace Pier
LUCAS CRUNCHED toward Petra and Tomik over the small pebbles strewn across the mud of the river’s bank.
“Why are you two dithering? Don’t tell me you’ve got cold feet.”
Zora came close, peered into Tomik’s bag, and saw the glass ball flickering with flame. “What’s that?”
“A bonfire.” Tomik passed it to her. “Smash it when you need to. And here—Petra knows this one—water.” Zora held a sphere in each hand as Tomik explained that the contents inside each Marvel would magnify when smashed. “It used to be a hundred times whatever was inside, but now … well, it’s a lot more.”
“How much more?” Lucas eyed his two Marvels. One sphere was filled with a gray mist, and the other held a curled-up snake that bared its fangs.
Tomik shrugged as if to say it was anybody’s guess. “They haven’t been tested.”
Lucas stared at the snake, which reared its head and knocked its fangs against the glass.
“Only one for me,” Petra said. “I need a hand free, for fencing.”
Tomik unwrapped a Marvel and dropped it in her outstretched palm. It was filled with murky brown fluid and several clear, jelly-like beads. “Pond slime,” he said, “with a touch of frog spawn.”
“Frog spawn? I get frog spawn?”
Tomik grabbed a Marvel for himself and dropped the empty bag to the riverbank. He ignored Petra’s comment, saying to the others, “I wish I’d been able to make more, but there wasn’t enough time. These six will have to do.”
Astrophil recoiled when he saw what Tomik held in his hand. “Tomik Stakan,” Astrophil said in a shocked voice. “You trapped a spider inside a Marvel?”
“Its venom paralyzes people,” Tomik said defensively. “It’ll be great! And it’ll get set free eventually. Come on, Astro. Don’t be like that. I … well…” Tomik tried a lie. “I had the idea because of you. You can be scary, you know.”
“Me?” Astrophil pointed a leg at his thorax.
“You’re very fearsome,” Petra said.
“Oh, well, yes.” Astrophil’s voice was proud. “No one had better mess with us spiders!”
Petra bit back a smile. “All right.” She turned her gaze toward the factory at the end of the pier. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to break in.”
“It looks like there are no guards set up outside,” said Lucas, “which makes sense. Fiala Broshek wouldn’t want anyone to guess that this is anything other than a factory. Once we’re inside, though, we’ll face serious opposition. Broshek’s discoveries are very important to Rodolfo—he told me so himself—so she’ll be well protected. We can expect her latest breeds of monsters. I don’t know what they are, but I know they exist.”
“How will we get inside?” said Zora.
Lucas scratched his head, then shrugged. “How about the front door?”
The group crept down the wooden planks of the pier toward the windowless factory. The river sparkled darkly under a slip of a moon. Petra peered, and thought she could see a long, metal object below the surface. It was almost the size of a small house—if a house happened to be skinny and oblong, with a funny-looking bulge at one end. “Do you see that?” she asked the others.
“See what?” said Zora, and Petra supposed that her gift for metal—or perhaps even her mind-magic—had shown her this. Well, the object in the water was intriguing, but she had a laboratory to storm. First things first.
They reached the double doors and quietly tried to open them.
“Locked,” said Petra with disappointment, though she hadn’t expected anything different.
“We could use a Marvel.” Tomik pointed at Zora’s fireball.
“Too noisy,” said Petra. “Let’s at least try not to be noticed.” She frowned at the lock. She stuffed the frog spawn Marvel into her robe’s one pocket and thought, frustrated, that she’d barely managed to bring anything useful with her. “I could pick the lock if I had a knife, or a pin, or”—her eyes flicked to Astrophil. “Astro, do you think you could help?”
“Help? Certainly. Shall I break down the door?”
Petra watched him flex his tiny legs. “How about I give you a short lesson in how to pick locks, courtesy of Neel?”
Following Petra’s instructions, Astrophil squeezed several of his legs into the keyhole and began tinkering with the lock. He hummed under his breath as he felt for the little springs that would set the tumblers free. He jabbed, and pressed, and there was a satisfying thunk as the lock opened. The door creaked, and everyone slipped inside.
Zora lifted her fireball. It cast an orange light, and they could see the echoing, almost empty space of the factory. It held nothing but trays of worms that spun, weaving faint threads that would be gathered and made into silk. “It looks like an ordinary silk factory,” Zora whispered. “Maybe Sadie was wrong.”
Petra shook her head. “Let’s keep looking.”
They tiptoed around the edges of the cavernous room, searching for a doorway, but the walls were smooth. Once, Petra felt a crinkle on the back of her neck and was positive—absolutely sure—that they were being followed. But when she looked behind them she saw nothing, and when she listened she couldn’t hear the faintest sound. She focused again on finding a door. “This can’t be all,” said Petra. “We’re missing something.”
“Let’s say we are,” said Lucas. “How much time do you think it’ll take before someone realizes we’ve broken in?”
“No time,” said a strange voice.
They spun around.
Dozens of soldiers grinned at them. Their swords were drawn.
And they had no feet.
37
The Tank
PETRA STARED AT where the soldiers’ legs tapered off into shiny blobs that looked like giant slugs. This was how they had been able to move so silently. But where had they come from? Had they slipped in through the front door? Or—Petra scanned the room again—was there an entrance to another part of the factory, one she couldn’t see?
The slug-soldiers hung back, sneering, clearly relishing the fear they had struck in the young friends’ eyes.
Petra’s gaze darted to the trays of silkworms. She felt a flash of impatience at her mind-magic, which seemed to be trying to tell her something. How are worms supposed to help me? she told that part of her she liked least, the part Dee had called her “intuition.”
If there was an answer, she couldn’t hear it, because Tomik threw his Marvel at the soldiers. It smashed, and spiders teemed over the soldiers in a black cloud. The soldiers yelled with pain and surprise, slapping their tails against the spiders, crushing them into black smears. Some of them toppled over from the venom of the spider bites, but three soldiers had been far enough from the blast that they had only gotten a few bites. Apparently, that wasn’t enough.
With a chorus of snarls, the three slug-soldiers attacked.
A sword stabbed at Petra. She parried it and thrust back. The soldier skimmed away from Petra’s swiping blade and zipped across the floor on its tail. With greasy ease, it swung back to join the other two soldiers in a knot around Petra, and she could hear Tomik shouting, “No! Don’t throw anything! You’ll hurt her.” Astrophil, who had scrambled to the top of her head, cried, “Behind you!”
Petra whirled around. A sword nicked her arm, and the sharp pain sent a splinter of inspiration into her brain. She swung down her rapier and sheared off a slug-soldier’s tail. He fell to the floor, gushing blood from the ankles while his tail flopped alongside him.
Petra turned on the remaining two soldiers. One of them tried to slither away, but she stomped on his tail and chopped it off. The third soldier crumpled to the floor, too, amid a slick of blood and the meaty wriggling of tails.
“Ugh,” said Zora. She looked ill.
Petra backed away from the bloody mess until her shoulder brushed against Tomik’s. She glanced at her wound and was relieved to see it was a shallow cut.
“Where did those monsters come from?” Tomik said.
Petra was about to tell him she had been wondering the same thing, when a tray of silkworms slid aside. A large tentacle as thi
ck as a tree trunk groped its way out of the square hole beneath. Another tray slid aside, and another tentacle crept out. Then another, and another.
Zora screamed and flung her fireball.
The rows of silkworms erupted into flames. There was a rubbery screeching as the tentacles curled and thrashed and beat against the trays, where thousands of silkworms shriveled in the fire. Flames licked the factory ceiling.
“Zora!” Astrophil shrilled. “Finding Fiala Broshek’s laboratory will do us no good if we are burned to a crisp! Throw your other Marvel!”
Zora threw. The glass sphere smashed, and water gushed over the flames. The fire went out in a cloud of smoke. Water cloaked the floor of the factory, spreading to the walls and past the friends’ knees. Then there was a sucking sound, and the water swirled in a circle. Petra and her friends grabbed each other to keep their balance. The water poured past the limp tentacles, down the holes where the silkworm trays had been, and disappeared.
“It’s underneath,” Petra breathed. “The laboratory is underneath the pier. It’s probably built underwater.” She walked toward the rows of charred, wet silkworm trays.
“Petra,” Zora protested. “That thing—that octopus, or whatever it is—”
But the burned tentacles were still. Zora gathered her courage and followed Petra.
The friends worked to pull away the trays, and looked down into a brassica-lit chamber. A spiral staircase that once led below had collapsed in the flames. “How are we going to get down?” asked Zora.
“That way.” Lucas pointed at the massive, tentacled thing whose dead body squatted on the floor below, and whose limbs were stretched up to the main floor of the factory. “We’ll climb down on that.”
“I know all sisters say this to their brothers,” Zora told him, “but you, Lucas, are disgusting.”
Disgusting or not, the tentacles were their only choice. They climbed down, slipping over the thing’s body until they touched the wet floor below.