Inside the Shadow City

  While the Princess’s back was still turned, I examined the object in my hand. It was a hypodermic needle filled with a colorless substance. I had no idea what it was, but I knew what to do with it. I pulled off the syringe’s protective cap and plunged the needle deep into Kiki’s arm. As the liquid gushed into her bloodstream, her body stopped shaking, and Oona was able to cut the tape that bound her to the chair. Kiki’s lips began to deflate, and she took a breath so deep that it sounded as if she had just swum the English Channel—under water.

  “It’s about time,” she gasped. “That was getting unpleasant. Ananka, grab the stun gun!”

  The Princess was climbing back down the ladder, the trapdoor closing behind her. I pulled off the tape around my ankles and sprinted for the table where the Princess had left the stun gun, strands of duct tape fluttering about my body. Her head turned at the sound of my frantic footsteps, and she sprang from the ladder. We reached the table at the same moment. I grabbed the weapon, but before I could make use of it, the Princess’s hand locked around mine. We struggled furiously, and she scratched at my face while I tried to pry her fingers away.

  At first, I figured I was no match for the Princess. I’d witnessed enough fights to know that winning such contests often has nothing to do with strength or stamina. Sometimes, pure meanness gives one fighter the advantage. The devil himself was glaring at me through the Princess’s yellow eyes, and I knew she’d stop at nothing to win. But then I remembered the punch that Kiki had given one of the guards. I tried my best to imitate her, rearing back with my free hand and slamming my fist into the Princess’s perfect nose.

  “Nice one!” Oona cheered as the Princess crashed to the floor with a demonic cry, clutching her face with both hands. I took a glass of the pale blue liquid off the table and thrust it toward her. The Princess took the glass reluctantly, and I pulled the gag out of my mouth.

  “Drink up,” I demanded.

  “You’ll never get out of here alive,” the Princess growled. I noticed her regal nose now leaned to one side. I must have broken it with a single punch. I gazed at my own hand in awe. “There are dozens of guards in the building, just waiting for someone to make a run for it. They won’t be as nice as I was.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about me, Sidonia,” said Kiki, who had come to my side. “I always manage to escape. But before you take a trip to dreamland, why don’t you give me the ring.”

  An evil smirk spread across the Princess’s blood-splattered face. She wrenched the ring from her finger and threw it at Kiki.

  “Go ahead and take it,” she laughed.

  Kiki caught the ring and held it up to the light.

  “This is glass,” she said. “Where’s the real ring?”

  “You’ll never know, will you?” said Sidonia.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Kiki said. “Bottoms up.”

  The Princess looked at the glass and hesitated.

  “Do it, Sidonia, or we’ll wrap every last inch of your body in duct tape,” Kiki warned. “The police might not find you for a while. And once they do, removing the tape should be pretty painful. You may never have to wax again.”

  Sidonia put the glass to her lips and emptied it with one quick gulp. Not three seconds passed before her yellow eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed into a stupor.

  Kiki took a pen and a piece of paper out of her backpack.

  Dear Police, she wrote.

  I am responsible for kidnapping Mitzi Mulligan and Penelope Young. Naomi Throgmorton and her friends were kind enough to help. We were after the NYCMap, which we planned to use for nefarious purposes. The bottom layer can be found in my computer files. We have been very, very bad and we deserve to be punished severely. Sincerely, Princess Sidonia of Pokrovia.

  P.S. We also robbed the Chinatown Savings and Loan.

  She pinned the note to the front of the Princess’s shirt.

  “That should do the trick,” she said.

  A deep sigh escaped from my mouth, and I felt suddenly exhausted.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  Kiki and I walked toward the trapdoor, but Oona remained standing perfectly still in the middle of the room, her eyes glazed over.

  “Oona?” I asked.

  “Was all of that true, Kiki? Are you really a princess?”

  “Yes,” Kiki admitted.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Oona.

  “Sidonia and her mother would have killed anyone who knew their secrets. Livia would be in prison if the truth were known. And she wants Sidonia to become queen of Pokrovia, but that can’t happen if I’m in the way. Livia’s men have been hunting me since the day they found out I was still alive.”

  Oona absorbed the information, and a twinkle returned to her eyes.

  “We don’t have to call you ‘Your Highness,’ do we?”

  “Pokrovia is a democracy now, and I’m an American citizen,” Kiki said in a humorless voice. “So I guess you’d better call me ma’am.”

  At first, we didn’t know how to respond. Then Kiki grinned, and we all burst into laughter.

  “Who set us free?” I asked.

  “You don’t know?” asked Kiki. “You’re telling me that neither of you heard someone making a racket in the room below?” Both Oona and I shook our heads. “We were being followed all along.”

  “By who?” asked Oona.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” laughed Kiki. She opened the trapdoor to the storeroom and called down. “You can come up now.”

  A terrible odor rose from below. It was the same smell that had followed us through the Shadow City.

  “It’s that disgusting smell again.” Oona gagged. “It’s like a farting pig in a men’s locker room. Where’s it coming from?”

  “It’s me,” came a little voice. A blond head poked through the hole in the floor.

  “Hello, Iris,” said Kiki.

  Iris climbed into the opium den. She was still wearing her ladybug pajamas.

  “It’s a potion my parents brought back from Borneo last year. The people there use it to keep animals out of their villages at night. I knew there might be rats in the tunnels, so I dabbed a little behind each ear.”

  “That’s some powerful stuff,” I said. “It’s a wonder it doesn’t keep the people out of the villages, too.”

  “You get used to it after a while,” said Iris.

  “So you’re the person who rescued us,” said Oona. “I thought you were supposed to stay at home.”

  “I would have, but these dropped out of Kiki’s bag,” she held up two more hypodermic needles. “I thought they might come in handy.”

  “Yeah, come in handy as an excuse to follow us,” said Oona.

  “What are they?” I asked Kiki.

  “Adrenaline,” she replied. “It’s the only thing that can stop the seizures. When you’re allergic to everything, it’s good to be prepared.”

  “What if I hadn’t injected you in time?”

  “I would have thought of something else,” she said. “But I knew Iris was behind us. I could smell her a mile away.” She looked at Iris and smiled. “When we were tying up those two oafs, I realized the needles had fallen out of my bag. I figured Iris must have found them, and I knew she’d bring them. That seemed like a pretty good backup plan to me.”

  “So you really are allergic to everything?” asked Oona. “That must suck.”

  “I don’t know what it’s like not to be allergic to everything,” said Kiki. “All I can tell you is that I’m hungry all the time. And as Iris knows, that can make me a little cranky.”

  It was the closest Iris was going to get to an apology, but it was more than enough.

  “Cranky?” she said. “I’ve met cannibals with better personalities. I’m just glad that I didn’t miss all the fun.”

  “What do you mean, all the fun?” I asked. “There’s still more to come.”

  “There is?” asked Oona.

  I owed Kiki Strike. Not only h
ad I been willing to believe the worst of her, I was responsible for everything that had happened. If she hadn’t written the note that rescued me from public humiliation, the Princess would have never known she was in New York. The way I saw it, there was only one way to repay her for what she had done.

  “We’ve got one more stop to make,” I informed the group. “Before we go home, we need to pay a visit to the Princess’s house. It’s time to return the royal jewels to their rightful owner.”

  HOW TO SPOT A FAKE DIAMOND

  It makes no difference if you’re a gullible young heiress, a budding cat burglar, or just a sucker for stones that sparkle, every girl should learn how to tell a real diamond from a fake.

  The next time you come face-to-face with a pricey pebble, remember to think first and swoon later. Don’t risk your freedom or your fortune on a common crystal or piece of glass. Instead, put your stone to the test. While none of the following seven methods is entirely foolproof, together they may help you spot a fake—and avoid making a terrible mistake.

  1. Give It the Scratch Test. Before evil scientists began making fakes in labs, diamonds were known to be the hardest substance on Earth. A real diamond will scratch a mirror or a piece of glass, but so will many impostors.

  2.Check for Signs of Aging. Although most diamonds are over a billion years old, they tend to age more gracefully than their wearers. So take a magnifying glass and examine the surface of your stone. If you see scratches or chips, there’s a chance it’s a fake. Cracks inside the diamond, however, may be a sign that it’s real.

  3.See Through Imposters. Write the word fake in tiny letters on a piece of paper. Place your “diamond” facedown on top of the word. If you’re able to read through the stone, odds are you’ve found your answer.

  4.Drop It in Water. Some fakes, such as cubic zirconium, will appear to vanish when placed in a glass of water. A real diamond will always remain visible.

  5.Get It Steamy. Turn on your teakettle and wait until it starts to boil. Use a pair of tongs to carefully pass your “diamond” through the steam. If the stone fogs up for more than a second or two, it’s a fake.

  6.Make It Glow. Most diamonds will either turn blue or glow when you put them under a black light. If your diamond doesn’t glow, it’s either a stone of exceptional quality—or a fake.

  7.Weigh It. A real diamond will weigh far less than a cubic zirconium of the same size.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend

  We left the Princess drooling on the floor of the opium den and prepared to climb down to the Shadow City. Above us in the warehouse, we could hear dozens of frantic Fu-Tsang guards waging a losing battle against New York’s Finest. Eventually, the police would have arrived to rescue us, but we had no intention of waiting around. There was still work to be done—the kind of work that the police might not understand. If we wanted to finish what the Princess had started, our only choice was to make our way through the tunnels back to the exit in Iris’s basement.

  We had already cheated death twice that night, and there was no reason to believe that our luck would continue to hold. A herd of deaf and famished rats could be lurking in the tunnels, eagerly awaiting a bedtime snack. As I opened the door to the Shadow City, I silently prayed for a rat-free escape route. Shining my flashlight through a crack in the door, I spied a single mangy rodent. He bared his fangs and scurried toward the door, willing to take on the four of us. But when the scent of Iris’s repulsive perfume wafted past his snout, he squealed in disgust, turned tail, and ran.

  With no beasts left to battle, I spent the long walk briefing Iris on the history of the tunnels and telling her about our discoveries. She wanted to know everything, and if we hadn’t been in a rush, she would have insisted on opening every door.

  “How did you guys find the Shadow City?” she asked.

  “Sheer luck for the most part. But this book helped.” I showed her my copy of Glimpses of Gotham. “When this is all over, you can read it if you like.”

  Iris shined her flashlight on the cover.

  “Pearcy Leake III wrote that?” she squealed in surprise.

  “Know him?” asked Oona with a condescending laugh.

  “Maybe I do,” Iris shot back.

  “Pearcy Leake disappeared more than a hundred years ago,” I informed Iris. “I doubt he’s still up for making friends.”

  “Disappeared? Well, he’s not missing anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” I insisted.

  “I found him,” Iris said.

  “Where did you find a hundred-and-fifty-year-old man?” Oona laughed.

  “When I was following you guys, I had to sneeze. I didn’t want you to hear me, so I stepped inside one of the rooms along the way. There was a skeleton lying on a bed. I needed something to wipe my nose with, and I saw that the skeleton had a handkerchief in the pocket of his suit. So I took it.”

  “You stole a handkerchief from a skeleton?” I asked.

  “To wipe your nose on?” added Oona.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is. He didn’t need it. But here, take a look.” She pulled a rumpled handkerchief out of her pocket and offered it to me.

  “No offense, Iris, but there’s no way I’m touching something you’ve sneezed on.”

  “Oh, right,” she said sheepishly. She spread the piece of cloth out in her hand and pointed to a name embroidered along one edge.

  “Pearcy Leake III,” I read in astonishment. “So he didn’t disappear after all. The plague killed him. He died here in the Shadow City.”

  “It was his gold we found,” said Kiki, snapping out of a thoughtful silence. “It must have been the money he made smuggling fabric for Augustus Quackenbush.”

  “I think he would have wanted us to have it,” I said, surprising everyone, including myself.

  “You won’t hear me arguing,” said Oona. “As a rule, I never turn down treasure.”

  “No, I’m serious,” I said. “We were the first people in more than a century to explore the Shadow City. We used his book as our guide, and we made it out alive. He would have been impressed.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t made it out yet,” Oona said.

  “But when we do, I think we should take the gold with us,” I said. “What’s the point of leaving it down here again?”

  I looked at Kiki. Since we had all accused her of stealing the gold, it seemed only fair to let her make the call.

  “If you want the gold, take it.” She shrugged. “No one can say you haven’t earned it.”

  • • •

  Before leaving the Shadow City, we grabbed the backpack filled with gold and paid a brief visit to Pearcy Leake to offer our thanks. I would have spoken a few words in his memory, but we hadn’t a minute to spare. By the time we emerged in Iris’s basement it was already six o’clock in the morning. The nanny was awake, and we could hear her thundering footsteps as she stumbled around the kitchen on the first floor. Something shattered, the nanny cursed, and Iris winced.

  “We’re not going to have any dishes left at this rate,” she muttered to herself. “Don’t worry about her,” she told the rest of us. “Sounds like she has one of her hangovers. She won’t even know we’re here.”

  We hid Pearcy Leake’s gold inside a trunk in Iris’s basement and crept up the stairs to the ground floor of the brownstone. The morning light hit us as we reached the top step, and I saw that the four of us were filthy. Oona’s hair was gray with dust and her arms and legs were red and irritated from the duct tape. Black, greasy smudges covered Iris’s pajamas. But Kiki had fared the worst. Her bloodshot eyes were the color of cherry tomatoes, and dark bags drooped beneath them. Whole patches of white hair shot straight into the air, as if she’d stuck a fork in a toaster. Her black pants had ripped across one knee, and a stretch of frighteningly pale flesh flashed whenever she moved. If it hadn’t been for the wicked little smile on her face, she could have been mistaken for one of
the undead.

  “Iris,” she whispered. “Get the supplies we talked about and meet us outside.”

  The rest of us tiptoed out of the house and slid behind a parked car across the street. From where we were hiding, the Princess’s house looked dark and deserted.

  “Looks like we got lucky,” said Oona. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”

  “Don’t be so gullible. They never leave the house unguarded. If it were that easy to get inside, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to break in through the Shadow City,” snapped Kiki, pulling a cell phone out of her bag. Oona looked at me and rolled her eyes. Now that we knew the cause of Kiki’s crankiness, it was easier to ignore.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m going to see if I can reach DeeDee and Luz while we’re waiting,” she responded.

  I felt a twinge of guilt when I realized I’d forgotten about the others. I peered over Kiki’s shoulder as she typed.

  8 AM. Coffee shop. Hudson St. Betty?

  The response was instantaneous.

  Betty safe. C U @ 8.

  “So far, so good,” said Kiki, flipping the phone closed.

  Minutes later, Iris emerged from her house and ran across the street, sporting a pink ruffled dress that made her look like a giant cupcake. In one hand was a brown paper sack.

  “What do you think?” She curtsied to Kiki. “My grandma made this dress for me.”

  “Your grandmother has unusual taste. Does she work for the circus?”

  “No, and her taste is fine,” said Iris. “She just wants me to look seven years old for the rest of my life. I really hope nobody sees me wearing this.”