Hurrying, Mayka hopped from stone to stone. She felt the otters’ eyes on her, and after her fifth step, she ducked. Stones sailed over her head. She glanced back at the griffin, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was standing like a sentry by the door, looking into the distance.
“Ready to leave?” she asked Jacklo.
“Beyond ready,” Jacklo said.
And Mayka stepped between the two stone lizards, through Master Siorn’s gate. Jacklo lay in her arms, not trying to get back, not needing to obey. She hurried through the Stone Quarter with Risa flying above and Si-Si hopping beside her.
“Walk,” Risa whispered from her shoulder, as they approached the gate to leave the Stone Quarter. “You look like you’re fleeing someone.”
“I am,” Mayka said, but she slowed down to a brisk stroll, matching the pace of the apprentices and stonemasons who were scurrying to and from the gate. The cobblestones smoothed beneath her feet, leading her through the crowd. She hoped it wouldn’t be a problem to leave the Stone Quarter without Garit to speak for her. She wished she could tell the truth: Master Siorn has created an abomination, a mark that steals stories.
But she couldn’t be certain the flesh-and-blood gatekeeper would see it that way.
If it hadn’t been for Ava, the apprentice’s stone friend, Garit might not have sided with them. Mayka thought back to the way people had treated her from the moment she’d entered this city. No, it’s not safe to tell the truth. Better just to leave without saying anything.
“Lie to the guard,” Si-Si advised. “You must tell him you’re obeying your keeper.”
“I can’t say that,” Mayka said. It was one thing to omit the truth, but to say she had a keeper . . . The very idea of claiming someone owned her made her feel as if bugs were burrowing into her stone arms.
“You must.”
You can do it. It’s only words.
Except there’s no such thing as “only words.” Words are everything.
And then another voice in her head said, Yes. And the right words can give you freedom.
For the first time in her life, Mayka deliberately concocted a lie. She practiced it in her head, and when she reached the gate, she smiled at the guard and said, “My keeper, Stonemason Siorn, asked me to take these sculptures to him at the festival grounds. He plans to use them in his demonstration.” The lie burned on her tongue, but she didn’t waver.
“Huh, that one looks unfinished.” He pointed at Si-Si. “She’s a mess.”
Si-Si tucked her wings against herself and hunched over. “I’m in the middle of a metamorphosis. Caterpillars in cocoons are probably ugly too.”
The gatekeeper’s eyes widened as he saw Jacklo. “Wow, a stone bird! So that’s what he’s been keeping secret? Has he found a way to make it fly?”
“He can’t fly,” Mayka said. Another lie. “He’s only for decoration.”
The guard’s face fell. “There are stories of a stonemason who could create flying sculptures. All of them were destroyed when he lost his family in the Stone War.”
Did everyone but her know about Father’s past? “Do you mean Master Kyn?”
He beamed. “Yes, that’s him! Those were the days, huh? Stonemasons lived like kings, and we all benefited from it. Stone marvels everywhere, doing all the work. Until the stonemasons got too big for their britches.” Squinting, he glanced up at the sky—the sun was setting fast, melting like hot butter. “Eh, I shouldn’t keep you with my babbling. It’s nearly curfew. Best make your way to your keeper before it’s fully down. You’ll have a bit of a grace period since it’s so close to the festival, but best not to push your luck.” He shooed them forward.
She wanted to ask more, to hear another story about Father, but he was right: in a few minutes, it would be dusk. They needed to be beyond the city gates before they closed. She nodded politely at the guard and walked through the archway. She made it ten paces before she heard a shout: “Wait! Stop! That’s my stone girl!”
Master Siorn.
He was coming from the Festival Square, toward the Stone Quarter, toward them.
Above her, Risa shrieked, “Run!”
The guard lunged for her, grabbing her arm.
Si-Si shouted in a shrill voice, “He’s lying! He stole us from our keepers! He’s a thief!”
The accusation made the guard hesitate, and it was enough for Mayka to break away from his weak, meaty hands. She ran, her stone feet pounding on the pavement, while Risa flew overhead and Si-Si raced beside her. She held Jacklo tight against her and didn’t look back.
The streets were packed with people: workers setting up and families who were strolling by, gawking at the sights. Mayka weaved between them. “Sorry, sorry, excuse me!”
A few called out to her: “Are you all right?” “Is anything wrong?” “Who’s chasing you?”
I’m drawing too much attention, she thought. She scanned the area and saw other children, skipping as they played, and so as she rounded the corner, she switched to skipping. She painted a bright smile on her face and hoped she looked as if she was holding a toy instead of a live bird. No one shouted at them. She kept turning down different streets, each time choosing the most crowded.
Risa flew lower. “You lost them, as far as I can tell.”
“Now it’s time for us to get out of the city,” Jacklo said. “Please, I want to go home.”
Me too, Mayka thought. She wished they’d never come to the valley. It was a terrible place. No wonder Father had left it. Why didn’t he tell me what it was like? Or about his family? Or about the Stone War? He was famous, yet she’d had no idea.
Everyone here knows his story but me. If only his story had been written on his skin, instead of hidden, written on his heart.
“Which way is the gate out of the city?” Si-Si asked.
Mayka halted. They’d run down so many streets, and she hadn’t kept track of the turns. She’d been concentrating only on getting away. “Risa, can you fly above the buildings and see which direction we need to go?”
Launching upward, Risa soared toward the tops of the spires. The sky was a deeper blue than it had been moments ago, and a faint star shone above. Oh no, Mayka thought.
The sun had set.
The gate . . .
Risa plummeted toward them and then swooped up at the last moment. “The gate!” she cried. “It’s closed!”
Si-Si began to panic, chasing her tail in a circle. “What do we do? Where can we hide? Oh, he’s going to find us! Oh, we’re doomed! He’ll catch us! He’ll change us. He’ll destroy us!”
Mayka knelt on one knee, even though she wanted to run in a circle and shriek too. “Shhh, Si-Si, calm down. We’ll find a place to spend the night, and then we’ll leave the city at dawn.”
“Where? There’s nowhere to go, no one to turn to!”
“I have an idea: we’re going to walk calmly and purposefully to the Inn District, and we’re going to find Ilery.” She’d said she was staying at a place called the Marble Inn.
Si-Si paused. “But she’s flesh! She may have been friendly while she was waiting and bored, but do you really think she’d hide us?”
“I think we have to find out,” Mayka said. “Come on.”
Leading the way, Risa flew with the city birds, blending in with the pigeons, and Mayka had trouble keeping her eye on which one was Risa. She was glad Father had made the birds so lifelike. It made them easier to hide. She wondered if he’d ever thought about that as he carved them.
She had so many questions she could never ask him.
She wished she had asked him to teach her how to carve. She’d watched him and helped him. But she’d never thought that she too could create a sculpture like he did, complete with its own stories. He seemed as if he’d been born knowing exactly where to place the chisel, exactly what kind of shape to coax out of a stone.
But Garit hadn’t been born with those skills. She’d seen him learning, trying, experimenting, failing.
And she herself had changed the mark on Jacklo.
She could carve.
It was such a revolutionary thought that it almost stopped her in her tracks. I can carve. I am a storyteller. She could, if she practiced and tried, recarve her friends.
We don’t need a stonemason.
We only need me.
She could read Father’s marks, and she’d watched him carve. In a way, though she hadn’t known it and he may not have intended it, he’d been her teacher. She had his knowledge. All she needed, like Garit, was practice. And time.
I have time. Plenty of it, until my marks fade. And I have Father’s tools, up on the mountain. We’ve got to go home. I want to begin!
But first, they needed to leave the city.
And before that, they needed to make it through the night.
Chapter
Nineteen
The Inn District was very different from the other parts of Skye. For one thing, it was full of flowers. Real flowers, not stone. Everywhere, there were flowers in gardens and planters, their blossoms closed for the night. Mayka knew many of them were out of season, but they’d been grown here anyway. Trees with blossoms lined the sidewalks, and their petals coated the hardened dirt street.
By now, the stars were scattered all over the sky, but there were still so many people in the streets that it was easy to blend into the crowd. We need to find the Marble Inn before our luck gives out, Mayka thought. And hope that Ilery is there, not roving around like everyone else.
In Mayka’s arms, Jacklo fidgeted. “Are you sure we can trust her?”
She wasn’t sure of much, except that they had very few options left, in a city full of people who were hostile to stone, with a stonemason actively searching for her. But her instincts said they could trust Ilery.
“I’m sure we need a place to hide for the night.”
The Marble Inn was up ahead. Carved out of white and rose marble, the inn was three stories tall, with pillars sculpted to look like trees. I hope I’m right about her, and I hope she meant her invitation. For all Mayka knew, Ilery befriended everyone she saw and didn’t mean any of it. Mayka hadn’t made enough friends to know what was real and what wasn’t.
Walking up the steps, she stopped at the door, unsure what she was supposed to do.
She didn’t have to decide—the door swung open, and a stone badger stood on his hind legs in the doorway. He was carved out of dust-gray marble, with onyx eyes and claws. But while her friend Badger was an exquisite replica of a flesh badger, this badger was carved with every feature exaggerated: his eyes were bulbous, his claws blunt, his body polished smooth instead of painstakingly carved to resemble fur. “Welcome to the Marble Inn! Rooms available to let.”
Mayka shot a look back to where Risa perched on another building. She’d stay hidden with the flesh-and-feather birds and keep watch, in case Master Siorn showed up.
As they entered, the badger stared at Mayka. “I didn’t know any of the stonemasons had begun making people.”
“I’m a rare case.”
The badger peered closer and noticed Jacklo in her arms. He squinted at the bird, squinching his stone face until his eyes nearly disappeared in folds of marble. “You’re all stone. This is unusual, especially after curfew. Where’s your keeper?”
Slipping past him into the lobby, Mayka pretended she didn’t hear the question. “We’re looking for someone who’s staying here. A girl named Ilery?”
“I can check the guest list. One moment.” The badger waddled inside and hopped himself up onto a stool. He flipped through a ledger and ran his claws lightly over a row of marks.
“You can read?” Mayka asked, watching his lips move as he scanned the ledger. After Garit and Master Siorn’s reaction, she’d thought she was the only one.
“Contrary to the opinion of some, stone creatures can be quite intelligent and capable.” He sounded miffed. “Ilery . . . Ilery . . .” He ran his claw down the ledger. “She is checked in.”
Yes! She shot a look out at the street again. No Master Siorn, and no guards. “Where can I find her?”
He closed the ledger. “I’m sorry, but my keepers do not want me to share room numbers with nonguests. She is at this inn, but that is the most information I’m allowed to give you. You could leave a message for her, if you’d like.”
Mayka tried not to slump. So close! she thought. And it was such a good idea.
The badger was peering at them again, leaning so close that his nose almost touched Jacklo’s tailfeathers. “If you don’t mind me asking, which stonemason carved you?”
Mayka hesitated. Could she trust anyone here? I refuse to think of everyone as an enemy.
Before she could answer, Jacklo piped up. “We were made by our father, Master Kyn, the best stonemason who ever lived.”
The badger blinked. “It was said that all of Master Kyn’s works were destroyed. It was also said that he carved birds who could fly.”
She wondered what else he knew about Father. “You know about him?”
“Everyone knows about him! He was a hero. As the bird said, he was the greatest stonemason who ever lived. I assume you’ve seen the mural? The mural doesn’t tell the whole story—it was done by stonemasons, and they have a skewed view of the past. On one thing we all agree, though: because of him, there is peace in the valley.”
“What is the whole story?” Mayka asked. She glanced at the window again—they were safely inside at least, and Risa was keeping watch. She could take a moment for a story, especially one about Father. And maybe while he talks, I’ll think of a way to reach Ilery.
“A group of stonemasons were working to enslave our kind, make us fight their battles. They pitted us against one another, for wealth, for land, for power. But Master Kyn believed this was wrong. We should not be fighting their wars. We are creatures of peace! And so he carved a giant stone dragon and marched him into Skye to defeat the corrupt stonemasons.”
She thought of Master Siorn’s version of this story. “I heard he used an obedience mark, and that the stone creatures were attacking the flesh-and-blood people.”
“Bah! You’ve been talking to stonemasons. No, Master Kyn was a friend to stone. He’d never compel our kind to obey. Such a mark is a myth, and certainly nothing he needed.”
Jacklo chirped. “See! I never doubted Father.”
She felt as if her stone knees had weakened. I knew it! Father wasn’t like Master Siorn.
“He was noble, but many stonemasons were not. Unbeknownst to him, the evil stonemasons had kidnapped his wife and daughter and placed them in the city. When the city was destroyed in the great battle, so were his wife and daughter. He was, unwittingly, responsible for their deaths. It was a terrible tragedy.”
Poor Father. She wished he’d told her about them. He’d hid his sorrow inside.
Si-Si sniffled. “Oh, that’s so sad!”
“But he was victorious nonetheless. The evil stonemasons were stopped, their work destroyed, and everyone—stone and flesh—was saved. Master Kyn himself helped write the laws to keep stonemasons from ever achieving so much power again. All was not perfect, of course. He could not eliminate all his enemies, and before they were at last caught, they destroyed every bit of his work they could find, including his great dragon, and he was forced to flee for his life. There are tales that say he destroyed his creations himself to keep them from falling into the wrong hands, but I don’t believe that for a moment. He’d never destroy the creatures he loved.”
I don’t believe it either, Mayka thought.
“But all tales agree he left the valley. Some say he died. Some say he lives on.”
“He did die,” Mayka said quietly. “But not for many years.”
“You truly knew him?” the badger asked. “He was the greatest hero we’ve ever had, among both stone and flesh. What happened to him?”
“He made himself a new family,” Mayka said, “and he was happy.”
The badger si
ghed. “That’s lovely. If I could cry, I would. Thank you for sharing that with me. In return for that news . . .” Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “Room thirty-three. Up the stairs. Third floor.”
“Thank you!” Mayka said.
She climbed the stairs two at a time until she reached the third floor. Sconces on the wall had already been lit, and she read the numbers on the doors easily. “Here it is.”
“Are you sure about this, Mayka?” Jacklo whispered.
“Yes,” Mayka said. “There are good humans. Father and Garit prove that. Don’t let one bad man make you scared of people. Don’t change that much, Jacklo—your story isn’t about distrust.” Cradling Jacklo in one arm, she knocked on the door with her other hand. She waited, listening, and heard footsteps shuffling toward the door. Si-Si ducked behind her.
“One minute!” a cheerful voice called.
The door opened to reveal Ilery. She was grinning as widely as she had when they first met, but she’d changed clothes. She now wore billowing purple pants, a blouse with a star on it, and several strands of necklaces. If it weren’t for the smile, Mayka wouldn’t have recognized her at all—she’d forgotten that flesh people could so easily change their outsides.
But the second she spoke, it was clear this was Ilery. She flung her arms open, as full of enthusiasm as before. “Oh! Mayka, Si-Si, you came! And you found your friend!”
Mayka smiled. “We did. May we come in?”
“Of course! I’m so glad you’re here. It’s been so boring cooped up here while my parents work—they’re looking for more help for the farm this year, but our budget is limited, so it’s tricky.” She waved them inside and then shut the door.
The room was tiny, with flowers everywhere: painted on the walls, in vases on the tables and dressers, sewn into the quilt on the bed. A trunk was open on one table, and it overflowed with dresses and other clothes—clearly all Ilery’s.
“We . . .” Mayka began, then stalled, unsure how much to explain or how to ask if they could hide here, but before she could say more, Ilery was talking again.