The boys laughed at this as if it were a good joke. I looked back at them, but my eyes, dazzled by the light, couldn’t make out anything. Nathan gripped my arm and pulled me down into a black passage, the only light the faint reflection of Sir Isumbras’s glowing armor.
“Maybe we should grab a lantern,” Daisy said.
“It would only make it harder to see the knight,” Nathan called back to her. “Look, he’s turning into that passage.”
By the glow of Sir Isumbras’s armor I could just make out an arched doorway and beyond it a long curving corridor with a half dozen doorways gaping like black mouths. If we’d missed seeing him turn we’d have never known which door he’d gone through. Nor would the rest of our cohorts, who had fallen farther behind. As Nathan and I turned through the door I quickly uttered a blazing spell and marked the doorway with a glowing sigil.
“Capital idea,” I heard Mr. Bellows say. “Blaze the trail, Ava.”
“Hurray for Ava the trailblazer!” the boys echoed.
My cheeks burned from their praise, but as I hurried through the doorway I felt like I’d been plunged into cold water. I couldn’t see Nathan or the knight. I’d lost them both! My heart thudded in my ears—no, that was Nathan’s footsteps on the stone floor I heard. I opened my Darkling ears and focused on Nathan’s footsteps and plunged forward, feeling like an owl diving for a mouse it hears stirring beneath the snow. I moved so fast I bumped right into Nathan.
“Watch it,” he cried. “You almost made me miss it—he’s turning again.”
Ahead of us Sir Isumbras was following the golden thread through a doorway. In the light of the thread I noticed that the circular passage was wider now and that the cobbled pathway sloped steeply downward. We were descending into the tower’s dungeon in wide loops.
“How far down does it go?” I asked Nathan as I slapped another sigil on the doorway and followed him.
“No one knows,” he answered. “Sometimes a boy would take a dare and venture into the maze, but he’d never be heard from again.”
“That’s awful! Don’t they try to find them?”
“And lose more boys? What would be the point? Besides, there are the rats.”
“The rats?”
“Yeah, the maze is crawling with them. Can’t you hear them with those hawk ears of yours?”
I opened my ears and listened. Yes, I did hear something scratching . . . and then something squeak. I heard Collie’s voice behind us cry, “There’s the blighter, get ’em, Jinks!”
“The boys’ll take care of them,” Nathan said. “They’ll keep them from following us.”
“Following us? Do you think they’re shadow rats?”
“I think the shadows have been waiting for their chance to find the vessel. Didn’t you see those crows on the skylight? They’ll have sent a message to their vermin brethren below ground—there—there’s one now.” Nathan pointed into the dark where I made out two glowing red eyes. “You can always tell them by their red eyes.”
“Shouldn’t we—”
“Leave them for the boys. They’re excellent ratters.”
I hated to turn my back on those malevolent red eyes, but Nathan was already hurrying on. I knew he was afraid of losing the knight but I wished he were at least a little afraid of losing me and the others. I could hear Mr. Bellows and Daisy stop to fight the rats with the boys and worried they’d never catch up with us. I could barely keep up with Nathan and manage to blaze the turnings, but I made sure to mark every time we turned because it had occurred to me that if we did ever find the second vessel and learn where the third vessel was, it wouldn’t do anyone any good if we couldn’t find our way back.
At times I even wondered if Lady Aethelena’s golden thread knew where it was going. Sometimes the path sloped upward. Twice we passed a doorway I had already marked. We’d gone around in so many circles I felt dizzy. I had to close my Darkling ears to shut out all the confusing echoes. I could no longer hear Mr. Bellows or Daisy or the boys. They must have stayed behind to kill the rats and keep them from following us. I could only hope they would eventually follow my blazes and meet us at the vessel. If we ever found it.
“What if the thread is a trap,” I said to Nathan, “meant to lure enemies into the maze and strand them here to die?”
“What a bleak idea, Ava,” Nathan said, turning to give me a wicked smile. “You’re beginning to sound like me. But luckily in this case you’re wrong. Look.”
We’d come down a particularly steep bit, at the bottom of which Sir Isumbras was turning into an arched doorway that was wider than the others. I made out something beyond it—something glowing.
As we followed him through the arch my dark-accustomed eyes were dazzled by the light. We were in a domed room ringed with rough-hewn standing stones. In the center of the circle was a small tree covered with white flowers. How could flowers bloom so far below ground, I wondered, and in the dark? But it wasn’t dark here. Looking up I saw that the dome was studded with tiny twinkling lights. They reminded me of the electrified lights on the ceiling of the recently opened Grand Central Terminal. Only these lights were moving.
“Lampsprites!” I cried. “Daisy will love to see them.”
“Yes,” Nathan said, “but I’m not sure that they’re so pleased to see us.”
The lampsprites did indeed look angry—and armed. Each one carried a spear. They were swarming around Sir Isumbras and us.
“Ow!” I cried as one pricked me with its spear. Another one’s wings brushed against my face and I heard the word “Sassenach” hissed all around me.
“It means foreign English invader,” Nathan said. “I’m afraid that Scottish lampsprites are quite a bit fiercer than their American cousins—and these have been tasked with guarding the vessel.”
“We’re here to protect the vessel,” I called out. “And to find the third vessel before the Shadow Master can.”
I felt the brush of a dozen wings against my face and then heard the chime of their agitated voices. “How can we tell?” they cried. “You might be spies!”
“I am here to see the Lady Aethelena,” Sir Isumbras said. He was covered by lampsprites, but they didn’t seem as angry. They fluttered around him, raising a multicolored dust storm.
“Us too,” Nathan said. “Here to see Lady Aethelena—” But the lampsprites only poked at us with their tiny sharp spears. I saw one sniff at Nathan’s skin and wrinkle its nose. It came away with a streak of blue face paint on its wings. She reminded me of Primrose.
“Aelfweard sent me,” I said, reminded of the guardian I’d met in the Blythe Wood. “He said . . .” I searched my memory for the guardian’s exact words. “He said I am the vessel and the vessel is light.”
Instantly the lampsprites paused in their flight and then fluttered together in a conflagration. “Those are the words . . . but how do we know . . . it might have tortured the guardian.”
“I most certainly did not torture anyone,” I said. I swatted away a lampsprite whose wing dust was seeping down the back of my shirtwaist and making me itch. “Do I look like a torturer? And would a guardian give up his secrets even if I were? And I’m not an it, I’m . . .”
“A phoenix!” they all cried as one.
In my anger my wings had unfurled. I could see the glow of them reflected in the lampsprites’ faces.
“A phoenix will be sent to save the last vessel!” one lampsprite cried, landing on my shoulder. “You must come at once to see Lady Aethelena.”
A dozen lampsprites tugged me toward the hawthorn tree. Sir Isumbras was already kneeling at the foot of the tree. I looked back to see Nathan fending off a small brushfire of sprites, many of whom had gotten his blue face paint on their wings. Perhaps that’s why they were so annoyed.
“Leave him alone,” I said. “He’s my friend and . . . um, my squire.”
&nb
sp; Nathan looked up, a light flashing in his eyes. The lampsprites stopped harassing him and led him to the tree.
“Thank you, O Great Lady Phoenix,” Nathan said with a mock bow, “for sparing your humble squire.”
“Oh do shut up, Nathan. I didn’t know what else to say. At least they’re going to let us in—although I don’t see how. The tree has grown over the opening to the vessel.”
But even as I spoke I saw that the lampsprites were brushing dirt away from the roots, uncovering a smooth marble slab. Sir Isumbras withdrew his sword and passed it over the slab, reciting some words in a language that I guessed was Old English.
“Do you suppose he’s going to plunge the sword into the stone like in King Arthur and his knights—oh!” Nathan’s sarcastic remark was cut short by a gasp as the slab slid away of its own volition. He really does love all those stories, I thought, as we both crouched down beside Sir Isumbras. Light was streaming up through the opening, lighting up Sir Isumbras’s pale, threadbare face with happiness. He bowed down, as if to pay homage to the light, and then toppled headfirst down the hole.
“Well, I guess we may as well follow him,” Nathan said, lowering himself through the hole more cautiously.
As I bent down to follow him I recalled that the last time I’d fallen through a hole in the ground I’d wound up ten years later in a ruined world. But there was no time to consider—I was already falling.
I would have landed flat on my head if Nathan hadn’t caught me. “Hell’s Bells!” I began, but Nathan hushed me and turned me around forcibly by the shoulders to see—
Lady Aethelena standing in the middle of the room, Sir Isumbras kneeling before her, his head bowed, her hands resting on his shoulders. Gold light flowed from her hands down over his bent back like a waterfall spilling over a stone. It flowed into his armor, making it shine as if it were newly forged, and then into his hair, turning the silver to gold. His shoulders straightened under her touch and when she lifted his head he was a young man once again and his face shone with the light of love.
“Lady Aethelena, at last! I have guarded the tower all these years waiting for a sign to come to you. When the gold thread unraveled I knew it was time.”
The lady smiled on her knight. “I knew that you would guard the tower and keep us safe, Sir Isumbras. And that you would someday return to me and lead a phoenix to the vessel.”
She lifted her head and settled her wide, kind eyes on me. She was older than the lady in the tapestry, and her curling hair had grown nearly to the floor. I found myself curtseying. Beside me, Nathan bowed. “I’m not sure what being a phoenix has to do with it, my lady, but I have come to find the third vessel and protect it. Nathan and I are from Blythewood, Hawthorn’s sister school in . . .” I faltered, not sure what she would know of America since she’d been locked underground centuries before the country was discovered.
“On a great river on the edge of a fairy wood?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling.
“Yes, but . . .”
She pointed to a tapestry hanging on the wall. There was Blythewood standing on the banks of the Hudson River, across from the Catskill Mountains, the Blythe Wood surrounding it.
“But how . . . ?”
“The fairies who made the vessel carved their hiding places on the walls. When this vessel was broken the pictures were ruined.” She moved one of the tapestries aside to reveal a shattered wall. “But I remembered the pictures and wove them into these tapestries. Of course the castle wasn’t in the original, but I left instructions for the future lady of Hawthorn to build a castle modeled on Hawthorn and have it moved to where the other vessels were buried.”
“The future lady of Hawthorn?” Nathan asked.
“Alcyone,” I said. “Merope’s older sister and founder of our Order. She found your instructions and copied them into A Darkness of Angels.”
“I am pleased to know she followed my instructions and that she founded an Order of such brave ladies and knights.” She inclined her head to Nathan.
“And did you leave instructions for her to build a castle near the third vessel?” Nathan asked.
“Yes, only . . .” She frowned. “If your Order doesn’t know of it perhaps she failed.”
“I have watched and listened to the young students of the Order for many centuries now,” Sir Isumbras said, “and I have never heard them mention the third vessel. I believe it fell out of knowledge.”
“A lot fell out of our knowledge,” Nathan said. There was an edge of impatience in his voice that set my skin prickling. “Can we see the picture of where the third vessel is? Even as we speak the Shadow Master is searching for it.”
Sir Isumbras stood, his armor clattering, his hand moving toward the hilt of his sword, clearly disapproving of Nathan addressing his lady in such a tone.
“We don’t mean to be rude,” I said, moving in between Nathan and Sir Isumbras, “but Nathan’s right. Van Drood, the Shadow Master, is preparing for a terrible war. I’ve traveled into the future and seen what will happen if the third vessel is broken. The world will be engulfed in war; the shadows will take over everything. We must find it first and protect it.”
“If we show them where the third vessel is how do we know they won’t lead this Shadow Master to it?” Sir Isumbras asked.
“The girl is a phoenix,” she replied. “She is destined to protect the vessel. I cannot keep its location from her.” She pointed to the wall behind us. “I have woven the location of the place where the third vessel is buried there.”
Nathan turned before me and crossed to the tapestry and swore under his breath. “Another castle by another river surrounded by another wood. How are we supposed to find it from this?”
The scene did look much like the one of Blythewood, only . . .
“This river is much bendier than the Hudson, and that castle . . .” I stepped closer. “That castle and the way it’s set on the river looks familiar.”
“Of course it looks familiar,” Nathan said disgustedly, “they all look alike.”
“No, this curve of the river is so sharp it practically shuts off the castle in an island, and this curve here upriver looks like a tomb. I’ve seen this river on a map in Mr. Bellows’s room . . .” I closed my eyes, picturing the map on Mr. Bellows’s desk marking the sites of battles.
“It’s in the Ardennes forest,” I said. “I think the river is called the Semois. A battle will take place near it. I’m sure if I saw the map again I could locate this bend.”
“The Semois,” Nathan said. “In the Ardennes. Yes, I think I could find that. We ought to go.” He turned to me, the whites of his eyes looking very bright against the dark blue paint on his face. I turned back to Lady Aethelena and Sir Isumbras. They were gazing into each other’s eyes so deeply I hated to interrupt them.
“Um, we really ought to go,” I said quietly. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Lady Aethelena turned dreamy eyes on me and smiled. “It is I who should thank you. You have brought my knight back to me.”
“But is he . . .” I started to ask if he were real or just an image that had come out of a tapestry.
“I wove a bit of our souls into the tapestry,” she said, answering my unspoken question. “And now the elven gold has restored him. Will you stay with me, my brave knight?”
“To my last breath and beyond,” he answered. He began to bow his head but she caught his chin with her hand and held his gaze. They seemed frozen in time—as if they’d become part of a tapestry again—and I thought of Helen’s wish to stop time and how I’d seen my friends crossing the lawn and thought they looked like figures in a tapestry. You couldn’t stop time, I might tell Helen now, but there were moments that marked you that were inside you forever. I turned to Nathan, wiping the tears from my eyes, and was surprised to see that his face was wet, too.
“Yes, we’d
better be going,” he said hoarsely. “We can climb up these roots.”
I saw that the roots of the hawthorn tree formed a ladder along one wall. “If only we’d known that before we fell!”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “I’ll go first to make sure it will hold.”
I could have told him it didn’t matter if I fell, but I didn’t want to hurt his pride. Seeing Sir Isumbras has inspired a chivalric spirit in him, I thought as I watched him climb to the top of the vessel and climb through the opening. When he’d gotten through he turned and looked down at me.
“I’m sorry, Ava,” he said.
“For what?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he pulled the slab over the top, sealing me inside.
18
I GAPED OPEN-MOUTHED at the closed ceiling, expecting any second for Nathan to open it back up and reveal that he’d only been joking. He wouldn’t really trap me in the vessel and leave me here for eternity. Would he?
I flew up and threw myself at the opening, first pushing against the slab, then pounding on it with my fists, screaming Nathan’s name, then scrabbling at the edges with my fingernails.
“It doesn’t open from the inside,” Lady Aethelena called from below me. “I’m afraid your knight has betrayed you.”
“He’s not my knight,” I shouted back, still pounding on the stone. “He’s my friend—at least I thought he was my friend!” I shouted the last bit, hoping that Nathan could hear me. But the only answer I got was the mocking echo of my words in the hollow vessel.
Friend, friend, friend . . .
I reared back, beating my wings into a fiery fury, and threw myself at the slab. I hit it so hard that I was thrown backward and landed on the floor of the vessel in a smoldering heap of singed feathers. I drew my knees in and mantled my burnt wings over my head and gave in to the tears. How could I have trusted Nathan? He must have been taken over by the shadows long ago. He’d come to Hawthorn to find the third vessel for van Drood and now he was on his way there. He didn’t care if I rotted here.
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