“Isn’t it glass?” asked Gerald.
“The center has a spell on it to admit members of the fae.”
I started to feel uneasy. “That doesn’t sound too secure.”
“No one would dare go in if they didn’t belong,” said Claudia.
“Er…we don’t belong.”
“You are royalty and expected. You may go where you will. The de’ Medicis live behind the clock. Enter through twelve.”
Gerald waved at me. “It’s above the door.”
I walked over and patted the human’s neck. “Thank you, Claudia. I will tell the empress how you helped.”
“It has been my pleasure,” she said.
Percy dropped down and plucked me off her shoulder. I shouted, “Goodbye!” as we swooped up to the rose window. It was pretty fast and Fidelé’s tail wrapped around my neck to secure himself. I tugged on it as Percy hovered in front of the window. “You’re choking me.” The tail loosened and Rufus suctioned to the side of my face. “Seriously?”
I couldn’t peel him off. So embarrassing. I was going to meet the de’ Medicis with a lizard stuck to my face. “Percy, can you get me close to the center?”
Percy rolled over and stuck out my claw to the rosette in the middle. It was made of stone but was somehow lacy and light-looking. I reached out and touched the glass. Instead of a hard, solid thing under my fingers, it was soft and sort of jiggly. With a light push, my fingers went through. It reminded me of the jello that Judd had to eat when he was sick. “It works,” I said. “Let’s go!”
Percy pivoted in the air, backed up, and flew straight at the rosette. I think I screamed. In my defense, flying at a wall, even if it’s made of jello, is pretty freaky. It felt like a sticky film went over me and then we were inside. Ovid and Penelope followed, hovering high above the nave. I sucked in a breath and forgot all about having a lizard on my face. The duomo was light and airy, even before dawn. The ceiling arches were white and plain, but the floor was covered in intricate mosaics. They were so beautiful they made me want to sing and I don’t sing. I’d never even heard singing, of course. Not unless you count Tess singing in the shower and Judd said she sucked. But he also said she was ugly and that wasn’t true, so I wasn’t sure.
Iris waved at me from Penelope’s claw. “It’s glorious!”
“It is,” I said. “Where’s the clock, Gerald?”
He pointed down and Percy did a dive, pulling up sharply in front of a weird clock with odd characters.
“Roman numerals.” Gerald pointed at a panel with XII on it.
“Do you see a door handle?” I asked.
He squinted. “I think it’s on the tip of the X.”
Penelope opened her claw and Leanna and Iris flew out.
“Remember,” said Leanna. “I’m doing it.”
I grinned at her. “Go ahead, super nanny.”
She flew over and tugged on the handle. “It’s locked.”
“Knock,” I said.
As Leanna pounded on the door, a feeling of dread came over me. It was so strong I shivered. “Iris, do you feel that?”
Iris nodded and I tapped Percy’s claw. “Let go.” The dragon craned his head under his belly and eyed me. “I’m okay.”
He let me go and I dropped five feet before I was able to catch myself. My wing burned, but I flapped up to Leanna. The feeling got way worse. “Stop, Leanna!”
She looked down at me as the door opened. A fairy with ruby-colored wings and wearing a full set of armor looked out. He had an odd smile fixed on his face. “Ah, Your Highness, we’ve been expecting you.”
I grabbed Leanna’s hand. “I’m sorry. There’s been a mistake.”
“We know who you are,” he said without changing the smile. Super weird.
“No. No. We’re just tourists. We’ll go. We’re going.”
The smile stayed, but the eyes hardened. He grabbed Leanna by the collar and yanked her through the door, dragging me along with her. We emerged through another clock on the other side of the wall. A dozen armed guards waited in the space. They simultaneously pointed their lances at us. The original guard screamed, “Prendila!”
They lunged for us. I shot fireballs at them and the guards tumbled backward, screaming. The original guard jolted away with Leanna. He dragged her through a maze of metal bars that connected the two walls we were between. I chased them, but with my bad wing, my maneuvering stunk. I hit the bars they cleared. I was afraid to throw my fire. I might hit Leanna. The guard dashed under a wooden log and I chased him around the rope that was twisted between the log and a pulley at the top. I was too slow. They were just out of reach. He made a sharp turn to the right and dragged Leanna between the teeth of the gears attached to the outside wall. I grabbed her foot and put a flame in the guard’s pants. He yelled and let go, but another guard zipped out from behind him and grabbed Leanna. “Avete ottenuto, principessa!”
I reached for her as an explosion rocked the space between the walls, ramming me against the gear. I looked back and saw Percy breaking through the wall. He screeched when he saw me, craning out his neck.
“No! Leanna!” I screamed and reached for the nanny. The guard yanked her back and Percy got me by my skirt. He jerked me back through the hole into the nave. I struggled to get away until I saw why he did it. Ovid and Penelope were trapped between two armies, one wearing the armor of the guards in the wall and the others were wasserquelle from The Reich’s Fae.
The wasserquelle and the de’ Medicis circled the dragons. Iris had her hands over her eyes, shaking, but Gerald was reading a parchment. He saw us and nodded. The armies saw us. The dragons used their fire, but the wasserquelle repelled it with their gift. The de’ Medici hesitated between Percy and the other dragons. Then they went for us, launching dozens of arrows and spears. I reached for the master secretary’s knife, but Percy jolted backward to avoid them and hit the wall. The knife got jarred out of my hand.
Percy’s jaws opened and I fell, free falling with gathering speed. I tried to snap out my wings, but the injured one wouldn’t obey. So I pirouetted in the air, saw the floor, and squeezed my eyes shut.
But I didn’t hit the hard marble floor. I hit something firm that gave way underneath my impact. I opened my eyes and saw red sliding under me. I grabbed at the slick red fur, but slid off the end of a powerful rump. I grabbed the tail, bouncing against a sparkling road beneath me. A damumoto. I held on to the horse as it ran, weaving through stone pillars with the de’ Medici chasing us. I felt an explosion of heat behind me and looked back in time to see Percy fry twenty guards in one go. He dashed over their incinerated bodies and snatched me and the damumoto up in his claw. We were so close to the mosaic floor that my hair brushed the tiles. Then we went up, straight up toward a fabulous dome behind Ovid and Penelope. Penelope fell behind quickly and had half a dozen wasserquelle on her tail. Percy put on an extra burst of speed and bit a wasserquelle, tearing him in two. The bottom half of him fell past my head, spraying blood. Rows of brightly-painted frescos flashed past. Both the de’ Medicis and wasserquelle chased us, but they battled each other at the same time, slowing them down. I looked up and Percy tucked his wings, darting through a hole in the ceiling into a cupola that was completely enclosed. Trapped. I craned out over Percy’s claw and waved my arms. A fire shield formed, blocking the hole too fast for the armies to stop. The first wave hit the shield and exploded into fireballs, raining down on those below.
Iris was screaming, “What’ll we do? What’ll we do?”
Lucky for us, there were stained glass windows on every side of the cupola. I hated to do it, but my shield wouldn’t last much longer. “Go through the glass, Percy!” I pointed at a broken pane. “There!”
Ovid saw me point and reacted faster. He shot out the pane with a well-placed fireball and dashed through with us right behind. Penelope was last. The wasserquelle on her tail were stabbing her with sharp daggers, but it didn’t last long. Ovid and Percy ate them whole, gulping them do
wn their fiery gullets before they could scream. Grisly, but oh, so satisfying. Poor Penelope was bleeding heavily. They deserved it.
“Where’s Leanna?” yelled Iris.
“I lost her,” I said.
Iris covered her face with her hands and then dropped them suddenly. “Claudia!”
“What?”
“She’s screaming!”
The dragons didn’t wait. They flew toward the sound. At least, that’s what I assumed. We flew at the roofline through the streets.
“There she is!” I yelled.
Up ahead, Claudia ran, zigzagging like she was drunk and whacking de’ Medici guards with her umbrella. The car was twenty feet in front of her. “Fry them!”
A barrage of fireballs hit the de’ Medici like I’ve never seen. Even Penelope, who was losing lots of blood, attacked. Most of the de’ Medici were wiped out, turning to ash and scattering the bits on the cobblestones below. The survivors turned around and spotted us, putting up silvery, translucent shields. Claudia used the distraction to jump in the car. She careened off, knocking into a large pot of begonias and shattering it. Then she turned a corner and was safe.
The dragons shot more fireballs, but the de’ Medicis’ shields deflected them.
“Surrender, Principessa!” shouted one guard, so I lit his pants on fire. He screamed, his shield vanished, and Percy fried him. The other guards scattered.
“Go!” I yelled.
The dragons darted into a super narrow street. Right. Left. Over restaurant canopies and under early morning delivery trucks. Two of the de’ Medicis tried to stay with us, but we lost them after a few turns. We kept going for a few more streets and finally stopped outside another chapel, one that was rougher than the duomo and made of all stone, no plaster. We hid inside one of the doorways and the dragons hovered, breathless with their heads drooping. They couldn’t go on much longer, especially Penelope. She was only a foot off the ground and drops of blood dripped off the end of her tail.
“Matilda,” said Gerald.
“Wait a minute.” I closed my eyes and pictured Penelope’s vessels. It wasn’t easy. Dragon tails are very vascular, so it took me a while to find all the torn spots. I stopped her bleeding, but it took a lot out of me. I couldn’t have flown if I wanted to, which I didn’t. Percy nuzzled me and I opened my eyes.
“Where should we go?” cried Iris. “We lost Leanna. What about Leanna?”
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “We can’t go back. The dragons are exhausted. Even if they weren’t, we’re hopelessly outnumbered.”
Horc looked at me from between two of Ovid’s claws. “We cut our losses.”
“This isn’t a money thing,” said Iris, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Not money. Logic. We cannot win. We must leave.”
“How can we leave?” I asked.
The damumoto struggled beside me and Percy let him go. Volotora shook out his tangled mane. “Master Horc is right. We must protect the princess and appeal for help from the pope and the empress as soon as we are able.”
“How did you get here?” I asked, my own eyes welling.
“I escaped the bissabova when I was let out to exercise. I knew Florence was on your list of state visits. I thought you would come here, but it took longer than I expected.”
“We got sidetracked,” said Gerald.
“Where are Gledit and Rickard?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “We have to get out of Florence now.”
“Agreed. We should find the train station,” said Volotora.
Gerald waved his parchment. “I have a map. Allura gave it to me.”
“Who’s Allura?”
“I’ll tell you later. How far to the station?” I asked.
Gerald peered at the map. “It’s hard to tell, but not far.”
We agreed that a train was our best bet. We could find the schedule and not end up in another feud like if we hitched another random ride. We flew slowly through the streets that were just starting to wake up. Ovid took the lead with Horc and Gerald and we reached the station quickly. After our short stay in what Gerald insisted on calling the Renaissance, the station was a disappointment. A squat building with no charm or decoration, the station was serviceable and that’s the best I could say for it. It did have an amazing number of humans bustling around, even at five in the morning.
The dragons flew in low behind a clump of tourists. Percy set me on a woman’s shoulder and then he perched on her backpack like a woodpecker. Ovid and Penelope did the same. The woman and a man skirted around the clump of tourists and headed into the heart of the station to a row of ticket machines. They said “Fast Ticket” at the top, but they weren’t. It took forever. The humans were Americans and they kept messing up. It was painful. I’d never bought a train ticket in my life and I could do better.
“Why don’t they push the English button?” asked Iris, still wiping away tears.
“They do not see it,” said Horc. “I am ready to eat. Hurry them up.”
“Quiet,” I said, peering at the screen. When I looked up, they were staring at me. “You know what I mean.”
“I am always quiet to you,” said Horc.
“I’m here to tell you that you aren’t. I see your mouth moving and it bugs me. I want to see where these two are going.”
“Nowhere. Let us find a café. I require meat.”
I pushed him into Iris’s lap. “Can you take care of him?”
“Not like Leanna,” she wailed. “We’re losing everyone.”
“We’ll get her back,” said Gerald with a ferocity that I’d never seen before.
Volotora walked over and nuzzled Iris. “I don’t think they will hurt her. She had her badge of imperial service. It would be unwise to hurt a nanny.”
“You really think so?”
“I do.” The flames in his nostrils blazed and he nuzzled her again.
“Your nose is really warm,” said Iris. “Are you sick?”
Volotora glanced over. Nobody could see his fire but me. “This is normal for a damumoto.”
“What happened to the rest of the team and Gianna and the Home Depot fairies?” I asked.
“They’re still in Venice, unharmed. The doge was quite angry that you escaped, but he isn’t vicious. He’s holding them in hopes that you’ll turn up.”
“I hope the de’ Medicis aren’t vicious,” said Iris.
I held up my hand. “I think they got it.”
Then the man cleared the screen accidentally and the humans started cursing. Gerald fell over. “They’re hopeless. Let’s find another ride. They don’t even know where they’re going.”
“They cannot be that stupid,” said Horc.
I wasn’t so sure. So far, they’d tried to buy tickets to Parma, Lithuania, and Colmar in France.
“Let’s go,” said Gerald. “We can’t stay here forever. The de’ Medici are going to figure out that we went to the train station.”
I thought about it for a second. “I can do better.”
“Huh?”
“Gerald, you can work that machine, right?”
He puffed up. “Of course. I can work any machine because I’m—”
“I know. You’re a genius. Go order them some tickets to Rome.”
“But what if they don’t want to go to Rome?” asked Iris.
“They don’t know what they want,” I said.
Gerald flew down and landed hard on the English button while the humans were consulting their phones.
“Hey,” said the man. “It just turned to English.”
I slapped my forehead. I didn’t know if Gerald was a genius, but he was smarter than those two.
“Quick, do something, Fred,” said the woman. “Before it goes back.”
Fred didn’t have a chance. Gerald was on the prompts too fast. He chose two tickets—first class, naturally—for the earliest available train, a fast one, taking only an hour and forty-five minutes to the Rome Termina
l.
“This machine is messed up. It put us on a train to Rome. I didn’t even push a button.” Fred’s finger was poised over the exit button.
I stood up and yelled in the woman’s ear. “You want to go to Rome! Go to Rome!”
We all started chanting. “Go to Rome! Go to Rome!”
“Wait,” she said. “Why not?”
“I thought you wanted to go to Sienna, Sal?” asked Fred.
Sienna? You people weren’t even close.
“Go to Rome!” I yelled so loud, my throat burned.
“We’re supposed to be spontaneous. This is a sign. Let’s go to Rome,” said Sal, grinning at her husband.
“Whatever you say, baby.” They kissed as Gerald stomped on the pay button.
“We’ll have to hurry,” said Fred. “That train’s leaving in a half-hour.”
“Quick, get your card out,” said Sal.
Paying wasn’t a problem with Gerald handling the prompts. Fred and Sal got their tickets and rushed off toward the tracks. We hid in Sal’s hair and the dragons made themselves as inconspicuous as possible. The de’ Medicis did figure out that we’d go to the station, but they were looking for flying dragons up high over the crowds of humans, not hanging on a backpack. We passed under their noses. Our new humans got on the car and found their seats.
“Oh my god, this backpack is so heavy,” said Sal. “I’ve got to get rid of some stuff.”
The dragons flew off and landed on the armrests between the big blue seats. Fred took the pack from her. “It’s not that bad.”
“You don’t know.” She rubbed her shoulders.
He gave her a weird look and stuffed the backpack under the seat before plopping down. “You know, I think it was a sign.”
They kissed again and we flew down to the dragons.
“Where will we get breakfast?” asked Horc.
“I’ll find something,” I said. “They probably have a dining car.”
On cue, Fred pulled something called a Luna Bar out of his jacket pocket. Horc went wild.
“Iris, can you get him a crumb?” asked Volotora with a look at me.
I nodded and Iris flew under a hail of orders from the greedy spriggan.
To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five) Page 29