by Lisa Fiedler
The audience, Hopper saw now, was Marcy and the royal heirs. And they weren’t exactly “rapt.” But they were “wrapped.” In tightly knotted lengths of twine! He had to grab Zucker hard by the collar of his tunic to keep him from bursting forth to tackle the madmouse.
“Wait,” Hopper whispered, motioning to indicate Firren, who, still cloaked in the blue felt cape of the tunnel prophet, was now a foot ahead of them, close to the wall, circling her sword above her shoulder in tiny loops, a sure sign that she was preparing to pounce.
Dev’s voice exploded into the cavernous space. “Titus was greedy, and cruel,” he bellowed. “That deceitful, pompous rat pretended to like my father’s proposal, telling him they could work together to build a second metropolis, a twin city, here in the tunnels. When Titus boasted that he was already successfully establishing colonies all over the tunnels, and offered to show my father around the wonderful camps where future colonists were so comfortably and generously housed while they waited to begin their new lives, naturally, my father accepted. And then . . .” Here the mouse’s voice cracked and his step faltered. “And then—”
“And then you discovered the truth?”
Firren’s calm, lilting voice flooded the station, startling Dev, who whirled to face her, his eyes fiery, his muscles tense. When he realized who had spoken, he dashed toward the row of hostages and pressed the tip of his blade to the spot dead center between Brighton’s eyes. Brighton let out a strangled sob.
But Firren did not flinch; her eyes stayed firmly on her daughter’s captor, and her sword continued to twirl, stirring the dusty air into small, glittering motes.
“You discovered the truth,” Firren repeated, not missing a beat. “That there were no colonies, only certain death. Right?”
“Yes,” hissed Devon. “But not for all.”
“No.” Firren shook her head. “Not for all. We lived, you and I. And your sisters.”
Devon’s gaze flicked toward one of his captives, whom Hopper did not recognize. But Firren did.
“Hello, Celeste,” said Firren, still unruffled. To Hopper’s confusion, she sounded as if she were greeting an old friend.
“Your Majesty,” the mouse—Celeste—choked out.
“Do not dare to call her that!” hollered Devon. “There is nothing majestic about this selfish coward.”
“Hey!” said Zucker, striding forward, sword drawn, teeth bared. “That’s my wife you’re talking about, pal.”
Now Zucker turned to his children and forced a light tone, though Hopper could see the fury and terror in his eyes. “Everybody all right?”
“We’re all right, Father,” said Raz, his voice level. “Well, except that Brighton lost her glasses. And Fiske . . . well, you know him. Even though this is a serious predicament, he’s still joking around . . . you know . . . being a real cutup. It all has me almost at the end of my rope.”
Hopper was amazed when Zucker’s mouth quirked up. Was he actually grinning? How could he smile under such circumstances?
“And Go-go’s been very disobedient,” Raz went on. “She doesn’t seem to understand that I’m the one in charge.”
In the next second, Hopper was grinning too, realizing that Verrazano wasn’t simply tattling on his brothers and sisters. He was giving his father a message. He was speaking in code!
“Much as I hate to interrupt such a lovely father-and-son conversation,” Dev drawled, “I’m going to have to order you two to shut up!”
He pulled back his sword from Brighton’s face, only to thrust it toward Go-go, allowing it to hover just above her heart. Go-go gulped and her whiskers quivered, but she didn’t make a move.
Dev turned his scathing glare back to Firren. “Does your family know what you did to my little brother? Why don’t you tell them about it, Empress? Go ahead. Tell your little royal brood how, before you were a monarch, before you were even a rebel warrior in red and blue stripes, what you really were . . . was a monster.”
Firren glanced away as Dev’s scream ripped through the station. “Tell them, Your Highness! Tell them what you did to Ira!”
Firren took a long, slow breath, her expression turning grim and distant; to Hopper’s surprise, she lowered her weapon.
“We were in the hunting ground,” she began in a faraway voice. “My parents and I. My father claimed the silver cup for our hiding place, but when Devon’s father—Fiorello was his name—was ushered into the stadium with his four little ones, my parents immediately offered their space in the cup to the mouse pups.”
“Clearly, kindness skips a generation,” Devon sneered.
“I didn’t understand what was happening,” Firren went on, “but I knew that something terrible was coming. I could smell the fear. The entire hunting ground reeked of it. To take my mind off it, I decided to try and make conversation with these four little mice who’d just scampered into the cup with me. I wanted to make friends.”
Dev snorted.
Firren ignored him and went on with her story. “So I introduced myself. The first three told me their names were Celeste, Hazel, Devon. Last was Ira.” Here the rebel empress paused to smile sadly. “He was so tiny and sweet.”
“Like Hope?” asked Raz, swept up in his mother’s tale.
Firren nodded. “Just like our little Hope. I said, ‘Hello, I’m Firren.’ ”
“Yes,” seethed Devon. “And tell them what Ira said. Exactly what he said.”
Firren sighed. “He said: ‘M-m-my name is I-I-I . . . I-I-I . . . I-I-I.”
“Huh?” said Go-go. “Mother, I don’t understand.”
“Ira stuttered,” Devon snapped. “My little brother had a stuttering problem.”
Again, Firren nodded. “He was still trying to tell me his name when the doors were flung open. And he finally managed it . . . ‘I-I-Ira,’ he said . . . just as the first feral cat came stalking into the hunting ground.”
“It was awful,” Celeste recalled in a whisper. “The squealing and meowing. Claws, tails, whiskers . . .”
“And the blood,” Dev reminded her tersely. “Don’t forget the blood.”
“Yes, there was plenty of blood,” Firren agreed. “But we were safe. We huddled together inside that silver cup and we were safe. Until . . .” She trailed off as though it were simply too hard to remember.
“Until . . . ,” Dev prompted fiercely. “Tell them!”
“A calico swatted our cup with his tail. Ira . . . he fell out of the cup.”
At this revelation, Fiske let out a yelp of horror. Brighton gasped, and Go-go had tears in her eyes.
“Yes he did,” Dev confirmed. “My little brother fell out of the cup and tumbled into the bloody dirt. He called out for help. ‘H-h-help,’ he cried. ‘H-h-help!’ Of course, my sisters and I tried to rescue him. We thought maybe we could pull him back up into the cup if we formed a chain. It was quite clever of us, really. Celeste took Hazel by her hind paws, and then Hazel grabbed on to my hind paws and I lowered myself out of the cup to try to save Ira. I reached . . . oh, how I reached . . . but we were so small, and the mouth of the cup was just a bit too high above the ground. I stretched downward as far as I could. I was close, but I still couldn’t reach him. I was short, by a single arm’s length.” He turned to scowl at Firren. “That’s all we would have needed to save our little brother . . . one more arm’s length. One more rodent to attach herself to our chain.”
“Mother!” Verrazano gasped. “You didn’t . . .”
“You refused to help them?” Go-go’s voice was a whisper of disbelief.
“I didn’t refuse them,” said Firren. “But I didn’t help, either. I was petrified. Literally . . . petrified. I couldn’t move. I wanted to. I wanted to help them save Ira, but the sounds of that battle—the hissing and yowling, the bones crunching, the thuds of rodents being tossed into walls—those noises were right outside that cup, and because of that, I panicked. I froze!”
“Coward!” Devon hollered. “Pathetic, selfish coward!”
“Child!” Firren corrected calmly. “That’s what I was, Dev . . . a child, just like you were. Just like Ira. I was a child. And I was afraid.”
“So that’s your excuse?” Devon sputtered. “Youth?”
Firren shook her head. “It’s not an excuse. It’s merely a fact. A sad and tragic fact.
Devon removed the sword from where it was poised over Go-go’s heart. Then he spun in a circle, again indicating the beauty of the City Hall station. “Ira would have been a prince. Here, in this wondrous human castoff. He and my sisters and I would have been royal heirs, just like your litter. My father could have built this place into a flourishing society if he’d lived. But Titus took that all away. Just like you took Ira away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Dev strode toward Firren with wild eyes. “You’re sorry? Tell me, rebel, do you ever even think about my brother? Have you even once, before this moment, given Ira a second thought?”
Firren’s whispered answer made Hopper’s fur stand on end:
“Every. Single. Day.”
“Pssshhht.” Dev waved his paw dismissively, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “And when exactly do you find the time in your busy royal schedule to trouble yourself with remembering a poor, innocent little upland mouse who died because you were, as you say, a frightened child? Is it while you are sampling sugared morsels at the royal breakfast table, or perhaps when you’re enjoying a command performance in the gilded palace theater? Or maybe it’s while you’re having your paws manicured, or trying on the crown jewels?”
“I don’t waste my time with crown jewels or sugared morsels,” said Firren. “I’m more interested in making sure the citizens who trust in me to govern them are safe and prosperous.”
“And you expect me to believe that you remember a little mouse you only knew for a moment?”
“Yes, Devon. Because of all the moments of my life, that is the one that haunts me the most. Which is why I wear this.” She tossed back the drape of La Rocha’s blue cloak to reveal her silver cape beneath it, the one she once draped over a sleeping Hopper to keep him warm so long ago. “You see, I chose this fabric for a reason, Devon. I chose it because it reminds me of that silver cup. Not that I need reminding. I wear it more as a symbol of something I have vowed never to let happen again, which is that I will never fail to help another rodent who needs me, ever, for as long as I live. That is what I offer up to the memory of your little brother.”
Devon shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t you? Are you not aware of the call by which to summon my rebels to arms? I have a very specific battle cry. Perhaps you’ve heard it echoing through the tunnels.” Firren turned to her children, who were listening with wide eyes.
“How does Mommy call her Rangers into battle?” she prompted. “Tell him.”
Obediently four little voices cried out as one: “Aye, aye, aye!” they chanted; the chorus rang out in peals through the station. “Aye, aye, aye! Aye, aye, aye!”
Hopper’s heart quickened at the sound of it. And then he understood.
“Aye, aye, aye,” he said softly. “Like . . . I . . . I . . . I. For Ira.”
“For Ira.” Firren nodded. “I-I-I . . . for Ira. The name I will never forget. The victim to whom I will never stop apologizing in my heart, and to whom I will never cease paying tribute . . . the only way I can. ‘Aye, aye, aye’ is and always will be in honor of Ira. My fallen friend.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THERE IS NOT A SOUND in the station as Devon takes in this heartfelt apology. Against the wall, beside me, Celeste is weeping softly, silently.
I fix my eyes on Dev, wondering what he will do next. For a moment, no one moves; no one even dares to breathe.
And then he speaks a phrase I’ve heard from him before. “I never did put much stock in apologies.”
The noise he makes is unlike any I’ve ever heard before; it is a scream, but more than a scream . . . It is the sound of grief colliding with rage and it seems to shred itself from the deepest place in Devon’s broken soul. He lunges at Firren, his sword flailing before him. But his aim is true and the weapon finds its mark.
The lethal tip of it pierces Firren, slicing into the fur and flesh just below her shoulder.
She cries out and staggers, but before she even hits the ground, the royal heirs spring to their feet—their bindings have been severed, cut clear through by the sharp glass shards of Brighton’s broken spectacles. They are free! As one, the four of them charge the monster who’s stabbed their mother.
Dev is so caught by surprise that he almost drops his weapon; the children kick and swat and nip at him. Celeste and I, still tightly bound, can only look on in shock and horror. Hopper and Zucker have flown to the empress’s side; Zucker cuts away a piece of the blue cloak and attempts to stave the blood flow with it. Hopper removes his own tunic and bunches it beneath her head like a pillow.
“Be gone, brats!” Dev shouts, regaining his faulty grip on the handle of the sword. He swings it once, twice. Raz ducks, evading a blow, but Fiske takes a hit; the edge of the blade glances his snout and he howls. Again, Devon swipes his weapon. This time Brighton catches the hilt. She shouts, clutching her forehead.
Now Dev flings out a paw and grasps the collar of Go-go’s cotton dress. He yanks her out of the melee, separating both the child and himself from the fray. His sword sweeps around so that he has positioned it lengthwise, pressed against her neck.
The children immediately go still. They know he will slit her throat if they so much as spit at him. Slowly he begins to back away toward the wide staircase that leads, I presume, into the daylight world.
“Nobody come after me!” he warns. “Nobody move.”
And of course, nobody does.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IT HAD TAKEN SOME DOING, but Pup finally managed to pry open a small crevice along the edge of the grate that covered what he sincerely hoped would turn out to be one of the skylights that once graced the ceiling of City Hall station.
He was exhausted, but that had not stopped him from clawing and gnawing at the board, and then at the old grate that covered the glass. He and Hope had run for what felt like a million miles, all the way from the riverbank where their life preserver had come ashore at Frankfort Street.
There they had encountered a gray-and-white creature, beaked and feathered. And hungry.
“You ain’t fish,” the creature had said.
“No, we’re not,” Hope confirmed. “We’re mice. What are you?”
“Seagull.”
Pup had been afraid of that. The bird was enormous, with beady eyes and a sharp bill. Pup had believed, in that moment, their journey was about to come to an abrupt and unpleasant end.
But when the gull saw Hope’s foil bag, Pup discovered that seagulls not only preferred fish to mice, but given the menu option, they would also choose popcorn over rodent as well.
After Pup cajoled Hope (who was pretty hungry herself) into surrendering the foil bag, they made the trade, handing over the snack food in exchange for their lives and directions to City Hall Park.
“Head that way, ’til you see green,” the seagull said, bobbing his narrow head in a westerly direction. “Take Frankfort.”
Pup and Hope had done exactly that.
They’d run and run, and run some more, until their scraped and aching paws landed on the green grounds of the park.
There they’d scampered about until they’d found the grates, which, according to the literature Hope had studied back in the transit museum, covered the three wrought-iron skylights in the ceiling of city hall station.
Pup had attacked the corner of one until he’d opened a space large enough for them to slip through. Then, with a deep breath, they held fast to each other’s paws. . . .
And they jumped!
Just before they hit the ground, Pup wrapped himself around Hope, sparing her the impact of the hard cement floor.
&n
bsp; Pain shot through his body; he was certain one of his ribs had broken, and his left arm stung with pain. But Hope was safe. He’d protected her, and that had been his mission all along.
It took them both a few seconds to shake off the harshness of their landing, but the moment Hope recovered, she grabbed Pup’s arm and tugged him away from the wide open center of the mezzanine level of City Hall station. Before them, a wide, short flight of stairs led down to the platform.
And on the platform there was chaos.
Quickly they’d ducked behind the brick corner of the arched wall and peered out. On the platform below, they could see not only Devon—the quarry they’d set out to capture—but Hopper, Zucker, Firren, and all four of Hope’s siblings.
Pup felt a brief flash of joy at seeing so many familiar faces.
And then he saw the sword.
“Nobody come after me!” Dev commanded, his blade against a princess’s neck. “Nobody move.”
As the crazed mouse began to back toward the stairs, Pup saw that Dev’s pink uniform was now splattered with blood. Whose he could not say, but it definitely did not bode well.
Devon continued his slow march backward toward the stairs while Zucker and Hopper remained helplessly at Firren’s side. Zucker’s expression was filled with loathing for the mouse who had attacked his mate and was now making off with one of his children. If looks could kill, Pup realized, Dev would be dead already. But that was all that Zucker or any of them could do; if they even flinched, the lunatic mouse would take the princess’s life. So Zucker remained still, with his hateful gaze fixed on the escaping kidnapper.
Hopper, too, Pup noticed, was staring . . . but not at Devon.
He was staring at Pup. When Pup realized that the Chosen One had spotted him peeking out from the jog in the wall, he quickly averted his eyes. He could only imagine what Hopper might be feeling—after all, in many ways this whole catastrophe was Pup’s fault. If Pup hadn’t threatened Atlantia and the Mūs village, they would have never sent out a search party to haul him in. A search party that included the dastardly Devon, who was now climbing backward, slowly, carefully, up the broad steps to the mezzanine.