A Sliver of Stardust

by Marissa Burt

  Wren’s anger was spent. Her jealousy, too, and she found herself glad to see Simon. She wondered what she should tell him, when she landed on the truth. “I felt like I had to run, you know?”

  “Why do you think I do cross-country?” Simon said, grinning at her. “I had no idea you were so fast.”

  They walked toward the falcon mews in companionable silence. Liza and Jack were tiny silhouettes in the distance.

  “Sorry I ran off like that.”

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” Simon said matter-of-factly. “You should be happy. Each time you use the stardust, more of your weather-changing capabilities manifest.”

  Wren’s laugh came out like a laugh-sob, and she worked to control her breathing. “Did you ever imagine anything like this, Simon? Back when we were home, I mean?” Somewhere in the distance, a rumble of thunder rolled toward them. “Look at us. Here I am with this weather-changing thing, and here you are all instant best friends with all the falcons. What is happening to us?”

  Simon shoved his hands in his pockets. “I think it’s pretty cool. Imagine all the good you could do to address climate change. Stopping global warming. Eliminating drought. Predicting tsunamis.” He grinned. “You’d be like a walking seismograph.”

  “I guess so.” Wren saw his point, but it wasn’t the science stuff she was worried about. Climate change she could deal with. Tectonic shifting—no problem. It was the weird impossible-to-logically-explain dreams. The frightening man who said she belonged to him. How real it all looked. How in that black-and-white world nothing she did seemed to matter: no matter what she said, no matter how deeply she breathed or how hard she worked to control her response to stardust, she couldn’t escape the dreams.

  SIXTEEN

  Little King Boggen he built a fine hall,

  Smooth words and sly ways, that was his wall;

  His rhymes were all made of spells black and white,

  And coated with poison—you ne’er saw the like.

  It was hard for Wren to remember how overwhelming the Crooked House had seemed back when she first arrived. Now, after many afternoons of work assignments, she found herself quite at home in the twisty passageways. The Crooked House had been created around a network of caves inside the mountain, and it reminded Wren of a giant anthill. Stolen moments spent exploring with Jack and Simon had revealed countless forgotten tunnels, most of which had been blocked off by rocks. The ones still in use spiraled up the cliffside where stone staircases cut into the steepest spots. Some opened up to jagged exterior balconies, and others led to the interior spaces that were the hubs of Fiddler activity. The Opal Sea ran through the biggest cavern, situated about halfway up the cliffside, and the openings above and below housed laboratories or sleeping quarters and far down at the bottom, the kitchens and laundry, where Wren now stood, eyeing the large grandfather clock that showed her Mary was once again late.

  Two days a week were designated as full workdays for the apprentices in the Crooked House, and at this point, most of the Fiddlers had already given their apprentices assignments. The workroom was emptying and, as usual, there was no sign of Mary.

  Elsa stood in front of the huge open hearth, studying the row of leftover apprentices with obvious malicious glee. “I see your Fiddlers are otherwise occupied,” she said, giving Wren a wolfish smile. “I imagine I can come up with some important tasks. You there,” she said to a tall thin boy. “You’ll be cleaning out the chimneys.” She made a note on a long piece of paper spread over the table in front of her.

  “But, I . . .” the boy began.

  “But?” Elsa said, the pen pausing over the paper. “But an argumentative apprentice would like to learn discipline? Scouring the dungeon, perhaps, instead of chimney cleaning?”

  “No, Fiddler Elsa,” the boy mumbled as he was matched up with another boy who was just as tall as him and twice as wide.

  “There’s no way we can even get partially inside a chimney,” Wren heard the first boy say as they left to begin their assignment.

  “Where is Mary?” Wren whispered to Simon. “Have you seen her lately?”

  “Not since last workday.” Simon stared back over his shoulder as though that would make Mary appear.

  “Probably too busy for us,” Jack said, his voice hard. Jack had taken a cynical turn toward Mary, for which Wren could hardly blame him. The few minutes they actually saw her, she was either giving them orders or Elsa was hovering nearby, which meant that Mary had only scolding words for them.

  “You will clean out the falcon pens,” Elsa said to two girls Wren’s age who were the only ones who managed to make the apprentice cloaks look glamorous.

  “The laundry for you, I think,” Elsa said to a slight girl. “Jill can take you.” Wren watched the girl and poor, beleaguered Jill make their way out of the kitchen. She could hardly look at Jill without feeling like crying. It was horrible enough to be bossed around by Elsa. It would be ten thousand times worse to be her personal apprentice. No wonder Jill never talked.

  Another pair of apprentices got sent to rake the midden heap. An older girl was ordered to sluice the waterspout. Whatever that meant, they looked none too happy about it.

  Wren shifted her feet uneasily. There were only six of them left, and Elsa was eyeing Simon, Jack, and Wren as though she’d saved the best for last. Ever since their arrival, Elsa had been watching them closely. Wren had come to the conclusion that Elsa must think the apprentices were idiots, so she didn’t need to hide the fact that she was spying on them. Elsa’s friends would stop them in the passageways of the Crooked House to interrogate them, and once another apprentice had been skulking around outside her room when Wren returned early from a lesson. Until now, it had been a sort of a game between Jack, Simon, and Wren to see how they could outwit Elsa’s maneuvering. But now it seemed that they were out of luck. They would be under Elsa’s complete command.

  “Ah.” Mary’s most welcome voice floated into the kitchen. “Elsa, thank you so much for filling in for me, but I see I’m just in time to monitor my apprentices.” Mary’s countenance was as calm and collected as usual, but there were fine little lines around her eyes.

  Elsa looked pointedly at the clock. “The workday assignments were to be given out a quarter of an hour ago.”

  “Right you are, as always,” Mary said brightly, gathering Wren and the boys by the shoulders and sweeping them out in front of her. “I’ll make sure to add extra time to their work detail.”

  “See that you do.” Elsa jabbed the pen at her paper. “And where will they be working? I need a complete accounting.”

  “They’ll be working in the repository. The research logs there are a horrific mess, and who, I ask you, has time to sort through centuries of scribbling?” She gave Elsa a wink. “Apprentices do, that’s who.”

  Elsa looked slightly placated. “Very well. But keep in mind that hard physical labor tends to be more productive for character formation. Section ten of the apprentice manual.”

  “Of course,” Mary said. “The repository will also need a good scrubbing, so make sure to note that down on your little sheet.”

  Mary grinned at Wren as they ducked out of the kitchen and into the main passageway. After they wound down the spiral stone staircase for several levels, she led them out onto one of the exterior balconies.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay long with you,” she whispered. “The Council is meeting today, and they will no doubt make some foolish decision without me there to help them see sense.”

  “What has the Council decided so far?” Wren blurted out. “What have they found out about Boggen?” This was the first time they might actually have a real conversation with Mary. No spying Elsa to overhear. Nothing but wide-open air. From where Wren stood, she could see out over the whole landscape, down to where wind-tossed ocean waves met the green valley that housed the falcon mews.

  “They’re trying to decide what to do about the Magicians.” Mary spoke in a low whisper. �
�The Council knows that some Fiddler, or perhaps a whole contingent of Fiddlers, has been in contact with Boggen.”

  “What?” Jack said in a too-loud voice.

  Simon, too, looked astonished at the news, and Wren tried to hide the fact that she already knew as much. Apparently, Cole hadn’t felt the need to interrogate the boys.

  “It seems that after the Civil War, Boggen left Earth altogether,” Mary said. “We thought he and his followers died, but we were wrong. We of all people should have known to look for conclusive proof.” Mary opened the door a crack and peeked back into the corridor to make sure no one was coming.

  “But what is Boggen trying to do?” Wren’s mouth felt very dry. “What would these Fiddlers who’ve contacted him be trying to do?”

  “That’s the very question,” Mary said. “I’m trying to find out, but we only have the things hidden in his message to go on, and those lead in a hundred different directions. The image of the lightning striking the mountain, for instance. Was that a description of something that happened back in the Fiddler Civil War or a prediction of the future? The same with the blue pendulum. It could mean several different things, but no one seems to know anything.” She set her lips in a thin line. “At least no one’s saying they know anything. I am sure I can trust you three, which is why I need your help.”

  “Our help?” Simon echoed.

  “Yes. I’m trying to find something, something that I think will help us discover where Boggen went, which is the first step toward deciphering what he now intends to do.” She urged them closer, and they huddled together against the cold wind that whipped around the ledge. “The Magicians had been planning to leave the Crooked House for ages. As best we can tell, they used the stardust to travel somewhere else, which makes sense given that one of the images in Boggen’s message is certainly a gateway. Gateways are referenced everywhere in his notes,” she said almost to herself. “But nothing about where one was or how they created it.”

  “A gateway to where?” Simon frowned.

  “Aren’t you listening?” Mary said. “We don’t know. But according to Boggen’s notes, once they used the gateway, they planned to lock it up somehow, so none could follow. They hated the restraints the Alchemists had put on stardust, the way we limited their power. When the tide turned against them in the Civil War, the Magicians came up with another plan. They decided to begin anew, to start a colony somewhere they could be free to do as they pleased with the stardust. It is clear that back then Boggen meant to leave Earth forever. The question is what he intends to do now.”

  “And you think this gateway is just lying around somewhere, undiscovered for a couple hundred years?” Jack sounded doubtful. “Don’t you think a Fiddler would have found it by now?”

  “We thought Boggen was dead, and the entire Crooked House rejoiced over it,” Mary snapped. Then she sighed and lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m just frustrated. Boggen was my apprentice; not only did he ruin his own future, but mine as well.” She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders.

  Wren moved closer. “But what does it do? A gateway, I mean, and what will you do with it once you find it?”

  “I won’t do anything with it,” Mary said. “If the Council is right, and someone in the Crooked House has made contact with Boggen, it’s possible that he or she is on the hunt for the gateway as well.” She chewed her lip, as if deciding whether to go on or not.

  “And?” Jack prompted.

  “Gateways are portals between places.” Mary picked up two stones. “Imagine I am here at the Crooked House.” She set the stone down. “And I want a quick and easy way to get back to Pippen Hill.” She took two strides and placed the other stone down. “With enough stardust and enough skill, I could make a gateway, a place where time and space is compressed, allowing me to pass from the Crooked House to Pippen Hill as simply as taking a single step.” She stood between the two. “In general, gateways are open to anyone who can use stardust, but what if I didn’t want a Fiddler to show up uninvited to Pippen Hill?” Mary kicked the farther stone, and it skittered off the ledge.

  “Can you hide the gateway?” Simon asked. “Disguise it like you do Pippen Hill?”

  “That won’t work on other Fiddlers,” Mary said.

  “What about locking it?” Wren suggested. “So only the people you wanted could pass through.”

  “And how would they do that?” Mary looked pleased at their deductive work. “How does anyone pass through something that is locked?”

  “They need a key,” Jack said slowly.

  “Exactly.” Mary blew on her hands and rubbed them together to fight off the cold. “When Boggen and the others left, they locked the gateway, sealing it from this side so that no one could follow them and, I would imagine, locking it on the other side, so that no one could pass back over. It’s how they’ve escaped detection all these years.” Mary let her hands fall to her sides. “The Council believes that something has happened, something dire enough that Boggen is trying to unlock the gateway. While he may be able to open it from his side—”

  “He needs someone from here to unlock this side!” Simon finished for her, clearly happy to have solved the puzzle.

  “The image we saw in Boggen’s message was of someone flying with a golden glowing object. Cole thinks that was the key, and Boggen hid it before he left so none could follow.” Mary’s face looked drawn and tired. “The question is, if Boggen is indeed desperate enough to reopen the gateway, what does he want?”

  “Why don’t we try to find out who he’s been contacting?” Jack said. He looked more excited than scared, like Mary had invited them to go on a great adventure. “Why not stop it before it even happens? Does the Council have any idea who it is?”

  Mary winced. “Right now, Wren’s the favorite.”

  Wren felt a twisting in her stomach, but it wasn’t only because Mary had confirmed her suspicions about everyone thinking she was helping Boggen. Wren thought back to her very first dream, the one with the man and the woman talking about someone hunting for a golden key. Was it possible? I see you, the man in her dreams had said. Her heart was beating fast, and no amount of deep breathing would quell the cold fist of fear clamping down on the back of her neck. Boggen wasn’t just involved with her dreams. Boggen was in them. What if the Council was right? What if she had been in contact with Boggen all along? Wren’s knees wobbled, and she wondered if she might faint. She took a few steps backward, feeling with one hand for the solid rock wall, and leaned up against it.

  Mary was watching her with the same sad expression on her face, but Wren couldn’t look in her eyes anymore. What would Mary say if she knew about the dreams?

  “So what do we do? Where do we look for this gateway?” Jack said, rubbing his hands. He might not have noticed Wren’s response, or he was trying to cover for her. Either way, she was grateful. “It’s about time we did something besides fly on falcons or make glowing lights,” he continued. “This is going to be awesome!”

  “I’m trusting in your instincts especially, Jack,” Mary said. “You’ve had uncanny luck in finding old objects—even in finding me—so whatever talent lies in you, use it.”

  “So are we going to fly through the aurora?” Jack asked. “Travel the world to hunt for the missing gateway?”

  “No,” Mary said in a businesslike tone. “You’ll be cleaning out the repository just as I told Elsa you would be. I don’t lie, Jack, whatever the Council says, and you would all do well to remember that. The only way to stay above the politics in the Crooked House is to tell the truth.”

  “Cleaning?” Simon groaned. “How will that help anything?”

  “When the room you’re cleaning is full of old Council notes, it can be a very helpful thing,” Mary said. “The repository is—”

  “The repository!” Jack interrupted. “That’s the place you visited when you came to the Crooked House last year.”

  “Something you would do well to keep quiet.” Mary gave Ja
ck a stern look. “But you have a good memory, Jack. I sneaked into the Crooked House last year, because the repository is full of valuable information that is often overlooked. You’ll be organizing records and scouring them for mentions of a gateway or a key. It’s unlikely you’ll find anything about Boggen there, but any scrap of information about gateways could prove useful. Any whisper of a Fiddler ever talking about a gateway. Any mention of a lock or a door. Anything that resembles a treasure map or chart with a portal. Anything that you even suspect might be relevant: you copy it down in these books.” She handed each of them little leather notebooks.

  “Why us?” Simon asked. “If this is so important, why are you having apprentices do it?”

  “Because whatever everyone else thinks about Wren,” Mary said, giving her a tight smile, “I know it’s impossible.” She had a shrewd look in her eyes “The only people I know for sure aren’t helping Boggen are the ones who have arrived at the Crooked House after he was already gone.”

  “The apprentices,” Jack said with a slow nod.

  “Exactly,” Mary said. “Any other Fiddler is suspect.”

  “Even Cole?” Wren asked, wondering if she should tell Mary about his interrogation.

  A flicker of something crossed Mary’s face, and then she tightened her jaw. “Even Cole. And that’s why I’ve given you this task. As important as it would be to find any forgotten knowledge about gateways, it is even more important to know who else might have been interested in them. Perhaps tugging on that thread will lead us to Boggen’s new friend.” She pointed to the notebooks in their hands. “You’re also looking for a rhyme. Gateways can only be opened with a unique rhyme crafted by their creator. So search any rhymes you find for mention of gateways or maps or travel or golden keys.” She then produced a pail from a cupboard near the door, full of scrub brushes and old rags. “Do some cleaning while you’re at it.” She held up a hand to forestall their groans. “Or not, if you choose, but you’ll have Elsa to answer to. Don’t think she won’t check up on you three.”