by C. R. Grey
“Mr. Quindley!” Shonfield called out. But Hal moved faster and with more agility than Bailey had ever seen him, running across the benches between locker rows before anyone could stop him. Bailey and his friends followed not too far behind as he busted through the front doors and onto the Scavage pitch. Sure enough, there was a badger emerging from the nearby woods, laboring across the field. Hal ran to it and knelt down just as the animal collapsed in his arms. It was one of Uncle Roger’s kin.
Roger, Digby, and the familiar faces of the RATS followed. Bailey and his friend cheered, and tore across the field to meet them. But he nearly stopped in his tracks when he saw a hare hop up the crest of the hill, sniffing the air as it regarded him.
Longfoot. His dad’s life-bonded kin.
And behind him, there were his mom and dad—just as he’d left them in the Lowlands. His dad’s hair was a familiar mess of curls.
His mom dropped everything she was carrying and ran toward him. “Bailey!” she called, just like she used to when she would coax him outside to enjoy the heavy autumn rains. His own feet carried him forward quickly, and before he knew up from down he was in his mom’s arms. She lifted him off the ground a few inches. Emily wasn’t tall, but she was strong. His dad was a split second behind and wrapped the two of them in an even bigger hug.
“We were so worried!” Herman said. “Where have you been?”
Bailey felt his mom’s tears against his face. “After Viviana Melore’s Progress Fair, we—”
But his mom gasped before he could finish, and tumbled out the story of how his father had been scouring the nearby towns for any Fairmount students and teachers who might know Bailey. When the Dominae started to take over the Lowlands, a handful of locals found the tunnels and led all the townspeople there.
“And by some miracle of Nature, we met the RATS and now we’re here!” his mom cried, squeezing him even tighter.
Bailey knew intuitively that Taleth was stalking toward him. He pulled back from his mom and lowered himself onto the ground to see his kin coming down the field, her ears back and her tail lowered. Everyone else on the field paused to watch her, and the closer she got, the harder his parents clutched him. But even they sensed something was happening.
Ten feet away, she stopped and lay down on her stomach—her paws extended in front of her. Bailey turned back to his parents and motioned his head toward Taleth. “Come on,” he said gently. He grabbed his mom’s hand and she grabbed his dad’s, and together, all three of them walked toward Taleth. She swung her tail back and forth softly. When they approached, he pressed his palm to her forehead, and felt how badly she wanted to put his parents at ease. He shared the sentiment.
“Mom, Dad,” Bailey said. “I had my Awakening….”
His mom burst into tears and pulled him into another hug.
“How about that,” his father kept repeating, putting his hand out for Taleth to nudge.
“You’re the one they’re talking about!” his mom said. “Tell us everything.”
And so right there on the field, he told his parents everything. “And you’ve met Tremelo?” he asked. “My professor?”
They shared a look of concern.
“About Mr. Tremelo,” Digby said from behind them. His face was crestfallen as he twisted his cap in his hands. “Not sure any other way to say this, except that he’s gone.”
PHI DREAMED MORE IN Defiance than she ever had before in her life.
She’d never slept well growing up, and now she tended not to remember dreams, except as slippery, quick images that darted through her waking mind just once, only to disappear as soon as she opened her eyes. But in Defiance, under the care of the Tully, she lost herself each night so deeply that when she woke, she was almost sad to see herself returned to reality.
She dreamed, each night, of flying.
“You’re healing well,” said the Tully one morning, just as Phi was opening her eyes. “Soon we’ll be able to deliver you to your friends.”
“WAKE UP!” Lukas called from the foot of the bed, as he had every morning. Phi groaned, not wanting the dream to shake off just yet. She’d been flying alongside Carin, over a vast forest. Ahead, the river twisted and turned like a curled blue ribbon.
“Let her be, just a bit longer, little lizard,” said the Tully to her son. “She’s dreaming of wings.”
On her perch by Phi’s bed, Carin squawked, as if in agreement. Phi stared at the Tully. How had she known?
“You’re among like folk here,” said the Tully in response to Phi’s silence. “There’s not a woman in Defiance who hasn’t once wished she were something besides herself.”
“How can you tell that about me?” asked Phi. She’d told no one about her secret: her desperation to become a bird. At times, she thought that Bailey had guessed, and Gwen as well. Tori, she knew, had read her journal. But they were her friends. In front of the Tully and Lukas, near strangers, she felt exposed.
“How could I not?” said the Tully. “Little thing like you, so uncomfortable in your own skin.”
Phi clenched the blankets in her hands. The Tully shuffled from one end of the tent to the other, carrying a pitcher of fresh water.
Lukas tilted his head at her. “But you can help, can’t you, Mam?”
“Help?” Phi asked. “Help how?”
“Make you into your kin!” Lukas said.
“I cannot,” said the Tully as she gave her son the side-eye. “The boy misunderstands.”
“I didn’t misunderstand anything!” Lukas argued. “There was the one time when you turned that woman in—”
“Enough, Lukas,” the Tully said firmly. Phi had never heard the woman call him by his given name. “Why don’t we finish up our morning chores and let her rest?”
“I am rested. I’ve been resting,” said Phi. “Please tell me.”
The Tully pinched her wrinkled lips together and breathed in through her nose. After what seemed to Phi to be a very long, tense moment, the Tully shook her head and opened the flap of the tent. She motioned her head for Lukas to follow. He stole a quick glance at Phi and hopped off the bed.
“See you later….” he said. Phi only nodded, her thoughts filled with what it could all mean.
The women of Defiance had insisted Phi rest, and rest, and then rest some more. She tried to help with collecting firewood or foraging for vegetables, but she’d been sent back to bed several times. In truth, she had only wanted to keep her hands busy to quiet her mind. She didn’t dare ask about the woman Lukas spoke of, the one whom the Tully helped—but she thought about her constantly.
By sunset she’d regained her strength, and found Lukas inspecting rocks on the outer skirts of the camp. When she arrived, he’d proudly showed her rocks of brilliant colors that he took with him from place to place, since it was true that Definance was a town that moved often. Phi inspected the rocks, judging them for herself to be truly beautiful. But there was an ulterior motive even she couldn’t deny.
“What you said earlier,” Phi started. “What did you mean? About your mam helping a woman?”
He turned back to his rocks, his back stiffening. “Mam said not to say.”
Phi lowered herself to sit on the soil, suddenly hit with a dizzy spell. She knew she wouldn’t press it. She’d worked herself up with myth and magic, and whatever she’d imagined was probably impossible. But even if Lukas wasn’t supposed to talk, he was eager to.
He spun around with a striped rock of deep red and white in his little hand. “I found this one the day the woman came,” he said in nearly a whisper. Phi leaned forward as he continued. “We were near the edge of the kingdom, near the Underlands. She was tired, I remember that—but lots of people who join us are tired.”
Phi nodded.
“But she was special, I guess. She wanted to change into her kin. I was there! Mam said she could help her, and called it ‘a forsaking,’” he said. “But she told the woman that she’d have to say good-bye to what was dearest to
her.”
Phi considered this—she thought she knew what it meant. She, the Phi that lived in this body, had a family and friends. Would she be able to communicate with them, if she became an animal? Or would she forget them? But something kept pulling her on—the wish she’d felt inside of her, for her entire life.
“And could your mam help this woman?” she asked.
Lukas nodded, his floppy hair falling in front of his eyes. “I helped her.”
Phi pulled her knees to her chest and went very still. “What happened?”
“We collected herbs all morning, and Mam pulled out her giant book and followed a recipe. I wasn’t there for that part. I only know the next day the woman was gone, but there were huge paw tracks from her tent….”
Phi felt as though even a breath could make what she’d just heard untrue. “Do you remember the herbs?” she asked.
Lukas looked away; she couldn’t see his face. “You want to try it for yourself,” he said.
“If I don’t try it, I’ll always wonder…” Phi said, trailing off. “I’ve lived my whole life thinking I don’t belong—that if I never get to experience what my kin feels, I’ll die. Of longing or sadness.”
She stopped herself, feeling silly for pouring her heart out like that in front of a child.
“I can’t help—I can’t get in trouble with Mam,” he said.
“I’d never want that,” Phi said, and she meant it.
Lukas started back up toward the tents, looking out at the darkness of the desert. He paused, and without turning he called back to her: “But I can tell you Mam keeps the book at the foot of her sleeping mat….”
“HE WAS TAKEN!” BAILEY yelled, conscious of how everyone backed away—as if he were a wild animal.
“The Velyn heard him mouth off before he left,” Roger argued. “‘Why bother trying to save the kingdom?’ he’d said. Then he disappeared in the dead of night.”
“The boy could still be right,” Merrit said, a sheepdog sniffing in circles by his feet. “We don’t know what the Velyn saw or heard.”
“Right!” Bailey said. “Surely he didn’t mean it. He was just blowing off steam, probably. Digby! Tell them!”
He shrugged nervously, wiping the sweat from his brow despite how cool the night air was. “Bailey, it’s hard to explain. I knew Tremelo as a child and sometimes he’d get an itch and need to scratch it. He hadn’t had a lot of supervision growing up. He was free to wander, so perhaps…”
Bailey paced back and forth. “He wouldn’t wander! Not at a time like this! We need to go and find him!” He wanted to burn off the anger, to run deep into the woods and find him right this second.
Taleth, for her part, had left to run through the woods. Best for everyone, he figured. They were agitated, but it didn’t mean that anyone needed to get hurt. She’d come back when she was ready and when Bailey was calmer. If he was ever calmer.
“I agree with Bailey,” Tori said. “No way he’d cut and run, not after what we saw at the Progress Fair.”
“And he was in the middle of tinkering with something to counteract the Dominae effects. Even if he wanted to leave this sorry lot, he wouldn’t leave a half-finished project!” Hal said, nodding furiously at his own point.
That sparked a big argument, with everyone talking over everyone else. Bailey suggested a search party, but the adults refused to consider letting him actually lead said search party. In the flurry of voices, Bailey noticed one was conspicuously absent. Gwen twisted a strand of red hair, looking at the ground with a thoughtful frown on her face.
“What do you think, Gwen?” he asked. It was one of those rare moments that there’d been a lull in the arguing, and now all eyes were on her.
She dropped her hand away from her hair and straightened up. “It’s—it’s hard to tell,” she stuttered. “He was under a lot of pressure. What if he did just leave?”
“But what if he didn’t!” Bailey said. “He could need our help! Because I know we need his if we want to actually defeat Viviana.”
He couldn’t believe that Gwen of all people could doubt Tremelo, after everything the Elder sacrificed for him.
A compromise was finally reached: they would spend the evening searching the school grounds for anything prophecy related—and in the morning they’d send out a small search party, including Bailey, to backtrack to the tunnels and see if Tremelo had left anything that might help them locate him.
The Scavage team quickly took to organizing itself as they searched high and low through the school, well past dinnertime to the chagrin of Mrs. Copse. They were looking for the symbol of peace the Loon’s book spoke of, but they had to take precautions in case the looters came back. The Sneaks and Slammers fanned out around the group, each player wary to spot any trouble ahead. The Squats, with Bailey and Taleth alongside them, formed a perimeter around the younger students, the way they would protect their team’s flag during a game. Shonfield had insisted she come along, and marched with Annika and the students, requesting head counts each hour of the search. The RATS and Bailey’s parents stayed with the remainder of the students back in the locker rooms, eager to rest.
“I’d never expected to think of myself as a military officer,” Shonfield mused. “But I suppose it’s not very different from being an administrator, is it?”
As for Bailey, the familiar parts of Fairmount he’d known—the square, the clock tower from where he’d jumped just months before, the dormitories—all looted. If he wasn’t already antsy about Tremelo’s disappearance, this wasn’t helping brighten his mood. He still couldn’t understand why anyone would believe he willingly abandoned them. That wasn’t the king Bailey knew.
Shonfield transitioned between military leader and principal. As she showed Annika the keystones of the school, she did so with pride, and Bailey could see that Annika listened with genuine interest.
“Really?” Annika asked. “Two hundred years old!”
“At least!” Shonfield said proudly of the gray stone that made up the fireplace of the library. “We’re standing in the oldest part of the school, the first thing built, really. For hundreds of years, students, teachers, and visitors alike have been surrounded by books and stones in this very spot. Funny how schools are so much like fortresses, don’t you think? And the army within its walls is the very knowledge that is learned, discussed, circulated—”
“Mrs. Shonfield!” Tori said, looking up at the principal. “You’re a genius!”
Their administrator’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise; it was uncommon for Tori to be so complimentary. “Why, thank you, Ms. Colubride, but really I’m sure I read that sentiment somewhere—”
But Tori was shaking her head excitedly, her snakes slithering back toward her through the crowd of students. “Did you all hear that?” she asked Bailey, Gwen, and Hal. “What if the ‘wise army’ from the Loon’s book isn’t a fighting army? What if it’s an army of knowledge—an army of books?”
“You’re onto something!” Gwen exclaimed.
“There are hundreds of books here!” Hal said.
“But what’s the best thing to read in preparation for battle?”
“A fighting manual?” Hal asked.
Tori nudged him in the ribs. “No. The politics and history section!”
“‘History repeats itself….’” Gwen said, quoting a long-known phrase.
Bailey’s chest expanded like a balloon; did they have the answer needed to finally decipher the Loon’s words?
“What are we waiting for?” he asked, and led the charge with Taleth up to the history section on the second floor, nearly tripping on books scattered across the stairs. They each pulled off armfuls of books at a time, as Shonfield implored someone to tell her what in Nature was going on. But the friends remained focused, and soon the rest of the students were flipping through pages and quoting any passages of the Melorian reign that might seem relevant.
As more and more books disappeared off the shelves and into the la
ps of eager readers, Bailey realized there was a shape carved into the stone wall—partially obscured by the books that remained. He put his own book down, opened to a section on agricultural reform and the debate to use animals to help plow fields.
“Where are you going?” Hal asked, but Bailey ignored him, now fixated on the shape. He removed books off the shelf, two or three at a time, until the shape started to become bigger. It expanded on the stone wall, and Hal began to help, until the shelves were empty and all that was left was a large crest of Melore—a slim, sharp pentagon—and at the very center, a sword affixed.
“Anting Nature’s eyes!” Tori said.
“Language,” Shonfield murmured, but everyone knew she didn’t care. The entire library was in a stunned silence, and Bailey felt frozen in his steps—finally facing the thing he’d sought this entire time. The prophecy that they’d pursued, that had cost them the company of both Tremelo and Phi.
“Go on!” Hal said.
Bailey reached for it and could feel the vibration strengthen as his hand came closer yet. When he grabbed the hilt, a jolt of power coursed through his body, the bond strengthened so that he felt Taleth’s presence like never before. She purred behind them. Bailey knew, intuitively, that it was made of the same metal as Viviana’s machine—but it was stronger, more powerful. And more important, if its bearer wanted to do good, then so would the metal.
The clock tower rang out—a sure sign of alarm, and for a moment it caused everyone to pause. From outside, Terrence, a Year Two Sneak, entered with the news.
“There’s some kind of fight happening in the woods just outside the school,” he said. “Alice saw a volley of arrows shot into the air, and the other side is launching rocks and cannonballs into the trees!”
“Viviana’s come back!” Gwen exclaimed.
“Did you see any of the fighters?” Bailey asked Terrence. “Can you describe them?”
Terrence shook his head. “We’ll have to get closer,” he said.
“You’ll do no such thing!” said Shonfield. All the students held their breath. “Not all at once, at least,” she continued. “We’ll need reconnaissance. Who here has avian kin?”