by Brian Farrey
“Can’t I be the kind of hero who doesn’t climb trees?” I asked.
“You could. But where’s the fun in that?”
I steadied myself and took her hand. Soon I was on the low branch. We didn’t stop there. Together, we worked to go higher and higher. She scampered up with ease. I almost fell only twice. Or three times.
Okay, I lost count.
Each time, she grabbed my wrist and wouldn’t let go. We disappeared into the thick, shadow-dappled leaves until we could go no farther and our heads popped out of the top of the tree.
“Bangers!” I whispered.
From here, we could see the whole of Vengekeep. The only buildings taller than the tree were the town-state hall to our right, the clock tower straight ahead, and the turret marking the town mage’s house behind us. Twinkling candles in the streetlights dotted the empty roads. I could see the far watchtowers that guarded Vengekeep’s southern borders, the farthest point of the town-state. And all I could think about were the people who still believed in us, sleeping soundly in the knowledge that the Grimjixes were here to protect them.
I wanted to vomit.
We sat on the highest branch, pushing the leaves out of our way to get the whole view.
“You did it,” I said. “You got me to climb the tree.”
“No, you did it,” she said, poking me in the ribs. “If klutzes can climb trees, who says thieves can’t be heroes?”
I blushed. “I suppose this means I need to start your thieving lessons. So tell me, Miss Strom, what will you do with your new skills?”
Her eyes sparkled. “I’ll tear up all my lady dresses, say good-bye to the widow Bellatin, and become a night bandit. I’ll roam the countryside, pillaging wherever I go.”
We laughed and I almost fell. Almost. She grabbed my arm to hold me in place. And she didn’t let go.
My eyes rested on the tall turret in the distance. If Lotha was still around, he probably would know a spell to stop this mess. But he was dead and Talian, his replacement, wouldn’t be back for a while. So all we had to rely on was—
A lump caught in my throat. I thought about what Nanni had told me the other night about being valuable to the family. Everyone—Ma, Da, Aubrin—had their specialties and I had mine: beating magic with nonmagical means. In all our talk about plans to stop the prophecies, I’d forgotten about that. I did still have something to contribute.
“Callie,” I whispered to the darkness, my gaze never leaving the turret, “you ready to learn how to pick a lock?”
8
Quarantine
“Slashing your own throat and sharing a secret produce the same results.”
—Lorris Grimjinx, inventor of the rubyeye
“If this is my lock-picking lesson, I want my money back.”
Shivering in the cool night air, Callie stood behind me, holding a candle near the lock on Lotha’s front door. I knelt on the doorstep, rubbing a fresh batch of my blue paste on the lock.
“My great-aunt Illinda always said, ‘You pay what you get for.’”
Callie scowled. “What does that mean?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? Mad as pants, old Aunt Illinda.”
“You’re not even picking the lock. You’re … spreading goo on it.”
“Patience, apprentice. It’s a mage’s house,” I explained. “Magically sealed.” I gave the lock a quick touch. The faint vibration had stopped.
Callie crouched at my side as I demonstrated the fine art of lock picking. I slipped my picks through the small hole and showed her how to feel around for the tumblers inside. My fingers twisted, moving the picks up and down, side to side. But each attempt to move the tumblers ended with the picks slipping from my fingers to the ground.
When I was just about to give up, Callie whipped her hair back and said, “I think I get the idea. Here.” She handed me the candle and slipped the picks into the hole. Her thin fingers wiggled and a moment later, the lock gave a soft click and the door popped open. Callie grinned.
“Yes,” I said, with a quick nod, “that was … well, not bad for, you know, your first time. Shall we go in?”
We explored the house. It was all very fancy—polished wood on the walls, everything lined with either copper or silver. Some of the fancier items—sculptures and paintings—bore protective sigils that told me not to bother stealing them. Touched by anyone but the caster of the spell, those sigils could do nasty things.
“So, what are we looking for?” Callie asked. “We can’t use magic.”
“Books,” I said. “Journals. Notes. Any information Lotha might have had about fateskein. The more we know, the more likely we can use the Formulary to find a nonmagical solution.”
Callie pulled a throw from the back of the sofa and tossed it over her head like a mage’s cowl. “I believe Vengekeep is in need of a town-state mage. Pleased to be of service.”
I bowed humbly. “Allow me to show you around, milady.”
We played in the upstairs dining room, sitting at each end of the table, pretending to pass each other snifters of glintflower brandy and speaking of “the simple people.” We took turns rolling on the very soft bed in the master bedroom. Finally, we got to the double doors at the end of the upstairs hall and walked into the room beyond.
The library. Easily the biggest room in the entire house. Bookcases thrice my size lined every wall, each one filled to bursting with ancient tomes. I hadn’t expected there to be quite this many.
“It’ll take forever to look through all these,” Callie moaned.
“We don’t have forever,” I reminded her. “We have until mooncrux.”
We spent a solid hour poring through the books. I started a pile on the small round table in the room’s center for books that had potential. I had no idea how many I could realistically take with me. Talian would return from the Trials soon. With so many books filling the shelves, too many gaps would be conspicuous.
When we were too exhausted to open another book, we gathered five of the books I deemed most valuable and made our way downstairs again.
We slipped out of the house and into the streets. At the next crossroads, Callie turned left to head home and I turned right.
“See,” she said, before leaving, “if you’re not careful, Jaxter Grimjinx, you just might end up a hero after all.” Callie gave me a wink and took off down the dark street.
Back at home, I went upstairs to my room, kicked off my boots, and sank into bed. I was just about to fall asleep when I finally saw the flaw in my plan. The information in the Formulary was good at negating low-level magic. The formulas were useless against anything more powerful. And fateskein was the most potent stuff I’d ever seen. The chances of finding an answer were slim.
I looked out the window. Across the alley, I could see the ruined buildings up and down our street. I knew the prophecies wouldn’t stop until Vengekeep was destroyed. I closed my eyes and remembered what my cousin Kellis Grimjinx always said: From slim chances come fat rewards. For all our sakes, I hoped he was right.
Whenever we weren’t researching fateskein, I was teaching Callie how to be a thief. I read her stories from the Grimjinx family album about my ancestors’ greatest heists. She took to her lessons immediately and, in no time, became better at picking locks than me.
I had to give her to Aubrin, who started teaching Callie sleight of hand. The pair would sit in the park while I rummaged through Lotha’s books. Aubrin would hold up a blue stone. Callie had to pass her hand over Aubrin’s and replace the blue stone with a red one without Aubrin noticing. It didn’t come to her as naturally as picking locks, but it wasn’t long before Callie could make the swap swiftly enough so that Aubrin didn’t feel a thing.
But each time she succeeded, Callie would hold out the blue stone triumphantly and shout, “Ta-da!”
“Um, Cal,” I said, as Aubrin shook her head, “just so you know … Real thieves? Don’t say ‘ta-da!’”
The stress of trying to think like savior
s was taking its toll on the family. Late one afternoon, as Aubrin and I helped Nanni make supper, Da trudged in through the front door, exhausted from his day at the shop. He sank into his chair at the kitchen table.
“You know,” he said, “I miss the old days. Back when people avoided the phydollotry shop. Or I could at least scare away anyone who was curious. Now that we’re saviors, everyone’s stopping by. ‘How’s the shop today, Ona?’ ‘Can I make an appointment, Ona?’ If this keeps up, I’ll have to figure out what phydollotry is. And that means I’ll have to start … working! Who wants that?”
Aubrin passed him a glass of ashwine as he put his feet up. He’d just asked us all to pitch in ideas as to what phydollotry might be when Ma burst through the back door.
“I’ve got it!” Ma cried, going straight to Da.
We were all a bit surprised. Ma hadn’t been the same since the firestorm. She’d become listless, hardly talking anymore, taking naps at the oddest times during the day and staying up all night, staring out the window. She mumbled constantly that “her” tapestry was causing this. For the first time in several days, she seemed back to her normal self.
“What’s that, dear?” Da asked.
Ma turned to the rest of us. “The solution to our little prophecy problem. It’s so simple. Jorn’s only concern is the safety of everyone in Vengekeep. So let’s get everyone out of Vengekeep!”
We looked around at one another, eyebrows scrunched.
“Come again?” Nanni asked.
But Da was catching on. “An evacuation. Of course. Sounds like a perfect idea. We get everyone to pack up their essentials and we start a massive caravan to … I don’t know where. Surely some town-state will take in a few refugees.”
The more we talked, the more the idea blossomed. Ma started writing down thoughts on how to approach Jorn. He wouldn’t like the idea—he’d probably see it as a way for us to empty out the town so the Grimjinxes could have free pick of everyone’s belongings … which actually wasn’t a naff-nut idea. But if we used reason, he would probably come around. If he was going to buy it, we’d need a very specific plan, so we went about plotting the exodus of Vengekeep.
Just then, we heard pounding at our front door. I opened it to find Maloch, in his training armor, flanked by two full-fledged members of the stateguard.
“BYORDEROFTHECASTELLANTHEGRIMJINXFAMILYWILLCOME—”
“Why are you shouting?” I asked, grimacing and poking my ear with my finger. “We’re right here in front of you.”
“BYORDEROFTHECASTELLAN—”
“And could you slow down?” I said. “Really, Maloch, it’s like you’ve got marbles in your mouth.”
“BYORDEROF—”
Ma rolled her eyes. “Oh, please don’t make him go through it again, Jaxter. I think we’re supposed to go with him to meet the Castellan.”
Maloch scowled at me, did an about-face with the stateguards, and led the whole family down the street. Moments later, we approached the city gate. I saw several guards gathered atop the main watchtower, looking down the other side. We followed Maloch up a staircase to the battlements. From the defensive walls, I looked out into the valley and up at the hilltops that surrounded Vengekeep.
“By the Seven!” I breathed. “Look!”
Rows and rows of armored troops formed a living wall along the ridge of the valley in the distance. Behind the barricade of soldiers stood an array of catapults, trebuchets, and battering rams. As I turned around in place, I saw that this wall of force had completely surrounded the town-state.
“Are we under attack?” Da asked. We all traded glances. That wasn’t in the tapestry.
Maloch sniffed. “Hardly. They were sent by the High Laird.”
I squinted into the setting sun. Sure enough, the standards the troops flew bore the purple and black colors of the Provincial Guard, the High Laird’s personal army.
“There you are!”
Castellan Jorn, brow sweaty and crimson, marched over to meet us. Before we could speak, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the main watchtower. Looking over the edge of the wall, I saw four men atop mangs. Three were soldiers. The fourth was dressed in purple, flowing robes that identified him as a member of the High Laird’s cabinet. He wore a feathered hat, shaggy beard, and pointed-toe boots.
“They’re here, Chancellor Karadin!” Jorn declared to the herald. “This is the Grimjinx boy … Jazza.”
“Jaxter,” I corrected.
Jorn scowled. “Whatever. This is the family I told you about. The family in the tapestry.”
The Chancellor seemed unimpressed. “Yes, I can see that,” he called up. “It changes nothing.”
“Castellan,” Ma whispered, “what’s going on?” The Chancellor acted as the voice of the High Laird, enforcing his will throughout the Provinces. His arrival—and that of what looked to be the entire Provincial Guard—couldn’t be good.
Jorn pointed down to the Chancellor. “Go ahead. Tell them what you were just telling me.”
The Chancellor sighed a belabored sigh, removed a parchment from a leather tube, and made a great show of reading it. “‘By decree of the High Laird, the town-state of Vengekeep is henceforth forbidden from making contact with the outside world until such time as the curse that has befallen—’”
“Curse?” Nanni called down to the Chancellor. “What are you talking about, Fancy Robes?”
The Chancellor glared. “News of Vengekeep’s recent and forthcoming woes has reached the High Laird. He has consulted with the Lordcourt at the Palatinate, and the High Laird has come to the conclusion that the disasters afflicting Vengekeep are the result of a powerful curse. In order to protect the rest of the Five Provinces from becoming afflicted as well, it has been ordered that everyone who lives in Vengekeep shall be confined there until the effects of the curse as outlined in the prophecies have run their course.”
The Palatinate had supreme control over all mages, but they answered to the High Laird. They acted as counsel in all things magical. Somehow, they’d come to believe Vengekeep was cursed.
Curses, like fateskein, were highly dangerous things. Very rare, but everyone in the Five Provinces took them seriously. Cursed people were often confined to their homes. Curses were like diseases: easily spread. So it was understandable that precautions were taken.
Only Vengekeep wasn’t cursed. And quarantining an entire town-state had never been done before. Certainly not with as much firepower as the High Laird had sent to enforce the quarantine. But there was no way to convince anyone that there was no curse. The Palatinate wouldn’t risk sending someone to investigate, because the investigator could become cursed as well.
“This is mad,” Ma spat to no one in particular.
But her words reached the Chancellor’s ears and he squared his shoulders. “This is the will of the High Laird. He seeks only to protect his Provinces.”
“As well he should,” Jorn said, attempting charm to appease the High Laird’s spokesman. “But as I explained, this family has been singled out as the … protectors”—he could barely say the word—“of Vengekeep.” He turned to me and hissed. “Show him the birthmark.”
“He’ll never see it from all the way down—”
“Show him the birthmark!”
I glanced at Ma, who rolled her eyes. I pulled my tunic away from my shoulder and bent over so the Chancellor could examine me.
Jorn poked the four-pointed star until it became even redder. “Surely there is no evidence that a curse can be countermanded by the existence of a savior? Which clearly indicates that it’s not a curse.”
Jorn had abandoned the charm and was spitting words through his clenched yellow teeth. Still, the Chancellor seemed unmoved by Jorn or my birthmark or the Grimjinxes’ alleged role as Vengekeep’s redeemers.
“Instruct your people that they are not to leave this valley. The Provincial Guard has orders to kill on sight if anyone tries to escape. That is all.”
Before Jorn could
protest further, the Chancellor turned his mang, and he and his escort of soldiers made their way up the rocky road toward the army on the hilltop. Jorn’s shoulders deflated and I actually felt sorry for him. It wasn’t going to be easy relaying the Laird’s decree to the populace of Vengekeep. How do you tell a people already under one threat that their own sovereign would rather see them die than give them a chance at survival?
Jorn dismissed us with a wave of his hands, and we took the stairs back down into the streets.
“So much for the evacuation,” Ma mumbled. The sadness returned to her eyes, and she didn’t say another word all the way home.
That night was quiet in our house. Ma didn’t touch her dinner. She sat in the living room, staring into the empty fireplace. Da did his best to make her happy, cracking jokes and reminding her we had several strong plans in place to beat most of the prophecies. But after a few hours, Ma rose silently, went upstairs, and closed the bedroom door behind her.
I grabbed my satchel filled with Lotha’s books and made for Cloudburn Park. Squinting as the light from both moons shone down, I dove into the books. I read and read until my eyes burned, more determined than ever to find an answer.
I had more than Vengekeep to save.
9
Reclaiming Fate
“If it’s right for the con, it’s right for you.”
—Ancient par-Goblin proverb
Ma got worse in the following weeks. Her face grew thin, her eyes sunken. She spent most days in bed, barely able to lift her head. Nanni and I took over running the household, seeing that everything stayed clean and well stocked. Da closed the phydollotry shop until further notice and put all his energy into thinking up ways to fend off the prophecies.
We discovered that being saviors didn’t pay much. Nothing at all, in fact. Aubrin became our breadwinner, taking daily trips into crowded areas and coming back with enough copperbits to keep us from starving. The plan to infiltrate the butcher Lek’s vaults had long been forgotten.
The mood of the town-state grew darker. Vengekeep had always relied on bartering with other cities for essential supplies. The quarantine made such trading impossible. Some predicted we couldn’t sustain ourselves for an entire year, that unless we were able to get provisions from the outside, we’d starve. Just one drought—something mentioned on the tapestry—or one bout of mag-plague to wipe out the cattle, and we’d be finished.