by Marissa Burt
Once she was through the window, Wren saw that the pipes against the wall indeed seemed to be some kind of messaging system, with a callboard and a flashing little flame that showed somebody on floor thirteen was using it. But she hurried on. They might already have lost the guards.
“Wren?” Jack’s hand smacked into her ear. “Oh, sorry.”
“We’ve got to figure out a better way of doing this,” Wren said. “Here, give me your hand.”
“What?” Jack sounded confused.
“Hold my hand,” Wren said flatly. This was not how she had imagined her first hand-holding experience with a boy would go, but there was nothing she could do about that. Finding Cole and Mary was too important.
Jack grabbed her wrist, but Wren shifted and slipped her hand into his. “This way we can stay together without being loud enough for the guards to hear.” She tugged Jack toward the doorway. “Or getting smacked in the head.”
“I said I was sorry!” Jack said as they stumbled out into a well-lit hallway.
“Shut up,” Wren said. She had been wrong. The guards hadn’t gone far. In fact, they were patrolling the hall right in front of them.
Wren watched the guards make a circuit. They walked the hall, turned a corner, and then returned within two minutes, paying special attention to each door along the way. A few more minutes passed, and then they returned, completing the same route like clockwork.
“Mary and Cole have to be somewhere back there,” she whispered to Jack.
“They sure aren’t leaving that area alone,” Jack said. He must have been scratching his skin, because little flakes of stardust were sparking in the air, and if Wren looked at just the right angle, she could see a flicker of his outline.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?” Jack sounded annoyed.
“Stop whatever it is you’re doing.” Wren reached over and grabbed what was becoming a clearly visible sleeve. “The invisibility mixture is coming off you.” She waited until the guards completed another circuit and then told Jack: “Now.”
They made their way to the crossroads, which was lit by lamps that glowed bright blue from behind arched glass ceiling panels—so bright, in fact, that Jack’s halfway-there arm floated along noticeably beside her. Wren was grateful the lamps weren’t candles or torches, or else they would both have been entirely visible.
“Let’s split up,” Jack whispered when the guards had rounded the corner again. “You go that way. I’ll try the other.”
“Be careful,” Wren said reluctantly. “They might not be able to see you, but they’ll still feel you if you bump into them.”
Wren made her way alone to a wide wood-paneled door and tried the handle. Locked. Of course Jack was nowhere to be found, now that she could have used his lock-picking skills. She lifted the flap near the top of the door and peered through the tiny window in the center, but to no avail. Either the room was empty or the guards liked to keep their prisoners in complete darkness.
The next door was much the same. They weren’t going to make any progress looking into dark rooms. Just then Wren heard the sound of metal on metal—keys jingling toward her. She pressed back against the wall. It wasn’t time for the guards to come this way! But no guards appeared.
The jingling drew nearer and nearer.
“You find them?” Jack asked, the black shadow of his sleeve waving in front of her face and producing a ring of keys out of midair.
“Where did you get those?” Wren gasped.
“I don’t only pick locks,” Jack said mischievously. “I pick pockets as well. Believe me, it’s a lot easier when your target can’t see you.”
“Jack!” Wren said in mock disapproval, but she was really only disappointed she hadn’t thought of it first.
“All those rooms are dark,” she said, pointing behind her. “Let’s try these.” Now that she was closer she could see a flicker of light coming from the crack under one of the doors. She grabbed the keys from the air and hurried toward it. The low sound of music drifted out. When she stood up on tiptoe to peek in, she saw not the dour prison she had expected, but a finely furnished room and a long table set with china and goblets. Seated at the head of it was none other than Cole. And next to him, Mary.
“What’s in there?” Jack asked, and Wren could feel him squeezing in close to get a look.
“Well, isn’t that nice? There they are feasting, while we’re barely making do.”
Wren didn’t bother to point out that Jack hadn’t exactly been starving back at the Nest.
“Hold on,” she said, feeling him tug at the keys. Mary looked older somehow, and the lines around her mouth were stark in the lamplight. Cole was sitting stiffly in his seat, his food untouched before him. They were alone. William and the soldiers who had captured them on the ship were nowhere to be seen.
“Well?” Jack prompted. “What are you waiting for?”
“Nothing,” Wren said.
The third key Wren tried fit into the old-fashioned lock, and she gave it a hard twist, hearing the tumblers engage. The sound was loud in her own ears, and the two figures at the table swiveled their heads toward the door like hawks hunting prey.
Wren stepped inside, tucking the keys in her fist to hide them.
“Who’s there?” Mary said, half rising to her feet. “William? Enough of your games.” Mary’s voice sounded strong, but lines around her eyes deepened.
“Let’s be done with this,” Cole said, putting an arm protectively around Mary’s shoulder. “We have not changed our minds, William. I’d sooner die than help you with your twisted research.”
Wren saw Mary reach for her stardust, could see a tiny flare of light when she began to work it in a rhyme, but then the dust sparked a dangerous-looking orange color and burst into flame.
“Ow!” Mary hissed, sucking on her finger.
“The shield is impenetrable,” Cole said. “Attempting to work the stardust will only further injure you.”
Wren moved closer. From the look of Cole’s skin, he hadn’t exactly stopped trying to use magic. His hands were covered with burn marks that matched the one Mary was nursing.
Cole and Mary were still barred from using stardust, and they were defiant toward William. That was all the confirmation Wren needed. Fancy dinner or not, Cole and Mary were indeed prisoners.
“Cole,” Wren said in a low voice. “It’s Wren. And Jack’s with me.” Behind her, the door swung shut.
“We’ve got to be kind of quick, though,” Jack said. “The guards are bound to notice that their keys are gone soon.”
“Wren!” Mary’s face broke into a smile. “We thought you were lost!” And then surprise: “Jack? What are you doing here?”
“We’re here to rescue you,” Jack said impatiently. “But we’ve got to hurry.”
Cole and Mary exchanged glances. “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Cole said in a grave voice.
“If only we could leave,” Mary said in a weary voice. “But many lives depend on our remaining here. If we come with you, William and Boggen will kill them.”
Wren and Jack sat on the floor near the table, and even though Mary and Cole couldn’t see them, they had circled their chairs to face them. In case any guards peeked in, it would look like Cole and Mary were merely having a quiet conversation. Cole told them how William had immediately offered to help Boggen in return for unlimited access to Nod’s research logs. With his newly granted authority, William had imprisoned Cole and Mary and demanded that they begin helping him run Boggen’s experiments. “As we suspected, what’s left of the stardust on Nod is now tainted. Boggen is exploring whether it can be used without extreme side effects.”
Mary frowned. “A Magician first tainted the stardust long ago. It seems she thought to create living stardust from the creatures here. It did not go well. I knew her as Svana, though she went by many names over the ages. Here, she is called Mother Goose.”
“Mother Goose!” Wren thought of all the nursery rhymes
she had read in preschool. “You mean she’s real?”
“I assure you she was. Poor Svana,” Mary said. “Her curiosity and intellect were unparalleled, but without limits they led her to dark places.” She shook her head sadly. “Her intentions may have been good—I don’t know—but William’s certainly aren’t. Boggen’s wells of stardust have been emptying, and now he’s appointed William to experiment with the tainted stardust.” The more Cole and Mary talked, the more it became clear that things were bad on Nod. The little remaining untainted stardust was rapidly disappearing from the wells, and with the gateway open, Cole and Mary feared what the taint would do as it grew.
Wren heard the shuffling sound of Jack shifting next to her, and Mary turned toward him.
“Did Boggen ever talk about any of this, Jack?”
“Why are you asking me?” Jack said in a hard voice. “Do you think he told me the truth about anything?” Wren was surprised at how bitter he sounded. Mary didn’t follow it up with a question, just let his words fall in the still room.
“Who knows what Boggen intended?” Cole said after some time. “But this new method of research—experimenting on kidnapped human subjects—is evil.”
Mary’s face grew drawn. “Magicians from the poorest parts of the city have been disappearing. Imprisoned until they are needed as human tests for William’s research.”
“Disappearing?” Wren echoed. She felt strange prickles up and down her spine.
Mary shook her head. “I don’t know where the prisoners are taken,” she said. “But the man in the cell next door is hunting for news of them. He’s one of a group of Magicians who want to overthrow Boggen. They call themselves Outsiders.”
Wren nodded slowly. “They have some kind of spies here in Nod.” She explained what little Vulcan had said about the Outsiders. Jack cleared his throat next to her. “What do you intend to do, Cole?”
“Me?” Cole shifted back in his seat. “Not much from here, I’m afraid. What you two have done to reach us is admirable and very brave, but we can’t go with you. William has us trapped here as surely as any prisoner.” He gave a halfhearted smile. “You saw how trying to work the stardust burned us? It would incinerate us if we were to try to escape.”
“So he’s just going to keep you locked up here forever?” Wren got to her feet. “That’s stupid. We’ll figure out a way to get you out of here. Rescue the others. Defeat the shield. Hide you in the city somewhere. Come back with more Alchemists. I don’t know.” Wren’s voice grew frantic as she realized the grown-ups actually intended to stay locked up in their little prison. In that moment she understood that she had been counting on the fact that once they found Cole and Mary, everything would be okay. Once they found Cole and Mary, she wouldn’t have to figure everything out on her own. Once they found Cole and Mary, somebody would be able to help her before it was too late and she lost her ability to work the stardust. Now she knew better. There wasn’t anyone else. She had to figure this out herself.
“As wonderful as rescue would be,” Cole said in a soft voice, “there are more important things at stake. Boggen’s, and now William’s, research no doubt centers around extracting living stardust. Their prisoners face an awful fate, and the repercussions of that kind of twisted magic could destroy the entire planet.” He shook his head. “There isn’t time to wait for help from Earth. The Crooked House has its own set of problems to deal with now that they know the gateway was destroyed.” He nodded, forestalling Wren’s questions. “I’ve been communicating with Astrid through dreams, and we’ll find no help from there anytime soon, I’m afraid. No. It isn’t the Alchemists who can help us now. It’s the Magicians.”
TEN
Goosey, goosey, gander
Whither dost thou wander?
Upstairs and downstairs,
And up and over yonder.
Wren didn’t know how much time had passed while they talked to Mary and Cole. After a while Mary drew Wren over to the far side of the room, where a beautiful wooden bureau stood under a round mirror. “It seems that many Magicians in the city don’t know about Boggen’s horrible research,” she said, taking her burned finger and scraping at the edges of a brick in the wall, “but the Outsiders do. They’ve known for several years that Boggen was testing tainted stardust on his prisoners and have worked to thwart his plans. You must do what you can to help them.” She leaned toward the wall, patiently wiggling the brick out of its place. Wren waited, staring straight in front of her. Despite the invisibility mixture, the mirror revealed Wren’s reflection, down to the look of surprise on her face. She hadn’t known that the magic didn’t extend to mirrors. That could have ended badly.
“Wren,” Mary said as she eased the brick farther out, sending bits of dirt crumbling to the floor. “I’d rather you were back home safe in the Crooked House, but perhaps fate would have it this way for a reason. Nod is full of injustice. Innocent people are suffering. The Wren I know cares about that.”
“I do care about it,” Wren said, and the words came out all wobbly. “I just don’t know if I can do anything.” Her throat felt tight, as though it would tear if she forced the words out. She wanted to tell Mary. Mary might understand. She wanted to scream: I can’t do it! I can’t work the stardust anymore! But if she let that out of the box inside her, who knew what else would come out as well? Instead she worked her mouth wordlessly, watching tears wash paths through the invisibility tincture on her face.
“I believe in you, Wren,” Mary said. “I always have.” Her voice grew soft, and there was a humble note in it that Wren had never heard before. “I’m not able to show it very well. I have probably been too gruff with you. There,” she said as the brick came all the way out. A few moments later a voice whispered through the hole.
“Mary,” it said. “Courage and Peace.”
“Courage and Peace to you as well, Auspex,” Mary said, as though it was a formal greeting. “I have someone to introduce you to.”
But they never got to the introductions. The prison door slammed open, and Wren gave a loud cry of surprise. Mary shoved Wren away from the mirror and then covered her mouth as if it had been she who’d cried out.
“Why, William! You do frighten a woman so. What with your grand entrances and all.” Mary fanned her face with one hand as though overcome with shock and stealthily shoved the brick back in its spot with the others.
William stood in the entryway, his lean form now covered with a strange mix of metal and leather that made him look little like the researcher he was. “Captains!” he whined at the two soldiers hovering in the door behind him. “What is the meaning of this? A code came through that the prisoners had escaped.”
“Crew Member Flint’s keys were stolen.” The fierce captain’s face crumpled worriedly. “And with the report of the broken window, we sounded the alarm. We know your orders were that no one engage with the prisoners.”
“My orders”—William slapped the guard across the face—“my orders are that you not summon me for crew members’ mistakes. Or do you not run a tight ship?” He scoured the room with his gaze. Wren stared at the floor, hoping any tear tracks that might reveal her face would be dismissed as nothing more than a trick of the light. “Are the other prisoners in their cells?”
The two guards shared uneasy glances.
“Go see,” William said in a deadly quiet voice. “Leave. Leave now.”
The two guards scurried out, and William sauntered into the room, plopping down into a seat at the head of the table.
Mary turned back to the mirror, primping her hair as if that was what she had been doing all along. Wren gaped at her. She had never in all her time with the Fiddlers seen Mary primp. Mary puckered her lips as though she had just applied lipstick, but all the while she was working hard to finish putting the brick back into place.
“Go. You and Jack. Get out of here,” she whispered to Wren while William tried to persuade Cole to join him at the table. “Find Auspex in the cell next door. He
lp the Outsiders. We’ll try to make contact somehow.” With practiced ease, Mary leaned forward, wiping a finger on one lip as if to fix a blemish, and used her skirt to dust the dirt off the loose brick. Then she turned around and glided over to join Cole, who stood planted in front of the fireplace in such a way as to hide the telltale fabric of Jack’s sleeve.
“—haven’t eaten any of Boggen’s feast?” William was saying with a frown. “Now, now, I thought good Alchemists had better manners than that.”
Wren crept quietly toward the open door.
“And I never expected good manners from a traitor,” Mary was saying in a frosty voice. “You’ve hijacked your fellow Alchemists. Allied with Boggen. Imprisoned us. Threatened us”—she wrinkled her nose in distaste—“and you expect us to help you after treating us in such a fashion.” She folded her arms primly across her chest. “I’ve quite lost my appetite. But please, enjoy the welcome of our table. You obviously feel free.”
William reached for a piece of fruit and began peeling it with a slim knife he took from his belt. “Perhaps you could play the part of a princess in the Crooked House, but not here, Mary.” He gave Mary an indulgent smile, and two bright spots of color appeared on her cheeks. Wren would have bet anything it wasn’t embarrassment but anger that fueled her.
“On Nod, a princess’s charms run thin.” He let his boots drop to the floor with a thud. “Cole. You must see my wisdom. Help me with my research, or you will join my other test subjects. Those are your choices.”
Wren froze, her back pressed up against the wall. She was so close to William she could have reached out and grabbed his leather-clad arm.
“We’ve made our choice,” Cole said in an even voice. “And it hasn’t changed. I would rather die with the prisoners than help you.”