Abel and I scampered toward the barking, for there was no other option. Our only hope of escape was to duck under the chaos of the rioting. While the Boot officers were busy with other, more serious threats, Abel was able to dart through a hole in the crowd and out the door, but when I tried to pass I felt a hand reach down and grab me by the collar of my coat. I looked up and saw a bald-headed officer holding me firm. He pushed me down to the floor, then put his forearm across my throat. I struggled to break away but his grip was too tight. I began to choke.
Then suddenly I was free again. Looking up, I saw Jasper clinging to the back of the agent, like a spider that had dropped from the ceiling—he was holding a vial under the agent’s nose, causing the man’s strength to wane. He looked at me, as if in apology. I gave a quick nod of gratitude and tried to scamper under the legs of the crowd, but at this point the Boot had fully blocked the entrance and were brutally beating all those who made any attempt at escape. Suddenly I heard an ear-piercing shriek come from behind me. And then the room went silent. Everybody turned to look, as if what had happened was unimaginable, even to the most cold-hearted of us.
There, on the floor, was Jasper. Over him stood the Boot officer he had tried to sedate. He was bending over Jasper’s unmoving body. The look of pain—or perhaps not pain, more like awakening—on the Boot officer’s face was the first thing I registered, then the fact that Jasper had still not moved. I, and everybody else in the room, knew Jasper would not move again, that he was dead, that he had been killed by a blow from the Boot. It was as if when his spirit left his body it had sucked all the energy from the room along with him. Only that it shook me the hardest, because he had died for me, to save me.
Then, a shout broke the silence. The sound pierced my ears like a shattering glass. More surprising, the scream had come from me. I charged the Boot officer, flailing him with my fists. He stood motionless, absorbing my feeble blows. After a moment of this, I was dragged off him from behind by a pair of arms. It was Deklyn, who whispered in my ear: “Come, let’s go. We have to get away, now!”
Chapter 20
I was told later that Deklyn led me out of the courtyard with no interference from anybody. I understood that the Boot then resumed their raid, after a troop of reinforcements showed up. Deklyn used a sleeping potion to keep me pacified through the night. I guess caring for me gave him something to do in his mourning.
“Where is Luma?” I said with a start, once I woke.
“Relax,” said Deklyn.
“But where is he?”
“Taken by the swarm of golden dragonka,” he said. “Isobel has not returned, either.”
“And Jasper?” I said. “Was that real, or was that part of my dream?”
“That is real,” he said gently.
“Then he is dead?” I asked, though I knew the answer. Deklyn merely nodded. “Where is he now?”
“His body was removed by the Boot. To hide their crime, I suppose.” He looked away.
I kept quiet regarding Jasper after that, seeing the look that had passed over Deklyn’s face. With Jasper and Isobel gone, there was only me, Abel, and Deklyn. All I wanted was to fall asleep and think about it no more. But Luma was also gone. After all that, the Haints got what they wanted. A full-grown heart for Archibald.
“When I get some messages out to the resistance in other parts of the city, we will be able to better regroup,” said Deklyn.
“They are cutting the dragonka up in the basement,” I said. “For their hearts. Or, for a heart. Luma’s.” But I had said it too late.
“What do you mean?” he said.
I explained what I had seen in the Palace. As I did, I could sense thoughts racing behind Deklyn’s calm expression.
“Luma is the one, isn’t he?” Deklyn finally said.
“Which one?” I asked.
“The one that can save Archibald. The one with Archibald’s new heart growing inside him. We heard about it from our spies, but we hear a lot. I thought that was just a silly Half Not rumor.”
“No,” I said. “It is true. It is why Isobel risked her life to follow them.”
“We have to get into the Palace,” Deklyn said.
“But how? They already know me by sight there. Besides, you can’t just walk straight into the Palace, what with the Boot everywhere.”
“We won’t,” said Deklyn, thinking out loud. “We won’t walk straight in. We will walk straight under.”
“Under? How?”
“With this!” Deklyn said, holding up the map I had given him. “Of course, the Palace has a pneumatic station. All we have to do is follow the tubes, according to the map.”
“Let’s do it!”
We looked excitedly at each other for a moment.
“We may get Luma, but nothing will bring Jasper back,” I said suddenly.
“Nobody said it would,” he responded. I fell silent. Deklyn was the most alone person I had ever met.
WE AGREED TO LEAVE that very night. But before we embarked on our mission, we needed a few things, like torches and food. I thought the supplies would be hard to find, now that we were implicated with illegal dragonka racing, but as soon as we left the underground, shopkeepers were beckoning us over, offering us what they had.
“Killing a child, it’s not right,” one said.
“A child of Jozseftown, moreover,” said another.
“Anything you need,” said one more, “just come to us. There is a lot of anger here. People have been letting this kind of thing go on too long. And who pays for our complacence? A child.”
Abel came up to us. “Didn’t you hear? The numbers of the Resistance Movement are swelling. No way the Boot would come back now.”
“It is too late for the Resistance Movement,” said Deklyn.
“What do you mean? Now we can have as many races as we want.”
“You don’t understand,” said Deklyn. “There is more at work here than just the dragonka races! Grow up a little!” Abel looked stunned. He walked away, hiding his hurt under the brim of his hat.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said to Deklyn.
“I know, but he has to learn.”
“But you don’t have to teach him. Let the world ruin his dreams, if they have to be ruined.”
Deklyn looked away. “Come on,” he finally said. “We need to get moving. Heaven knows what they are doing with Luma right now.”
“He is OK,” I said with confidence. “For now.” Deklyn nodded, conceding that I could feel things that he could not, regarding Luma. For now, I knew, we were bound by an invisible string.
Later that evening, when we had everything we needed, we departed through the sewer grate. Deklyn unfolded the map and guided the way, but not before he summoned a glow cloud to help us. The sewers under Jozseftown had never felt so spooky yet so familiar to me. I had grown accustomed to dark, forbidden spaces. We started off hesitantly. There could be no making mistakes or getting lost. That might mean certain death, as the sewers were so mazelike. Somewhere under the Pava River, Deklyn hushed me.
“Do you hear that?”
At first I did not know what he was talking about, but after a moment, I heard it, too. The whoosh got loud, then whooshed right past us, like the sound of a stone being thrown past your head. It was the pneumatic system. Somebody was sending mail!
“We have to get moving,” he said. “That letter looked like it was heading to the Palace.”
“But we are going in the wrong direction,” I said. Deklyn had started out down a dark corridor that we had just moments ago passed.
“No,” he said. “This is the way.”
“You got mixed up,” I said. “We were going the other way.” But the truth is that the tunnels all looked so alike, even I had become confused.
Indeed, it wasn’t long before we realized the layout didn’t match with the map. We were lost in the sewers under the Pava River. We bent over the map, studying it.
“I think we are here!” he
said, pointing at a coordinate.
“Shhh!” I said. “Do you hear something?”
The sound grew louder. Feet sloshing through the water. Lots of feet, like an army of rats were approaching.
“We have to hide!” Deklyn said, looking around.
But there was nowhere to hide, so we fled down the dark tunnel again. But before long came sounds of more rushing feet. Then a glowing appeared from the darkness in front of us. No, they weren’t rats, they were tiny golden dragonka, their mouths open, baring their fangs. The discarded, untrainable dragonka that had been so mercilessly cast down the plumbing by the Ministry—grown fierce and bloodthirsty. There was no time, we had to turn and flee in the direction of the other footsteps. Only ahead of us we saw a troop of Boot officers, with a map that looked similar to ours. Their torchlight did not reach us, so for a few moments, we would remain out of view.
Deklyn looked at me and smiled. He put his hand on my shoulder to comfort me. We had tried. Then suddenly I was pulled backward. I toppled through a maintenance shaft and saw Deklyn leap in after me, shutting the gate behind him. I looked up. It was Sytia, the Kubikula.
She hugged me, and I hugged back. Then she beckoned us to follow her, until we arrived at another artery that aligned with the map. She pointed and gestured. We had escaped the Boot once more. Sytia waved goodbye as we continued on our way, her sweet grunts following us as we went. Soon we had crossed under the entire Pava River and headed toward the Palace.
“This must be it,” said Deklyn when we arrived. The pipes rose into a tunnel, along which ran a ladder. He took a deep breath, then hoisted himself up. He climbed, then I heard a metallic grinding, a creak, then light poured into the tunnel.
“Come on,” he said. And up into the Palace we went.
Chapter 21
Evil is comfortable in silence.
While the city suffered outside, while dragonka were sliced open and children worked in mines, while Jozseftown mourned one of its own, the Palace was quiet. But despite all the time I had spent in the Palace, I was not familiar with its passages and grand rooms, which we slunk through one by one, all unoccupied. Only now and again did we have to hide from servants, though, who moved through the space as though sleepwalking. Then, from the end of the corridor that we had let ourselves into, a noise erupted. It was a howl, like a yell of battle, only more pained. We rushed toward the sound. There I discovered the same door through which Archibald had led me, the one that opened on the stairs to the cellars. We descended, and again the yell sounded. It was Deklyn who held me back when we reached the door from which it came.
We peered around the frame. There was Wormwood, leaning over a table, upon which Archibald the Precious lay.
“It aches,” groaned the dictator.
“Hold still,” commanded Wormwood. “The heart is winding down. But the time is near when you will need it no longer.”
“I don’t want this,” cried Archibald. “I don’t want to be monarch anymore.”
“Don’t say that!” retorted Wormwood.
“I had a friend, and you sent her away! All I wanted was just one friend.”
“You have plenty of friends here with the Haints. They care for you. And soon you will have your very life to thank them for. What could be a better bond of friendship?”
Archibald groaned. “But they don’t even know how to play.”
“And the Youth Guard. You play with them all the time,” said Wormwood.
“They are the worst!” spat Archibald. “The are so mean, and they never play by the rules.” Suddenly Archibald’s eye caught mine watching him. He gasped.
“My old friend,” he said.
“Hush, now,” said Wormwood. “You are imagining things again. Just breathe into this cloth. Soon you will have to worry about this faulty heart no more.” Wormwood held a cloth up to Archibald’s face and the dictator rose in a fit. He fell unconscious. Wormwood laid him flat on the table, then pulled a blanket over his body.
Deklyn and I backed away from the door and crept quietly back down the corridor.
“Can you take us to where the dragonka laboratory is?” Deklyn asked.
“I think so. In fact, I’m pretty sure.” Suddenly everything looked familiar. I knew exactly where I was. I quickly guided Deklyn down the corridor, then to the iron door that led to the dragonka laboratory. We opened the great door slowly, then thrust it open when I could see that the room had been emptied. The dragonka were nowhere to be found: the cages had been removed, the beasts cleared from their displays. But beyond the next door were living dragonka, I was sure. I could feel Luma’s strange energy. He was alive somewhere.
“Welcome, young visitors,” came a voice from behind.
Wormwood strode into the room, followed by a troop of Youth Guard: my former classmates.
“You are so busy with what is ahead of you, you never look behind your own backs,” said Tatiana. “We could have tapped you on the shoulder.”
“Number One Play Pal finds that noon and midnight are equally observable, though opposite times of the day,” said Margo. “If you had learned that, you would have known that which is in front of you, is as it was behind you.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about!” I said. “Don’t you know that Number One Play Pal is so sick he can’t even move? That they are about to implant the heart grown in a dragonka into his body?”
“More dirty Half Not legend,” said Sonia.
“It is not,” I countered. “Ask Wormwood.”
They all turned to their superior. “She is right,” said Wormwood. The girls looked at him apprehensively. “Only it is not exactly as she says. It is just that Number One Play Pal has given so much of himself that his heart has simply given out. He is indeed sick. But with everybody’s good wishes and help, he will soon return to his full strength. But it is not merely a dragonka heart. It was one fashioned by myself, with materials from the spirit world. It needed a life support system, and dragonka prove an ideal source of nourishment. Indeed, the materials were furnished by Petra K’s father. Did you know that, Petra K?”
At that moment I knew he was right: the black caped figure at the bridge who tried to do away with Luma; the fluttering scarf that felt so familiar as it guided me to the laboratory. That was the spirit of my father, trying to guide me, to help me to save Pava from the Haints.
“But he stole the beast when he realized the experiment would be a success. He hid with it in Jozseftown, before trying to kill it, once the dragonka fever broke out. And, as I understand, you saved Luma,” said Wormwood. “It is why you are alive right now. We are grateful to you, in our way.”
“Where are the dragonka?” shouted Deklyn. “I am here to free them!”
“Ah, yes,” retorted Wormwood. “The leader of the Blackhearts is used to making demands. Well, they are here. In this room even. They are everywhere, just look around.” With that, he extinguished the lantern. Above us shapes began to form. You could see them emerging and disappearing from an oil-colored circle in the ceiling that looked like a huge water stain. They were the shapes of dragonka, flying round the air above us. Only that they were transparent, like colored mist. The spirits of the murdered dragonka had remained in the Palace. Above them, an enormous swirling cloud spread across the ceiling. No, I realized, it wasn’t a cloud at all: it was a hole, and beyond it was the deepest blackness I had ever seen.
“It was an oversight,” said Wormwood. “The same ancient sorcery that kept the Haints here, keeps the dragonka spirits as well. We had to get rid of their stuffed bodies, unfortunately. They were too attracted to them, crying all night long, unable to reclaim their living forms. Above them is a gateway to the spirit world, torn open by centuries-old black magic. They should pass through it, but they refuse to depart. Perhaps your spirits too will be trapped here, after we are finished with you. Then you will understand our attachment to this world.”
“You can’t keep doing their bidding,” said Deklyn.
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“I can’t?” replied Wormwood.
“You don’t have to. Let Archibald die, as he should have long ago.”
“Why would I do that?” said Wormwood. “When I am one of them?” Before our eyes, Wormwood became translucent. It was true: he was the same as the Haints, whom he was in the service of. “Besides, your efforts—no matter how valiant—are of no use. Luma is being readied for me right now. So I must leave you.”
“No!” I cried. But I knew it was true. I began to feel the pull toward sleep, and felt the pastel colors of Luma’s dreams begin to infect my sight.
Chapter 22
Wormwood left us to oversee the operation, so it was the troop of Youth Guard who marched us to our holding cells. I kept quiet, stung by their betrayal and use of me. I should have known, even in my days as a Youth Guard, that I would never be one of them. But as we walked, I sensed an unspoken tension arising.
“You didn’t tell us that the dragonka were being murdered,” I heard Bianka say to Tatiana.
“That is because I didn’t know it,” she responded.
“Who cares,” said Sonia. “It is what the Number One Play Pal wants.”
“I care,” said Margo. “Or I would have never gone undercover in Jozseftown. The festivals are wonderful. You had a dragonka once, too, Tatiana.”
“I know. But be careful what you are saying,” said Tatiana.
“Everybody should be careful,” said Sonia, not without threat. “It isn’t our job to say what is good and right. It is our job to do what we are instructed to do.”
“Well, I am tired of playing along,” said Bianka, out of nowhere. “I am done here. I don’t want to participate in killing dragonka. I love dragonka. There, I said it. And Petra K, I’m sorry if I tricked or betrayed you. I always liked you.”
Petra K and the Blackhearts Page 16