The Crown of the Bandit King

by Matti Lena Harris

  Finally, I started to see what he meant.

  “It would be as bad as enslaving them with the Bronze Crown,” I said.

  “Indeed.”

  The Hitchhiker approached John Ketter’s body, then closed Ketter’s eyes.

  “Do I care, Rook?” he said. “Oh, yes. I care. I always care.”

  Even with his amazing Artisan powers and abilities, maybe sometimes he still was as helpless as an Ordinary. Maybe there were some things magic couldn’t fix.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He walked over to the dressing table, straightened the silver comb, and closed the jewelry box. For a long time, he stayed that way with his back to me. When he turned around, his eyes were like blue flames again. And his expression was odd. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought he looked afraid. But Artisans don’t feel fear.

  Or do they?

  “We must return to the Professor’s study,” he said. “Immediately.”

  Chapter 29

  The Theater Tickets

  The Hitchhiker must’ve taken a few wrong turns going home.

  Sure, I was no expert, but our trip back through time seemed a lot longer and a lot bumpier than before. For a split second, I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Definitely a wrong turn there. But when we finally arrived in our own time, we were greeted with darkness.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  This couldn’t be the Professor’s study. I’d never felt such emptiness in his room before, not even the first time I came here alone. I reached out my hand and grasped the railing at the top of the staircase.

  “Professor?” I called out.

  “It’s no use,” the Hitchhiker said. “He can’t answer you now.”

  Whatever that meant, I didn’t like the sound of it.

  A single dim light was burning somewhere in the room though I couldn’t tell where. My eyes were still adjusting, and I could barely make out shapes. The stacks of books downstairs. The Hitchhiker standing beside me. He shivered and tugged his coat collar closer to his face.

  It was wrong, somehow, this emptiness.

  The Hitchhiker must have felt it, too. His hand was already extending as if he was about to hitch himself away. Like he couldn’t wait to leave.

  “You’re going?” I asked.

  “You don’t need me anymore.” The Hitchhiker tipped his hat. “Goodbye, Rook. And good luck. I know you’ll find your way. Now I must find mine.”

  “Wait, so you’re just going to ditch me here? Alone?”

  “Oh, no. I would never leave you alone.”

  Yeah, right. Sure seemed like he was ditching me. Right when I needed him most. He stuck out his right thumb and was gone, riding away on the wind or the light or whatever else might have offered him a ride.

  And then all I had left was the emptiness.

  I made my way down the stairs one careful step at a time, but not before nearly missing a step twice. No books were flapping through the air. The single light seemed to be somewhere near the Professor’s desk, so I headed in that direction. The room was too quiet.

  “Professor? Sweet Pea? Deeter?” I called.

  What should I do? Wait for them? How long would they be? Had they found the Oratorium yet? At last, I reached the Professor’s desk, with The Book of All Words still there. I ran my hand over its brown leather cover, its scratches and its water stains.

  “If you’re looking for the Professor and your friends,” a man’s voice said in the darkness, “you won’t find them here. They’ve been taken.”

  I startled at the sound and stumbled backward over a stack of books. Whoever this guy was, if he thought he could take me without a fight, I’d teach him that was a big mistake. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed one of the heaviest books I could find. It’d be hard to hit what I couldn’t see, though. I peered into the shadows.

  “Who’s there?” I asked. “Show yourself. Where are you?”

  “Where I’ve always been, kid. One step behind you.”

  I spun around.

  Across from the Professor’s desk was a brass table lamp on a stack of books, and standing next to that was a man wearing a tan trench coat and a brown fedora hat. He lifted his head, so I finally saw his face. I’d seen it before, but this time, his eyes were bright green, and they were looking straight at me.

  Great. I wasn’t sure which was worst—the fake Detective or the real one. Did the real Detective still think I was a criminal?

  I raised the book in my hands higher and took a step back. “You’re not taking me to the Penitoria. I won’t let you.”

  “The Penitoria? That’s no place for a Finder.” The Detective frowned. “Who said I’d take you there?”

  This had to be a trick. Why else would he be in the Professor’s study unless it was a trap to catch me?

  “I’m not that slow, kid,” the Detective continued. “I know the library fire wasn’t your fault. I know you didn’t intend to steal The Book of All Words. And I know you’re not the one who has the Bronze Crown.”

  Finally, some good news. Not that it made anything better, but at least my name was cleared. I set the book down and let out a deep breath.

  “Of course,” the Detective added, “the Librarian still has certain suspicions regarding the basketballs.”

  Well, almost cleared. But if the Detective hadn’t come to cart me off to the Penitoria….

  “Then why are you here?” I asked.

  “I first came to speak with the Professor. When I didn’t find him in his study, I trailed him and your friends all the way to the Oratorium. That’s where the trail went cold. They didn’t return, and they didn’t go anywhere else. Which can only mean one thing.”

  “The Actor caught them,” I whispered.

  “Exactly, Rookie. I could tell you weren’t with them. So I came back here to see if I could find you and let you know. Seemed only fair, considering what you’ve been through.”

  I swallowed a few times. How could this have happened? Had the Actor used the Bronze Crown against them? Is that how he caught them? What if they resisted? What if they were already dead?

  “No,” I said. “That can’t be right. Maybe you read the signs wrong. Or maybe there’s some other explanation.”

  The Detective stood there, silent, with his hands in his coat pockets. He didn’t have to say it. What other explanation could there be? I sank down into the Professor’s desk chair.

  This was my fault. All of it.

  “I’m sorry,” the Detective said. “I know I’ve let you down. Your friends, too. The Librarian. Even the Critic. And the Professor…everyone.”

  I shrugged. “I’m the one to blame.”

  “Have you forgotten so quickly, kid? I was there. I was in the library the exact moment this whole thing started. The Actor would have succeeded that first day, right under my very nose, if you hadn’t intervened. Even if it was by accident. Then at the pier. At the carnival. Always, I missed my chance. I knew the Actor was after you, and it was my job to catch him. But I failed, every time.”

  He removed his hat and held it in his hands. Then he leaned against the desk’s edge, his head bowed.

  “You’re giving up?” I asked.

  “Give up a case? No. That’s not my way, kid. If I ever did that, I’d stop being the Detective. Whenever there’s a case, I’ll solve it, or die trying.”

  Here I’d been thinking the Detective was some horrible ogre who’d do terrible things to me if he caught me, and this whole time he’d been trying to help me? That was a lot to wrap my head around. But if we worked together, maybe we could still stop the Actor.

  “Okay. What’s the plan?” I asked.

  “First, I’ll escort you to your Collector. The Ragman, isn’t it? He can protect you.”

  “The Ragman? Protect me?” I snorted a little. I couldn’t help it.

  “He’s eccentric,” the Detective said, “but don’t let appearances fool you. He’s got
more magic stashed away in a single closet of his than most magic Collectors amass in their entire lifetime.”

  “Yeah. A bunch of magical board games and feather dusters.”

  “Oh, kid. He’s got more than that. A lot more.”

  Yeah, right. Still, now wasn’t the time to argue with an Artisan, so I dropped the subject.

  “Once you’re safe,” the Detective continued, “I’ll do my best to stop the Actor.”

  “How?”

  The Detective didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m not abandoning my friends. If you take me back to the Ragman, I’ll only find my way to the Oratorium somehow. I won’t give up. So you might as well let me help you.”

  The Detective regarded me for a moment. Probably he was thinking of handcuffing me to the Ragman’s armchair, just to make sure I’d stay out of the way. But then, his frown slowly went away. It didn’t exactly turn into anything friendly like a smile, but at least he was softening a bit. He put his hat back on and tipped the brim up high on his forehead with his thumb.

  “All right, kid. Tell you what. Maybe you can help. Take a look at this, and tell me what you see.”

  He handed me a fragment of crumpled paper. Tell him what I saw? Was this supposed to be a test? I smoothed out the paper as best as I could.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “Found it near the entrance to the Oratorium. Nearly didn’t pick it up. Figured it was just the torn-off corner of a playbill. But then my instinct said to take it. Even if it is blank.”

  Blank? The paper wasn’t blank, not to me. It had four words written on it.

  Rookie—send a message.

  When I told the Detective what it said, he pounded his fist on the desk.

  “I knew it! I never miss a clue! The Professor left this behind, and he left it for you.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s written with the Scholar’s Pen, one of the Professor’s favorite Collectibles. The ink can only be seen by the person the words are intended for.”

  “You really can’t see the words?”

  “Nope. Not a dot, not a dash. So kid, what’s it mean?”

  He stared at me like I was about to reveal the greatest secret of the entire universe. But what did it mean? Send a message? To whom? What should my message say? What if these words didn’t mean anything at all? What if they were only some sort of reminder, like a to-do list? What if the Professor was simply reminding himself to send a message to me?

  The more I thought about it, the more I started to doubt. I had no idea what the Detective’s clue meant.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” the Detective said, giving my shoulder a shake. “We’ll solve it yet.”

  “You’ll let me help?”

  A knock came from the Professor’s front door. The Detective moved in front of me, and his hand slipped into his coat pocket.

  “Come in,” he said.

  It was only the Messenger, but he didn’t exactly look like his normal, cheerful self. His uniform was badly wrinkled, and his blond curls hung limply beneath his flopped cap. He wasn’t even smacking his bubble gum. Like maybe that would take too much energy. He stumbled inside and joined us near the Professor’s desk.

  “Thank goodness,” he said, breathless. “You two are the last. I think I’ve delivered more messages and visited more places this evening than I have this whole past year.”

  “What’s going on?” the Detective asked.

  “Business first.” The Messenger checked his clipboard. “I have one last envelope addressed to the Detective and Rookie.”

  He took a quick glance at the Detective, but he gave me a longer look.

  “Weren’t you someone called young scholar last time?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I go by a lot of names I guess,” I said.

  Ironic, really, that none of them were actually mine.

  The Detective and I both signed on the dotted lines. In return, the Messenger offered us a black envelope, which the Detective accepted and tore open. From the envelope, he pulled out a black piece of paper and started reading it. His eyebrows furrowed.

  More bad news, no doubt. As if we didn’t have enough of that already.

  The Messenger didn’t vanish like he did the last time he delivered something to me. Instead, he plopped down on a few of the knee-high stacks of books near the desk and shut his eyes. He probably would’ve fallen asleep if the Detective hadn’t spoken.

  “How many Artisans did you deliver black envelopes to?”

  “You’d have a shorter answer if you asked who I didn’t deliver one to.”

  Maybe the Detective always looked this grim, but I didn’t think so.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

  He reached into the envelope and showed me two small, black theater tickets.

  “Opening night, kid. The Actor’s finally going to get his performance of Richard the Third—this time, exactly the way he wants it.”

  “We have to warn the other Artisans,” I said. “If they show up to the Oratorium, if they try to attend the play, the Actor will use the Bronze Crown against them.”

  “We’re too late. We’re the last ones to get this, remember? The other Artisans already have their tickets, and the tickets say the show starts in twenty minutes. They’re probably already there.”

  “Already trapped, you mean.”

  The Detective nodded.

  This was the worst news yet. The crown could cause enough trouble when used against Ordinaries. Just with them alone, the Actor could rule the world. But against other Artisans? Artisans with all those strange magical powers?

  With them under his control, he could tear the world apart.

  “What should we do now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, kid,” the Detective said. “I honestly don’t know.”

  I closed my eyes. It was finished. How could the Detective fight against all the other Artisans combined? And what use would I be? Some out-of-place Finder tagging along.

  We’d lost.

  The Messenger tried to blow a bubble with his pink chewing gum, but the bubble only fizzled out like a deflating balloon. The Detective walked over to the window behind the desk and stared out into the darkness.

  “Too bad he didn’t pick Richard the Second,” I said.

  “What, Rookie?” the Detective asked. His voice sounded quiet and distant.

  “Nothing.”

  I put my head down on the desk. But instead of feeling the cold, hard wood surface on my forehead, I felt the leather cover of The Book of All Words. And it wasn’t cold at all. In fact, it was warm—and growing warmer. I lifted my head and flung the book open.

  Richard the Second. Act four, scene one.

  A play about a king who loses his crown.

  “I know how to beat him!” I said.

  The Detective turned around. “What?”

  “The Actor. I can get him to surrender the Bronze Crown willingly. I know how to break the crown’s power. I know how to do it.”

  But the Detective didn’t look entirely convinced, even when I showed him the book.

  “That’s taking a big risk, for all of us,” he said.

  “But you can do it, right?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. But can you?”

  The one question I’d been trying not to think about. I took a deep breath.

  “I have to.”

  The Detective gave me one of those long, intense looks—Artisan stares, I was starting to call them in my head—and then he frowned.

  “One problem, Rookie. We can’t just waltz into the Oratorium. The Actor will be guarding the entrance since he caught the Professor there. And we can’t use the tickets for admittance—he’ll be expecting that. So how do we get in?”

  I glanced at the Messenger stretched out on the stack of books. His eyes were sort of opening and closing, with his head drooping forward. He looked pretty beat. Still, I hoped he
had one last trip in him. Everything depended on it.

  “It’s simple,” I said. “We send a message.”

  Chapter 30

  Opening Night

  “I have an urgent delivery for the Actor.”

  The Messenger’s voice sounded muffled to me on the inside of the wooden crate where the Detective and I were hunched listening. I tried to peer between the slits to see what was outside the crate. Looked like some sort of backstage door.

  A softer voice said something in return, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  “Nope. This is official business,” the Messenger said. “It’s gotta go to the Actor.”

  If the Messenger could find a way into the Packrat House, then I knew he could find a way into the Oratorium. As long as there was a message or a package that needed delivering, he could go anywhere he needed to, right? Or at least that was what he’d said the day I’d first met him.

  I kept my fingers crossed.

  There came another soft, unintelligible reply.

  “I don’t care if he’s getting ready for his performance,” the Messenger said. “This delivery is addressed to him, and it’s marked urgent. Which means it’s gotta go to him, and it’s gotta go now.”

  There was a long silence, broken by a soft popping sound. Like maybe the Messenger finally managed to blow a bubble with his bubble gum.

  “I can’t give it to the Actress, or anyone else,” he added. “If this delivery can’t go to the Actor, then I have to take it back.”

  Take us back? Was the Messenger crazy? This was our only chance. Crouched beside me, the Detective sucked in his breath while I tried to keep still.

  “Of course,” the Messenger continued, “I’d hate to be the one to tell the Actor that he missed an urgent, highly important delivery. Especially if he’s been waiting for it.”

  Silence again.

  “But hey, what’s that any business of mine? I’m just the Messenger. Right, I’ll take it back then.”

  Finally, a response. Still too quiet to hear, but whatever the person said, now the Messenger was the one who hesitated. The Detective and I pressed our ears against the crate’s walls.