“I remember this one,” Draig said, nodding at Jonas. “He blew our ship apart with a magic that I’ve never seen. He tossed us all about like toys, without lifting a finger. How did he do that?” he asked Zéphyrin. Kunlun listened to Draig with a surprised expression before looking back at Twist and Jonas more critically.
“There is something at work here, which I wasn’t fully aware of until recently,” Zéphyrin said thoughtfully. “I believe that these two are far from ordinary men.”
“Humans are humans,” Kunlun said with a wave of his hands. “What’s so special about these two?”
“If you would allow this djinn to grant me one wish,” Zéphyrin said, gesturing to Hala, who still stood silently to one side with Myra and Vane. “I would love to explain.”
“Djinn magic, here?” one of the dragons in the stands balked. Grumbling murmurs quickly filled the air.
“Let’s hear it before she does anything,” Draig said, watching Zéphyrin suspiciously. The murmurs died to silence, the dragons apparently eager to hear what Zéphyrin wanted of her.
“Hala,” Zéphyrin said politely, “I wish none of our voices might travel beyond this court.”
The other dragons shared a variety of knowing and surprised glances before a few of them shouted their acceptance of the wish. Hala nodded to them and held up her hands. She gave one neat clap. The sound echoed strangely off of the glass and gold before the sound died suddenly. She then looked to Zéphyrin and nodded to him, apparently finished.
“Thank you, Hala,” Zéphyrin said before looking back to Draig and Kunlun. He then took a slow breath, seeming to choose his next words carefully. “When one of these two men was taken from the memory of mankind, the other didn’t forget him. Not for a moment.”
The crowd of creatures began to murmur; Kunlun and Draig appeared stunned.
“More than that,” Zéphyrin went on, gesturing to Twist, “the satyr at the city gate couldn’t see this one at all.”
Kunlun and many of the others audibly gasped.
“You don’t mean…” Draig began in a hushed tone.
“How old are you?” Kunlun demanded of Twist.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything!?” Twist shouted back. Jonas took his hand. The fog was far more taut, chilling, and anxious than the norm.
“Answer him,” Zéphyrin said softly to Twist.
“I can’t,” Twist said angrily. “I grew up in an orphanage. I don’t know when I was born.” Much to Twist’s distress, the crowd gasped again, and the murmuring grew louder.
Zéphyrin held up his hands to the crowd. “Please, brothers,” he cautioned them, “don’t say too much until we’ve finished our discussion. I honestly believe that these two have no idea who they are. And yet, they are still very much alive. It might not be wise to tell them too much.” The murmuring dimmed, but the whispers grew.
“So,” Kunlun said, smiling at his own thoughts, “you really think that you’ve found the witch’s son?” he asked, glancing to Twist.
All of Twist’s frenetic emotions slammed into sudden stillness. He felt as if the ground beneath his feet had fallen away into open air, while his understanding fled from him in search of a safer mind. He knew nothing of his own mother: not her name, not her face, nor even her voice. How could anyone else, let alone a cross Chinese dragon at the South Pole, know anything about her? And a witch? No, she couldn’t have been a witch. That was too absurd. Surely she’d been a simple maid, unable to care for a child by herself…
“What about you?” Draig asked Jonas. “When were you born?”
“What?” Jonas muttered, his surprise echoing in Twist’s mind to be asked the same bizarre question.
“Give us the date, little one,” Zéphyrin said gently to Jonas.
Jonas paused for a moment before he answered, his emotions glowing brightly with confusion and alarm. “The seventeenth of November, 1852.”
This time, rather than murmuring or gasps, the crowd fell suddenly silent as every eye locked on to Twist and Jonas with what seemed to be surprise and a slight sense of fear. Zéphyrin and Hala shared a meaningful glance while Vane and Myra appeared highly confused. Twist felt Jonas’s confusion meld with his own, intensifying the feeling.
“What?” Jonas snapped at the crowd around them. “What does my birthday have to do with any of this?”
“If that one has the watch,” Draig said, pointing to Twist, “then how did you escape the fires?” he asked, looking now to Jonas.
“Fire?” Jonas asked, the buzzing in Twist's neck suddenly aflame with violent dread. Twist followed his thoughts instantly, remembering with cold terror that Jonas had lost his parents in a fire when he was still a boy. Every essence of Twist’s being wanted nothing more than to flee this alarming conversation. Even leaping over the side of a balcony would get him out of that blasted place. Maybe it would be worth the fall.
“Please, brothers. Let’s all try to avoid saying anything too directly, shall we?” Zéphyrin said tightly.
“Oh yes, please,” Jonas spat at him viciously. “Let’s not clarify what the hell he just asked me!”
“They really don’t know?” Kunlun asked, astonished.
“No,” Zéphyrin said with a sigh. “And as I said, I think that’s why they’re still alive.”
“Don’t know what?” Jonas asked, his voice cold and threatening.
“Considering what we just learned,” Zéphyrin said, speaking to the creatures around them, “I think it’s safe to say that any thoughts of killing them for retribution are out of the question. If that’s all right with you, Kunlun?”
“Sure,” Kunlun said with a nod. “I don’t want f—” He stopped himself suddenly. He glanced at Hala, appearing hesitant. “I mean, you know,” he went on, “I don’t want them upset with me. As long as I get something out of whatever you sell these two for.” The murmurs picked up, while Twist found himself startled yet again.
“If I may speak before your brothers,” Hala said to Zéphyrin.
He looked to the dragons around him expectantly. When none of them seemed to object, Zéphyrin nodded for her to continue.
Hala then turned to address the room, her voice clear and loud over the murmurs of the crowd. “I would advise you not to sell them.”
“Why not?” Kunlun scoffed. “You know what they’re worth.”
“They may be worth more to you than anyone can pay,” Hala said to him. “You and your brothers already found that this one’s eyes are more powerful than any in this world,” she said to Draig, who gave a nod. “Well, why wouldn’t the other side of the coin be just the same?” Twist felt every eye in the room move to him.
“What skill do you have, little one?” Draig asked him. Twist’s mind blanked instantly. Did he have any skills?
“He repaired the clockwork princess,” Hala said, gesturing to Myra. “Sweetheart, please tell them how skilled Twist is with clockwork.”
“Oh…” Myra toned before stepping forward. For a moment, even she looked nervous before she looked to Twist and smiled. “Twist is wonderful with clockwork,” she said brightly to the creatures around them. “There is nothing in the world that he can’t fix. He mended my puppet in just a few days, and it’s in better condition now than it ever was before!” she said, swaying easily into a graceful twirl, wearing her best smile as she did.
While he felt that she was exaggerating far too much, Twist couldn’t bring himself to correct her in such a place. He heard an excited-sounding murmur bubble out of the crowd.
“Princess Myra?” Draig asked, smiling softly to her with glinting black eyes. “Is it really you?”
“Have we met?” Myra asked him, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him.
“Only once,” Draig said, lifting a black-gloved hand. Twist saw a bright-orange flame flicker to life in his fingers before it grew into the unmistakable shape of a perfect rose—complete with a short, thorny stem—that seemed to be made entirely of live fire. Wh
en he offered the apparition to Myra, her face washed over with a brilliant smile.
“Oh!” she gasped, taking the rose of flame from him with glee. She held it while it continued to burn a smoldering orange but didn’t apparently mar her copper fingers in the slightest. “Yes, of course! You came to my birthday party. All the way from Europe,” she added lusciously. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You look different now.”
“And yet your spirit hasn’t aged a day,” Draig said smiling warmly to her. “That puppet you wear is truly magnificent.”
“But…” Kunlun toned, frowning. “I heard that all of the people who could have fixed the clockwork princess fell out of the world.”
A long-neglected memory tugged at Twist’s mind. The clockwork people he’d met in the cave under Indonesia knew how to fix her. Was the dragon referring to them? Surely not…
“And yet,” Zéphyrin said with a light smile, “here she stands, right as rain.” Once again, Twist felt all of the eyes in the room fall on him. He gave a sigh and kept his gaze low.
“So,” Kunlun said thoughtfully to Hala, “you believe that this little one can fix the astrolabe?”
“While this one sets it,” Draig added with a gesture to Jonas.
“You would get exactly what you want,” Hala said with a nod and a smile. “You would be able to come and go from this planet whenever you like, without losing your navigator to mortality. Let them work to pay for their crimes.”
“And if they can’t do it?” Kunlun asked.
“You lose nothing,” Hala said calmly. “If they can’t help you, then you can decide what to do with them, later.”
Draig and Kunlun shared a glance.
“I would accept this,” Draig said to Zéphyrin. “Let them try.”
“We can always sell them if they can’t get it to work,” Kunlun said, eyeing Twist and Jonas coldly. “And my brother will still have his own revenge at least, no matter what.”
“Does anyone else have an issue to voice?” Zéphyrin called to the crowd. He waited a moment, but none of the creatures spoke up. “Then it is settled,” he said, smiling to Twist and Jonas. “You will mend our astrolabe to atone for your crimes against our kind. If you manage it, then you will be free to go in peace. If you fail, then we will sell you to your enemies.”
Twist sat on a golden bench on the balcony, outside the mushroom dome, and held his head in his hands. He struggled to hold his mind steady in the wake of everything that had been said moments before. He didn’t need to understand everything right now. All he needed was to gain control of himself and realize that he’d survived. An echo of Kunlun’s voice whispered through his thoughts: “He’s the witch’s son.” Twist grimaced and snapped his head up.
“Are you all right?” Myra asked him gently, sitting beside him.
Twist looked to her copper face, peering at him curiously and glinting pleasantly in the twilight. He tried to respond but found he had no words for her. Twist sighed and shook his head. Myra gave a soothing coo and reached up to stroke the curls at the edge of his neck. Twist took in a slow, deep breath as he savored her warm thoughts and gentle caress. For that tiny, fleeting instant, he only wanted to feel her touch. A motion nearby broke the spell and brought Twist’s gaze up to Jonas as he approached.
“I can’t work this out by myself,” Jonas said softly, kneeling close beside Twist’s knee. He pulled his goggles off and looked up to Twist with concerned, moss-green eyes. “What the hell happened in there?” he asked, low enough to only be heard by Twist and Myra, while Vane and Hala spoke pleasantly together at the other end of the balcony. Apparently, Zéphyrin was still inside, attending to details of some kind.
“You’re asking me?” Twist scoffed.
“We can figure out what an astrolabe has to do with anything later,” Jonas said quickly. “But Twist…” He paused as his eyes took on an anxious amber color. “I need you to tell me. Do you know anything more than I do about the other things? Why does my birthday matter to anyone? Why does everyone know about your pocket watch? Why did that Chinese bastard say that your mother was a witch?”
“I don’t know,” Twist snapped sharply, only wanting him to stop. “I don’t know anything. Don’t you think I’d tell you if I did? There has to be some kind of mistake. We can’t possibly be who they think we are. Whoever that is!”
Jonas watched Twist carefully, apparently taken aback by his tone. It was then that Twist realized that his voice had remained sharp to the end.
“All right. I believe you,” Jonas said, his tone cautious. “And, on the other hand, their mistake might have just saved our lives. I think we should try to go along with it.”
“But we don’t know what they’re talking about,” Twist said, curbing the ire in his voice.
“And Zéphyrin and Hala both refused to say anything more,” Jonas toned darkly. “I don’t think we should try to push them.”
“But isn’t that all right?” Myra asked, her voice hushed to match theirs. They both looked to her questioningly. “Well, if they won’t tell you anything, then they can’t very well expect you to know anything. Wouldn’t it be easy to simply follow their implications and otherwise remain quiet?”
“She has a point,” Jonas said, nodding. “We can always bluff it.”
Twist hung his head and let out a low moan. “I’m terrible at that sort of thing.”
“There, there…” Myra cooed, rubbing gently at his back.
“Just follow my lead, Twist,” Jonas said, offering him a smile with green eyes. “I’m magnificent at this sort of thing.”
Twist glanced between them, suddenly acutely aware that he didn’t have to traverse this mysterious new landscape on his own. He had more than his own strength to rely on now. Something deep inside him seemed to relax at the thought. He felt his anxiety lessen slightly, and his mind fell mostly into order as he remembered that he could lean on his friends in his fatigue.
“You’re right,” Twist said, nodding. “I’m sorry for being so…” He paused, groping for adjectives that didn’t sound so bad.
“Whatever,” Jonas said easily, offering a smile. Myra smiled to Twist sweetly as well.
“Well then,” Twist said, pulling his posture into a more proper shape. “What’s all this about an astrolabe?”
Jonas’s eyes shifted to a satisfied shade of cyan, but he gave a shrug. “No idea.”
“Isn’t an astrolabe something that people use to study the stars?” Myra asked thoughtfully.
“If these drag—” Jonas began before he stopped short, glancing at Twist when he flinched in anticipation of the word. “Sorry. I mean, if these creatures are involved, it’s got to be more than just that.”
Twist nodded, unable to add much more. Just then, Zéphyrin came to join them all on the balcony. He smiled to everyone and clasped his hands.
“Well, that trial went well,” he declared with a pleased expression.
“Did it?” Jonas asked, standing as he put his goggles back on.
“You’re still breathing,” Zéphyrin offered. Jonas crossed his arms and gave a nonplussed tone. “Come along,” Zéphyrin said with a long-suffering note to his deep voice. “We’re putting you into the care of a kitsune for the remaining journey. If you would be so good,” he added gently to Hala, who nodded and then vanished into purple smoke.
“A fox?” Vane asked brightly. “Anyone I know?” Twist and Jonas shared an unhappy glance.
“I’m sure you would,” Zéphyrin said. “Her name is Inari.”
Vane’s smile shattered in apparent shock. “What?” he gasped. “But…but, I mean, she…these two are just…” he added, gesturing to Twist and Jonas in dismay. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Inari?” he asked Zéphyrin in a hushed and urgent tone.
Twist sighed. “Oh, what are we in for now?” he asked listlessly of Jonas.
“Nonsense, I’m sure,” Jonas said. “But I’ve never heard of her.”
“How the hell d
o you function on such little knowledge?” Vane asked him sharply. “Honestly, man, read a book!” Jonas balked and moved to respond, but Zéphyrin stopped him.
“Gentlemen, please,” he said patiently. “As much as I enjoy your rows, we have a schedule to keep.” As Jonas glowered in the dragon’s direction and Vane gave a noisy huff, Hala’s towering form grew into sight beside the balcony, holding another golden carriage in her plateau-like purple hands. “If I could compel you aboard,” Zéphyrin said with an inviting gesture.
Twist and the others did as they were asked. Hala lowered them safely to the ground and then shrank back to her normal size before sitting beside Zéphyrin as another troll began to carry them off into the city of gold. Vane sat staring into space with a decidedly nervous expression.
“So, you’re giving us to a fox?” Jonas asked Zéphyrin, sounding unhappy with his own question.
“A kitsune, yes,” Zéphyrin corrected him.
“And we get no say in this?” Jonas asked.
“None whatsoever,” Zéphyrin said with a rather polite note to his voice. Jonas grumbled a curse but made no other protest.
“What about this whatsit that I’m supposed to repair?” Twist asked.
“The astrolabe isn’t kept in this city,” Zéphyrin said. “You’ll have to travel to it. Inari is already heading in that direction and has agreed to take you. She is an ancient, much like Hala and I. My brothers and I respect her and trust that she will take good care of you in my stead.”
“You’re going to leave us?” Myra asked, sounding somewhat distressed. Twist was surprised to find that he felt the same way. At least Zéphyrin and Hala were known entities. The prospect of a new keeper wasn’t a pleasant one to him.
“Thank you for the sentiment,” Zéphyrin said sweetly to Myra. “But yes, I have other things of my own to attend to. More than that, Inari can get you to the astrolabe faster than I can, and without arising any suspicion.”
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