The shadowy figure that had emerged from the onyx stalked its prey, a silky blur of rippling motion. The spiders seemed to avoid it, and continued their assault.
Izzy reached into the pouch at her side with trembling fingers. “Spiders, spiders, bite no more! Begone at once and forevermore!”
She cupped her hand to her mouth and blew, releasing a cloud of white mist.
The spiders fell to the ground, thousands of them, and then fled for the surrounding trees.
Mara cursed and drew herself up again to blow out another breath. But in one quick motion, the shadow thing stepped aside, tossed the dagger to its other hand, crouched, and plunged the blade into the queen’s shadowy robes.
The forest flashed red and then back to dreary gray as a piercing scream echoed in Rory’s ears. He grabbed Izzy’s hand and clenched it tightly.
Thousands of black tendrils floated away from Mara’s body as her form disappeared in a burst of black smoke. A disembodied scream rang out again, and then there was silence.
Rory heard Izzy’s shallow breaths matching his own.
“Is she . . . gone?” she asked cautiously.
Rory didn’t answer.
The shadow figure turned to face them. Its shoulders rose and fell, as if winded.
And then it charged straight at him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Valet Finds That Which Was Lost
Rory crashed to the ground.
Suffocating pressure hit him square in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
Izzy knelt and helped him up. The shadow figure was nowhere to be seen.
Rory rose unsteadily and laid a hand on his heart. “Something’s . . . different,” he said.
Izzy rubbed her throat. Then she froze and slowly drew her hand away from her neck. She pointed. “Look.”
Rory followed her finger. The gray sky overhead was lighter now, and a glint of sunlight shone onto the forest floor.
Rory froze, speechless. He moved his arm, and his shadow returned the gesture. He lifted his arm, then waved his hand in the air. “My shadow,” he said. “Right there.”
Izzy stared in disbelief.
“It came from you,” she said. “I mean, it came out of the stone you wear. How?”
“I don’t know,” Rory answered.
He scanned the ground, looking for the broken shards of onyx, but there was nothing to be found.
The forge—the Infernal Machine—began to hiss again, and they both tensed, then watched as a torrent of shadowy figures poured forth from it. They took on human shapes, just like the one from Rory’s stone.
Then they drifted to the trees and spread out, floating back the way Rory and Izzy had come.
“Are the shadows,” Izzy began, “. . . returning?”
“Can it really be?” Rory asked hopefully.
Izzy jumped back as a dark figure rushed toward her.
“No!” she cried out, putting up her hands in a defensive gesture as she was knocked to the ground.
“Izzy!” Rory shouted, dropping to his knees and taking her hand.
He watched as the shadow seeped into her, like water being absorbed by a sponge.
She lay there a moment, breathing hard, her eyes wide with alarm. “I think I’m okay,” she said.
Rory guided her up by her elbow. He examined her face for any sign of injury.
Izzy breathed out. “I’m okay,” she said again. She touched her chest. “I feel it too. Spreading through me. It’s my shadow, Rory!” She looked to the patch of sun and waved her hand back and forth. “I see it! Hello, shadow!”
Rory almost laughed. “Unbelievable,” he whispered. His hand instinctively went to the stone around his neck, but found nothing there to touch.
He breathed out through his nostrils.
Izzy spun in a circle, then threw her arms over her head. Her shadow did the same.
Rory watched his friend revel in the moment, but they weren’t done yet.
Izzy stopped spinning. They paused for a moment as the reality of the situation came back to them.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, and cocked her head toward the way they’d come.
Rory nodded, still taking everything in. My shadow was in the stone? How?
“Let’s try to find the way back,” he said, turning around.
“It can’t be that hard,” Izzy declared.
They began to walk. Rays of sunlight shone down through skeletal bare trees—all the black leaves had fallen from their thin branches.
“What is this place anyway?” Izzy asked.
“I don’t know,” Rory replied. “Someplace she fed on shadows. With that . . . machine, she called it. The Infernal Machine.” He shook his head, relieved that it was over.
Izzy nodded thoughtfully. “And now the shadows have returned.”
“Let’s hope,” Rory countered, thinking of his mum and everyone else in Gloom. Sea Bell, he reminded himself.
A flock of crows exploded from a stand of trees. They both jumped, startled, and as they watched, the crows soared upward, and then fell back to earth in heaps of ash.
They stepped cautiously around the remains. “Weird,” Rory muttered.
“Let’s go faster,” Izzy urged. “This place gives me the creeps.”
They continued along the path. Every now and then, Rory caught a glimpse of his shadow. The stone, he mused again. How?
“She called them her creatures,” Izzy said. “Foxglove and Malvonius. Her beasts.”
Rory recalled the bird face he’d seen when he’d come upon the butler unawares. “Who would let someone do that to them?” he questioned. “To be . . . changed like that?”
“Evil people,” Izzy replied.
Rory nodded. He didn’t want to think about it anymore. He just wanted to go home.
* * *
The trees became sparser as they continued walking. Rory breathed in deeply. The air was fresh and the sky overhead was a color he hadn’t seen very often—blue, with white clouds.
“Look,” Izzy said, pointing.
Up ahead, the red door was open. Shadows stirred beyond it.
“So strange,” Izzy whispered.
Rory led the way forward. “It’s where we came in,” he said. “Let’s hope the house is on the other side.”
Izzy peered around. “And not some other weird place like this.”
When they walked through the open door, Rory sighed a breath of relief. The familiar rose-colored walls were a comfort to see.
Izzy pulled the door shut, leaving behind whatever other mysteries the black forest held.
Inside, all was quiet. Rory and Izzy peered around warily. There was no sign of Foxglove, or of Mara’s other beasts.
The long hall was empty, but for the splintered and smashed portraits that had fallen in the melee. Rory saw the painting of Foxglove and shook his head.
“What is this?” Izzy called. Her head was bowed, studying something on the floor. Rory stepped up alongside her. Mounds of black ash were spread about. He raised his head and looked to the spot where he’d last seen Foxglove—the Golden Jackal—leaning up against the wall, winded. The only thing there was another pile of ash.
Izzy bent down, reaching out a hand.
“Don’t!” Rory shouted, grabbing her arm. “We don’t know what it could do to us. Don’t touch it.”
“Disgusting,” Izzy said, turning up her nose and straightening again.
“It’s them,” Rory said. “Foxglove and the others. When their queen died, maybe they died with her.”
“Just like those birds we saw,” Izzy replied. “They turned to ash too.”
They tensed at the sound of heavy footsteps.
“Rory?” a deep voice called. “Isabella?”
Ox Bells and One-Handed Nick came down the stairs at the end of the hall. As they drew closer, Rory saw that both men still looked dazed.
Ox Bells stopped in front of them. He stared at Rory and Izzy for a l
ong moment.
“What in the world did you get yourself into, Rory?” he finally asked.
* * *
Rory led the way out of Foxglove Manor. The crisp air on his face was refreshing.
“Where were you two?” Ox Bells asked, a hint of anger in his voice. “I know you dragged me outside. We searched this house high and low! Where in the name of the blasted—”
“There was still something we had to do,” Izzy said, cutting him off.
Ox Bells shook his massive head, confounded.
“You and Vincent were right,” Rory said. “There was something evil in that house.”
“They had animal faces,” One-Handed Nick said. “I’ve seen my fair share of strangeness in this world, but . . . nothing like that.”
Rory opened his mouth to explain, but then thought better of it. There’ll be plenty of time for answers. Enough was enough for now.
“Funny thing,” Ox Bells said. “Not long after we bested those . . . creatures, I felt something strike me in the chest. ’Twas like thunder.”
“And then a bit of calm,” Nick said. “Like a peacefulness spreading through me, if you take my meaning.”
Rory and Izzy looked at each other and grinned. They dropped back a little and let Ox Bells lead the way.
“I wasn’t going to let them take you,” Izzy whispered to Rory as they continued to walk. “I found Ox Bells right away and we came as fast as we could.”
“I’m glad you did,” Rory said, then paused. He lowered his voice. “What did you do? With the white smoke? The spiders?”
Izzy smiled proudly. “It was one of the first spells my mum ever taught me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She uses it to keep spiders out of the house.”
Rory felt a funny sensation in his stomach, which seemed to work its way up to his face. He opened his mouth and a sound came out. It was laughter.
Ox Bells turned around and looked at them askance. “What’s wrong with you two? You in shock?”
Rory looked to Izzy.
And then they started laughing again.
“Kids.” Ox Bells smirked. “Little otters.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Neither Sloop, Nor Jackdaw
Although several weeks had passed, the defeat of Mara of the Shadows was still fresh in Rory’s memory, like a lingering dream he wanted to forget.
But he couldn’t.
Nightmares plagued him—visions of creeping shadows and blood-red forests; the wild, animal faces of Lord Foxglove and Malvonius. His mum woke him on many occasions, soothing his forehead with a cool hand and whispering words of comfort.
Rory hadn’t wanted to worry her, so he hadn’t told her about all of the madness that had been going on in Gloom. It was Ox Bells who’d done that.
At first, Rory was angry with him, but soon he understood that keeping it from his mum would have been a terrible mistake, something that would have haunted him for the rest of his days.
It turned out she was mostly just concerned for his safety, and Izzy’s. “You could have told me all of this!” She’d fumed. “We could have rallied together! All of us—shirrifs, Ox Bells and his friends, even Izzy’s mum! She . . . knows some things. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”
After that, Rory was ashamed that he’d kept things from his mum. She was a brave woman, and would have fought to protect the people she loved.
Rory often caught her looking at her own shadow and shaking her head, as if she still couldn’t believe that it was all true.
He couldn’t believe it either—his own shadow, coming to defend him. He didn’t know if he ever really would.
* * *
Rory and Izzy sat on the docks of Quintus Harbor. The sound of water slapping the pilings provided a steady rhythm.
“I never knew something so strange could happen here,” Rory said softly, almost to himself.
“But it did,” Izzy replied. “And we actually saved people, Rory. We saved them!”
She was right, he knew. They had helped release the shadows trapped in what Mara called the Infernal Machine. Now they were back with the people who had lost them.
The Circus of Fates, the carnival, was still entertaining the townspeople. Rory and Izzy had visited often, walking among the crowds of smiling and laughing people. Rory had never seen so many happy faces in Gloom before.
But they didn’t even know, he mused. Didn’t know that their shadows had been stolen and used to feed an evil queen.
Maybe, he thought, as he looked out over the water, they had sensed that something had returned to their bodies, like Ox Bells and One-Handed Nick had. Their essence, Swoop called it.
But did this mean their shadows were tainted now? Was there a piece of darkness lingering in them all, ready to take on another shape?
Rory shuddered and pushed the thought away.
Small boats rocked gently on the water, their sails snapping in the breeze. Farther out, a massive ship with white sails as large as clouds moved with a speed that betrayed its size. The sun shot down in brilliant rays, casting Rory’s shadow alongside him.
“There are still things I wonder about,” he said.
A gray seagull landed next to him and flew away quickly, squawking and flapping its wings, a crumb of bread dangling from its beak.
“Like what?”
He shifted on the hard planks, then dug his finger into a crack in a slat of wood. “Like why I dreamed about . . .” He still didn’t feel comfortable saying the name, although he knew the threat was gone—at least he had hoped so. “Her,” he finished.
Izzy lazily swung her legs back and forth over the edge of the dock. “I still think you’ve got some kind of magic,” she said. “The carved deck says we live many lives and that, when we die, we carry our stuff over from the last one.”
“What ‘stuff’?” Rory asked.
Izzy shrugged. “Dunno. Our brains?”
Rory chuckled and looked back toward the water. “And the stone that was my father’s. I don’t understand that either. How did it . . .” He trailed off.
Izzy only shook her head.
Rory turned at the sound of voices coming from farther down the dock. A few people were congregating at its very end. “What’s going on down there?” he asked, pointing.
“Let’s go see.”
The crowd was growing. Men, women, and children were all talking in an excited babble of voices and looking out toward the water, pointing into the distance.
“Never seen a ship that big before.”
“It’s a sloop.”
“It’s not a sloop. It’s a jackdaw.”
Rory shaded his eyes with the edge of his hand. The massive ship he had spotted moments ago was closer now, parting the water before it, coming in from the Black Sea, which Quintus Harbor fed into. It was the largest ship he’d ever seen as well.
It had two masts—the tallest of which, called the main, rose into the air higher than several lampposts linked together. It carried two sails, one square and the other triangular. The other mast had smaller sails with staysails in between.
“I tell you, it’s a jackdaw,” another voice rang out.
“I know a sloop when I see one, you ninny.”
But Rory knew they were both wrong.
He had read books about the sea and was quite familiar with the big ships that were in all the stories.
It was a brigantine, the largest and fastest sailing vessel known to man. As it drew closer, he saw small figures preparing the ship to dock. The crew eased off the mainsheet to slow its approach. A small figure grabbed the boom and pushed it back hard against the wind. Rory watched in admiration. He’d only read about these things in books. To see it actually happening right in front of him filled his heart with excitement.
As the ship drifted between two pilings—the widest in Quintus Harbor—Rory looked on in awe. From the prow, a golden mermaid figurehead stared out at him.
“What in the worl
d?” Izzy exclaimed. “What’s a ship like that doing in Gloom?”
But Rory didn’t answer. He was looking at the crew as they threw heavy chains onto the dock. A few wind-bitten Gloom sailors tied the chains to cleats.
Rory knew where the captain’s quarters were. They were right at the stern of the ship, and it was the captain whom he wanted to see.
The crowd hushed. The crew assembled on the deck in a sort of square formation and drew themselves to attention. Rory looked at their faces. They were all dark skinned—some like him and others baked by the heat of the sun. The women looked just as fierce as the men.
The crowd waited.
And then, a man emerged from the captain’s quarters.
His skin was like ebony. He carried a rough-hewn wooden staff, almost as tall as he was. Rory took note of the muscles in his arms, like cords of rope. His hair was golden and tied into a topknot, something Rory had never seen on a man before. He wore a weather-stained vest, loose-fitting trousers, and leather sandals tied around his ankles.
Izzy stuck an elbow into Rory’s side. “Is that . . . ?” she whispered, her eyes wide. “It can’t be.”
“It is,” Rory said. “That has to be Goldenrod.”
Without any kind of command that Rory could see or hear, several of the crew went to the starboard side of the ship and used ropes to lower a wooden plank dockside. Rory noticed the decorative handrails, but the captain didn’t reach out to steady himself, only walked with a sense of purpose unlike any Rory had ever seen. Silence filled the air, broken only by the gulls calling overhead. The man came around to stand at the front of his ship. “It’s been many a year since I was last in this town,” he said, and his rich, deep voice carried out over the assembled mass. He looked from left to right, seeming to study the face of every person there. “Does Black Maddie’s still stand? My crew and I could do with a good meal and a dry bed.”
“Aye,” a bearded old man called out. “Hasn’t changed much. Still beer and fish every day.”
A few chuckles sounded in the crowd. Rory jumped as someone behind him laid their hands on his shoulders. He turned around quickly.
Gloom Town Page 14
