Vita’s feet, however, had different ideas. And so, it turned out, did her mouth.
The girl’s disobedient feet marched her right over to Wile’s table, and her untrustworthy mouth started talking as soon as she reached him. “I didn’t steal the idea for that train or anything else in Railstown,” she blurted out. “I don’t know if you read about a place like that in a book or something, but if you did, I never read it. I don’t cheat. I’m not a cheater.”
The boy regarded her in wary silence. His expression wasn’t warm—in fact it was stony as ever. “Where’s your cat?”
“My what?” This was not the response Vita had been expecting.
“Your cat. The one who rides on your shoulders.”
“Oh, Melina. She’s sleeping. And she’s not a cat; she’s a caterpillar with the emphasis on the cat.”
“Oh,” was all he said before his gaze returned to his food. “Well?” he asked after a moment. “Are you gonna sit down or not?”
Vita wondered if she’d heard him correctly, but he didn’t object when she sat on the bench across from him. He just looked down at his brown and took a bite.
She took some Base from her satchel and made some pepper jack cheese to throw in with her white. It didn’t taste anywhere near as good as when Grover had fixed her food, but she managed to swallow it down. Wile, she noticed, did nothing to alter the taste of his food. Vita wondered how he could stand it.
After a few minutes of eating in awkward silence, she cleared her throat. “So. Am I ever going to be able to see your Dream Chamber? You did accuse me of being a thief, after all, so I’d say you kind of owe it to me.”
She expected him to scowl or tell her to go away. But he just gave her an odd little half-smile. “How about this? I’ll let you in once I’m sure you’re not some kind of thief,” he replied after a moment of consideration.
Then he gathered up his tray, dumped it, and walked out the door.
As Wile left, the record on the gramophone ended and no one appeared to change it. Vita’s eyes searched for a sign of Fidoreekio behind the glass of the order window, but there was only darkness. She slumped in her chair, disappointed, and ate her last few bites of white. She hung around a few minutes after she finished eating, hoping Fidoreekio or some other monster would appear to change the record or, even better, start the same one back up again. She was desperate to hear the last song on the record one more time—it had been the most beautiful of the bunch by far.
But Vita couldn’t remain in the silent concrete tomb alone for long without getting creeped out, so she returned to her Dream Chamber with the echo of the tune still ringing through her head. It had been a piano all by itself and had made her feel as though the strings in her heart were being plucked in time with the instrument. The song had been melancholy just like all the other songs on the record, but there had been a glimmer of hopefulness in that last one—a glimmer that had made the song both less heartbreaking and achingly more so all at once.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TARDORIAN
Rafe had been right—Grover’s Elysian was a lot like Brickingham Manor.
The large, rectangular castle had a tower on each corner. A tall spire even ran through the center of the castle above the other four towers and reminded Vita of the tree she’d built in the center of her own castle’s great hall. But where Brickingham was made of brick, Elysian was a traditional gray stone castle. Brickingham was nearly ready to fall down and covered in ivy while Elysian was lovingly well-maintained.
It was on Elysian’s eastern balcony that Vita, Melina, Grover, Rosie, and Jasmine sat waiting for the joust to begin. From her cushioned seat Vita had a lovely view of the stone castle’s jewel blue moat below. Across the moat was a set of wooden stands that seated easily over three hundred robots. Some were big and barrel-chested like Rafe but others were just slightly larger, mechanical versions of human adults. Ladies wore sapphire and ruby rings and the circular joints that connected their arms to their torsos resembled puffed sleeves. Robots opened chests like briefcases outward to reveal trays of candies, chocolates, and other treats and slipped between the rows, offering their wares. Vita couldn’t hear the robots on the other side of the moat, but ones just like them milled through the rows of chairs on the balcony and the crowd of robots that stood on the moat’s bank below.
“Fresh kebabs, get your fresh lamb kebabs!” one vendor robot called.
“Mulled wine, get your mulled wine!” called another.
Vita had been glad to find that the mulled wine was just warm, spicy grape juice. She took another sip from her golden goblet and smiled over at Rosie and Jasmine. They sat beside King Arzanian and Queen Felinetta. The king was slighter than Rafe yet somehow mightier, with golden glowing eyes and a matching crown permanently attached to his silver head. Queen Felinetta was more beautiful than Vita ever could have imagined a robot—everything about her silver features was soft and delicate and her long, shiny pale yellow metal hair looked softer than Vita’s own.
On Vita’s other side Grover sat leaning forward on the balcony’s rail, his gaze focused on the top of the stands across the moat. Vita had never seen Grover without Rafe by his side before, and the boy seemed only half himself without him.
“Do you see the heralds?” the skinny boy asked her and Melina, pointing straight across the moat to an open box at the top of the stands. There two robots sat at a steel desk. One robot was silver like Rafe while the other was made of pitch black metal. Each wore a tunic—the black robot’s tunic was silver and blue and depicted a stag standing beside a tree, while a tiger leapt over a rising sun against a red and gold background on the other. Two loudspeakers were screwed into the tops of the robots’ heads where eyes should have been. Grover pointed to the robot in red and gold. “That’s Rafe’s herald, Tironimous. And next to him is Alvusio, Sir Griangulin von Crusador’s herald.”
“What do the heralds do?” Vita asked.
“They’re like the announcers at Dodgers games,” Rosie explained.
“What?” Vita asked, furrowing her brow. The Brooklyn Dodgers didn’t exist anymore—they hadn’t in years.
Alvusio, the herald in blue and silver, began to speak and both crowds fell silent. “My lords and ladies, it does me great honor to be a visitor once again to the fine realm of Tardorian on this day!” he announced. Vita wondered if it was possible for him to speak in anything but announcements—his loudspeaker eyes made his voice ring across the moat. The robots on Elysian’s side of the moat clapped in a thundering of metallic clacks. Many of them waved red and gold tiger flags. “You’ll see that my liege, Sir Griangulin Von Crusador of Antorax is already in his corner, preparing his faithful steed, Mariotta, for the joust,” Alvusio went on. “And might I say the Crusador is looking in fine form!”
On the right, across the moat, a robot even bigger than Rafe tended to a mechanical horse. The black knight wore the same blue and silver tunic as his announcer and his horse had a saddle blanket to match. The horse was made of the same black metal as the Alvusio and the Crusador and had shining red eyes. Where legs should have been were instead four jets. Each jet spewed a yellow-orange flame and kept Mariotta floating in the air as Rafe’s opponent adjusted her saddle. This time applause and cheers came from across the moat, from the blue-and-silver flag-waving crowd.
“You can and he does, but no one can come close to Tardorian’s own mighty champion,” Tironimous replied. While Alvusio had leaned forward in his chair and tried hard to engage the audience, Rafe’s herald leaned back, cool and collected. “We all know the Crusador’s got technique. But will his technique be able to stop the raw and awesome power of one of Sir Rafael von Schloden’s blows? Will it halt the blinding speed of Pippilina, the finest horse in this kingdom or any other?” A slow smile spread across the robot herald’s face. “I think not.”
Tironimous’s simmering intensity brought cheers from Vita’s side of the moat that were twice as loud as the ones for Rafe’s opponen
t had been. Vita looked down and saw Rafe on the bank of the moat below. He wore a red and gold tunic with a hole in it for the blue circle on his chest and the gold buttons that bordered it. He adjusted a matching saddle blanket on his horse, whom Grover called Pip.
When the knights mounted their jet-powered steeds, a loud whirring noise came from the moat itself, startling Vita. A steel wall rose out of the water until it stood six feet tall and fifty long in the very center of the moat. The knights flew their horses to points perfectly diagonal from one another on either end of the steel wall.
Where Rafe’s golden sword usually hung on his waist was what appeared to be a black handle. Rafe drew his handle and so did Griangulin. At the same moment a golden shaft of light shot from Rafe’s handle and a silver one emerged from Griangulin’s. A red flag dropped down from the heralds’ box above the moat, and the horses took off toward each other, each knight with his lance raised.
“The lances are so cool, Grove,” Vita whispered.
“Thanks,” he replied without taking his eyes from the action.
“Have you figured out a name for them yet, Pres?” Rosie called over. “I still think you should give ‘lascancer’ a chance.”
Vita laughed. “‘Lascancer?’”
“It’s ‘laser’ and ‘lancer’ rolled into one horrible word,” Grover answered.
Rafe and the Crusador had met at the center of the wall and the Elysian side cheered when Rafe’s lance hit his opponent’s arm and sent his horse spinning in circles. A tiny scarlet and gold flag dropped down on Tironimous’s side of the herald’s box. The two robots returned to their starting points and with lances raised they faced each other once again. This time it was the Crusador who got a two-point hit to Rafe’s chest. Two tiny blue and silver flags dropped down from Alvusio’s side of the herald box.
By the end of the joust Rafe had won 8-3, and Vita’s face hurt from smiling. Her visit to Tardorian hadn’t happened as soon as she’d originally hoped—Eerla and Faylonique had shown up for lessons with her the morning after her strange run-in with Wile in the Mess Hall. She’d had three more lessons after that in quick succession: two more with Dotted-Line Jack and Peebles, and one with bug-haired Hilda and her apprentice, Arunto, the dog-faced monster with a fondness for candy apples. Vita had been so busy with lessons and building that she hadn’t run into Grover and Rosie until now. But Tardorian had been well worth the wait.
Rafe met the group up on the balcony after the match and bowed to the king and queen. “Marvelous work as always, Sir Rafe,” King Arzanian said, clapping Rafe on the shoulder. It should have seemed odd from the shorter robot but it didn’t.
Rafe bowed his head. “Of course, Your Majesty. To bring Tardorian glory is my greatest joy.”
The king and queen returned to their quarters to dress for banquet that evening and Grover led the others around the corner and onto the castle’s southern balcony. This balcony gave a view out over the entire village that surrounded Elysian. Grover explained that the surrounding kingdom was called Elysian, just like the castle, and that it was the capital of Tardorian. Beyond the cozy little houses with their thatched roofs, a wood of tall maple, birch, and pine trees surrounded the village. In the distance Vita could see what looked like a zeppelin flying through the sky. Its bottom opened over a field and covered it entirely with a layer of Base.
“Robots on mechanical horses handle some of the smaller Base dumps for me, but the zeppelin’s pretty effective,” Grover commented to Vita as he looked over her shoulder. “I decided a stables might work better there,” he said of the former field.
She squinted, trying to see any sign of the checkered floor in the distance. But the Base-covered field was the only sign that Grover was still working on this world at all. How much building could he have left do? Nowhere near as much as Vita, that was for sure.
“Grove, would you mind if I looked at your map?” she asked him. “I just think maybe it would be helpful if—”
“Sure,” the boy interrupted her. He pulled his map out of his pocket and handed it to her. His rule about fairness really must have been about that and nothing more—he’d been nothing but helpful since the moment Vita had met him.
She found that Grover’s map was a little over half-full, with Elysian at the very bottom and two other kingdoms, Floren and Antorax beyond. She looked up again at the horizon. If Grover had this much done and was only halfway through, how long would it take Vita to catch up?
“Wow, you’ve gotten a lot done,” she observed aloud to Grover.
He laughed. “I guess that means you haven’t seen Rosie’s.” He called her and Jasmine over and Rosie withdrew her map from one of her coat pockets.
Vita gasped when she saw it. An intricate green maze wove over the entire map. Names like Autumn Fire Fair and Floral Carnival hovered over some of the open spaces in the maze and a large city stood at the center. Not every town and fair in Rosie’s Dream Chamber had a name, but that was the only unfinished thing about it. The map was completely full.
She looked sharply at Rosie. “Rosie, is your model done?”
The little girl shook her head quickly “Oh no. Just because I’ve got the bones doesn’t mean I’ve got the meat. There’s still a lot more fine-tuning to be done, you’ll see.”
Vita got the feeling Rosie was only saying this to make her and Grover feel better. Grover had a shot at catching up to Rosie someday, but Vita was so far behind them both. She still wasn’t sure when their integrity test would be, but it seemed it would take her an eternity to cover her entire Chamber.
She looked back down at Rosie’s map and noticed something odd. Near the center of the paper, a little to the right, was a spot of gray. Once Vita noticed that one she found three others around the same area. She showed the paper to Rosie. “What’s this gray here?” she asked. “Are they rock walls or something?”
Rosie took the map from her and her brows drew together. “Oh, I must have just spilled some dirty water on the map while I was painting.” She folded the map and shoved it back into her pocket.
Vita leaned her elbows on the railing of the southern balcony and looked out on the plains of Tardorian. Grover had created an original model that was a lot of fun, and it looked like Rosie was twice as far along as he was. Vita hadn’t seen Wile’s Chamber or map—she wasn’t going to hold her breath on that one—and already her chances of winning the Crossing Cloak seemed practically nil. She reached up to pet transparent Melina around her shoulders, whom she couldn’t feel in Tardorian but who was real all the same.
If Vita’s model wasn’t chosen, she would have to return home to where Melina didn’t exist at all, in ghostly form or any other.
“The joust was fun and all that, but you shouldn’t fret yourself about it,” Melina said in Vita’s ear. “I’d take a ride with you and Pish in Whirlyton any day.”
“I would too,” Vita replied. Something in her stomach twisted a little as she thought of how even if she somehow did win the Crossing Cloak, she’d only be able to take Melina with her. Pish, Posh, Harper, Spiral, and all the rest of Whirlyton weren’t going to fit under that cloak, too.
To distract herself from such thoughts, Vita stepped up to the telescope set up on the balcony wall. She scanned the horizon with the eyepiece against one eye, and stopped when she noticed movement. She observed that it was a large group of robot knights on horseback, whizzing in the direction of Tardorian. The robots and their steeds were made of black metal.
“Are you expecting someone?” Vita asked Grover and Rafe, pointing in the direction of the approaching knights.
Grover looked through the telescope as well. He tugged on the collar of his tunic, which matched the one Rafe had worn during the match. “No … it looks like they’re from Antorax. There’s peace between Elysian and its neighboring kingdoms, though. I’m sure they’re just coming to invite us to a banquet or something.”
It seemed likely enough, considering that jousting and banqueting was a
bout all the robots seemed to do in Tardorian. But once Vita and the others had moved on to a discussion of mechanical horses, she noticed Grover looking through the telescope in the direction of the black knights out of the corner of her eye. He smiled when he noticed Vita looking but she’d caught his nervous fearful expression before he covered it up.
Vita didn’t know what those black knights were after in Elysian, but it didn’t have anything to do with a banquet.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SPIDERWEB CRACKS
When she and Rosie emerged from Grover’s Dream Chamber Vita noticed Wile sitting at his desk in the hall. He leaned over a pile of papers, pen in hand. Vita had never been much for taking copious notes or drawing sketches and had nearly forgotten she even had a desk available to her. Through the walls of the Mess Hall she could hear a sweet tune full of flutes and violins playing on the gramophone.
Jasmine flew over to Wile and the girls followed after her. Wile slipped the sheets of paper into a green folder, and the folder into a drawer, before Vita could get a glimpse of what he’d been writing.
“Well hey there, stranger,” Jasmine greeted Wile when she flitted onto his desktop. “We haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“I’ve had a lot of lessons lately, and a really long inspection,” he told Jasmine and Rosie. He avoided Vita’s gaze completely.
“Oooh, I’m sorry, with Mazkin or Fironella?” Rosie asked.
“What does it matter?” Wile asked with a scowl. “They’re both awful.”
“I think Mazkin seems all right,” Vita said. She hadn’t seen the headmonster since she’d first arrived at Moorhouse, but she’d thought him kind enough.
“Yeah, well, you would, wouldn’t you?” he snapped.
It seemed Wile was back to his grouchy self. Not that he’d been especially nice when Vita had run into him in the Mess Hall … he just hadn’t been as snide as usual.
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