by C. R. Grey
The past, the past. Recently, the past had been calling to him more and more.
Tremelo reached his carriage house’s door and stomped up the narrow stairs. Fennel sat upright on the highest shelf of his desk, waiting. Tremelo lifted open the trunk on the floor and pulled out the heavy, leather-bound book. It was a miracle that the book had survived after the Loon’s murder—and a miracle that Tremelo had managed to find it in the Loon’s ransacked home without losing his own life. Despite all that, the book had never been of any use to him … until now.
Tremelo turned to the first page, and ran his fingers over the familiar handwriting—familiar, and totally unreadable. None of the RATS had been able to decipher it, either. It was, his father had said, the language of the Seers—but after the Loon’s death, Tremelo had no desire for another trek through the mountains to find them. The Velyn would have known, and many of them would have helped him, but they were all dead now. The Jackal had made sure of that. After all that bloodshed, Tremelo had done with the book the same thing he’d done with his father’s prophecies— dismissed it as an object of a past that no longer meant anything.
But after tonight … he was no longer sure.
He had seen the two people Bailey had glimpsed through the trees. Fennel had been hot on their trails, and Tremelo, in a deep meditative state just outside the woods, had seen through her eyes. First, he’d seen flashes of the two nervous kids out where they had no business prowling around, and then two faces and darkly colored handmade clothing. A cloak on one, trimmed with wolf’s fur. An earring made from the talon of a crow.
And on the back of a wrinkled hand, a tattoo.
Now Tremelo sat in his armchair in the safe warmth of his familiar apartment, but he felt far from easy. He flipped the pages hastily and then stopped. For a long time he sat staring, unable to move, unable to tear his eyes away from the page.
There, in his father’s book, was the same collection of lines and dashes that he’d seen on the hand of the man in the woods.
Fifteen
GWEN WALKED PURPOSEFULLY down a hallway in the high-ceilinged stone Parliament building to fetch an evening snack from the kitchens for the Elder. Even through the fortified walls, she could hear chanting outside.
It had been just over two weeks since the Elder’s return to Parliament, and in that time the riots in the city had grown in size and strength. Stirred by the Dominae’s promises of power, the poverty-stricken citizens of the Gray City’s poorest districts had gathered in the Parliament square to protest. Many storefronts and tenements near the city’s center had been looted or, worse, torched. Just the night before, a blaze had started on the streets near the palace. Gwen glanced out a tall window, and through the smoke and flames, she could make out the rioters, holding sticks and clubs, and shouting, “We will be free! We will be free!”
As dangerous as it was outside the walls of the palace, however, the real danger was inside. The air in the halls was tense with whispering and worry. Instead of banding together to push back against Viviana, Parliament had only become more fractured, with members disappearing every few days, perhaps afraid of the riots outside.
“Shouldn’t the riots prove to Parliament that Viviana is a threat?” Gwen had asked the Elder earlier in his study.
“Violence has a way of distracting us from our goals,” he’d replied, watching the melee below. “I’m certain that the Dominae has spies in Parliament who would enjoy nothing more than to see us crumble. Our failure to declare Viviana an official enemy of the people is proof that she has many members of Parliament on her side already.”
As she rounded a corner near the kitchens, Gwen saw two Parliament members reflected in a hanging mirror: a large, glowering man followed by a gristly warthog and a spindly woman with a look of permanent irritation. Gwen almost kept going and walked past them, but she drew back when she heard the word Viviana.
“Are you ready?” the Animas Warthog said. “I have heard that Viviana will be there in person.”
Gwen pressed herself flat against the wall, where she could not be seen. She felt her heart begin to beat faster.
“Just so long as the rabble stays away,” the woman replied. “I don’t want to be recognized.”
From the open window at the end of the hall, the voices of that rabble drifted to where Gwen hid. “We will be free. We will be free!”
“Never fear,” said the Animas Warthog. “This rally is for the inner circle only.”
“As long as the Elder and the other loyalists like him don’t find out … ”
“Pshh! The Elder’s worn out his welcome, I say. He’ll be the first to go when Viviana takes power. Perhaps sooner … ”
Gwen stifled a gasp. She could barely believe what she was hearing.
The conspirators were on the move. Their shadows lengthened around the corner as they made their way toward the spot where she stood. Frantically, Gwen scanned the hall for something to hide behind. A door stood ajar only feet away, and just as the twosome turned the corner, Gwen slipped inside a rarely used retiring room. She held her breath, afraid that they’d heard her movement. Instinctively, her fingers flew to her short red hair, which she began twirling anxiously.
As they passed by, Gwen made a decision. She’d follow them. She would go to this rally and find out everything she could; she and the Elder could use that information to expose the spies in Parliament. The Elder had saved her life—she owed him this much. Finding any evidence to align loyal Parliament members behind him could change everything.
Observing them from a distance, she followed the two Dominae sympathizers down a dank hallway in the basement of the Parliament building. The lamps in the corridor were very dim, and the stone smelled like rainwater. She paused as the two conspirators pulled the heavy basement door open and stepped up the stone stairs into the alley. She waited several seconds before she dared approach the door and follow them out into the night. As she emerged into the alleyway, she tried to send out a call—she could feel the presence of the owls that normally roosted in the towers of the palace. She’d need their help to stay on course without being seen by the people she was following. A dark shape flew through the patch of sky that hung over the alley, and Gwen saw an eager young barn owl leading her onward.
She thought about the Elder, alone in his study—he would worry about her if she didn’t return soon with a bowl of roasted almonds from downstairs. But she couldn’t tell him—he would only forbid her to go, as he’d done so many times before. This was her chance to prove herself to him.
Above her, the owl screeched encouragingly. She hurried on, past a group of men gathered around a waste-can fire and into the dark alleys that led to the Gudgeons. Be brave, she told herself. The Elder needs you.
She was going to meet the Dominae.
Sixteen
AT THE VERY SAME moment that Gwen heard the Animas Warthog threaten the Elder’s life, Bailey found himself boarding a rigimotive for the second time. The entire Year One class was embarking on a field trip to the Gray City to hear the famous Equilibrium Orchestra, which was made up of human musicians and their bird kin, who provided the woodwind section. It was supposed to be a beautiful and haunting blend of birdsong and composed music, but Tori, who had already seen the orchestra twice, said it was “nothing you’d flip your lid over.”
Bailey had spent the days since his run-in with the wolf distracted and anxious, furious that just when he’d stumbled upon something huge (and potentially dangerous), Tremelo had made it nearly impossible for him to do anything but go about his normal school routine. Fennel had begun popping up in strange places like the dining hall and the path to the Towers, just to remind Bailey that he was being watched.
Other students were anxious too, but for a different reason. Reports had reached the school of unrest in the Gray City—even riots close to the Parliament building. For that reason, extra chaperones were accompanying the students on the trip, and Headmaster Finch had called a special ass
embly that morning to assure everyone that any “unsavory activity” was taking place in an entirely different part of the city.
Still, some students had declined to go on the field trip, supposedly because their parents were too worried about any possibility of violence near the opera house. Bailey had written to his own parents to tell them about the field trip, and his mom had written back in length about how she owned two gramophone recordings of the Equilibrium, and how she and Bailey’s dad had always wanted to hear them perform live, and did he think that the same gentleman was conducting who’d been with the orchestra when she was a girl? Bailey, relieved, had signed up for the trip with a clear conscience.
Now about fifty Year One students were lined up in the yard next to the rigimotive platform, hooting and waving as the four-story rigi pulled up on the track. Bailey, Hal, Tori, and Phi chose seats on the ground floor near the back of the first car, where a sliding gold-plated door separated them from the last car, occupied by their escorts. Among the half dozen professors who had signed up as chaperones were Mr. Nillow, the History instructor; Ms. Sucrette, who wanted to tie the orchestra into her semester-long study of Latinate bird songs; and Tremelo, who insisted he wasn’t going to baby-sit anyone—he was only going, he said, to listen to the music. The teachers were in high spirits, talking loudly and laughing, just as happy to have a day free of regular classes as the students were. Tremelo and Ms. Sucrette sat side by side, trading opinions on which of the latest recordings was the Equilibrium’s viola section’s most adept.
Phi sat first on one of the wooden benches and, feeling bold, Bailey slid next to her. Tori gave him a sidelong glance and took the bench in front of them. Hal, who couldn’t seem to muster up the courage to sit next to her, stretched out his legs on the bench across the aisle. It occurred to Bailey that the ride from Fairmount to the Gray City by rigimotive was over three hours long—and he’d just put himself in the precarious position of having to talk to Phi all that time without sounding like an idiot.
Tori was already in rare form: “When will this ant of a thing get a move on?”
“I’ve never been to a concert before,” Phi said. She tucked a piece of her dark curly hair behind her ear.
Bailey felt like he ought to sound worldly or experienced, but he had to admit, “I haven’t, either … unless you count a barn dance I went to once.”
The rigimotive lurched, and the students in the car all sat up on their seats to wave, even though there was no one in the yard outside to wave to except Mrs. Copse, who hullo-ed back enthusiastically before chopping the ear of an overgrown rabbit-shaped hedge with her shears.
They were off. As the rigimotive sped smoothly along the Fluvian, Hal tried visibly to work up the courage to move closer to Tori. Tori, completely uninterested in making small talk with him, whipped a book out of her beaded satchel and spent the whole ride resolutely ignoring all of them.
Bailey found that the easiest thing to talk about with Phi was the most obvious: their first Scavage game against a rival school, which would take place the next weekend. It was against Roanoake, a trade school from the northernmost region of the Lowlands, which was mostly flat, grassy plains.
By the time the city center was visible in the distance, Bailey had made Phi laugh three times.
She blushed when Bailey complimented her on her tree-climbing skills.
“No, really, I mean it—you’re going to win the game for us single-handedly,” he said. “I’ve been through Roanoake, and they barely have shrubs out there! They wouldn’t know how to get any height in a game if they were all Animae Eagle.”
Phi laughed. Four times. “I like a bird’s-eye view!” she joked. “Can I help it if I just happen to see some Sneaks?”
Bailey noticed that Hal was trying desperately not to appear as if he were eavesdropping.
“Hal would probably be really great at recon like that too,” he said, raising his voice so that Tori could hear. “His Animas can fly, and plus, Hal can hear anyone coming a mile away.”
“I’ve never heard of a nighttime Scavage game, though,” said Tori, who didn’t even look up from her book. Bailey expected Hal to stay silent, but he didn’t.
“Actually, I think it was three? Four years ago? When Alastair Smith played for the Gray City team, there was an eclipse—the nocturnal Animae players had their best advantage, and ended up clinching the game.”
“I didn’t know you were such an expert,” Phi said. Bailey could have sworn he saw Hal blush. Tori, however, was still unimpressed.
“You couldn’t convince me to give a badger’s behind about Scavage,” she said. “Give me a real adventure any day.”
As if Tori had just summoned an adventure out of the sky, the rigimotive lurched to a shuddering halt. The force of the stop threw everyone forward in his or her seat, and caused more than a few students to tumble into the aisles. Everywhere was the clatter of paws and claws, the lashing of tails and outraged cawing of various birds.
Hal had been thrown on the floor between the cars, legs splayed inside the students’ car, leaning back against the door of the teacher’s car. The door was flung suddenly open, causing Hal to fall backward, hitting his head on the delicate blue shoes of Ms. Sucrette.
“Quindley!” she shrieked, as if Hal had purposefully fallen on her foot.
Tremelo stood at Sucrette’s side, holding her elbow.
“Everyone all right?” he asked, and was answered by several groans and a bark. “Good,” he said cheerily. Sucrette sniffed.
Bailey got up and helped Hal to his feet. At the same time the conductor, a short man with a thin gray mustache, came barreling down the aisle of the rigimotive car toward them. He wore a carefully starched blue uniform with almost comical spangles of gold trim. A tittering monkey sat on his gold-fringed shoulder.
“Out of the way,” the conductor snapped. He opened the metal door of a box set into the wall of the car and pulled out an earpiece. The monkey on his shoulder hopped up and down excitedly as a loudspeaker crackled on.
“Attention, passengers. We have been halted due to a tear in the dirigible. We are approximately half an hour from the center of the Gray City, in an outlying neighborhood. All passengers should please wait here on the rigimotive for us to perform a routine patch. Don’t wander off.” The conductor then forcefully shut the metal box, and fixed his sharp gaze on the assembled small crowd of students.
“All right, shoo, off with you,” the conductor said, pushing Hal and Bailey out of the way.
“This is ridiculous,” huffed Tori. “We’ll be stuck here for at least an hour, I’m betting. Some field day!”
The other students wandered back to their seats amid groans and chatter. Hal, Phi, Tori, and Bailey remained standing in the space between the cars with Sucrette and Tremelo. It seemed to Bailey as if they’d stopped in the middle of a wasteland. Though they were inside the limits of the Gray City, they were nowhere near the glittering central square or the opera house. The rigimotive tracks ran along a narrow street that was littered with garbage. The windows of the buildings around them were either broken or shuttered against what light the street offered. Everything was awash in dusty smog. A huddle of children sat on wooden produce boxes and eyed the bright red rigimotive warily.
“Where are we, exactly?” asked Ms. Sucrette.
“Gribber Street,” Tremelo answered gruffly, while lighting a pipe. Ms. Sucrette waved the first wisp of smoke away from her face. “I knew a very talented young contortionist in Gribber Street once,” Tremelo continued to muse, exhaling. Then he nodded to Sucrette and the two returned to the teachers’ car, trailing a plume of myrgwood smoke behind them.
The four students stood facing the steps down from the rigimotive car.
“Well, you asked for an adventure,” Hal said bravely to Tori, puffing out his chest. “Seems to me one’s just appeared.”
Hal stepped down onto the crumbly pavement of Gribber Street and turned, offering his hand to Tori. Phi giggle
d.
Tori swatted Hal’s hand away. “Oh, why not,” she said as she stepped down.
“Do you think we ought to stop them?” Bailey asked Phi.
She merely smiled and shrugged, following Hal and Tori into the street. Bailey smiled too, impressed that Hal was leading the charge to break the rules. They quickly crossed Gribber Street and rounded a corner, hoping no teachers would spot them sneaking off. Thankfully, no one followed and they found themselves on another shambling street, which bent and curved around boarding houses and cramped shops.
“Look!” cried Phi. She was pointing not at the dingy street but at the sky. Bailey peered in that direction and saw a strange white bird fluttering down to the ground. It seemed too angular to be a real bird, and its movements were too precise. It landed on top of a swinging iron sign advertising a tax collector’s office, emitted a tinny squawk, and then … it exploded. Or at least, that’s what Bailey thought had happened at first. The bird unfurled with a pop, its many angles unfolding and unfolding until what had been a very small creature was now a large, flat poster, with the face of a beautiful woman—but stern and fierce—and the words We will be FREE, or we will be NOTHING.
