by Levi Stack
Chapter VII
ROMULUS' TALE
"I have no memories of my parents. It was my grandmother who raised me, and I remember her one strict rule: I wasn't to venture outside, or make friends, or show my face in town. Yes, I grew up in Aryk," Romulus said, seeing Viktor's surprise, "but I was never a part of it. My grandmother and I lived in a poor serf home like everyone else, but I didn't grow up like other children. I grew up confused and angry and alone.
"My second clear memory was of my grandmother weeping. She always cried at night, and I could do nothing but listen. Somehow time passed, but my memories are clouded. As seasons changed, my grandmother began to appear older, slower, more fragile. There were slices of time when she seemed very distant ... and as a child, it frightened me.
"Then came the terrible ache of hunger. One day, the coins just ran out. My grandmother was bedridden, begging me for food, so I stole bread that day and nearly got my throat slit. I felt ashamed and swore not to do it again, but the next day, I faced the same problem.
"That's when I began to hunt—but in the lowest of ways. I rummaged through garbage. I ate scraps. But it wasn't enough. Starving, I searched our entire house for kopeks, and that's when I found an envelope buried in a desk drawer. In it was my father's card and necklace, items my grandmother sometimes muttered about in her sleep."
Romulus laughed hollowly. "I was half our age then, but I took them, and they gave me hope that I might survive."
"What did you do?" Viktor whispered.
"I foraged for food any way I could. The first year was horrible. I spent my days coaxing mice and rats with rotten eggs and throwing up poisonous plants and foul bugs. I was in a miserable state, and my grandmother grew weaker.
"I clung to life, but by the end of winter, I was a skeleton. It was sheer madness that drove me into the forest. I abandoned my fears and decided to think, really think, about how I could survive. That second year, I built traps for animals and found edible plants and studied my surroundings. My grandmother and I were more estranged than ever, but I provided for her, and that thought let me sleep each night.
"I could tell you about the following years, but really it's all the same. I was so taken by the forest that I dug this home and lived here. With endless free time, I invented everything I could dream up, and grew to know these woods well. My life was stable for once, but lonely. Gaining a blood brother, let alone a friend, was the best thing that's happened to me yet. So ... now you know why I keep my past private."
Viktor looked at Romulus with a vast newfound respect. "But you survived."
"True ..."
"But what about your parents?"
"My parents?" Romulus echoed. "Just like your dreams, that subject haunts me. My grandmother refused to speak of them, though I always got the feeling she hated my father. Until yesterday, I hadn't even heard their names."
"You mean, you think Petya was telling the truth?"
"I know he was. I could feel it. Maksim and Adelaida—they were my parents."
"You know Petya was a miner," Viktor pointed out.
"So?"
"So Maksim was probably a miner, too. That's probably how Petya knew him."
"Maybe you're right."
Viktor raised an eyebrow. "Can I see the card?"
Romulus handed over the crinkled king of spades. "I kept it nice forever, and look at the damage one night did. It fell in a puddle when I dropped it in the alley."
It was the first time Viktor had examined the card up close. He studied the royal king on the front and the intricate vines that curled around a flower on the back. It had yellowed a bit, its corners peeling and its surface warped.
"It's almost see-through now." Viktor held it up to the flames in the fireplace. "Wait, what's this?"
Romulus followed his eyesight to find markings above the king's crown. "I can't believe it. I always thought that was just a watermark."
"It is, but the puddle made it more visible," remarked Viktor. "It's a name: 'R.E. Kamdrac.' Do you know him?"
"No. Do you?"
"No, but ... it sounds weirdly familiar."
"There was also a note written on the card, though it's faded now. I copied down the letters and had a bookstore owner read me the phrase."
Viktor's interest sparked. "What did it say?"
"'Matthew 6:21.' Apparently it's the verse that says 'For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'"
"Huh," Viktor grunted. "And what do you suppose it means—besides the fact that your father or mother might've been literate?"
Clearly annoyed, Romulus shrugged. "I don't know, but you'd think they would've left me a shred of explanation."
"Let's ask your grandmother."
"No! She never knew I took it. We can never visit her."
"Why not?"
"Drop it."
Viktor's eyes narrowed. Romulus obviously had a few more secrets he was withholding. Something about his story seemed too ... too ... Viktor couldn't find the right word, so he let the thought slip away.
"Well, talking to my parents is out of the question," Viktor huffed. "They'd wring my neck if they knew the half of—"
"I saved your life," Romulus cut in suddenly, serious and swift. His face was pained. "I have one final favor to ask. It would make us even forever. I heard Petya's warning, so I don't expect you to accept, but I have to know why I was dealt this hand. I've got to find the Silent Deal—not just to survive, but to understand. Viktor, I've got to find out what happened to this town, and its cards, and my parents. Will you help me?"
Petya's words echoed again: "You don't understand. He'll never stop searching for you. In time, his Masqueraiders will find you anywhere you go, your family and friends, too."
To Viktor, it seemed he didn't have a choice. Only Aryk's secret cracked wide open could put his mind at peace and save him from the shadowed Leopard. After all, this was what he'd wanted all along ... wasn't it?
"Deal." Viktor shook on it. "Me and you, Viktor Vassinov and Romulus ... Maksimov."
"I've finally learned my surname," Romulus said, mystified.
Viktor was already up and pacing. "We can start with finding out who R.E. Kamdrac is. Petya said there were spies everywhere, but we can still talk to our peers."
"Do you know who's trustworthy?"
Viktor cracked a smile. "Sure, but this means you're coming back to school."
Viktor pulled his blood brother aside during break. "Okay, honestly—how did your hands survive that?"
It was Romulus' first day back in class and already he was creating tension. Minutes earlier, Miss Dimovna had given him countless raps for all the time he'd missed, but once again, he had taken the swings like a stone gargoyle. Now the other students watched him on the field, the girls admiring him, the boys wearing looks of respect.
"I've got tough skin. It's a sappy story," Romulus answered. "But we've got bigger problems—Dimovna confiscated the Blackbirds in my pocket, and if the captain catches sight of them, he'll know we were the fleeing figures in Elli Way that night."
"And what about the note? Did she open it?" Viktor asked nervously, for that morning he had seen Captain Ulfrik arrive early at the schoolhouse to deliver a letter to Dimovna's attention.
Romulus shook his head. "No, the letter is still right where Ulfrik left it—among the papers on her desk. I don't think she knows it's there yet."
"We've got to get both items. It's a shame she took your one invention we need!"
"Oh, come on, don't you know me yet?" Romulus held open one side of his coat, revealing an array of tiny glass bottles sewn into the fabric lining.
"Uh, what are all those?"
"Stench bombs," Romulus said. "Remember I told you I used to hunt rats? This is how I attracted them."
A mix of disgust and interest played on Viktor's face. "Which is what?"
Romulus pointed to glass stoppers with yellow liquid and floating red pellets. "These are Vile Vials—match heads soaked in
ammonia—a rotten egg smell. But these"—he pointed to two rounded glass bottles full of pink liquid—"are my masterpieces. They're Centipods, downright horrific things to make, but unbelievably potent. It's the collected liquid of a hundred individual stinkbugs, all their odors combined into a few, precious drops."
Viktor tilted his head in confusion. "You mean you sat there and—"
"I had a lot of free time over the years," Romulus growled.
"Right, sorry."
The break bell clanged and Viktor snatched the whole lot, darting off so as not to be seen with Romulus. Miss Dimovna found the boy of the forest and dragged him back inside by the scruff of his neck, not letting him out of her sight.
Meanwhile, Viktor was emptying his pockets as he walked back into the classroom. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. He dropped the Vile Vials one by one and ground the glass into the floorboards with his heel. The bulbous Centipods, he saved for last—crushing them directly in front of Dimovna's desk. He couldn't wait to see her face.
The class settled. Miss Dimovna flashed a sickly sweet smile at Romulus—whom she forced to sit next to the Spektor brothers—and opened her mouth to begin. But suddenly her dead blonde hair twitched and her eyelids fluttered. She rolled her shoulders forward, sticking out her tongue like a cat yakking up a furball.
"Oh! Th-That stench!" she cried.
An odor so powerful confronted the class that it overwhelmed their senses. These children were no strangers to the sewers and stinks of serf life, but Romulus' Centipods were ungodly. Panic broke loose.
Though some of it was amusing, Viktor tried very hard to forget the scenes that played out before him in those next moments, because ever after, they brought back the memory of the all-conquering reek: There was scholarly Modest getting slapped sideways by Miss Dimovna as he offered up his handkerchief, Evenova and Charlotta dodging Fredek Spektor, who had thrown up on himself, and a great deal of hair-pulling on Narkissa's and Sophia's parts. Nevertheless, Viktor held tight to the sinking ship until he was the last man standing.
Alone now, he yanked open the drawer of Miss Dimovna's desk and took back Romulus' Blackbirds. Then he snatched up Captain Ulfrik's untouched letter, shoving it in his pocket. Blue in the face, he stumbled out into the hall, where the two lower classes were also evacuating. No one noticed him slip in among their number and exit onto the field.
The lingering stench resulted in class being canceled for the day. Miss Dimovna suspected Romulus and was livid to find his strange seedpods gone from her desk, but seeing as she'd dragged him out of the classroom by the ear, she could hardly pin the blame on him. Thus she kept her thin lips pursed, biding her time till she could inflict true damage.
A half hour later, the blood brothers entered the Wolf Den, and Viktor tore open the envelope. He meant to read the letter aloud, but his mind began to race down terrible avenues as his eyes took in the words. The implications were far worse than he could have imagined.
