by C. R. Grey
“I was very concerned with the scene I witnessed in Dr. Graves’s classroom the other day,” she continued. It took Bailey a second to realize that she was referring to his argument with Graves.
“About that, Ms.—”
“Let me finish, please.” She held her hand up in a firm gesture. “I know your history of acting out, and I want to caution you: You are still on academic probation, as of this past autumn. I had hoped that your Awakening”—she glanced at Bert, asleep, on Bailey’s shoulder—“would guide you toward an inner focus, and am sorry to see that perhaps I’m wrong. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Bailey said nothing. Of all the teachers and administrators, he trusted Ms. Shonfield the most. He would’ve liked to tell her the truth, but too many people were already in danger. Act normal, focus, stay quiet. He was bursting inside with fear and anxiety, but he had to look calm. He shook his head.
“Perhaps Awakening requires more of an adjustment than we’d originally thought.…” Shonfield said quietly. “Which reminds me, now that you’ve revealed yourself to be reptile in your affiliations, perhaps you’d be more comfortable in Treetop, rather than the Towers?”
Both Shonfield and her assistant cocked their heads to hear Bailey’s answer. He glanced over at Hal, who squinched up his nose in a look of sour disagreement.
“No, I’m happy where I am, thanks,” Bailey said.
“Well, just checking,” said Shonfield. “Cross that off my list, Jerri? I will be keeping an eye on you, Mr. Walker. Don’t disappoint me!” She squared her shoulders. “Back into the fray,” she said to Jerri. “To think we have three whole days to entertain this Dominae woman…With Finch and Graves falling all over themselves for a pretty face…”
Jerri smiled, a little mischievously, and followed her down the hall to join the others. Bailey waited until they were out of sight before he dared to look at the bookcase. To his relief, the Loon’s book was still there, hidden. But relief was quickly replaced by fear, suddenly ballooning bigger and bigger inside his chest: Graves, with Viviana’s fingers resting so formally on his arm, was surely the next person to try to kill him.
“YOU OKAY?” ASKED HAL, as soon as the group of teachers were out of earshot.
“Yeah,” Bailey lied. He’d just looked into the eyes of the person who wanted him dead, and he felt as if small insects were crawling all over his skin. “I just wish Tremelo had actually turned up,” he said.
“He’s Viviana’s brother,” whispered Hal. “What if she recognized him?”
Suddenly, Hal seemed far away. His voice became muddled and Bailey’s vision blurred. Instead of standing within Fairmount’s library atrium, he had his nose pressed up to a gnarled tree branch. Bailey recognized the landscape just beyond the school—it was the woods near the Scavage fields.
Oh, no, thought Bailey. Taleth, sensing his distress, was doing exactly what she shouldn’t: she was edging closer to the school.
Feeling dizzy, Bailey steadied himself and concentrated on his own consciousness: Hal standing before him, and the cold stone marble floor under his feet.
“I have to go,” he said quickly, shaking off the last remnants of Taleth’s vision. The smell of snow-damp leaves lingered in his nostrils.
“Where?” said Hal. “Bailey?”
But Bailey was already out the tall double doors and running down the front steps of the library two at a time. He had to find Taleth and persuade her, somehow, to stay away before it was too late.
He ran past the classroom buildings and down the hill from the cliff, barely aware of the cold that stung his exposed ears and cheeks. His breath billowed out of him in a mist. Finally, he reached the expanse of trees and undergrowth at the base of the hill that led to the Dark Woods. He paused and looked around wildly for any sign of Taleth. But all was still.
His heart still pounded. After a few deep breaths, he plunged into the bushes. He scrambled over a raised root just in time to see Taleth emerge from behind an oak. She regarded him calmly, her whiskers twitching. Bailey stayed still as the tiger approached him. Carefully, she rubbed his still-healing arm with the side of her furry face.
“What are you doing here?” Bailey said softly. He felt a surge of worry emanating from Taleth. When they touched, an image flashed before Bailey’s eyes: a small, grayish-brown animal pursuing the tiger.
“Who’s watching you?” Bailey asked. “Is it Graves?”
Bailey tried to focus, but he couldn’t connect strongly enough to get a clear answer. Instead, he just felt the longing that Taleth experienced. She wanted to stay close to the school, close to Bailey. Bailey wanted that too, but it was impossible.
“Go, get out of here,” he said, and his voice tightened. “You can’t stay here; it’s not safe.”
Bailey pushed at Taleth’s flank, urging her to turn away. The tiger padded away a few paces from Bailey, then she stopped and looked out toward the dark. She turned back to him and blinked.
Just as if he had blinked too, all of a sudden, everything was darkness around Bailey. A cloth was thrown over his face and he was being lifted off the ground, away from Taleth. He instinctively lifted his arms to rip the cloth away, but a strong hand grabbed his wrists. They’d been seen.
“Taleth,” he cried out. “Run!”
Part of him feared that she would stay and help him—but to his bittersweet relief, he heard a crashing in the bushes, and he knew that she had gone away to safety. He thrashed, trying to break free. A fresh, throbbing pain broke out on his injured arm.
Bailey was dragged, half standing, half stumbling, several yards away by someone who kept their arm locked around his middle.
“Who are you?” Bailey yelled through the dusty cloth. It smelled like old potatoes. “What do you want?”
“For you to stop being such a nincompoop,” said a familiar voice. Bailey was thrown down on a soft patch of grass, and the brown potato sack was yanked off his head. Tremelo stood over him.
Bailey sat up. Gwen stood a few feet away, watching them. She was still wearing Phi’s too-small clothes, as well as a remorseful frown.
“I told him it was a little extreme,” she said.
“Extreme? That’s the best lesson plan I’ve put into action all year,” Tremelo said, tossing the sack aside to light his pipe. “You deliberately ignored everything I told you when you returned to school. Running off into the woods with the Dominae just steps away—and asking Gwen to take part in a half-cooked, dangerous plan.”
Bailey smoothed out his sandy hair, which had gotten mussed every which way by Tremelo’s clumsy kidnapping attempt. Of course Taleth had left him alone back there—she had sensed Tremelo being Tremelo, and not any immediate danger to Bailey. Unless you counted severe annoyance as danger.
“You could have been killed if anyone else had found you first tonight!” Tremelo continued. “You’re lucky the girls brought Gwen to me; she may have just saved your life!”
“What do you mean?” Bailey asked, looking from Tremelo to Gwen.
“I tried to tell you outside the assembly,” Gwen began. “I watched Viviana during her tour of the school this morning, from across the commons. I saw her send some men into the forest, all spread out. They’ve been combing the woods all day.”
Tremelo shook his head, and blew out a puff of smoke.
“You haven’t learned a thing since autumn,” he said.
Bailey got to his feet, fighting the urge to mention that it was his idea for Gwen to spy, and that what she’d seen had proved useful. But only useful, he then realized, because he’d disobeyed Tremelo’s orders.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead.
“Come on,” said Tremelo. “Quickly now, we can’t be seen. The others are waiting in my office. We have much to discuss.”
Tori, Phi, and Hal jumped as Bailey, Gwen, and Tremelo entered. Outside in the halls, the sounds of whoops and laughter echoed as students made their way to dinner after an afternoon of no classes. Tremelo
locked both the classroom and office doors.
“Now,” Tremelo said. “Tell me what was said in the assembly.”
Hal spoke up first, unfolding the note with the missing letters.
“This ‘Reckoning’ thing, she has it set for the Equinox,” he began. “And it’s going to be big—she’s planning to hold a giant Fair in the city, and she’s invited the whole school. There’s going to be a Scavage game, vendors, and a Science Competition.”
“Just like the one King Melore held, when he was killed,” Tori said, nodding.
Tremelo was silent for a moment as he brushed his mustache nervously with his thumb and forefinger.
“I too made a discovery this morning,” he said finally. He gestured to Fennel the fox, who sat upright and alert next to Tremelo’s desk. “With Fennel’s help, I was able to find some plans—blueprints—for a very advanced machine Viviana is commissioning.” He cleared away some books on his desk and smoothed out a large sheet of paper with a messy conglomeration of shapes and curves drawn on it. Bailey and the others crowded around the desk to get a better look.
“This casing here is engineered to hold something very powerful,” said Tremelo, tracing his finger around the outer border of shapes. “Given the construction, the piece in the middle is likely volatile, whatever it is. One thing I can tell, it doesn’t run on electro-current—it’s got some sort of other source.…” He trailed off. “Some of this is familiar—the shape of the casing is conducive for amplification, but of what?” He tapped his finger against the blueprint, lost in thought.
“Sir?” said Tori.
“Yes. Anyway,” said Tremelo, shaking his head. “It’s impossible, at this point, to decipher what this machine is meant to do, but it’s very likely involved in her plans for this big event.”
“So, if we can figure out what the machine is for, then we can stop her from using it?” Bailey said.
Tremelo nodded.
“And there’s only one way to find out what it does, though it involves some serious risk,” Tremelo said. Bailey sat up a little straighter. “We have to make our own.”
“CONSTRUCTING THE CASING should be simple,” Tremelo continued. “I have all the supplies we’ll need in my workshop. The middle part—this orblike object—that’s what we’ll need to research.”
He began to name parts they’d need to collect as Tori wrote down the list. Gwen tried to pay attention, but she was still somewhat lost in the shock of the day. The sight of Viviana on the campus today had triggered a panic that had nearly paralyzed her. She’d had fun dressing up in Phi’s clothes—almost enough to feel normal again. But as soon as she’d seen the gray uniforms of Viviana’s guards, and then Viviana herself, her hands had begun to shake. And when those guards then edged closer to the woods, she’d felt dizzy.
Tremelo had been furious.
“You’re not my student—I can’t tell you what to do,” he’d said after Phi and Tori had shuffled her through the halls to his office. “But I feel responsible for you. And you’ve proved yourself just as foolhardy, just as obstinate as—” Gwen was sure he was about to say Bailey, but he stopped himself. “If you had been seen by anyone who knows you’re not a student, how would you have explained yourself?” She, Bailey, and Phi had not even thought that far ahead.
As the group walked from the Applied Sciences building to Tremelo’s garage workshop, Tremelo kept close to Gwen.
“Once we’re done here tonight, you’ll return to the tree house. If anyone sees you in the meantime, I’ll say…I’ll tell them you’re a visiting cousin.” He sighed. “Not that that wouldn’t raise suspicion on its own, given what the administration knows of my past.”
Gwen nodded, and continued the rest of the way in silence.
In the workshop, they split into makeshift teams, scouring through Tremelo’s hoard of metal parts, wires, gears, and bolts. Gwen, Phi, and Bailey worked over a table piled high with tangled wires, while Hal and Tori fought at the other end of the musty garage.
“I’d saved you a seat at the assembly,” Hal said.
“No one asked you to do that,” said Tori.
Gwen locked eyes with Phi, who made a face.
“Look for anything copper first,” said Tremelo, shuffling through a wooden crate of metal parts. “Most conductive—that I can afford, anyway.”
“Like this?” asked Gwen, spotting a few flat sheets of copper tucked behind the workbench.
“Yes, exactly!” said Tremelo. He grabbed them from her and started a pile in the center of the room. “Let’s collect it all here,” he said. “We’re looking for electrical wiring, thin, conductive metal like that copper, and anything that could be used to construct the frame.”
Invigorated, the kids dug in. Every minute or so, one of them held up an object for Tremelo’s approval or tossed it straight onto the pile. Phi untangled several feet of frayed, cloth-covered wire as Bailey and Gwen sorted the rest of the metal sheets. Hal picked through a tub of nuts and bolts, matching them according to size, while Tori and Tremelo overturned a barrel of discarded motorcar parts to search for framing pieces. The pile in the center of the workshop grew.
“What happens when we figure out what the machine does?” asked Hal. “What’s next?”
“We stop it from happening, of course,” said Bailey. “Right?”
“Yes, but how?” Hal asked.
“That’s obvious,” said Tremelo. This pronouncement was followed by confused silence from the students. “Once we know what the machine does, we’ll know how to counteract it. And once we know that, we’ll build a modified version that Tori will enter into the Science Competition.”
Tori looked at them all with a satisfied smirk.
“I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘obvious,’” said Hal. “Why Tori?”
“Because I’m the only one of us taking Tinkering,” Tori said. “And I get it—we enter the competition so that no one will look twice at us lugging some huge machine—”
“Don’t assume it will be huge!” Tremelo interrupted.
“Okay, some mystery machine into the Fair,” Tori finished. “And then once the time is right, we flip the ‘on’ switch and—”
“Bam,” said Hal. “Whatever ‘bam’ will be.”
“That’s right,” said Tremelo. “Getting our machine into the Science Competition will mean better access to Viviana, and whatever her ‘Reckoning’ will be.”
Gwen glanced at Bailey as they found another sheet of gleaming copper. He was smiling, his blue eyes glittering with purpose.
“You seem happier,” she said.
“Nice to have a plan,” he said.
“Ah! And if I’m not mistaken, there should be some silver shavings in my kitchen,” Tremelo called out. “Be right back!” Tremelo rushed out of the workshop, nearly skipping.
“King Trent Melore, everyone,” said Hal. “The rightful ruler of Aldermere, off to fetch silver shavings…”
“He’s younger, though,” said Tori. “I mean, if you want to get technical about it, Viviana is the rightful ruler.”
Bailey and Phi stared at her.
“But she’s evil,” Bailey said.
“Obviously,” sighed Tori. “And that’s why we have to stop her, and so on. I know that. But if you think about it, the Loon’s prophecy could just as well be talking about her as it was about Tremelo. Except for the fact that Viviana’s a crazy person, there’s no real reason that he’s the True King.”
“That’s not true,” Bailey said.
“It is,” Gwen said, surprising even herself. The others turned to her with curious expressions—eyebrows raised, mouths half-open in anticipation of what she would say next. “I despise her—I know what she’s capable of. But if Melore had lived, Viviana would have eventually taken over the throne as the eldest. That’s one reason Parliament was so divided when she returned to the Gray.” She thought about the men and women of Parliament, arguing deep into many nights about exactly this.
“
Right,” said Tori. “My parents knew plenty of Melore loyalists at home who thought she ought to be queen.”
“It was the same in Parliament,” said Gwen. “Though some could see what the years in the Plains had done to her—like the Elder. Others wanted to keep her out because a new ruler would take Parliament’s power away.” She pulled at her hair. Everyone’s attention was on her. She hadn’t spoken very much about Parliament, and the dark days before it disbanded. When she considered everything that had happened to her, those days seemed like a lifetime ago.
“But this isn’t about who has the right to rule,” said Bailey.
“Of course,” said Gwen. “The Elder taught me no one has the right to rule anything, only the ability to prove that they can. But not everyone in the kingdom thinks that way. And they’ll hear the name Melore, and think she’s what they’ve been waiting for. They don’t know. And by the time they do, it might be too late to stop her. It makes our task harder.”
“Sadder too,” said Phi. “Viviana must have gone through some terrible things in the Dust Plains.”
“You’re a very forgiving person,” Gwen said, trying to catch the edge in her voice. She couldn’t shake the memory of Viviana pointing up at Grimsen the owl and shouting the order to end his life.
“I’ve seen what it’s like out there,” Phi said. “It wasn’t fair, what happened to her. But that doesn’t change what she is now.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Gwen said. She stared at the wood grain of the workbench in front of her, her vision blurred with anger or sadness—or both. A moment passed before she realized that Phi was looking at her, her eyes soft and full of concern.
“You saw her, didn’t you? Before today, I mean,” Phi said.
Gwen nodded. The others slowed their movements, turning ever so slightly toward her to listen better. She felt a knot begin to tighten in her chest.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve seen her and Sucrette. There was a demonstration.…” She said the last word harshly. Gwen put down the wires she was untangling, and took a deep breath. She had witnessed the Dominae’s cruel exercises of control, and watched Viviana take the life of an animal Gwen loved. But she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to tell them that. To say the words made her think of how she’d failed the Elder.
