The Cabinet of Wonders: The Kronos Chronicles: Book I

by Marie Rutkoski

  Astrophil tried not to think about the Venus flytrap. Instead, he jumped up onto a small table on which sat a cup, a saucer, and a spoon. Walking along the table, Astrophil deliberately bumped into the spoon, sending it over the edge with a clatter. The spider leaped to the floor.

  He couldn’t move any farther. A domed glass object plunged down from the sky and covered him. It was the bell jar that up until a moment ago had been covering the Venus flytrap. Astrophil quivered in fear, but sternly told himself to remain calm. He froze as the prince bent down to stare at him. From Astrophil’s point of view, the curve of his glass prison distorted the prince’s face. It was deformed, and bent in odd directions as the prince tilted his head. When the prince spoke, his words vibrated through the glass. “My,” he said. “How curious.”

  25

  Coins and Cogs

  LOOK LIKE A PARROT.” Neel fidgeted with the red and gold jacket as he and Petra walked down the hall.

  “What are you complaining about? Half the Lovari wear clothes in those colors.” “Yeah, but the cut …”

  Stuffed somewhere into one of the dark corners of the stables was a page who would dearly love to look like a parrot. But instead he was dressed in Neel’s clothes, and bound and gagged. Petra had lured Damek into the stables by telling him that there were bushels of apples stored there for the nobles’ favorite horses. When Neel pounced on poor Damek, Petra explained to the page that she was sorry, but there were no apples for him to steal and he wasn’t likely to get his uniform back anytime soon. Petra supposed that her deeds tonight wouldn’t improve Prince Rodolfo’s opinion of shifty chambermaids. But when Iris confirmed that, yes, she had heard that the prince was dining with several ambassadors that night, Petra swung the plan into action. Damek actually cried when Neel put on his uniform, but Petra hardened her heart and told the page that his outfit looked ridiculous anyway, and he should be glad to be rid of it.

  Petra and Neel had managed to get past the series of human guards without any trouble. They knew Petra by now and waved her past without looking at her papers. Neel drew some doubtful looks, but Petra had made good use of the prince’s study during her first day of work as one of his chambermaids. She had examined several of the prince’s letters. She supposed that she would have been in serious trouble if she had been caught, even though none of the letters said anything interesting. They were about raising the price of grain, awarding knighthoods, and setting aside more money for Bohemian ships to sail from Italy. Doing a very decent job of imitating the prince’s handwriting, she introduced Branko (that is, Neel). He was a new page, replacing Damek, who had proved himself to be unworthy to work for the prince. Branko had already been interviewed by Prince Rodolfo. Petra stamped the note with the prince’s seal and hoped fervently that this letter would do the trick.

  The lion and the salamander gazed at the letter in Neel’s outstretched hand. Silent communication passed between the two of them for quite some time. Finally, the lion said, “Viera, you may pass.”

  “What about me?” Neel said.

  “You have never entered these doors before, therefore we doubt that you have been interviewed. We regret to inform you that His Highness is not here. You will have to return at another time for your interview.”

  “But it’s already taken place!” Petra argued. “The letter says so.”

  “It would be highly unusual for His Highness to conduct an interview outside his chambers.”

  “But His Highness himself wrote that he has done so. Are you telling me that you doubt His Highness’s word?”

  The salamander shifted. The lion said, “Certainly we do not doubt it.”

  “Damek was taken away by the captain of the guard. Everything happened so fast. The interview was conducted in Master Listek’s office. His Highness has important matters for Branko to attend to. His Highness will be very upset if he returns from his meeting and finds that Branko’s duties haven’t been taken care of.”

  The lion and the salamander looked at each other.

  “Would you like to examine the letter again? These”—Petra waved the paper—“are His Highness’s orders.”

  The lion sighed. “You may pass, Branko.”

  They waited until the double doors had shut behind them to share a triumphant grin.

  They rushed down the hallway. Just before they reached the main chamber, Petra took Astrophil’s drinking spoon from her pocket and dipped it into one of the brassica lamps, collecting a dollop of oil. She carried the full spoon above her left palm, trying not to spill any green liquid. They walked into the chamber with its empty throne and false window. Petra nodded at the door in the middle, to the right. Neel dropped to his knees before it and began to go to work.

  He grimaced. “This one’s tricky.”

  Petra’s heart was pounding. But she and Neel exchanged elated glances when they heard a click.

  Neel pushed open the door. He let out a groan. There was a second door.

  This one was made of glass. There was not one but three keyholes.

  “Should we break the glass?” Petra whispered worriedly.

  “No. Don’t get so jumpy. Give me a minute, will you?”

  As Neel moved his hands over the first keyhole, Petra peered into the Cabinet of Wonders, trying to calm herself. It was a room that seemed to stretch on forever. Several large statues were set on the floor, and shelves lined the walls, heavy with countless objects.

  Petra strained to see what they were, but she didn’t have a good view. Astrophil? she called, searching for the spidery twitching in the back of her mind. She noticed shards of broken glass on the floor several feet ahead. Her anxiety increased. Astro? Tell me you’re in there!

  A silvery web jetted from one of the shelves to the floor. Astrophil speedily lowered himself and ran to the glass door. Petra! Petra! He jumped up and down. I am so glad you are here! I was worried that you would never come! And I am so hungry!

  We’ll get this door open soon. Did you find Father’s eyes?

  Yes, but you cannot imagine what I had to do to get in here! There was a Venus flytrap, and the prince caught me, and I truly meant for him to do that, but I did not know I would get trapped under a bell jar, and then the prince put me inside the Cabinet, like I planned, but he kept me under the bell jar on a shelf, the fiend! Then he left, and I had to push against the glass jar with all my strength until it fell to the ground and took me with it. There was broken glass, and I fell, there was broken glass, and I fell, and … He was babbling, a rare thing for Astrophil to do. But then, he had been under a fair amount of stress.

  Calm down! What are you talking about?

  Astrophil took a deep breath and explained how he hadn’t been able to slip under the door as planned, and so tricked the prince into locking him up in the Cabinet of Wonders.

  He said that I was lucky he was too busy today to arrange for tests to be done on me. He said it as if he knew I could understand!

  “Got it,” Neel said. He pushed open the door.

  Petra kneeled and held out the spoon. Astrophil eagerly sucked at the green oil.

  “Better?” Petra asked.

  “Much!”

  “You were very brave, Astro.”

  “Oh”—he tried to speak with nonchalance —“I did what any self-respecting spider would do.”

  Petra smiled. “Now, where are they?”

  She followed Astrophil deeper into the Cabinet of Wonders. Odd and beautiful objects lined their path, such as a small potted tree whose leaves were curled-up paper scrolls. Petra glanced at a paper leaf that had unfurled and saw a three-line poem written in sappy ink. Some things in the Cabinet were magnificent without being unusual, such as a blue and green life-sized statue of a peacock. Others were bizarre and unsettling, like a six-foot-tall skeleton of a mermaid strung from a pole and hanger.

  Neel pulled down a box, looked inside, and made a face. Petra glanced at the box’s label. “It says ‘Dragon’s Teeth.’”

 
“What am I going to do with dragon’s teeth?”

  “If you plant them in the earth, they sprout soldiers,” Astrophil said. “Or so I have read.”

  “Well, maybe they’ll come in handy,” Neel said doubtfully. He pulled his purse from his waist and poured in the teeth.

  “Try this.” Petra opened a box labeled “Phoenician Coins.”

  Neel’s eyes lit up when he saw the heap of gold. But then he noticed the designs marking the coins. His face fell. “Those aren’t Bohemian. Or Spanish. Or anything. I can’t use those.”

  “You can if you melt them down.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.” He began stuffing his purse.

  Meanwhile, Astrophil had scrambled on top of a small box. Burned into its wood was one word: “Kronos.”

  With trembling fingers, Petra opened the lid. There were her father’s eyes, silver and familiar.

  She hesitated to touch them. When she finally picked them up, she was surprised to find that they were smooth and hard like round pebbles. She carefully put them in her pocket.

  She heard Neel make a delighted noise. She turned around. He had discovered a hoard of jewels carved into the shapes of various animals. There was a ruby pelican, an emerald turtle, a sapphire wolf, and a diamond dove. “Shame I’ll have to bust these into pieces.” He put them in his purse. “But I can live with that.”

  Petra made a quick tour of the Cabinet, looking for something, anything, that might help her fulfill her promise to John Dee. She found powdered unicorn horn, yes. She saw a cocoon the size of her arm. But she came across nothing that resembled a piece of an enormous clock. Or a heart.

  She decided that she would have to let Dee solve his own problems. He could make whatever threats he wanted. Her family would deal with him when they had to. Her father might know somebody who could sever the connection Dee had made with her mind, or perhaps Drabardi could do it. In any event, she knew that she, Neel, and Astrophil couldn’t linger in the Cabinet much longer. She had what she had come for: the only thing that really mattered. “I’m ready to go,” she told Neel. “Are you?”

  He patted his purse. “Yeah.”

  Petra strode toward the door but then halted. She thought of Susana. She remembered her father’s words: “The clock is no longer our concern.” But it did concern other people. Her shoulders sagged, as if in defeat, as if weighed down, and she said reluctantly, “Neel. Let’s look one more time for the clock’s heart.”

  They paced up and down, inspecting the stacks of objects. Precious time slipped by and Petra grew nervous in the silence. She was about to give up yet again when Neel stopped and raised a hand. “Wait.” He stared over Petra’s shoulder. “That thing …”

  Petra looked behind her. “What thing? There are thousands of things.”

  Neel pushed past her and pointed at a small table holding several scraps of metal. “That. It looks like something from your da’s book. I studied it a bit after you told me what the clock could do. Of course, I couldn’t read any of it, but I looked at the pictures. And those metal pieces remind me of something.”

  Petra stared at the table. At first it seemed as if the curved metal pieces were carelessly arranged. But as she looked more closely, she realized the pieces that were roughly of the same size and shape lay next to one another. It looked like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle someone couldn’t quite put together. Petra tried to imagine what the bronze-colored metal scraps would make if they fit together. Then she suddenly understood. “It’s the clock’s heart,” she whispered. She remembered the sketch in her father’s notebook of something that looked like a human heart cut into fragments.

  Neel reached out to touch a piece of the heart, but Petra grabbed his hand. She had seen a red glitter in the bronze-colored metal. “The pieces are made of banium,” she warned. “Human skin can’t touch it. It will kill you. It will send shock waves into your body. You’ll die slowly, and very painfully. Banium pulses … like a heartbeat …”

  Neel shook off Petra’s grip and picked up a piece of banium with his ghostly fingers. “So this one’s supposed to fit with another? But it’s not easy to tell which goes with which.”

  “Try that one.” She pointed.

  A second curve of banium lifted in the air. Neel clinked the two pieces against each other. He tried a few different combinations of fitting them together, but they did not match up.

  “Neel, you’re doing it wrong.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Can’t you see? Look at the jagged teeth along the edges of each piece. Each piece is a cog, and if you fit them together, the cogs will turn.” She tried to imagine the sort of energy the clock’s heart would produce when fully assembled, how each cog of the heart would turn, how the banium would make the heart pulse.

  “What’re you talking about? There are no teeth.”

  Petra shot him a frustrated look. The uneven edges of each cog were as clear as day, and they obviously were meant to match up with other cogs. “You really don’t see it?”

  “Yeah, Pet, of course I do,” he replied sarcastically. “And I’m just saying otherwise cause I like to waste time when my life’s at stake.”

  Then Petra realized that the prince could see the cogs clearly with the stolen eyes. And she could see them because of who she was.

  “Turn your wrist like that,” she said, and tilted Neel’s right hand. “Now push them together.” He did, and the two cogs united.

  “Have you both lost your minds?” Astrophil cried. “Do not assemble the heart! You are supposed to do the very opposite!”

  Neel and Petra looked at the spider guiltily.

  “Silk neutralizes banium. Find some, split the cogs between you, and wrap each one in silk so they do not shock you. Then we will get rid of them once we are outside the castle. And I highly recommend that you move quickly! How long could it possibly take for the prince to eat dinner?”

  Petra found a silk kimono embroidered with cranes. She borrowed Neel’s knife and began hacking the kimono into pieces. Then she paused, thinking. She spoke: “But what are we going to do with the cogs, toss them in the river? That’s not going to be enough. The prince would just fish them out. If we bury the pieces, he’ll find them and dig them up. Your idea won’t work,

  Astro.”

  “Can we not fight?” Neel pleaded. “Because picking apart each other’s plans at the moment we’re supposed to be getting our sweet selves out of here seems to me like a bad plan. Let’s just break the blasted heart.”

  “It is already broken.” Astrophil gestured at the metal pieces.

  “No, it isn’t,” Petra stated. As she looked at the banium, the entire pattern of the puzzle suddenly made perfect sense. “Not really. Not yet.” Wrapping her hands with the silk rags, she told Neel to cut the kimono belt. “Use each half of the belt to tie the rags over my hands,” she instructed. “Just like mittens. Knot the belt halves over my wrists. Good.”

  With her silk-covered hands, she picked up another cog and fitted it to the ones she and Neel had already connected.

  “Petra!” Astrophil was shocked.

  “I know what I’m doing, Astrophil.” Petra rapidly began to attach the cogs. “Listen, I have some magic over metal. Some. But I’m not sure how much and I haven’t exactly been trying to find out. I’ve been too busy.” Or too lazy? she asked herself. Too afraid? “If I can smash those little teeth along the edges of the cogs, they won’t fit together anymore. But I don’t think I have that kind of power. Luckily, the banium does. Once the heart is assembled I can use its own energy to help me.”

  Astrophil dragged his gaze from Petra’s quick hands. He looked at her. “It might work,” he said grudgingly.

  “Is this an idea you got from your da?” Neel asked Petra. He reached out his ghostly fingers to help her balance the growing ball of metal. It was now thrumming with energy.

  “No,” she admitted. “But will you trust me?” she begged, even though she didn’t totally trust herself.


  He lifted the last cog. “Let’s see what happens.”

  Petra took the last piece. It almost pulled itself into place. The heart began to beat loudly.

  “Somebody might hear that,” Astrophil said in a tiny voice.

  “Be quick, Pet!” Neel urged.

  Petra stared at the thumping heart in her silken hands. She tried to focus on the banium, to invite it inside her mind the same way she did Astrophil and the Lovari dagger. Then she paused, afraid. If the touch of banium could kill a person, what would this magic do to her? If my father built the heart and survived, she told herself, I can break it and do the same. Tomik would have recognized this attitude in Petra, because it was the same steely stubbornness that had brought her to Prague in the first place.

  The banium heartbeat began to thud inside Petra’s mind. Quietly, at first. Then it swelled and pressed against her skull. A whimper escaped her.

  “What’s wrong?” Neel cried.

  Astrophil jumped up and clung to her shoulder. “Petra?”

  She ignored them, trying to cope with the throbbing in her brain. It was worse than any headache. It was beyond painful. Just when she thought her head would split apart from the force of the magical connection between her and the banium, Petra focused on the seams in the clock’s heart, the places where the cogs met. Split THERE, she willed.

  There was a sound like ice cracking. As the throbbing in her head drained away, Petra watched the teeth of the cogs shatter along the lines that held them together. The heart still held its shape somehow, like the fractured shell of a hard-boiled egg. But the teeth were gone.