by Lisa McMann
“Basically.”
Thisbe was incredulous. “And you went against Shanti’s wishes to save my sister? You risked that?”
Dev looked uncomfortable. “Of course. Fifer was going to die otherwise.” He started to fill the tiny bottles.
Thisbe wasn’t quite sure what to say—Dev had been a hero, and she’d had to drag the information out of him. That wasn’t what she’d expected from him. “Then what happened?” she asked.
Dev started from the beginning and told her about how he and Shanti had been heading for Dragonsmarche to see what would happen at the auction when they noticed Simber flying toward them. After Dev had done what he could and the Artiméans flew away, he and Shanti continued to the city. “Dragonsmarche was in chaos when we got there. Carts were overturned, people trampled, the giant aquarium was cracked and flooding the square, and some of the sea creatures were sure to die. There was nothing we could do for them. Some were captured and stolen. I hope the rest of them made it to the lake.”
“That’s horrible.” Thisbe remembered pointing out the aquarium to Fifer before they’d been tied up on the auction stage. There had been a creature inside that had looked familiar. But it was all a blur now.
“We hung around the square listening to the story about what happened to you. I tried looking for you, but of course there’s no way I know of to make the Revinir’s elevator come up when you’re on the outside. Most of us didn’t even know that entrance to the catacombs existed. She must only use it in the dead of night or something.”
Thisbe had figured as much when the crowd seemed surprised to see it come up in the square. “You really looked for me?”
Dev’s expression flickered. “I mean, I couldn’t, obviously—you were underground, and the other entrances are far away from where we were in Dragonsmarche. But I looked around a little, in case the townspeople were wrong.”
“Interesting,” said Thisbe. She almost smiled, but the memory of being snatched away by the Revinir was too heartbreaking—that moment marked Thisbe’s estrangement from everything she knew, or might ever know again. “Did the Revinir pay Princess Shanti for me? Or did she just steal me and get away with it?”
“I think she paid the princess something afterward. But then she got really mad when she found out the dragons had escaped.”
Thisbe nodded, saying nothing to give away the fact that she’d learned some of that information already. She felt an emptiness growing inside whenever she thought about people buying and selling other people. And she wondered if Alex and the others would have to buy her in order to get her back. The desolate feeling led her to wonder once more if the Revinir was right about Alex not sending a rescue party for her. Why? The question pounded in her ears, unanswered. Maybe he’d had enough of her. Maybe he’d actually just thrown his hands in the air in frustration for the last time. But wouldn’t someone try to talk him into going back, like Florence or Lani? Wouldn’t anyone else come back for her? Not even Fifer? Maybe they didn’t know how to get money.
It was all too confusing. As much as Thisbe tried to convince herself that she was being ridiculous in thinking any of those bad thoughts, she still couldn’t come up with a good reason for Alex not sending someone for her. And that continued to sow more and more doubt in her mind as she began to bottle the magical bone broth.
“So you stayed with the princess?” Thisbe said eventually, picking up Dev’s story again and prompting him for more.
“Yes, but she was mad that I’d defied her. I apologized, and things got a little better. Then, about a week ago, the Revinir finally discovered that her dragons had escaped—she hadn’t heard about it since she was underground, I guess, and the king wasn’t about to admit it. But word worked its way underground to the Revinir’s soldiers, and she came storming into the castle to talk to the king.”
“If the Revinir owned the dragons, why did the king have them?”
“The Revinir didn’t have a place to keep them. The original dragon entrance to the catacombs, which was used to bring in the dead ones, collapsed a long time ago with the big earthquake, and they don’t fit into any of the other entrances. So the Revinir had made an arrangement with the king, which allowed him to use the dragons infrequently to transport building materials and jewels and junk like that in exchange for keeping them captive and feeding them.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, when the Revinir found out the dragons were gone, she was really mad. There was a huge shouting match, and the princess got hauled into it because the king found out that she was the one who’d ordered the gate opened, which allowed them to escape. Naturally Shanti was boiling mad at me, since it was sort of my idea to release them.”
“It was—you?” Thisbe was surprised again.
“Yeah. I couldn’t stand that they were locked up and muzzled like that. Anyway, when the Revinir demanded payment from the king, Shanti suggested . . . me.” He grew quiet. “So. That’s how that happened.”
Thisbe dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry.” She had so much to process, so much she wanted to say. Dev was more complex than she’d ever imagined, and she wasn’t sure what to think about him and how the things he’d done and all he’d experienced in his life had shaped him. He was one surprise move after another—maybe that’s what happened when you were exactly half-bad and half-good. Whatever the case, Thisbe was mystified by him.
• • •
They worked the day away, scooping all the way to the bottom of the giant cauldrons and pouring the smelly liquid into tiny bottles, then capping them tightly and putting them on a cart. When they finished, they began the broth-making process all over again, each with a new bone in their pots, covering them with water and stoking the fires to bring them to a boil.
After a while, a soldier came in. “The Revinir told me to tell you that you’re to stay late tonight to add water to the cauldrons for the next five hours. Then you can cover them for the night and go.”
“Five more hours?” Thisbe looked up at the woman. “Why can’t you just put some water in these pots? Why do we need to sit here?”
The soldier pointed her weapon at Thisbe.
“Okay, okay,” Thisbe muttered. She wasn’t happy about this development. It meant she might miss her secret evening time in the tunnel with Rohan. She was looking forward to seeing him, and she wanted to show him what the Revinir had done to her. Every time she moved, she felt the breeze slice through the scales, and it reminded her again of this incredible thing that had changed her. She still hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of it. Now and then she rubbed her hand over them, always expecting them to be sharper. But they remained soft and pliable. They didn’t itch.
As she and Dev continued their jobs into the evening, they chatted on and off. Things had grown comfortable between them, and they sat together in between the times they were adding water to their cauldrons. The horrid smell grew as the bones boiled and released their bits of magic into the liquid.
Dev explained to Thisbe the parts of the dragon-freeing story that she’d missed while being chained in the castle dungeon. And he told her how he’d led Seth out. Eventually he also confessed that he’d intentionally put Thisbe in the prison chamber with Maiven Taveer because he knew the old woman would be decent to her.
The surprises about Dev didn’t end. He’d done some really thoughtful things. Maybe he wasn’t all bad. Thisbe laughed to herself at the joke, but then realized he could have changed for the worse or the better by now, and it seemed like he was heading in the better direction. But was he good enough to trust him with her secret to escape? He’d burned her before. She was tempted to tell him, but she just couldn’t. Not yet. She needed to be absolutely certain he wouldn’t betray her.
As they were about to leave for the night, there was a noise at the door. Thisbe turned and sucked in a sharp breath when she saw Rohan coming toward her, dragging a huge sack of small bones into the kitchen. He looked exhausted and ragged.
“Rohan,” she
whispered. Then her eyes landed on the bones. Her sight wavered for an instant when she realized what they were.
“Who are you?” Dev asked him, looking alarmed at the delivery. “What are those for?”
Rohan glanced at Thisbe, telegraphing a warning look. Then he turned to Dev. “The Revinir told me to deposit these here.”
Dev narrowed his eyes at the pile. “Those . . . aren’t dragon bones.”
“No, they aren’t,” said Rohan, looking disgusted. He unhooked his harness from the sack, which fell open and flattened on the floor, leaving the bones in a pile. “You’re to make broth from these once the dragon-bone broth is done.” He looked defeated. “May the gods of our ancestors forgive us all.” With that he turned around and walked heavily out of the room.
Despair
That night Thisbe and Rohan huddled in the tunnel between their crypts. Rohan’s mood was unlike any Thisbe had witnessed. He seemed beside himself in desperation. “Unearthing the dragon bones was bad enough. Making broth from them for profit—even worse. But now, taking the bones of our ruling ancestors who came before us . . . It’s absolutely beyond the pale. I feel like filth. Like I’ve lost all sense of decency.”
“But it’s not your fault,” Thisbe said. “The Revinir is making you do it.”
Rohan buried his face in his hands and sighed heavily. “I complied. I didn’t resist. I should have.”
“She’ll torture you if you resist! You’re trying to stay alive. We’re trying to get out of here.”
Rohan shook his head. “On my walk back, I saw my future in those bones, Thisbe. And it was one of complete disgrace. What good is living under the weight of that?” He dropped his hands and looked at her, his passion evident. “Tell me if you know the answer. Make up something. I’m grasping for an excuse. For anything that will allow me to sleep tonight, because I can’t rationalize this any longer.” A noise of frustration escaped him. “I have too much time to think.”
Thisbe looked at him with solemn eyes. A long moment passed in silence as she rolled the words over in her head. These bones didn’t quite have the depth of meaning to her as they did to him, but he was right. And while discovering her history was new and strange to her, Thisbe felt the horror in her gut too, growing more powerful since she’d taken the broth, as if a stronger sense of right and wrong had begun to shred away her innocence.
“I don’t know the answer,” she said. “But look.” She pulled up her sleeve and showed him her arm with its dragon scales.
Rohan sucked in a breath and held his candle closer, examining her arm. “She made you drink it too?”
Thisbe nodded. “She brought in the guards to threaten me.”
“Oh, Thisbe.” Rohan didn’t seem to know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”
“You can touch them if you want. I don’t . . . I don’t hate them.”
After a moment Rohan drew his finger lightly down Thisbe’s arm. “Can you still feel things?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“They’re softer than I imagined.”
Thisbe nodded. “Do you think they will ever go away? I tried to pluck one, but it’s stuck fast.”
“I don’t know.”
“Dev has had more than me. She’s been testing on him for a couple days.”
Rohan shook his head and closed his eyes, a pained expression on his face. “And now the ancestor bones. We can’t . . . We just can’t . . .” He let his head fall back against the stone wall.
Thisbe didn’t know how to comfort him. She didn’t know how to stop what was happening. But she had new information to share, so she turned to that. “Dev said the Revinir paid the princess something after she snatched me from the auction, trying to be fair about it and not stealing me. So that might be why she was so angry when she found out about the dragons’ escape and learned that the king kept it from her at first. Now she really doesn’t trust the king.”
Rohan sighed and let his head fall forward. “That’s not encouraging in the least. The stability of Grimere is about to crumble.”
Thisbe didn’t know what to say, but fear clutched her throat. War was such an unknown to her—she’d only known peace in her world.
After a few minutes, Rohan opened his eyes. “I’m so tired, but we have to fight this. Are you ready to escape? Can you be ready soon?”
Thisbe pressed her lips together. She’d been practicing her magic, her aim, her concentration for some time now. She’d grown steadily better, but she knew her ability was limited. Her explosive spells would work for a time, but did she have enough in her to fight everyone they’d come across as they ran to the exit? She wasn’t confident.
“How will we go?” she asked. “When is the best time? Do we try to kill the Revinir or focus only on escaping? What about Dev? And what about our black-eyed brothers and sisters? Do we leave them here? Or try to tell them what we’re doing?”
Rohan blew out a breath. “This is complicated,” he said. “If we tell too many, word will leak to the Revinir. Do you trust Dev?”
Thisbe closed her eyes, feeling a faint electricity buzzing over her scales when she thought of him. She was torn in half trying to decide. And as much as she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, she didn’t have any room to make a mistake just because she felt sorry for him in a weak moment. “I’m not sure. Do you know how to swim?”
“Yes, a little. Why? The river?” He looked scared but didn’t voice his fear.
“Yes. I think we two should go alone and head for the river exit. We can figure out how to come back for the others later. Shall we plan it for two days from now, when you return with your next load of ancestor bones?”
Rohan nodded. “We’ll go that night, at midnight when the slaves are locked in and the soldiers are feeling at ease. You can break through the door, and we’ll go no matter what happens.”
Thisbe nodded.
“We can’t continue on like this,” Rohan said, as if to reassure himself that this was the right plan.
“And if we die in the river,” said Thisbe, “at least we’ll die honoring the lives of our ancestors.”
Rohan agreed. “I can’t bear to go on desecrating their remains—it will rest on my conscience forever. So it’s settled: In two days we’ll run for the river at midnight. And we won’t stop for any reason.”
Thisbe’s eyes shone in the candlelight. She grasped Rohan’s hand, and they nodded solemnly together. It was settled. They stayed up late planning and then said their good-byes before going off to sleep—they wouldn’t see one another again until the escape. But no matter how tired she was, Thisbe tossed and turned. They had a plan. But how were they going to get across that river?
In the middle of the night Thisbe awoke with a start, her scales standing on end. She was panting as if she’d been running for the exit in her dreams. And in the pitch blackness, an idea began to form.
A New World
Morning was dawning when Alex and his team flew over the gorge, giving them a spectacular view of the gaping space between the worlds. Behind them the wide waterfall of the seven islands, which they’d once been swept down, rolled neatly under the world and disappeared into the mist. In front of them soon appeared the narrow waterfall that fell infinitely off the cliffs of Grimere. The sun hit the highest castle, next to it, making it sparkle.
“That’s the castle where the dragons were chained up,” announced Seth, sitting up a little on Arabis’s back and acting as a tour guide for the others. “There’s a horrible dungeon with lots of prisoners and the dragon stalls.” As they reached the other side of the gap, Seth went on to describe in graphic detail how Hux nearly hadn’t made it, and how he and the twins had been hanging by slipping vines above the great nothingness.
“That’s a lot more than I needed to know,” remarked Carina. Alex nodded in agreement.
“The twins saved me, pretty much,” Seth admitted. “If it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t have been tied together. Thisbe was able to hang on
to Fifer and me until Hux could pull us up.” He paused, remembering, then added, “I like this way better.”
Arabis, Simber, and Talon landed safely on the mountainside near where Seth and the girls had been before. The Artiméans climbed down to stretch. Kitten crawled out of Seth’s pocket and began sniffing the air all around them.
Arabis turned her head to address the group. “There is an entrance to the catacombs from the castle Grimere’s dungeon,” she said. “I’ve never seen it, but I know the passageways go on for miles and miles underground. The entrance in Dragonsmarche would be near the center. There is a third entrance beyond Dragonsmarche, near the crater lake. I’ve flown by that one. It’s a cavelike opening high on a rock wall that drops down to the lake’s edge.”
“A cave opening?” asked Simber. “That might be easierrr to access than trrrying to figurrre out how to rrraise that moving cylinderrr in the middle of the squarrre.”
“It would be if it were big enough,” said Arabis. “Unfortunately neither you nor I would be able to fit. I don’t think anyone uses it except for fresh air. There’s a sheer drop-off to the shore of the lake, and it’s quite impossible to access for most anyone.” She eyeballed Talon. “Though Talon might be small enough to enter that way.”
“The castle entrance doesn’t seem like our best option either,” said Thatcher. He recounted to the others his narrow escape when the portcullis came down. “There are soldiers everywhere who would see us coming and close the drawbridge. Besides, I don’t ever want to go near that dungeon again, much less through it, even if we did manage to get past everybody.”
“Mewmewmew,” said Kitten sweetly.
“So that leaves the center entrance in the middle of Dragonsmarche,” continued Thatcher. “Which is going to be very difficult since we’ll have to try to find it and then figure out how to make it come up so we can go in there.”
“Mewmewmew,” said Kitten again.
“Perrrhaps we need to collapse a larrrger arrrea of the grrround arrround that entrrrance,” Simber mused. “We’d have to do that at night so we’rrre not obvious about it to the townspeople. And we’d rrrisk hurrrting people below. I don’t like that.” He glanced at Kitten. “Wait. What did you just say?”
