BANG! Red light flared behind her closed eyelids. When she opened them, a scene of destruction spread before her. The stone floor was blackened, broken, and heaved up in angular chunks. Some of the men sprawled on the ground. Those who were on their feet staggered, covering their faces with their hands and moaning. A scorched piece of the ceiling fell down with a large thud on a man’s foot. He screamed. Thunder rumbled down the hall.
“Come on!” Neel cried. They ran past the fallen guards and tore down the passageways of the third floor.
But over the pounding of their feet, Neel and Petra could hear another, terrible noise: the thudding, regular rhythm of many soldiers filing from every corner of the castle to capture them.
Petra glanced in her palm at the two marbles. The wasp buzzed. The water sloshed.
“Not the wasp, Petra!” Astrophil shouted in her ear. “The Hive could attack you, too!”
She tucked the Hive in her pocket and dearly hoped that the Bubble would do something useful. Petra threw the water-filled marble, smashing it against the wall behind them.
A tidal wave instantly engulfed the third floor. Petra was submerged under water and pulled by a fierce current. Something smacked against her leg. She felt a sharp pinch of Astrophil on her right ear, and her chest burned from lack of oxygen as she tumbled in the water.
When she finally broke the surface, gasping for air, she saw Neel floating rapidly past her. He clung to a wooden table. “What’re you doing?” he yelled. “Quit throwing those things!”
She struggled to splash toward him. She wasn’t able to make any headway, but as the current pushed them down a flight of stairs and several corridors, the flow of water began to lose its strength, and soon they were able to wade in water that rose only to their thighs, then only to their calves. They were on the second floor, in the Thinkers’ Wing.
They had just begun to think that they might actually be able to escape when they heard the thump of soldiers’ feet coming from up ahead. Neel and Petra exchanged a look of dread.
That was when a door with two handles, one iron and one red, opened.
Iris stepped into the hallway. She glanced down with a little cry to find herself standing in a foot of water, then looked up at Neel and Petra, astonished at their waterlogged clothes, soaked hair plastered to their heads, and dripping faces. “What in the name of the seven planets is going on here?”
“Iris.” Petra waded toward her. “Did you know Mikal Kronos?”
Petra. Astrophil spat out water. This is unwise.
“Why, yes, he used to work down the hall. I—” Iris broke off. Her mouth pursed as she looked at Petra’s face with the expression of someone whose suspicions have been proven true. “And I suppose you know him, too. Rather well, I would guess.”
“I’m his daughter, Petra. My father worked here for six months. But one day, when the clock was almost completed, the prince blinded him. He stole his eyes. I came to this castle to get them back.”
Iris gazed at Petra, uncertain. The thud of soldiers grew closer. “Where do you think the prince got those silver eyes he wears for fun?”
Iris said nothing.
“We have to get out of here! Which way should we go? Please help us. If the castle guards catch us, our lives are worth nothing!”
Desperate, Petra searched for some way to convince Iris that she was telling the truth. “Fiala Broshek removed his eyes, on the prince’s command!”
“Fiala!” The name burst from Iris’s lips. Then she pushed open her door. “Get in here, both of you.”
She slammed the door shut behind them. “Fiala Broshek! Unscrupulous woman! Kristof’s work is nothing compared to the abominations she creates! And the operations she performs! ‘Surgeon,’ she calls herself! Why doesn’t she try seeing what her insides look like for a change!” She led them into her bedchamber. Neel gave Petra a quizzical look. Iris opened the closet door. “Go in there,” she said.
“Um,” Neel objected, “I don’t think hiding’s going to work. They’re going to search the castle when they don’t find us.”
“There’s a stairway in there, you dolt! It leads directly to the castle courtyard.”
Petra looked at Iris in surprise.
“I am a countess, am I not? I deserve to be able to come and go as I please without dealing with the hassles of guards. Well” —she pushed her spectacles up her nose —“I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing each other again, Petra Kronos.”
There was only one thing Petra could do when Iris said that. She gave the old woman a soaking-wet hug.
To someone very unused to being touched, let alone embraced, this came as a shock. She stood still for a moment, then patted Petra awkwardly on the back. “Now, now. Enough of that. You’re going to incriminate me, girl!” They broke apart, and Iris stared down at her newly wet clothes. “The soldiers are going to come around asking if I’ve seen a soggy-wet criminal and here I’ll be, marked with water from hugging the enemy! A fine kettle of fish that will be!” But her smile was warm, gentle, and pleased. “Now, get on with you! Get out of my laboratory!”
Neel plummeted down the stairs. With a glance behind her, Petra followed. They heard the door close behind them.
They soon found themselves in an empty courtyard. Any soldiers who might have been there had, it seemed, entered the castle to find them.
Neel and Petra dashed into the stables. They hid behind a stack of hay, watching as a couple of stable boys cleaned out some stalls, apparently oblivious to the commotion going on inside the castle. Then a third stable boy ran into the building, yelling that they should come out and see the action. He shouted that an army of bandits had broken into the prince’s private chambers, and that a fierce battle complete with explosions was going on inside the castle. The other two boys dropped their rakes and raced out of the stables with him.
Neel and Petra couldn’t believe their luck.
“This one.” Neel led a huge chestnut stallion out of its stall. “Ain’t he a beauty? He can carry both of us. Let’s take him.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” said a deep voice.
They turned around. There was Jarek, leaning against a stall, with narrowed eyes and long jowls.
Neel swung up onto the horse. He beckoned to Petra. “Come on. I know this man. He can take care of the prince’s horses all right, but he can’t ride better or faster than me.”