But Petra knew that all Jarek had to do was run from the stables, shout for the soldiers, and point them after their galloping horse. The entire castle army would come crashing down on them as they tried to race down the hill, in plain sight. And, Petra realized, as she watched the man chew idly on a stick of straw, Jarek knew this, too.
“So you’re responsible for the jumble and noise in the castle,” he said. “I guess that’s what you two were plotting in the prince’s garden. I suppose you also trussed up that lad I found among the tack. You kids are in a lot of trouble. The kind that ends with a death sentence.”
Petra and Neel had done so much, planned so well, had the luck to escape so many bad situations, only to be caught by a man who had treated Petra’s father as if he were a bundle of sticks tossed in the back of his cart. Unfair! Unfair! cried every fiber of Petra’s being. “Why?” she demanded, her voice thick with emotion. “Why does it have to be you who ruins everything for me?”
“But it’s not over,” Neel yelled. “Enough talking, Pet! Let’s go!”
“Yes, enough talking.” Jarek stood up straight. “I didn’t hurt your da. I just took him home for a bit of money. Now, that isn’t the worst thing in the world a man can do. But I’m not exactly proud of it either. I know you fancy Carlsbad, but that horse isn’t reliable. He’s skittish. He might throw you if a squirrel runs across his path. You should take Boshena.” He opened a stall and led out an aging mare. “She’s the best horse in the stables, even if she doesn’t look it. She’s the smartest, the most trustworthy. You could say that she and I are friends. She’s not fast, but she’s steady. And she knows where you”—he nodded at Petra—“are going. That’s more than you can say for yourself, am I right? Do you know how to get back to Okno?”
Petra glared.
“Thought so. Promise to take good care of her, and she’ll take you home. I don’t suppose you can return her.” He patted the horse’s head. “But I’ve seen your family. I think I’m leaving her in good hands.”
Neel sighed and sprang down from Carlsbad. “You got funny friends, Pet.”
“He’s not my friend,” Petra hissed through gritted teeth as Neel mounted Boshena.
“Come now,” Jarek said to Petra with a touch of humor. “Didn’t your da ever teach you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?” Then, in a swift movement, he picked her up and set her behind
Neel.
Boshena’s velvet lips brushed over Jarek’s hand, her large brown eyes reproachful. Then her ears pricked. She heard it before the humans did: the sound of approaching hooves.
I won’t have the deaths of two children on my conscience, Jarek silently told the horse. Help them. He patted Boshena gently on the rump and she burst from the stables in a canter.
27
The Fox on the Snow
NEEL LOOSENED THE REINS, letting the horse stride into a gallop. They had almost reached the forest when they heard the thudding of many horse hooves behind them. A dragoon of about twenty castle soldiers on horseback were in pursuit, sweeping down the snow-covered hill.
“I’m surprised there ain’t more,” Neel said, as if nothing could stop them.
“Well, I think there’s plenty!” Petra pulled the Hive out of her pocket.
Neel swiveled around. “Oh, no.” He looked into her palm. “Not another one of those things. First, you nearly blast us all into bits of bits. Then, you try to drown us. I don’t like the looks of that one.”
“Neither do I,” she admitted. But what choice did they have? She waited until the castle soldiers were just close enough for her throw to reach them, and far enough away to put some distance between their horse and whatever disaster the Hive unleashed. She threw, and they nudged Boshena to go even faster.
Cries rose up behind them and horses screamed in panic as a loud buzz filled the air. Petra couldn’t help looking back. A cloud of insects was attacking the men. Wasps wriggled under helmets.
They stung every bare inch of human skin they could find. They stung the horses, which threw their masters and ran wild, stomping the ground and bucking in the air.
Petra and Neel disappeared into the trees. Though guiding Boshena at a slow pace, Neel expertly led them deeper into the forest, picking out the ground where little snow had fallen because it had been trapped in the pine trees above. “The bare earth is frozen hard,” he explained. “The horse hooves won’t mark it up an awful lot, and we’ll stay off the snow. This way, we won’t leave any tracks.”
After about half an hour, they stopped and dismounted. This was where Neel would go ahead by foot to the Lovari camp, and Petra would make her way back to Okno. It was almost full night. Soon it would be pitch-black, and she would have to ride on alone. She shivered.
Do not worry, Petra, Astrophil said. You will not be alone. I will be with you.
She felt comforted.
“Will you ask Sadie to forgive me?” she said to Neel.
“Oh, I think she will, once she sees what I’ve brought home. We’ll be riding new horses into Spain in no time. It’s my best theft yet.” He grinned. “I can’t wait to see Emil’s face.”
Somewhat awkwardly, they shook hands. “Well, I guess that’s it, then,” Petra said. It was hard for her to believe that she would probably never see Neel again. It was even harder to find that she didn’t know how to say goodbye.
Neel was digging in his pockets. “You know, I was sure we’d be warming a prison floor tonight. But I thought that maybe, just maybe, things would work out all right. And if they did, I would give you this.”
It was a circle of leather string. Dangling from it was a miniature iron horseshoe.
Petra took it. She turned the horseshoe over. There was an engraved sentence written in words she didn’t understand. There, in the middle of it, was her name, or something close enough to it: Petali Kronos.
“Do you like it? Course, I couldn’t write it myself. Had to ask someone else. But it means that you’re a friend of my clan. Actually …” Neel paused. He seemed to make up his mind about something. “It means more than that. There’s something you don’t know about me. Sadie isn’t really my sis.” He began to tell Petra about how he had been adopted as a baby. Petra pretended as if she were hearing this for the first time. “So here’s what I think.” Neel came to the end of his story. “Family is what you make of it. And that horseshoe makes you part of mine. If you need help, or you need to find me, you just show that to a Roma.”