1
The Gray Men
SOME DAYS are just born bad. You know the type. The kind you want to sweep into your palm like spilled salt and toss over your left shoulder, hoping that if you don’t look back nothing worse will happen.
Petra Kronos snapped awake. Her heart thudded. The bedsheets were damp with sweat.
She turned her head to the left and looked out the window: it was foggy, wintry, dreary.
She turned her head to the right, and there was Astrophil. The tin spider was curled into a tiny, spiky ball. With a squeak, he bunched his shiny legs together, sprang them into the air one by one, and wriggled onto the tips of his legs. “Petra, is something wrong?”
“I had a bad dream.” Her pulse was still racing.
“Ah. Was it . . . relevant to the events at Salamander Castle?”
“No.” Petra didn’t want to think about what had happened more than a month ago. “Anyway, dreams don’t mean anything. They’re just empty pictures.”
“Was it,” said the spider gingerly, “related to John Dee?”
“No.” Petra huffed with annoyance and got out of bed. Astrophil had the frustrating habit of pointing out exceptions to her rules. She would claim something (dreams did not mean anything) and he would immediately provide a counterexample (John Dee).
“If you dreamed of him,” Astrophil persisted, “it might have been real. He could have been sending you a message. Your minds are connected.”
“Don’t remind me.” She shivered as she dressed.
“Do you remember what you dreamed?”
“No,” she lied. She pulled a necklace out from under her shirt. A small horseshoe swung from the thin leather cord. She flipped the horseshoe over and looked at the engraving. It was written in a language she didn’t understand, but she saw her name, and a friend’s. “Where do you think Neel is now? Do you think he’s still in Spain?”
There was a reproachful pause. Astrophil wasn’t fooled by her attempt to distract him. “I do not know.”
“Let’s go out to the forest. Before Father wakes up.”
“If you wish.”
She got down on her hands and knees, and rummaged under the bed. When she stood up, she held nothing. But her hands, though empty, moved oddly. Petra seemed to buckle an invisible object at her waist. She looked like an actor playing a pantomime.
Astrophil crept up her arm, and she smiled at him cheerfully.
But that was an act, too. Petra was troubled. She remembered her dream well enough. She had been angry—more than angry. She had been filled with a rage that was almost panic, almost despair. She had been pounding at a door. The room that trapped her was luxurious, with carved furniture and brocade fabrics. But that didn’t change the fact that she was in some sort of prison.
JAREK WAS FLUNG into the corner of his cell. His cheek grazed against the stone wall as he fell to the floor, and the door shrieked shut.
The session had been mercifully short. After all, he had given them the information they wanted.
There was a window in his cell, Jarek reminded himself. Not a window, really, just a square hole. It was big enough for one hand.
Jarek struggled to his feet. As he reached up, pain shot through his arm. He shoved his hand through the hole. Cold rain tingled over his bloody fingers.
Then something besides the rain tickled his palm. A small body nestled into Jarek’s cupped hand. He felt warm feathers and a quick heartbeat. My poor friend, the sparrow murmured in Jarek’s mind.
Jarek imagined what the bird could see: his own wrist growing out of the dungeon wall like a twisted root, the sky blurry with rain, and the red rooftops of Prague.
The idea of the sparrow leaving him alone was perhaps the worst torture of all. Still, he said to the bird, I need you to bear a message for me.
THE HOUSE at the Sign of the Compass was filled with echoes. Most of the furniture had been sold, or loaded into the cart Josef and Dita had driven with their son, David, into southern Bohemia. Dita was Petra’s older cousin, but she was more than that. Dita and her husband, Josef, were like a second set of parents to Petra, and David was like her little brother.
When Petra’s father had first proposed that the entire family leave the village of Okno, everybody began arguing. Petra protested. Josef disagreed by refusing to respond at all. Dita said flatly, “It’s a foolish idea, Uncle Mikal.”
Mikal Kronos talked about his plan every morning, and every morning a fresh battle erupted over breakfast until one day David dropped his spoon into his porridge, covered his ears, and yelled, “Shut up! Shut up, all of you!” He burst into tears. His tin raven swooped anxiously overhead. His parents exchanged a glance.
“Think of the children’s safety,” Mikal Kronos urged Dita and Josef. “When the prince discovers who is responsible for ransacking his Cabinet of Wonders, he won’t be merciful to anyone in this family. The four of you need to move as quickly as possible. I don’t want to leave behind anything that he could use, so I’ll need some time to dismantle the workshop. I promise I won’t be far behind.”
Slowly, Dita nodded.
“I won’t go,” Petra told her father. “You can’t make me.”
There was a long pause. “No,” he finally said, “I don’t suppose I can. You will leave with me, Petra, as soon as we’re able to join the others.”
Petra had won something. But it didn’t feel that way now.
“Ahem,” Astrophil coughed, startling Petra out of her memory. “Do you plan to stare into space all day, or will we actually do something important and worthy, like, say, attend to the business of breakfast?”
“Sorry, Astro.”
Petra opened her nightstand drawer, which clattered with unwashed silver spoons. She fed the spider his daily meal, a spoonful of green brassica oil. When he had drained it, Petra ran a finger over the greasy metal and rubbed the leftover oil on her chapped lips.
She opened the wardrobe, pulled out a leather cloak lined with rabbit fur, and then began searching for the woolen cap Dita had made for her. It itched like mad, but Petra loved it. She rescued it from under a pile of worn books and dirty socks.
“What are books doing there?” Astrophil was horrified.
Petra ignored him, tucking the hat and cloak under her arm. She walked downstairs to the kitchen with Astrophil perched on her shoulder, muttering about Petra’s shameful treatment of the books.