“Hmph,” was Petra’s reply.
8
Ariel
PETRA ENTERED THE LIBRARY. The ceiling was low and the walls curved. The library stretched around her in a circle, with hundreds of boxes lining the shelves. Pale sunlight glimmered across the room, and John Dee sat in front of a window, head bowed as he leaned over his desk, drawing on heavy paper. Placed close to the desk was a small table with two chairs covered by hard leather seats. A wineglass rested on the table, filled to the brim with an amber-colored liquid.
John Dee looked up. “Sit there, Petra.” He pointed a longnailed finger at the table. “I will attend to you shortly.” He dropped the thick charcoal pencil from his hand and reached for a thinner one. He bent again over the paper. His hand moved in little tics now, as if he were adding detail.
Go on, Petra, Astrophil encouraged. I do not wish to be here any more than you do, but we will get nowhere locked up in that bedroom.
Petra slowly crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs.
For several minutes, there was no sound except the scratching of Dee’s pencil on paper. Finally, he set the pencil on the desk. “Drink the wine.”
She hesitated.
“My dear, would I bother saving your life only to drug or poison you later? You are still weak from your illness. The wine will do you good.”
Petra sipped the thick liquid. It slid down, heating her throat. It was delicious, and she was surprised to find that her wounds throbbed a little less. She drank again. The wine tasted like honey.
Dee turned away, and went to stand behind his desk. He looked out a frosted window. “Well,” he began, his breath fogging the glass as if his words had a life of their own. “What are we going to do with you?”
This seemed like a trick question to Petra.
“I have been trying to sketch your character.” He plucked the paper from his desk. “It is incomplete, to be sure, yet I judge my illustration to be a fair one. Would you like to see it?”
Petra pushed away the wine. She shook her head.
He came close and slid the drawing in front of her. What she saw made her knock over the wineglass and spring to her feet. “You thief!”
“I thought you liked thieves. One Roma boy in particular. And did you not become a thief yourself when you broke into Prince Rodolfo’s Cabinet of Wonders?”
“Give it back!”
On the paper, bleeding golden wine, was a drawing of a rapier-like sword.
“Your father,” said Dee, “is a man of extraordinary talent.”
“Don’t you dare—”
Petra, Astrophil interrupted. My English is embarrassingly rusty, so perhaps I have misunderstood something. I know grammar is not your favorite subject, but would you tell me if John Dee just used the tense I think he did? The present tense?
“ ‘Is’?” Petra whispered.
Dee nodded.
“You’re sure my father is alive?”
He nodded again.
Petra sank back into the chair. Dee sat across from her.
“Do not bother asking for more information,” he said. “I will not give it to you. Yet.”
“Then why am I here?” Petra said dully. “So that you can play with my head? Why don’t you just scry me, then, and scramble my brain for good?”
“I have no intention of doing such a thing,” he snapped. He paused, and seemed to gather his thoughts. “Petra, you are astonishing. Not only because of the talent I believe you possess, but because you are so stubbornly blind to it. If I compare you to your father’s sword, it is because you are equally rare. I command many men and women—”
“Spies.”
“—and I doubt I could name one who would be able to accomplish what you did last autumn. Though, I grant you, they would have failed with far less noise than you caused with your success. I asked you to meet me today because I wish to make a trade.”
She waited.
“I would like to satisfy my curiosity about you,” he continued, “and I need your help in obtaining answers. It will require a ritual, and it will be dangerous, but you will be safe if you promise to obey my instructions. If you are not willing to do so, you shall place both our lives in jeopardy. For your obedience, I will trade this.” He tapped the wine-soaked drawing.
“The sword already belongs to me.”
He smiled. “Finders, keepers.”
Petra looked at the sketch. The golden liquid had warped the lines of the sword. “I want my sword back in the exact condition it was in when I arrived. I’ll know if it’s been damaged.”
“Of course.”
“And it’ll be mine. I can use it whenever I want, wherever I want. You can’t take it back.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I honor my word.”
“Then can we just do this ritual thing and get it over with? What do I have to do?”
“In the future, Petra, you might try to learn the details of a bargain before you agree to it. Just friendly advice. As for the ritual, it involves summoning a spirit. I have questions to ask concerning you. I will ask them of Ariel.”
“Who’s Ariel?”
“What is Ariel,” he corrected.
“What is your problem? Can’t you answer a simple question?”
He sighed. “There are four kinds of spirits, one for each element: earth, air, fire, and water. Ariel is a spirit of the air, and air is a tangle of several noteworthy things: change, dance, song, and knowledge. Yes, knowledge. For much of what people know is heard or said. Words are breathed, and anything spoken out loud is heard by air spirits. This includes history, prophecies, and rumors. Ariel might know what we do not, or confirm what I suspect.”
He waited, but Petra didn’t ask the obvious question. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know whatever it was that Dee suspected about her. “Can you consult any kind of spirit?”
“No. Most don’t come when you call, and if they do, they make certain you regret it. Ariel is under an obligation to me. I rescued it. If I call, it will come. Now, Petra, follow me into the center of this room.”
She let Dee lead the way, for she didn’t want to walk at his side. But she couldn’t help being curious. “How did you save Ariel?”
“Ariel angered a water spirit by dancing itself into a tempest off the coast of an Atlantic island, sucking the sea high up into the air. When Ariel tired of dancing, the water spirit imprisoned it inside a bubble of sea spray, which I burst. Stay here, Petra.” She stood in the center of the room as Dee walked to a bookshelf. He tucked one box under his arm and opened another, a deep square one. He reached inside the shelved box and brought out his fist. Glittery powder trailed from his closed fingers. He began to draw a circle around Petra with the dust.