The worst, the very worst thing Arun did to Neel was insist that guards be stationed outside his door at all times, and follow him everywhere. They were a shell of armor around him, and no one Neel cared about could get inside. He had never felt so alone.
One night in December, almost a month after the Pacolet had reached the Vatran shore, Neel lay in his new, unnervingly large bed. He heard a dim ruckus outside his door, and raised voices. He sat up, and had almost snatched a dagger from under the sheets, when moonlight from an open window caught a silvery twinkle by the crack below the bedroom door.
It was Astrophil, glittering his way across the floor. Neel jumped from the bed and met the spider halfway, crouching to lift the tin creature up to eye level. “What’s going on, Astro? Who’s getting rowsy out there? Petra?”
Astrophil shook his head. “She is asleep. Tomik is outside your door. He wishes to see you, because—”
Neel had heard enough. He stalked to the door and flung it open to see Tomik bucking against the guards’ grasp. “Let him in,” Neel told the guards.
“Arun said no visitors,” one of them replied.
“Well, I say let him in.”
The guards did not let Tomik go.
“Who’s in charge here?” Neel demanded.
“Queen Iona,” the guards chorused.
“Yeah, and how long is she gonna last? She seems awful sickly to me.”
Silence.
“When she snuffs it,” Neel said, “then who’s in charge?”
One of them muttered, “You.”
“That’s right. Me. And I’ve got my likes and dislikes, and right now I don’t like you. I’m going to remember this, when I’m king. So if I were in your smelly shoes, I’d be working hard to get into the heir’s good graces. That is, if I were smart. Are you smart?”
Silence.
“Now,” said Neel, “who’s in charge?”
“You,” the guards said sullenly.
“Then let. My friend. In.”
They obeyed, but one of the guards couldn’t resist giving Tomik a good shove over the threshold, and another slammed the door shut. Neel bit his lip.
He might have to pay for this.
“Thanks,” said Tomik.
“What’re you two doing creeping around at this time of night?”
“No one will let us near you,” said Astrophil. “Petra has been trying to see you for more than a week—”
“How come you’re here without her?” Neel peered at the spider on his palm. “It’s weird. Seeing you right now, away from her … it’s like seeing a part of her that’s come loose.”
Astrophil stood as tall as he could. “I am helping Tomik. He has an idea. He would like you to—”
“Talk Petra out of her loony plan. Well, Tom, I know how you feel, but it’s not going to happen. Don’t you see that her plan is all she’s got, and that the guilt of doing nothing to help her da would be worse, to her, than anything she might face in Bohemia? She won’t change her mind.”
“Yes,” Tomik said heavily, “I know. That’s why I’m going with her.”
“We will protect her,” Astrophil squeaked.
“Oh. Well, I’m going, too, of course,” said Neel. “This whole gimcracky king thing’s just a way for us to get a boat, some fleet horses, and—”
Tomik shook his head. “Listen,” he said, and explained his idea.
“Oooh,” said Neel. “That’d make the Vatra crazy. They’d hate me.”
Astrophil’s tin legs sagged with disappointment. Tomik’s face fell.
“I’ll do it,” said Neel.
* * *
QUEEN IONA DIED in her sleep several days later. Some people muttered that this was far too easy and peaceful an end for someone who had used her last breath of life to stir up as much trouble as she could. Others said she had suffered her painful disease long enough, and no one could guess what she might have suffered inside to live her life as she had. But few shed any tears for her. Certainly not Neel.
He was crowned with a fanfare that he found surprisingly boring. As he walked in a procession through the Vatran streets and finally returned to the palace to sit in his throne as courtiers played music and threw flower petals, it occurred to Neel that, not so long ago, he would have craved to be the center of attention.
Neel scanned the crowd. There were Petra and Tomik, on the fringes. Astrophil was a bright star in Petra’s hair. Damara was there, too, farther back, her cheeks shining with tears.
Neel looked away.
Arun—his adviser now—opened the gold hoop in Neel’s ear, and Neel felt a pang as he saw the small circle disappear into the man’s pocket. It was just a trinket, he told himself, something he’d nicked long ago from a Moroccan market. It was nothing. Nothing compared to the Jewel of the Kalderash.
Arun slipped the sapphire earring through the pierced hole the hoop had left behind. He fastened it with a sharp pinch that made Neel wince.
Everyone cheered.
“Hey!” Neel stood. “Pipe down! I’ve got something to say.”
The crowd quieted.
“This is … uh, an important day.” Neel felt a snaky kind of nervousness. Had he really once liked to have everyone’s eyes on him? He reached with his invisible fingers—Danior’s Fingers—to touch the jewel that had belonged to Danior. His ancestor. The sapphire was cool beneath his ghostly fingertip. “And I want to do something to com—commemorate it. I want to give a gift.”
Startled, the crowd began to whisper.
“Tomas Stakan,” Neel called. “Come here.”
Tomik pushed his way through the crowd, his tanned skin glaringly different from the darker tones of the Roma. Everyone stared.
When Tomik stood before him, Neel said, “I give you the Terrestrial and Celestial Globes.”
The gasps of the crowd rang in Neel’s ears.
“You’re mad!”
That was Treb, storming right up to the throne, shoving guards out of his way. “Neel, why would you give them to Tom? Why would you do such a stupid, gadje-loving thing?”
“So that he can destroy them,” said Neel.
9
Tomik’s Idea
PETRA BURST THROUGH Tomik’s bedroom door and caught him with the globes on a large worktable, and a small saw in his hand. “What is going on?” she demanded. “Did you know Neel would do that?” After Neel’s announcement, the crowd had roiled with shocked anger, and Petra had watched, helplessly straining against the current of people, as Neel and Tomik left the throne room under heavy guard.