Legacy of the Claw (13 page)

AT THE VERY SAME moment that Gwen heard the Animas Warthog threaten the Elder's life, Bailey found himself boarding a rigimotive for the second time. The entire Year One class was embarking on a field trip to the Gray City to hear the famous Equilibrium Orchestra, which was made up of human musicians and their bird kin, who provided the woodwind section. It was supposed to be a beautiful and haunting blend of birdsong and composed music, but Tori, who had already seen the orchestra twice, said it was “nothing you'd flip your lid over.”

Bailey had spent the days since his run-in with the wolf distracted and anxious, furious that just when he'd stumbled upon something huge (and potentially dangerous), Tremelo had made it nearly impossible for him to do anything but go about his normal school routine. Fennel had begun popping up in strange places like the dining hall and the path to the Towers, just to remind Bailey that he was being watched.

Other students were anxious too, but for a different reason. Reports had reached the school of unrest in the Gray City—even riots close to the Parliament building. For that reason, extra chaperones were accompanying the students on the trip, and Headmaster Finch had called a special assembly that morning to assure everyone that any “unsavory activity” was taking place in an entirely different part of the city.

Still, some students had declined to go on the field trip, supposedly because their parents were too worried about any possibility of violence near the opera house. Bailey had written to his own parents to tell them about the field trip, and his mom had written back in length about how she owned two gramophone recordings of the Equilibrium, and how she and Bailey's dad had always wanted to hear them perform live, and did he think that the same gentleman was conducting who'd been with the orchestra when she was a girl? Bailey, relieved, had signed up for the trip with a clear conscience.

Now about fifty Year One students were lined up in the yard next to the rigimotive platform, hooting and waving as the four-story rigi pulled up on the track. Bailey, Hal, Tori, and Phi chose seats on the ground floor near the back of the first car, where a sliding gold-plated door separated them from the last car, occupied by their escorts. Among the half dozen professors who had signed up as chaperones were Mr. Nillow, the History instructor; Ms. Sucrette, who wanted to tie the orchestra into her semester-long study of Latinate bird songs; and Tremelo, who insisted he wasn't going to baby-sit anyone—he was only going, he said, to listen to the music. The teachers were in high spirits, talking loudly and laughing, just as happy to have a day free of regular classes as the students were. Tremelo and Ms. Sucrette sat side by side, trading opinions on which of the latest recordings was the Equilibrium's viola section's most adept.

Phi sat first on one of the wooden benches and, feeling bold, Bailey slid next to her. Tori gave him a sidelong glance and took the bench in front of them. Hal, who couldn't seem to muster up the courage to sit next to her, stretched out his legs on the bench across the aisle. It occurred to Bailey that the ride from Fairmount to the Gray City by rigimotive was over three hours long—and he'd just put himself in the precarious position of having to talk to Phi all that time without sounding like an idiot.

Tori was already in rare form: “When will this ant of a thing get a move on?”

“I've never been to a concert before,” Phi said. She tucked a piece of her dark curly hair behind her ear.

Bailey felt like he ought to sound worldly or experienced, but he had to admit, “I haven't, either  …  unless you count a barn dance I went to once.”

The rigimotive lurched, and the students in the car all sat up on their seats to wave, even though there was no one in the yard outside to wave to except Mrs. Copse, who hullo-ed back enthusiastically before chopping the ear of an overgrown rabbit-shaped hedge with her shears.

They were off. As the rigimotive sped smoothly along the Fluvian, Hal tried visibly to work up the courage to move closer to Tori. Tori, completely uninterested in making small talk with him, whipped a book out of her beaded satchel and spent the whole ride resolutely ignoring all of them.

Bailey found that the easiest thing to talk about with Phi was the most obvious: their first Scavage game against a rival school, which would take place the next weekend. It was against Roanoake, a trade school from the northernmost region of the Lowlands, which was mostly flat, grassy plains.

By the time the city center was visible in the distance, Bailey had made Phi laugh three times.

She blushed when Bailey complimented her on her tree-climbing skills.

“No, really, I mean it—you're going to win the game for us single-handedly,” he said. “I've been through Roanoake, and they barely have shrubs out there! They wouldn't know how to get any height in a game if they were all Animae Eagle.”

Phi laughed. Four times. “I like a bird's-eye view!” she joked. “Can I help it if I just happen to see some Sneaks?”

Bailey noticed that Hal was trying desperately not to appear as if he were eavesdropping.

“Hal would probably be really great at recon like that too,” he said, raising his voice so that Tori could hear. “His Animas can fly, and plus, Hal can hear anyone coming a mile away.”

“I've never heard of a nighttime Scavage game, though,” said Tori, who didn't even look up from her book. Bailey expected Hal to stay silent, but he didn't.

“Actually, I think it was three? Four years ago? When Alastair Smith played for the Gray City team, there was an eclipse—the nocturnal Animae players had their best advantage, and ended up clinching the game.”

“I didn't know you were such an expert,” Phi said. Bailey could have sworn he saw Hal blush. Tori, however, was still unimpressed.

“You couldn't convince me to give a badger's behind about Scavage,” she said. “Give me a
real
adventure any day.”

As if Tori had just summoned an adventure out of the sky, the rigimotive lurched to a shuddering halt. The force of the stop threw everyone forward in his or her seat, and caused more than a few students to tumble into the aisles. Everywhere was the clatter of paws and claws, the lashing of tails and outraged cawing of various birds.

Hal had been thrown on the floor between the cars, legs splayed inside the students' car, leaning back against the door of the teacher's car. The door was flung suddenly open, causing Hal to fall backward, hitting his head on the delicate blue shoes of Ms. Sucrette.

“Quindley!” she shrieked, as if Hal had purposefully fallen on her foot.

Tremelo stood at Sucrette's side, holding her elbow.

“Everyone all right?” he asked, and was answered by several groans and a bark. “Good,” he said cheerily. Sucrette sniffed.

Bailey got up and helped Hal to his feet. At the same time the conductor, a short man with a thin gray mustache, came barreling down the aisle of the rigimotive car toward them. He wore a carefully starched blue uniform with almost comical spangles of gold trim. A tittering monkey sat on his gold-fringed shoulder.

“Out of the way,” the conductor snapped. He opened the metal door of a box set into the wall of the car and pulled out an earpiece. The monkey on his shoulder hopped up and down excitedly as a loudspeaker crackled on.

“Attention, passengers. We have been halted due to a tear in the dirigible. We are approximately half an hour from the center of the Gray City, in an outlying neighborhood. All passengers should please wait here on the rigimotive for us to perform a routine patch.
Don't wander off
.” The conductor then forcefully shut the metal box, and fixed his sharp gaze on the assembled small crowd of students.

“All right, shoo, off with you,” the conductor said, pushing Hal and Bailey out of the way.

“This is ri
dic
ulous,” huffed Tori. “We'll be stuck here for at least an hour, I'm betting. Some field day!”

The other students wandered back to their seats amid groans and chatter. Hal, Phi, Tori, and Bailey remained standing in the space between the cars with Sucrette and Tremelo. It seemed to Bailey as if they'd stopped in the middle of a wasteland. Though they were inside the limits of the Gray City, they were nowhere near the glittering central square or the opera house. The rigimotive tracks ran along a narrow street that was littered with garbage. The windows of the buildings around them were either broken or shuttered against what light the street offered. Everything was awash in dusty smog. A huddle of children sat on wooden produce boxes and eyed the bright red rigimotive warily.

“Where are we, exactly?” asked Ms. Sucrette.

“Gribber Street,” Tremelo answered gruffly, while lighting a pipe. Ms. Sucrette waved the first wisp of smoke away from her face. “I knew a very talented young contortionist in Gribber Street once,” Tremelo continued to muse, exhaling. Then he nodded to Sucrette and the two returned to the teachers' car, trailing a plume of myrgwood smoke behind them.

The four students stood facing the steps down from the rigimotive car.

“Well, you asked for an adventure,” Hal said bravely to Tori, puffing out his chest. “Seems to me one's just appeared.”

Hal stepped down onto the crumbly pavement of Gribber Street and turned, offering his hand to Tori. Phi giggled.

Tori swatted Hal's hand away. “Oh, why not,” she said as she stepped down.

“Do you think we ought to stop them?” Bailey asked Phi.

She merely smiled and shrugged, following Hal and Tori into the street. Bailey smiled too, impressed that Hal was leading the charge to break the rules. They quickly crossed Gribber Street and rounded a corner, hoping no teachers would spot them sneaking off. Thankfully, no one followed and they found themselves on another shambling street, which bent and curved around boarding houses and cramped shops.

“Look!” cried Phi. She was pointing not at the dingy street but at the sky. Bailey peered in that direction and saw a strange white bird fluttering down to the ground. It seemed too angular to be a real bird, and its movements were too precise. It landed on top of a swinging iron sign advertising a tax collector's office, emitted a tinny squawk, and then  …  it exploded. Or at least, that's what Bailey thought had happened at first. The bird unfurled with a pop, its many angles unfolding and unfolding until what had been a very small creature was now a large, flat poster, with the face of a beautiful woman—but stern and fierce—and the words
We will be FREE, or we will be NOTHING
.

“What is it?” asked Bailey.

“Dominae stuff,” Hal said. “Has to be.” He wrinkled his forehead. “Free from what?”

“From Parliament—that's what my mom's letters say, anyway,” said Tori. “People say things are no better than when the Jackal ruled.”

“And who's this?” Phi asked, pointing to the woman with purple eyes.

“Viviana Melore. She looks like an actress, doesn't she?” Tori said, looking at the woman with narrowed eyes. “My mom says there's something funny about the way she keeps her Animas a secret.”

Just then, a small black snake—one of the several that Tori always seemed to have near her—slithered out of her beaded bag and swiftly disappeared into an alley. Bailey heard the frightened squeak of a rodent, and knew that the snake had found something it wanted as a snack.

“Hey!” Tori shouted, dashing after it into the alley. The others followed. As they turned the corner, Bailey saw posters and pamphlets were littered everywhere. On the walls on either side of them were all sorts of painted slogans, written over the layers of old, peeling campaign posters. Some, like the poster that the tiny bird had become, had images of people's faces printed on them, and some were more mysterious, printed only with slogans that sounded like nursery rhymes—The rat's cradle is able and rocks tonight.

“That's all conspiracy stuff,” Tori said, holding out her arm for the wandering snake, which had emerged from behind a precarious pile of boxes. It wound itself around Tori's outstretched wrist. “All these old political movements were forced underground when the Jackal took power. You used to see his face everywhere, like he was watching you.”

It was a better lesson than anything Bailey had heard in Mr. Nillow's History class. Bailey wondered how far away from this seedy street Tori had actually lived, and if the entire city looked this way.

A painting crudely splattered on a nearby wall caught his attention.

“Hey, Tori, what's this one?” he asked, crossing the alley. He pointed to what looked like a muscular cat. The white paint had faded with age, but it still stood out brightly against the bricks.

“Oh, that. I don't know,” Tori admitted. “I used to see it all over the place when I was little.”

A filthy, dust-covered rat scuttled out into the alley in front of them. Bailey jumped back in surprise as a man followed the rat out from behind a pile of boxes. He was missing most of his teeth, and he had stringy white hair that had gone so long without a wash that it looked yellow.

“Fairmount kiddies!” he cried with something like glee. “Of the fair mountain!”

Before they could think to run back to the train, the old coot lunged for Hal, and grabbed the strap of his rucksack.

“Hey!” Hal cried out, trying to shake him off.

But Tori's snake was quicker. It slithered up the man's leg and wrapped itself around the old man's wrist. The man screeched, dropped the bag, along with the hissing snake, and backed away quickly into the shadows from which he'd emerged.

Tori was standing, face pale and concentrated, breathing quickly. Then, aware that the other three students were looking at her with amazement, she dropped her arm, adjusted her shirt, and picked up her snake, which had slithered dutifully back to her.

“W-wow. Thanks,” Hal said sheepishly.