The Cabinet of Wonders: The Kronos Chronicles: Book I (18 page)

“As if I didn’t have enough to do! As if my highest priority was keeping Lady Hortensia’s hair a sunny yellow! If you ask me, it would be far easier for her to catch an eligible husband if she were to buy a new brain. But no! Everybody has to look as fine as possible for the prince’s ball, and they don’t care a whit that I am on the brink of an important discovery.”

The prince, Iris revealed, would soon turn nineteen. An elaborate celebration would be held in his honor. Her gift to him would be the invention of a new primary color.

“Currently there are only three primary colors: blue, yellow, and red. Every other color is a mix of these three. Except white, which doesn’t count as a color.”

White is the absence of color,
Astrophil informed Petra.

I know that,
Petra thought back.

“Imagine,” Iris continued, light gleaming on the lenses of her spectacles, “imagine that there was another primary color. It would open a world of possibilities. You can mix red and yellow to get orange. Red and blue make purple. But what would happen if you mixed a new primary color with red? What would you see?”

Petra was less interested in the invention of a new primary color than she was in the birthday celebration. Perhaps while everybody was busy, she would be able to skulk around the castle. “Will the celebration take place here?” she asked. She hoped that the prince would decide to have it in a hunting lodge hundreds of miles away.

“Of course. And you will get to see some of it.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. Prince Rodolfo is good to his people. He believes that everyone should join in his happiness.”

It amazed Petra that a woman as intelligent as Iris could think
well of somebody Petra knew to have a black heart. But one day, while grating a madder root, Petra asked the following question: “Do you make Kristof’s paints?”

“Kristof!” Iris frowned. “I suppose you mean the Pole down the hall.”

“Yes. I met him last week.”

“Did you? Well, I would advise you not to keep his company. You are
my
assistant. If anyone is going to get rid of you, it will be me.”

Petra didn’t understand what she meant by that, but she could tell that Kristof wasn’t on Iris’s list of favorite people. Though she had a hard time imagining who
would
be on that list, except maybe the prince. “So you don’t make his paints.”

“I most certainly do not. I told Prince Rodolfo somebody else would have to do
that
disagreeable job.” She pursed her lips at Petra’s baffled expression. She said testily, “Kristof
makes things disappear.
That is his talent. Of course, it has its limits like anything else. He can only make living things disappear, though I assure you that is quite enough. Let’s say he wanted to make
you
disappear. He would need to make a brush that included a strand of your hair, and paint mixed with your blood. Then he would paint your portrait. Since people don’t exactly leave their blood lying around, there are only a certain number of poor, foolish people he can paint. Thank heavens.”

Petra thought about Kristof, about his unlocked door and sweet manner. She thought about how the prince had tricked her father into thinking he was a friend. If you would like to know how easy it is to overlook evil, to see it for something else, Petra could tell you: it is the easiest thing in the world.

S
ERVANTS AT SALAMANDER CASTLE
were allowed one day off a month. Petra was eagerly looking forward to her first free day
when, unexpectedly, it came early. She got a sick day, of sorts. But she was not the one who was ill. Iris had an acid attack.

One morning, Petra pushed open the door to the Dye Works and was greeted with a strange sight. Footprints had melted into the stone floor. The puddlelike holes trailed from the bright side of the room and disappeared into the dark half, where one part of the velvet curtain was burned away.

“Iris?” Petra called. “Are you there? Are you all right?”

“Of course I am!” Iris was hiding behind the remainder of the black curtain—naked, Petra guessed. “I just got upset.”

“But you always get upset.”

“This is different!” Petra heard the sniff of somebody whose handkerchief had disintegrated. “When I get very, very angry or depressed my skin churns out acid like your grandmother’s best cow makes milk.”

Petra decided not to mention that she had neither a grandmother nor a cow. She was concerned about Iris, because it probably wasn’t so entertaining to be naked and trapped in an adamantine chair behind a curtain. “Well, are you angry or sad?” It didn’t seem too difficult to tell the answer to the question, since Petra had heard more than one snotty sniffle. But she thought she would ask.

“I’m
both!”
Iris pounded the arm of her chair. “The moment I give that hedgehog Hortensia her hair dye, what do you think happens? I’ll tell you: twenty-six of her closest friends and enemies march in here wanting the same exact color!
Twenty-six!
Do they stop to think that they’re going to look like a row of identical, dotty daffodils? No! Why oh
why
does the court become a playground for flirtation between the rich, magicless, and brainless?”

Petra knew the answer as well as Iris did: there was no place else for them to go. When aristocratic children failed the Academy exams, they packed up their fripperies and went straight to Salamander
Castle. There they usually tried to make one another miserable, arrange a suitable marriage, amuse themselves with drinking and dancing, or some combination of the above. If Iris’s attitude was anything to judge by, the Academy-trained researchers of the Thinkers’ Wing had little patience for the young courtiers.

“And I am no closer to inventing a new primary color! It needs to be ready in advance of the celebrations, so that we can use the color to dye the prince’s robes. I promised Prince Rodolfo that the color would be ready soon. Why was I so
confident?”
This last word was a wail of shame.

Astrophil was unsympathetic.
What a prima donna. You would think that the entire world revolves around her invention.

Petra saw his point, but felt sorry for Iris. She understood how easy it is to put so much emotion into a project. “Iris, don’t worry. You still have several weeks before the prince’s birthday. You have time.”

Iris sniffed.

“Can’t you just turn your magic off? Go into acid retirement, maybe?”

“Retire!” Iris snorted. “You can’t just wish away your magic. Anyway, my gift has its compensations.” “Like what?”

“Well, for example, if I get emotional enough and touch a patch of phosphorus, I can make a green so bright it would make your eyes sing.”

“It doesn’t seem worth it. What’s the point of a magical talent that makes your skin ooze acid every time you get angry or sad?”

Iris chuckled. Slowly, at first. Then she laughed as if Petra had just said something hilarious. “Oh, you little
lamb!”
she wheezed. “Clearly no one has ever attacked
you.
No one has ever done you an ounce of harm in your life. Am I right?” Her laughter died away and was replaced by an earnest voice. “I do hope that I will continue
to be right. Now, get out of my laboratory. I’m giving you the day off.”

That was Iris. She had never bothered to learn Petra’s name. She was cranky, self-absorbed, and arrogant. But she could surprise you. Petra heard protectiveness in the woman’s voice, and she suddenly realized that Iris liked her.

P
ETRA PASSED BY
her locked wooden chest and then made her way to the stables. She found Neel outside the building, trundling a wheelbarrow full of manure. His expression was as sour as the smell surrounding him.

“What are you doing?” Petra made a face.

“What do you think? The only job I could get was mucking out the stables.” He set down the wheelbarrow.

“But I haven’t seen you anywhere in the castle. I’ve been looking for you at dinner.”

“Where Sadie would be? My sis? Who’s not supposed to know I’m here?” Neel shot Petra a hard, irritable glance.

She bit her lip. Of course Neel wouldn’t have been at dinner. Petra felt embarrassed, and this made her belligerent. “Well, Sadie doesn’t go into the men’s dormitory.” Petra’s voice rose. “I’ve been sneaking around the entrance to that room every night, and you’re never there.”

Neel laughed mirthlessly. “You think the rest of the servants would let
Gypsies
eat with them? Sleep with them? Not on your life. Tabor and I are only good enough to clean up after the horses. Even if I weren’t keeping clear of Sadie, I’m not the right color to break bread at a
gadje
table, or sleep on a
gadje
bed. Tabor and I
go back home when the working day’s over. Come on, don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

This was the second time in one hour that someone had treated Petra as if she didn’t understand the way the world worked. Annoyed, she frowned and was about to say something when Neel cut in: “I don’t need your pity.”

“I wasn’t going to give it!” she flared. “You’d probably rather spend the night with your family anyway!”

“Well, yeah! But that’s hardly the point, is it?” He shook his head and picked up the wheelbarrow again, walking away from Petra. For a moment, she stood there. Then she spun on her heel and began striding away.

Petra, you are overreacting,
said Astrophil.

I am not! I’m tired of getting nowhere. All I do is work day in and day out in the bowels of the castle. And when I’m finally free, I go to see somebody who’s supposed to be my friend. And the only thing he does is yell at me!

Are you sure you did not yell at him first?

Petra slowed her pace. But she defended herself.
He was being impossible! He said he would help, and he hasn’t even bothered trying to get a message to me. And he’s been working here the whole time!

Exactly. He has been working here the whole time.

Petra stopped in her tracks.

Do you think,
the spider continued,
that he would be shoveling horse manure if he did not really want to be part of the plan?

Petra hated it when Astrophil was right—which was very often. But she turned around and ran to catch up with Neel. The boy glanced at her and looked away. He continued to push the wheelbarrow until they had reached a corner of the grounds reserved for drying manure in the sun to sell later as fertilizer.

“At least it’s not hot,” Petra ventured. She had been stuck inside
the castle for so long that she had not realized that the weather had truly changed. The air was chilly enough to make the tip of her nose cold. A brisk wind blew across the dusty yard. “The stink would be really bad in summer. And the flies.”

Neel tipped the horse droppings into a large pile. “So I’m supposed to be grateful, then?”

Maybe you can find a cheerier subject to discuss than manure,
Astrophil suggested to Petra.

Petra pulled her father’s notebook from under her shirt, where she had tucked it into the waistband of her skirt. “Neel, I want you to do something for me. This is one of the most valuable things I own. It can’t be found, but I don’t have a good place to keep it. Would you hide it for me, please? There’s no one else I can trust.” She held out the book.

He wiped his hands on his trousers and took it. He flipped through the pages. “It’s just a bunch of signs and drawings.”

“It’s my father’s. It’s about the clock. I don’t really understand what it all means, but it could be important. I don’t think the prince knows it exists, but if he did”—Petra took a deep breath —“he’d probably do just about anything to have it.”

Petra knew she was taking a risk. If what her father said was true, if the prince truly didn’t know how to use the clock, then the book could indeed be very valuable to him. She couldn’t leave it in her locked chest. She was sure that the servants’ lockers were regularly searched by the housekeeper. If Harold Listek found the notebook, he might not think it was important. But if he did …

Petra hoped Neel would hide it. The tricky thing was, now that Neel knew the book might be important to the prince, he might try to sell it for the price of several horses.

Neel looked at her. She could read the same thought in his tawny eyes. She almost snatched the book out of his hands. He glanced away, peering at the pages again. He lifted a brow. “Huh.”

“What?” she snapped. She should never have shown him the book. What was the point of trying to win the trust of someone you cannot trust?

“Your da understands the idea of zero.”

“What?”
She looked over his shoulder to see which pages had caught his interest. They showed strings of equations. Oh, those
pages,
she thought. “What’s ‘zero’? Is that a Romany word?”

“That
is zero.” He pointed to a symbol shaped like the letter O. “You know your numbers, right? One, two, three, four—”

“Yes.” She glared.