The Cabinet of Wonders: The Kronos Chronicles: Book I (30 page)

“Excuse me?” Astrophil objected.

“Well, except Astro, of course.” Petra laughed. “Thanks, Neel. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

“I know.” He smiled. “But I guess I’d have to say the same thing
about you, too. Anyway, I hate goodbyes. I don’t believe in ‘em. So I’ll just say, ’See you later, Petali.’”

“See you later, Neel.”

P
ETRA LEANED HER HEAD
against Boshena’s bristly neck and shivered. She was miserable. After the excitement of escaping from the castle had worn off, she realized that she had no food or water. Her empty stomach was a dead thing inside her. She had no idea where she was going. Her wet clothes had frozen stiffly against her skin. She sneezed. She had tried guiding Boshena to walk on the bare ground, to avoid patches of snow, like Neel had done. But after a couple hours of this she was too tired, too cold, and too hungry to bother. She just let Boshena walk ahead as she liked, hoping that Jarek was right when he had said the horse knew the way to Okno.

She grew thirsty. When Astrophil suggested that she eat snow, Petra just shuddered. But a few hours later, she was scooping up snow in the dark and forcing herself to swallow some.

Finally, during the coldest hour of the night, when whatever warmth from the day before had been sucked out of the earth, Petra fell asleep, her head on Boshena’s mane. The horse plodded along.

Then Petra heard something, a skittering on the snow. She raised her head. They had reached a clearing. A ray of moonlight filtered through the bare trees, and Petra saw the slinky brown body of a fox picking its way across the snow. As she watched, the fox turned its head and looked back. Its brown eyes fixed upon hers, and grew larger. The fox stood on its hind paws and stretched into a tall human with a long beard. It was John Dee.

I’m dreaming,
Petra stated.

You are,
Dee agreed.
I have come to wish you a happy birthday.
Petra stared.
What?

This is the hour you were born, on a November night thirteen years ago. Am I not correct?

Petra thought about it, and realized that it
was
her birthday. She hadn’t remembered it at all. It had been the furthest thing from her mind these past months. She shivered against her hard clothes and laughed. Some birthday she was having.

You and your accomplice did very well. Admirably well. I confess that I am impressed by your skills, my dear.

She didn’t look at him. Maybe if she ignored him he would go away.

The Staro Clock still possesses power,
Dee continued.
The power of beauty, and of time. But it cannot harm anyone now. The prince will surely seek some other means to increase his political strength. But your father’s clock can no longer become his tool, Petra, thanks to you.

His words were flattering, oily. This angered Petra.

Thanks to me!
she cried.
You talk as if I had a choice! You threatened my family! You
made
me do this! And, and,
she stuttered, wondering how she had ended up here (wherever “here” was), alone on a stolen horse and trapped in a nightmare that was real. Her voice rose:
And I’m only twelve years old!

Thirteen,
he reminded.

She fumed.

Petra, do you think that I would have really harmed you, or your family? I am not a monster. You simply lacked the proper motivation. A good threat goes a long way. Think of what the clock’s secret power could have done. Is not the world better off without it?

Petra thought of Susana. She couldn’t say no. But she refused to say yes.

Since you kept our bargain,
Dee continued,
and since it is your birthday, I thought I would offer you a present. You may ask something of me: a favor.

How about this: I want you to get out of my head.

Oh, now, really.
Dee chuckled.
You do not want that. That would not do. Believe me when I say that I refuse your request out of my earnest wish to protect your best interests.

Funny, I never had the impression that you cared about my best interests.

I will not, as you put it, “get out of your head.” But if it is any consolation to you, I will be leaving your country. My purpose in Bohemia was to eliminate the threat of the clock. Now I can go home. Like you.

You are
not
like me.

Let us agree on this, Petra: you shall think about whatever favor you would like
most
to ask of me. I shall give it to you whenever you ask.

Petra heaved a disgusted sigh. It seemed as if she would be stuck with Dee for a while. She looked into the clear night sky. The stars glimmered.
Tell me something.

Is this the present you will request?

No. I’m going to save that for later.

Wise girl.

This is just a question. You can answer it or not. I don’t care. I’ve been wondering about something my father said. Ah?

Petra could tell that she had piqued his curiosity.
Is it really true that the earth goes around the sun, and not the other way around, as we learn in school?

Is that all? Yes, Petra Kronos, the earth goes around the sun.
He pointed to the sky, and traced his finger along the white stream of stars that was the Milky Way, curving above them in a bending line.
And the sun and the earth are just specks among many, many other things like them, spinning on some part of the galaxy, which is shaped like a spiral. We are standing on a point in that spiral, you
and I. The Milky Way that bends above us is a spiral that, to our eyes, has been flattened into a line.

Petra said nothing.

Let us be allies, if not quite friends, Petra.

I’ll think about it,
she said.

A
T DAWN,
Josef stepped outside the Sign of the Compass. He blinked.

Slouched over a horse was a sleeping girl. Her dress was water-stained and dirty. Her face was hidden against the horse’s mane, but it was her hair—shorter than he remembered, less snarled than he had thought—that convinced him who the girl was, for her hair was the same color as his wife’s. He had barely dared to hope when he first saw the girl, but now he was sure: it was Petra.

He picked her up as if she weighed no more than air. She mumbled. He strode into the house, calling, “Dita! Mikal!”

But it was David who ran down first. “What is it? What is it?” he cried excitedly. Then he saw what his father carried. “Petra!”

“Get your mother,” Josef ordered.

“I’m always being told to fetch people,” David complained. Josef frowned.

David turned and ran up the stairs.

By now, Petra had woken up, though she felt groggy. Her throat was on fire and it was hard for her to swallow.
Astro?
she thought confusedly.
Am I really home?

Yes, but I think you are ill.

“Josef,” she croaked.

He smiled at her. He carried her up the stairs and into her bedroom, where he sat her on the bed. He told her to lie down, but she refused. “I’m all right,” she insisted.

Dita entered the room and paused in the doorway, staring at Petra unbelievingly. Petra braced herself, for she knew Dita’s fury would be fierce. She waited for her cousin’s silence to break. She waited for Dita to berate her.

But, to her surprise, Dita did no such thing. She just walked across the room, pressed Petra’s hair back from her face, gazed at her, and then held her tight. “We thought you were dead,” she said. Her voice shook.

“Is it true?” Mikal Kronos stood in the doorway. David was leading him by the hand. “She’s not really here? Safe?”

“I am, Father!” said Petra. “And I’ve brought back your eyes!”

“You … what?” He let go of David and felt along the wall for a chair, then sank into one. Astrophil darted across the room and climbed onto his knee. Dita, Josef, and David stared at Petra.

“You did not,” David scoffed.

“I did!” Forgetting her sickness, she launched with excited energy into the entire story, from the moment Neel tried to steal her purse to her dream last night. Josef listened, his face impassive. Petra couldn’t see Dita’s reactions, for the woman stayed beside Petra, sitting on the edge of the bed, with her arm around her. David was riveted. He looked tense during the moments that had scared Petra, laughed at the funny parts, and wrinkled his brow when she explained a dilemma that she’d had to solve. But when Petra finished speaking and a silence stole over the room, David just said, “That’s a great story, Petra. But I don’t believe any of it.”

“Maybe you’ll believe this.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her father’s eyes. They rested on her palm.

“Those are the ones Master Stakan made,” David said.

“That’s what
you
think. Father will know the difference.” She marched to where Mikal Kronos sat, and put the eyes in his hand.

Petra stood before him, waiting for him to speak. He just sat there, holding his eyes with one hand and his bandaged head with the other.

He closed his hand into a fist, opened his mouth, and then shut it into a thin line. “What have you done?”

“What—what do you mean? I’ve brought you your eyes.”

“You’ve brought danger on this house!” He flung his silver eyes across the room and they rolled on the floor.

“But—”

“You told Iris December who you were! That man recognized you!”

“But they won’t tell. I trust Iris. And they helped me. They can’t tell anyone about me without getting themselves into trouble, too.”

He gave a hollow laugh. “It’s when they
are
in trouble that they will reveal every detail they can about you.”

Petra felt suddenly angry. “For someone who was stupid enough to be tricked by the prince, to think he was so friendly and nice and smart, you seem to pretend to know an awful lot about what people really think, and how they act, and how they feel!”

“Petra,” Josef said warningly.

“And for someone who’s done the last thing in the world I would have ever wanted, you seem to pretend you know what’s best for me!” Mikal Kronos shouted back. “How long do you think it will take before the prince realizes that a theft from the Cabinet of Wonders by two children has something to do with me? It’ll take about two seconds, Petra. It will take two seconds for the prince to realize that the clock’s heart is destroyed.”

“Lots of people could have wanted to break that heart! I told you what John Dee said. If he knew about it, plenty of other people
must have known, too. The prince will think that one of his brothers found out about it, and hired somebody to destroy it.”

“And my eyes? Do you think that he won’t notice that they’re missing?”

Petra was at a loss for words. “Well … so what?”

“So what? A few months ago, I was blind but we were all safe. Now, we are not.”

“You—you think we would have been safe here? The prince couldn’t figure out how to put the heart together, but he wouldn’t have waited around forever. He would have sent for you. He would have made you do it.”

“And that would have involved only
me.
Petra, don’t you see? I made my decisions. I made my plans. I didn’t ask you to become part of them.”

“But I already
was!
I know you wanted to send me to the Academy. Oh, yes, I know!”

Mikal Kronos waved his hand. “Well, that will never happen now.”

“Good! I’m glad! Because I never would have gone! You —” Her voice broke. She felt as if something were wringing her insides, as if she were a rag. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to say? I did this for you.”

“Did you really?” He raised his hands and then let them fall to the arms of the chair. Petra stood before him. He shook his head again. “This is the worst thing you could have done.”

This was not what Petra had imagined. This was not what she had imagined at all. And so she said something she could never have imagined she would ever say. “I hate you,” she whispered. Then she ran out of the room.

S
HE SPED
across the wet snow, which was already melting in the rising sun. She ran until she choked on her own breath. She
pushed her way into the woods, sat in the cold mud, and cried. Unless you count several hours of chopping onions, Petra hadn’t shed a tear since her father had been brought home to Okno, even though there were many times when she had wanted badly to do so. Now Petra didn’t think she would ever stop crying.

When she did, she felt like a dried-up riverbed. Like packed, cracked dirt with no chance of ever being anything else. She stared blankly ahead, and wondered if she should run away again, if she should try to find the Lovari. She fingered the horseshoe around her neck. Maybe it wasn’t too late …

But then something silvery crept across her foot.

“Go away, Astro,” she said in a dull voice, without looking down.