The Celestial Globe: The Kronos Chronicles: Book II (37 page)

“Were you training Petra to be an assassin?” Astrophil asked directly.

“An assassin?” Dee leaned back and templed his fingers. “Where would you get that idea?”

“From Ariel,” said Petra.

“Hmm. Wasn’t Ariel talking about Gabriel Thorn?”

“You didn’t answer Astrophil’s question,” Petra persisted. “All you’re doing is asking questions of your own.”

“Well, I really don’t know what to say.” Dee spread his hands helplessly. “I’m at a loss for words.”

“Ha!”

“You, Petra Kronos, an assassin,” Dee mused. He looked coy. “That
is
an interesting thought. Now, assassins usually work for somebody. For whom would you work? Me? I don’t
think
I want anyone murdered. Or is there someone
you
wish to kill?” Dee chuckled. “Aside from me, of course.”

He’s like an eel,
Petra thought,
slipping away from Astro’s question again and again.
She was frustrated, but she had known Dee long enough to realize that if he didn’t want to say something, he wouldn’t. “I don’t want you dead,” she told him.

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I want you to make good on our wager.”

“Ah, that. If I recall, the deal was that you were supposed to discover the identity of Thorn’s murderer
before
I did.”

She gaped at him.

Dee explained, “The West came to Throgmorton Street the morning of his death. I was not pleased. You know what he did to my wife. But scrying is not illegal, and time had taken its revenge on Thorn for me, turning him into a drunken failure. When he said he had news that concerned the benefit of England, I had to listen. He was—whether I liked it or not—a queen’s councillor. Thorn was excited, and told me he had learned of something called the Celestial Globe, which was part of a set designed by Gerard Mercator to navigate through Rifts all over the world. I was intrigued, but I was also more impatient than I should have been. I didn’t want to speak with him more than I had to. Thorn never told me
who
possessed this globe. But what was I to think when Francis Walsingham came to visit me that afternoon with news of Thorn’s death? You remember that day, Petra. You remember how confident Walsingham was that Thorn had died of heart
failure. You remember the true cause of Thorn’s death: quicksilver, a spy’s poison. I had already suspected Walsingham of selling information to Prince Rodolfo. Now I believed him capable of murder.”

“Suspicion is nothing,” Astrophil said. “Petra gave you
proof.
”

Petra added, “It’s thanks to me that Walsingham’s in prison.”

“It’s thanks to me that you weren’t ripped apart by Ariel.”

Petra leaned forward, and her shoulder screamed in protest. “I know you can use our mental link to track me down wherever I go, and haul me back to Throgmorton Street. But how would you like to do that every day? Or three times a day? You won’t have time to sit in this dark lair of yours and think about who
else
you might want to treat like a mouse in a cage. I’ll make you run after me until your hair turns white, your teeth fall out, and you’re so tired you’ll just let me
go.
”

“I see that you are determined to go back to Bohemia.”

“Oh, do you
think
so?”

He stood. “Very well. As we agreed, I will have some information concerning your father to share with you when you leave.”

“I want it now.”

“Ah, how tragic it is not to get what we want. I’m sorry, my dear, but you will have to wait just a little while longer. Tomorrow night, Madinia will open a Rift to Bohemia. Before then, we’ll have a chat concerning your father. In the meantime, I hope you will reconsider your decision to leave. Now, Petra, I have a question for
you
: where is the Celestial Globe?”

Innocently, she said, “I don’t know.”

“The prince seemed to think that you did.”

“I was faking it. What was I supposed to do? Say that I had no clue where the globe was, and watch him lop my friends’ heads off?”

Petra and Astrophil left Dee’s library, and never returned.

• • •

“I’
VE GOT A PRESENT
for you, little cousin,” Neel sang.

“Little—?”
Treb narrowed his eyes. “You quit flirting with that English lass and come right over here so I can show you who’s
little.
”

“That’s not flirting, that’s thanking.” Neel stood, leaving Tomik and Petra at the tavern table. He joined Treb and Andras by the entrance of the Spoked Wheel. “And that’s no English girl. That’s Petra. You know, the ghost? The one you said was sure to be dead?”

Treb glanced again. “She
does
look lively to me.” The girl’s hair was almost as dark as a Roma’s. Her left shoulder was stiff with a thick bandage, and there was a kind of toughness to the line of her jaw.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m thanking her?” Neel launched into his story. “. . . so Cotton had this code for where he hid the globe,” he finished. “N6. Petra figured it had to mean the tyrants, the statues in the library. There was only one tyrant whose name began with N—Nero—so all I had to do was sweep off the books on the sixth shelf below Nero. There was a false panel, and behind that was your present.”

“The
Celestial Globe
?” shouted Andras. “You found it?”

“Petra found it. I just fetched it. Petra got roughed up last time we were at Cotton’s place, so Tom and I went back there by ourselves. A right easy theft that was. Well, not the
last
time, since that nasty Prince Rodolfo showed up and an air spirit nearly slashed us all into bloody food for crows—”

“Where’s the globe?” Treb gripped his cousin.

“Can’t remember. Seems I might’ve left it on your bed, but when a fellow’s as important as me, he tends to forget nitpicky details . . .”

Treb and Andras leaped for the stairs, and Neel followed.
Tomik, who had been translating the Romany conversation for Petra, helped her stand, and they walked upstairs together.

A round, black velvet-covered object was sitting on Treb’s bed. He snatched away the cloth, and there was a hushed silence.

“It’s beautiful,” said Andras.

Impulsively, Treb kissed Petra on the cheek. “Oh, you
treasure
.”

She smiled, a little puzzled.

“It helps if you thank someone in a language they understand,” Neel told Treb.

Treb rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got no words to give you for what you’ve done, cousin. But you’ll never be ‘little’ to me.”

T
REB FOUND
a few things to say once he had drunk three tankards of ale. “To the cleverest, most down-and-dirty cutpurse in the four tribes!” He raised his glass. “To Neel of the Lovari!”

The inn cheered.

“To Tom of the Maraki—”

“What?” Tomik looked up in surprise.

“—a noble lad, a true friend, and a fine sailor!”

Tomik flushed. “He’s not going to be so nice when he’s got a headache tomorrow morning.”

“I hope they toast to me,” said Astrophil. He didn’t speak Romany, but he could still figure out what was going on.

“To Petra Kronos—”

But Petra turned to Neel, fed up with all this cheering she couldn’t understand anyway. “Do you have it?” she asked.

“Yep.” He handed her the invisible rapier, and she slipped it into the scabbard at her waist. “Wasn’t too easy to find in all that mess of glass and plants and paper, though.”

“It would have been easier if there had been some blood on the blade,” Tomik said darkly. “Kit’s blood.”

“I wasn’t going to
kill
Kit,” said Petra.

“You could’ve cut him up a bit,” Neel observed.

Treb joined them. He set down his tankard, ale sloshing over the side. “Why’re you all making such grim faces? Are you saying your farewells?”

“Farewells?” Petra looked at Neel.

“We set sail tomorrow,” he said.

“Oh.” Her voice sank. “Where are you going?”

Neel and Treb exchanged a glance. Then the captain shrugged and said, “Tell them.”

Neel explained, “The Roma . . . well, our home is where we make it, see? By wagon or boat or horse or foot, we travel where we like. We’ve got no country. Except, uh . . . we actually do. It’s called the Vatra, and it’s our homeland, where our queen rules. It’s far away, though, and that’s one reason why we wanted the globes so bad. When the Bohemian prince began chucking our people into prison, we knew we needed to find a way for Roma to get to the Vatra
fast.
The Roma have never been well liked, but things are getting ugly, and not just in Bohemia.”

“Now that we’ve got the globes, our duty is to present them to the Roma queen,” said Treb. “I hope we can figure out how to make them work, though, or we’ll be taking the long route to the Vatra.”

“Where is it?” asked Astrophil.

“India,” said Neel.

India
. That was half a world away. Slowly, Petra said, “Then we won’t be seeing each other again . . . not for a long while.”

There was a pause. Neel spoke first. “How’re you getting back to Bohemia?”

“A Rift,” said Petra. She looked at her friends and realized that she had hoped they would stay together, even if that didn’t make
much sense, even if she didn’t know what the future held for her, or how she would rescue her father. She had hoped . . .

“What about you?” Neel asked Tomik. “Are you heading home? Or do you want to sail? I’ve never been to the Vatra before. Must be something to see. Want to?”

Tomik didn’t hesitate. “I’m going with Petra.”

“Yeah. I thought you might.”

“Oh, don’t look so mournful.” Treb belched. “Even the spider’s ready to start bawling his eyes out. The world’s not as big as it seems, and time passes quicker than you’d think. If a slave can become a friend, and a ghost can come back from the dead, I’m sure you four won’t be apart for long.”

“When will you leave tomorrow?” asked Petra.

“When we wake up.” Neel looked at Treb, who had slumped on the table. “Probably late.”

“We’ll be there to say goodbye. But I have to do something first.”

“What’s that?” asked Tomik.

“I’m going to see Kit Rhymer.”

P
LEASE GO AWAY,”
Kit mumbled from where he lay curled in the straw.

“I
am
going away.” Petra stepped close to the bars. “I’m leaving London, and I’m never coming back.”

“And I am going to die.”

“Oh, Kit. Why did you do it?”

He covered his bruised face. “Why does anyone do anything?” He dropped his hands, and his stare was hollow-eyed. “I wanted something better than I had. More money. Walsingham’s gratitude—which, before all this, used to go a long way. And I wanted you, too.”

“You
deceived
me.”

“Yes,” he said miserably. “I know what kind of heart you have—open and closed, at the same time. You’d believe the best of a stranger, and abandon a queen’s ball to eat a fried potato in the kitchens. But you’re hard. Dee saved your life, and you hate him for the way he did it. People are bad, or they are good, and there’s no in between with you. So was I supposed to tell you the truth? Hope that you wouldn’t mind I was spying for the man who kidnapped your father? I didn’t say a word about you to Walsingham . . . not until Dee fired me. I tried not to be tempted, I really
did. But Walsingham paid for
information
—not by the hour, or by the day. I was barely able to keep my tiny room in a crummy part of town. Soon I couldn’t even buy bread. I thought . . . that I could have everything. That Walsingham would give me gold for the Celestial Globe, that the prince would be so pleased he’d forget all about you, and you’d have no choice but to stay in London.”

“That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard,” Petra said disdainfully.

Something flickered in his eyes. Then he spoke in her favorite voice, the one that was serious
and
jesting, but held no hint of mockery. “I face the executioner’s ax, Petra, yet no blow could hurt me like those words.”