The Celestial Globe: The Kronos Chronicles: Book II (38 page)

She slipped a hand in her left trouser pocket and carefully curled her fingers around the tip of Kit’s broken sword. Its jagged edge pricked against her palm. If Astrophil were here, he would object to what she was about to do. “You owe me something.”

He looked at her.

“A promise,” she said. “One that you’ll
keep
this time.” She lifted her free hand and traced the lock’s keyhole. “Do you think that you could be . . . better?”

“What do you mean, ‘better’? Do you mean, could I promise not to betray my country, conspire to cover up murder, and stab someone I care about?”

“Yes.”

His laugh was mirthless. “That’s an easy oath to make, considering I’ll only have to keep it for another few weeks.”

“Just promise me.” Petra took her hand out of her pocket, and reached through the bars.

He stood, and walked to meet her. “Christopher Rhymer hereby swears to Petra Kronos that he’ll be a good boy.” He gave her the shadow of a smile. “I promise to mend my ways and lead a better, if very short, life.” He took her hand.

She held it. He widened his eyes in astonishment.

When Petra walked away from the cell, her pocket was empty. The piece of metal was gone.

Kit watched her retreating back until she vanished down the hall. Then his eyes fell to his upturned palm. He blinked, still unbelieving.

In his hand was a small steel key.

P
ETRA COULD SEE
the boats rocking in Oyster Wharf. She was hurrying down the lane to meet Tomik and Neel when she heard someone call her name.

She turned around, and Madinia flew into her arms, giving her a fierce hug.

“I told you this is where we’d find her,” Margaret said to her parents.

Confused, Petra asked, “What are you doing here?”

“My daughters told me that your friends are setting sail today,” Dee explained. “We’ve come to bid you farewell.”

“Farewell? But I’m not leaving right now. I’m going to Bohemia tonight, through a Rift, with Tomik.” Petra looked at Dee with sudden suspicion. “You said I could go! And what about the information you promised me?”

“Madinia can still open a Rift for you. But I think that, after you have heard my news, you will choose another path. I hope you will stay here”—he spoke over her noise of protest—“but if you do not, you will need to be with your friends. I wanted to give you that chance before the ship sets sail.”

Petra glanced nervously at the dock several yards away. Treb was lying in the launch, smoking. Andras was loading the boat. Tomik and Neel stood on the wharf, talking.

The May wind was warm and strong, yet Petra shivered. Dread
sat like a chunk of ice in her stomach. A moment ago, she had demanded that Dee tell her what he knew about her father. Now she wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear.
But the prince said Father was fine
, she thought desperately.
That he was better than ever.

The sun shone on Agatha Dee’s white hair. “I wish I could teach you how to live happily ever after, Petra,” she said, “but that is something you will have to learn on your own.”

Petra scanned the woman’s face for some hint at what she meant, but Agatha Dee’s face was as empty as always.

“Here.” Madinia thrust a wrapped oblong object at Petra. “It’s my ivory-handled fan. I adore it, but I wanted to give it to you, so that
you
could make everyone jealous!”

Petra accepted the fan, though she had no idea what she would do with it.

Margaret handed her a thick bundle of cloth. “This is the samite dress you wore at the ball. Maybe . . . maybe you think it’s a poor gift, since I can’t wear the dress anymore anyway, but I hope it will make you think of us.”

Petra thanked her for the dress, though she didn’t know what she would do with that, either.

“The silver hairpins are in the bundle, too,” Madinia said, “in case Astrophil wants to pretend he’s one of them again.” She peeked through Petra’s hair. “Hello? Astrophil? Are you there?”

“Yes, Madinia,” said the spider wearily.

Petra embraced the sisters.

“But maybe this isn’t goodbye.” Margaret smiled. “We’ll be waiting for you at Throgmorton Street.”

Then the twins and their mother walked back up the lane, disappearing amid the fruit stalls and clopping horses.

Only John Dee remained.

Petra’s heart beat quickly. When Madinia and Margaret had
been there, it had been easy to forget, if only for a moment, that Dee had information to give her, and that she didn’t want it anymore, because she was increasingly sure it was bad news.

Dee’s face was that of a doctor ready to set a bone, or amputate a limb.

“Petra,” he spoke gently, “my sources say that soon after your father was brought to the dungeons of Salamander Castle, the prince ordered him to rebuild the clock’s heart. But once Prince Rodolfo learned of the Mercator Globes, he became obsessed with finding them, and decided he no longer needed your father. Mikal Kronos was given to Fiala Broshek for experimentation. He was transformed into a Gristleki.”

“That’s a lie!” But doubt tugged at Petra, and behind doubt loomed despair, bitter and frightening.

“It is true. I am sorry.”

Better than ever,
the prince had said. Of course. The prince
would
think that being transformed into a monster was better, because he was one. And Ariel. Ariel must have known. She had changed into a Gray Man in front of Petra’s eyes. Had she been ready to tell Petra about her father?
I offer a word-gift, a whisssper heard far away
, Ariel had said.
A sssecret.

Despair gripped Petra by the throat. She began to weep.

“Do you understand now why I wanted to keep this from you as long as I could?” said Dee. “I have spent my life trying to know as much as possible. But the most important thing I discovered is that certain kinds of knowledge can be painful. More than that: they can break the spirit. Stay with my family, Petra. We will protect you. We could make you happy.”

“Never!” she sobbed.

“Then what will you choose? To return to Bohemia, where you will be hunted?”

Before this moment, all the possibilities of rescuing her father had seemed difficult beyond measure. Now, any plans she had disintegrated in the face of the thought that her father no longer
was
her father, but a monster. What could she do? Where should she go?

“I have cousins. I can live with them. Dita, Josef, David—”

“But if they shelter you, how long will it be before the prince discovers this? Would you really put them in danger? Here the prince cannot touch you without insulting Queen Elizabeth. That has been made clear to him. But Bohemia is
his
country, and when you are on its soil he can do what he likes to you and anyone who helps you.”

Petra looked at the wharf, and it blurred through her tears.

“Go with your friends, then,” Dee urged. “Sail far away. You do not need to tell me where you are traveling. But don’t return to Bohemia. Not until you are strong enough, and skilled enough, to protect yourself. Here”—he pressed a sealed envelope into her hand—“this is a gift.”

“I don’t want it!” She began to shred the paper.

He stopped her hands. “I know you don’t want to listen to what I have to say. Not now, maybe not ever. But someday you will be grateful for that letter.”

She squeezed the paper in her fist. But she wanted to tear something,
anything
. Something must break.

Her eyes were silver pools, shining with tears and misery. When they turned to Dee, he could not look away.

And that was when he felt something slice through his heart, reach into his mind, and
wrench
at a tiny knot. Dee gasped.

Petra had severed the mental link between them.
I am free
, she told herself, and stumbled down to the wharf.

• • •

A
S THEY ROWED
toward Deptford, Astrophil tried to console Petra. “I think John Dee was being entirely too grim. I did not wish to say so on the wharf, because it would have been bad manners for me to interrupt.” In fact, Astrophil had been too shocked to speak. “What if the Gristleki operation is not permanent? Perhaps it can be reversed.”

“You think so?” Petra swiped at her tears.

“Yeah,” Neel said eagerly, “and the Vatra’s just the place to find out about that. I know you Bohemians have some piddly school for studying magic, but that’s nothing compared to what the Roma’ve got.”

“You have an academy of magic?” Tomik pulled a little faster on the oars.

“Something like that. Also, a Kalderash rules the Roma these days, and if there’s one thing the Kalderash tribe is good at, it’s being all mysterious and knowing things they shouldn’t. Can’t stand ’em, personally. Give me the Maraki or Ursari any day, if I can’t have the Lovari. But my point is that the Vatra will be packed with magical experts who might know a cure for your da, Petra. Or they can think one up.”

“Would they do that for me?” she asked.

“They’d better,” Treb growled, “or I’ll
make
’em.”

Hope trickled into her heart, and when the launch pulled alongside the
Pacolet
, Petra was ready to come aboard—though she didn’t like sitting alone in the launch and being hauled upward with rope and pulleys. She watched Neel, Tomik, and the others climb up the Jacob’s ladder.
Soon
—she touched her sore shoulder—
I’ll be able to do that, too.

As the Maraki pulled the boat higher, Petra uncrumpled Dee’s letter. The seal had been crushed, and waxy dust fell on her lap. There were only a few lines of writing.

My dear Petra,

You once asked me what Prince Rodolfo’s magical talent is. I refused to tell you. Now I would like you to know: he has none.

Call upon me if you need me.

John Dee

 

Petra folded the letter, and stepped aboard the ship.

T
HE
P
ACOLET
sailed down the Thames, and then ventured out into the sea. When England was just a fuzzy green line behind them, Treb summoned his crew. Everyone crowded into his cabin. They jostled, each wanting the best view of the globes resting on the table. They had seen the Terrestrial Globe before, of course, but they had heard that its twin was stunning. They were not disappointed. When Treb pulled away the black velvet cloth, several sailors gasped.

The Celestial Globe was almost entirely black. While the Terrestrial Globe was made of wood and paper, its twin was marble. And a strange kind of marble it was, too, one with shades of midnight blue. Points of light were scattered across its large surface. As Petra looked more closely, she saw that they were holes bored into the stone. Thin, inlaid lines of gold swirled around these stars, showing a swan, a man wrestling a snake, a ram with wavy horns, a lyre made from a tortoiseshell, and many other designs. They were the constellations.

Treb spun the Terrestrial Globe on its axis, stopped it with a finger, and pointed at a red spark off the coast of England. “Here’s a Loophole.”

“Where does it go to?” someone asked.

“Not sure,” Treb replied, frustrated.

“Well, you’d better make sure,” said Nicolas. “We could end up anywhere. I don’t think the
Pacolet
would sail too well on top of a mountain.”

“That Celestial Globe is pretty,” said Nadia, “but how does it work?”

“I thought it would
do
something,” said a disappointed sailor.

Many voices began to join in the conversation.

“What if we have to sail to the Vatra the usual way?”

“That could take a year!”

“Maybe we should cut into the globes. See if there’s anything inside.”

“Are you a fool? Because that idea sure makes you sound like one.”

“Get out of here, all of you.” Treb passed a hand over his eyes. “I swear on all the hairy bears, my head
hurts
.”

“Been drinking, Treb?”

“Couldn’t you celebrate
after
you figured out whether the globe was worth the trouble?”

“I said,
Get out!
” Treb slammed his fist down on the table.

Muttering, the crew began to leave.

“Tom,” Treb called.

Tomik, who had been quietly translating the conversation for Petra and Astrophil, looked up.

“Stay,” said Treb. “And you all, too.” He pointed at Petra, Astrophil, and Neel.

“Well?” Treb flourished a hand at the globes. “You’re a sensible lot. What do you think?”

“It is perfectly clear.” Astrophil shrugged. “We should wait until nightfall.”

“And why is that?”

“How else will we see the stars?”

• • •

I
T WAS A CLOUDLESS NIGHT
. Petra stood with her friends at the stern of the ship, and watched Treb and Andras walk toward them, each cradling a globe in his arms.