20

PREPARATIONS

I saw a woman who sang as she slopped the pigs, though she had no apron to cover her dress. A scribe laughed to see his papers blown by the wind. A man whistled a tune when he saw his wagon wheel had broken.

FROM “THE THREE GIFTS OF THE PEASANT KING,” A SCIM LEGEND

“Big rhino, little rhino,” Jason mumbled to himself.

He stood in the square courtyard near Westwind’s stables. Delightful Glitter Lady snorted at him, her ear twitching as a fly landed on her head. She closed her eyes halfway, enjoying the sunshine. She was in battle mode, much larger than a typical rhino. Unicorn. Whatever.

Jason had the embiggenator in his hand. The dial was turned all the way to the right, to get her to full size. He had been studying how the magical debt was paid. It was helping to keep his mind off what had happened in the market. Sort of. Anyway, for Dee to get big, something else had to get small, right? He had figured it out soon after the big battle by switching Dee’s size a few times while walking around the stable near where he had first met her. There was a row of large stones near the city wall. He had noticed that one of them shrank when Dee grew, and vice versa. Once he’d figured it out, he had dialed Dee up to giant size and pocketed the corresponding small stone.

He tossed the pebble in his hand. So far he had managed to remember to not slip it into his pocket and then switch her size. He scratched Dee under the chin, and her eyes shut. She made a low, rumbling, contented sound.

Madeline came jogging around the corner of the castle. With the Elenil modesty rules, she had to wear a long-sleeved shirt and thin gloves when she ran. She had a small backpack as well. She stopped by Jason, hands behind her head, and caught her breath.

“You’re sweaty,” Jason said.

“Well, hello to you, too.” Madeline grinned at him.

“Are you having trouble breathing?” he asked, studying the way she gasped for air.

Her grin grew wider. “It’s what happens when you exercise, Jason. You should try it.”

He tapped his temple. “I’m exercising my mind, Mads.” He pointed at her backpack. “For instance. My mind is saying, why is Madeline carrying a backpack while exercising?”

“Interesting. My mind is wondering why you’re doing magic in the courtyard where the knight might see and kick you out.”

Jason nodded. “Fair question. I’ve been studying how Elenil magic works. For Dee to get big, something else has to get small.” He showed Madeline the pebble in his hand. He tossed it by the wall. “Watch.” He dialed the embiggenator to the left, and the rock grew to the size of a mailbox and then a trunk.

Dee flicked her ears again, but now she came to Jason’s knee. She looked up at him lazily, unconcerned. She prodded him in the leg with her horn. Okay, maybe slightly annoyed.

Madeline knelt down and scratched the little rhino behind the ears. “Can I try it?”

Jason shrugged and handed her the embiggenator. “Turn it to the right to make her bigger and to the left to make her smaller.”

Madeline turned the dial to the left. “Like this?”

“No! She can’t get any smaller —”

Except apparently she could. Dee trumpeted and rose up on her hind legs, barely the size of a kitten. “Aw!” Madeline said, scooping her up in her arms. Dee cuddled in against her, squeaking and making happy unicorn noises. The stone, meanwhile, had grown still larger, leaning against the castle walls.

“Huh,” Jason said. “I didn’t think she could go that small.”

“You could probably sleep in the castle now,” Madeline said. “Just sneak her in your pocket until you get to bed.”

“She’s a noisy sleeper, though. Now spill, Madeline —what are you doing with that backpack?”

“It’s got my clothes in it for our meeting with the archon,” Madeline said. “I want to take a hot bath before we go to the palace, so I’m going to sneak over to Mrs. Raymond’s.”

Jason took Dee from Madeline and set her down. “How are you going to get out?”

“I have my ways,” she said. “You should take a bath too.”

Jason snorted. “My suit smells like durian. It won’t make a difference. I could tag along, though —there’s something I want to do too.”

“Get your clothes, then, and let’s go.”

“They’re in the stable, hold on.” Jason ambled toward the stable, Dee frolicking at his feet. He nearly tripped over her several times. “Okay, girl, in you go.” He turned the embiggenator to “normal” and shoveled some grass into her stall. “Don’t give me that look. If the knight sees you the size of a stuffed animal, I’m going to get in trouble.” He scooped up his suit and headed to catch up with Madeline.

He found her near the front gate, where one of the knight’s soldiers stood guard at the drawbridge. She was a human teenager too, and the guarding was largely ceremonial. No one could get into Far Seeing without passing plenty of guards. This guard was supposed to keep the knight informed of who came in and out.

Still, Jason’s stomach clenched at the thought of being caught. “How do you get past the guard? We’re not supposed to leave the castle unattended.”

“Watch,” Madeline said. “Hey, Thuy,” she called to the guard. Jason had no idea how Madeline knew her name already. She must have been hanging out with the other humans in the castle. He remembered Ruth’s comment that “all the girls” had made fun of his hat, and he blushed.

“Hey, Madeline,” the guard said. “Sneaking out to get a bath again?”

“Yeah. I hate how there’s no magic in the castle.”

“Tell me about it. You know we’re going to get busted if you get caught out there.”

“Don’t worry,” Madeline said. “We’ll be careful.”

“We?” Thuy glanced at Jason. “You’re not taking him, are you?”

“If it’s okay with you,” she said.

“I don’t know. He’s sort of . . . unpredictable.”

Jason wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He tried to think of something unpredictable that he could do in the moment, but nothing came to him. Maybe that was unpredictable?

“I’ll bring you something from the market,” Madeline said.

“Not the market,” Thuy said. “I want a cinnamon roll from Mrs. Raymond’s place. I love the knight, but the food at Mrs. Raymond’s is so much better than here.”

“Deal.”

“Great,” Jason said. “That’s easy.”

The guard glared at Jason. “And a pudding.”

“A . . . uh . . . a what now?”

“I want one of your magic puddings. We all know you get them, and I haven’t had pudding in a long, long time.”

Jason crossed his arms. “That’s because pudding is terrible. People only want it when they’re in the hospital or think they can’t have it.”

“Well, I can’t have it now, so I want one.”

“Fine,” Jason said. “I’ll give you a magic hospital pudding. Can we go now?”

Thuy looked straight ahead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Madeline walked over the drawbridge. “Come on,” she said, looking back at him still standing next to Thuy. “That’s her way of saying she can’t see us. Now get moving.”

Oh. That made sense. He trotted across the drawbridge, and they headed toward Mrs. Raymond’s place. The path they took would pass directly through the market. He told Madeline the story of Mud and that he wanted to check in on him. He felt embarrassed telling Mads about it . . . because, in retrospect, he felt he should have known better and especially because it had ended with such unexpected violence. But Mads took it in stride and didn’t seem to think less of him for it. It was a relief to talk with her about it and to have her support.

He didn’t tell her about the dreams he had been having . . . weird dreams filled with strange people. People that reminded him of the Scim, but less scary, kinder, and strangely endearing. They had looked more human than Scim, when he thought back on them, but he had known in his dream they were Scim. And there was the house: an old dilapidated mansion with moss hanging from the roof that came into his dreams over and over. He stood in front of it in near complete darkness, and he could feel a small breath of air on his neck. An old Scim woman lived in the house, and he was there to visit her, to check in on her.

“Jason?”

Startled, Jason almost lost his footing. They stood near the fruit stand now, a full minute’s walk from the castle, and he had been so deep in his own thoughts he hadn’t noticed. He vaguely remembered that Madeline had been talking to him a moment before. “Sorry,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just . . . I was thinking.” He cracked his knuckles. “Okay. The Scim kids ran down that alley.”

The alley stank. It wasn’t dark . . . There weren’t dark places in Far Seeing, but it shouldn’t have smelled, either. Apparently magic toilets were not in use wherever the alley took them.

Madeline strode ahead of Jason, who felt unaccountably nervous. He had a deep, unsettled feeling that the little Scim boy had already died. The cobbled alley gave way in places to patches of dirt and mud, as if whatever magic kept the city in perfect repair did not work here.

They found the gang of Scim kids huddled together along the alley pathway, throwing colored stones in a circle. One of the kids looked up at them, grimaced, and looked away. They kept throwing stones.

“Excuse us,” Madeline said. They ignored her.

“We’re looking for Mud,” Jason said.

One of the kids grinned at him and, without warning, slung a handful of mud in his face. “There you are,” the kid said, and the rest of their little gang chortled and laughed and continued throwing their stones.

Jason wiped a streak of mud from his face with his fingers. “I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

One of the kids, a young girl, stood. Her dark hands were closed in fists, her tusklike teeth rubbing against the disgusted curl of her lips. “Is that so? You care what happens to little Scim children? Then why is this the first time we’ve seen you?” She scooped up her rocks. “Mud is gone.”

“Gone like . . . gone? Or like . . . dead?”

But the girl walked down the alley without turning back.

“The human lady took her,” one of the boys in the circle said.

Madeline crouched down beside them. “The human? Do you mean the Garden Lady?”

The children laughed. “You don’t know nothin’, do you?” said the boy. “The Garden Lady, she only appears in a garden, don’t she? Not in Scim alleys, huh?”

The children gathered their stones, evidently tired of the obtrusive humans. “What’s her name?” Jason asked.

One of the smaller boys lingered back. “What will you give me for it?”

“What do you want?”

The boy licked his lips, looking at Jason’s feet. “Your shoes, I think. Or . . . what’s in the bag?”

“Fine,” Jason said. He couldn’t give him the suit —Ruth would kill him. “The shoes for a name.” He kicked them off. He could snag another pair from David and Kekoa’s room easily enough, and they could just order more.

The boy snatched the shoes up, cackling to himself. He held them against his chest. “She has a tame name.”

“Tame name?”

“Like she was Scim once, but instead of being named Darkness Boils or some such she has a tame name, a sunlight name. You know.”

The kid started to back away, but Jason grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t sneak away, buddy. You haven’t given me her name yet.”

Another clod of mud came sailing down the alley and again caught Jason in the face. He lost his grip on the kid, who skittered backward with the shoes. “I don’t remember it quite,” the boy said. “But something about sunbeams. Ray Man. Something like that.” Then he scampered off with his friends.

Jason wiped the mud from his face again, then wiped his hand on his pants. “Ray Man. Well. That was worth it, I guess. Mud is alive, at least. Or was.”

Madeline looked at him in consternation. “You didn’t figure it out? He’s talking about Mrs. Raymond. Ray Man —Raymond.”

Jason gasped. “Uh. I did not catch that.”

Madeline had already turned on her heel and was running for Mrs. Raymond’s house. Jason pelted after her, barefoot and embarrassed. By the time they reached Mrs. Raymond’s sprawling residence, Jason’s feet ached.

Jasper, the kid in charge of the armory, was sitting on the front steps, enjoying the sunshine. “Is Mrs. Raymond here?” Madeline asked.

He shrugged. “Haven’t seen her since breakfast.” He squinted at Jason. “Hey. Where’s that unicorn? You didn’t check it out of the armory.”

Check it out? Dee wasn’t a library book, and besides, no one had told him he was supposed to do that. It wasn’t his fault Dee loved him so much that she wanted to be with him at all times. “I can’t even keep track of my shoes,” he said. “How am I supposed to keep track of a unicorn?” He chased Madeline into the house, ignoring Jasper’s shouted instructions.

Madeline held her hand out, slowing him. She looked up the long stairway with the plush carpet. “Should we see if she’s in her room?”

“There’s no way she brought some Scim kid into her house. The Elenil would go nuts. Even a lot of the human kids here hate the Scim.”

“But we can wait for her there, if nothing else.”

“Okay,” Jason said. They walked up the stairs, and Jason sighed with relief at the feeling of the plush carpet on his bare feet. He didn’t know where Mrs. Raymond’s room was, but Madeline seemed to. She took them through a series of hallways, twists and turns, and came to a simple wooden door. Madeline knocked, but no one answered.

“I guess we’ll wait,” Madeline said, and leaned against the wall.

Jason leaned against the door beside her. It gave way, and he stumbled backward into the room. He straightened, taking a quick look to make sure Mrs. Raymond wasn’t sitting in the room watching him. He pulled the door shut again.

“What are you doing?” Madeline asked.

“It was an accident!”

She pushed the door open. “No, I meant, why are you closing it again?”

“Bad idea,” Jason said, but he followed her in and shut the door behind them.

The room was about twice as large as the one he had shared with Kekoa and David. There was a window directly in front of them and a closet door on the wall to their left. A modest bed sat in the corner, a comfortable-looking chair was placed near the window, and there was even a fireplace, which was so clean he wasn’t sure it had ever been used. But Madeline walked with reverent wonder toward the unexpected feature against the far wall: a rustic bookshelf packed with books.

She ran her hand across the spines. “Look at all these. Tolkien, Lewis, L’Engle, MacDonald, Rowling.” She pulled one from the shelf, turning it over in her hands. “They’re all fantasy novels.”

“That’s weird,” he said. “Seems like you’d just want to enjoy living in your own fantasyland, not dreaming about other ones.”

Madeline gasped, shelved the book she had been holding, one by T. H. White, and crouched down to a lower shelf. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s the Tales of Meselia. All of them and all first editions. Jason, these are my favorite books of all time.”

It was a little strange, seeing books again after all this time in the Sunlit Lands. Jason picked up one of the books. It was called The Winter Rogue. He flipped through the pages.

“That’s the second one,” Madeline said. “Then comes The Gold Firethorns and then The Skull and the Rose. Oh, you’d love that one, Jason.”

Jason sighed and put his book back on the shelf. He was glad Madeline had found something to distract her for a moment, but he couldn’t keep himself from wondering about Mud. Which reminded him of Night’s Breath. Which, somehow, reminded him of his sister. He put his hand against the bookshelf to steady himself.

“Are you okay?” Madeline stood and put her hand on his shoulder.

He nodded, just as the closet door swung open and Mrs. Raymond came walking out, drying her hands on a towel and talking as she walked. “ —will be fine, but you can’t keep bringing me these orphaned —ah. For instance, these two.”

Hanali had been walking close behind her and crashed into her when she stopped. He glanced up, the perplexed expression on his face changing into a look that said, Oh, of course this is Jason’s fault.

“I do not recall extending invitations or permission to enter my private room,” Mrs. Raymond said.

Hanali frowned. “The boy has a way of weaseling into places uninvited.”

“The door was open,” Jason said, realizing how lame it sounded even as the words left his mouth.

Mrs. Raymond took the books from Madeline and put them back on the shelf. “Nor did I invite you to paw through my library.”

“We didn’t mean any harm,” Madeline said. “It’s just that —”

“Your hands are filthy,” Mrs. Raymond said. She looked at Jason. “His entire . . . What happened to your face, Mr. Wu?”

Oh yeah. The mud. “Hygiene standards are surprisingly lax here,” Jason said.

Hanali rolled his eyes. “This from the boy who took a bath while wearing his shoes.” He looked at Jason’s feet and then, with a weary sigh, looked back to his eyes. “Where are your shoes?”

“I sold them to a Scim kid.”

Hanali scowled. “You should not be fraternizing with the Scim, Wu Song. It reflects poorly on me as your benefactor.”

Something in Hanali’s voice caught Jason’s attention. He knew somehow that Hanali was hiding something. Hanali’s eyes flickered, just for a moment, back toward the closet door. “You know,” Jason said, “certain doors in this glorified youth hostel go places they shouldn’t.” He walked toward the closet.

“Keep your hand off that door,” Hanali said.

“I have a way of weaseling into places uninvited,” Jason said, and swung the door open.

Mud lay sleeping on a narrow bed in a stone room. Day Song, Gilenyia’s Scim assistant, looked up from the boy, a washrag in his hand.

Mrs. Raymond pulled the door shut with a firm hand. “Stay away from the boy. You are covered in filth. He’s in pain enough without an infection.”

Jason locked eyes with Madeline, but she appeared to have as little idea of what was happening as he did. He looked a question to Hanali, who plucked at his sleeves with nonchalance.

“Mrs. Raymond has a way of picking up unfortunate strays,” Hanali said. “And should you not be dressing for our audience with the archon?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jason said. “I’m glad Mud is getting medical help, but why do you have him here?”

“Hanali is well known in the Scim community as the Elenil to approach if there are needs,” Mrs. Raymond said.

Madeline’s eyes widened. “He’s what?”

“Enough,” Hanali said, steel in his voice. “We will talk no further of these things. The boy will be returned to his home when he is well. No one here will mention this again. Not to me, not to one another, and certainly not to the archon.”

Mrs. Raymond’s face set to stone. “Hanali, son of Vivi,” she said. “Have you not shared your plans with these two children, even though they are a central piece of it?”

“Nor would I have shared them with you if you were not so persistent and infernally nosy,” Hanali snapped.

“Hey,” Jason said, offended. “I’m persistent and nosy too.”

Hanali glared at him. “You. To the baths. We leave here in one half of an hour. Every particle of mud must be gone from your face.” He turned to Madeline. “And you? Have you more to say? Intrusive questions? Infuriating requests?”

Madeline blushed. When she spoke, her voice was so low Jason almost couldn’t hear it. “Mrs. Raymond? Could I maybe borrow some books?”

Mrs. Raymond put her fists on her hips and rounded on Hanali. “These are the children you’ve staked everything on, and you’ve not given them so much as a clue as to the deeper game you’re playing?”

Hanali gave her a shocked look, his gloved hand on his chest. “Deeper game? My dear Mrs. Raymond, I only desire invitations to more prestigious parties.”

She glowered at him a moment more before turning to Madeline and saying, “Of course, dear, so long as none of them leave the house —and don’t show them to the Elenil. Since they can’t read, they always think we’re passing secret knowledge. If they catch you with a book, they’ll make you read the entire thing aloud before they let you leave. Now run along and clean up.”

Jason hadn’t seen Madeline so giddily happy before. She went to hug Mrs. Raymond, who turned her aside with a huff. Still giddy, Madeline grabbed Jason’s hand and pulled him into the hallway. “Mud is going to be fine!” Madeline said. “And there are books!”

“Yeah. And Hanali has a secret plot. Big surprise, I guess.”

As if summoned, Hanali opened the door and stuck his head out. “Mr. Wu.”

“Yes?”

“Use soap.”

Hanali closed the door again, leaving Jason alone with the laughing Madeline. “Use soap,” Jason grumbled. He picked up his bag with the suit in it and tossed Madeline her backpack. He started off down the hallway, then realized he had no idea where they were in the massive maze of Mrs. Raymond’s house.

“Your room is the other way,” Madeline said, passing him. “Don’t be late.”

Jason turned back, listened to Madeline’s footsteps headed the other direction. When she was gone, he paused by Mrs. Raymond’s room. He could hear dim, concerned voices on the other side. He leaned his head close to the door but couldn’t hear what they were saying. It sounded like Mrs. Raymond was angry and Hanali was trying to mollify her.

He cracked the door slightly.

Mrs. Raymond was talking. “ —too great a risk, letting them in. Not just to you but to all of —”

“We’ve already discussed this at length, Mary.”

“Mrs. Raymond, Hanali. You don’t get to call me Mary anymore.”

Hanali sighed. “It is a risk. A terrible risk. But, my dear Mrs. Raymond, how could the situation become any worse?”

There was a pause, and when Mrs. Raymond spoke again, her voice sounded tired and sad. “There is always a way, Hanali.”

“I suppose,” he said. “But it is the choice I have made. Now. If you will excuse me, I feel an urgent need to check on Mr. Wu. If I leave him alone for even a few minutes, he makes the worst kinds of trouble.”

Jason jumped away from the door and hugged his bag close to his chest. He half ran, half walked to the end of the hallway and turned right, then speed walked until he knew where he was.

If he hurried, he should have just enough time to clean up and get dressed. Hanali had asked how the situation could get any worse. Jason had a sinking feeling that he would be the one to figure that out.