THE GUEST HOUSE was restocked with juices and food, but I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. As we moved along the rooftop, the moat crocodiles followed us with their eyes. But I didn’t care about them. All I could think about was Daria.
The swoosh of metal. The agony on her face.
Why didn’t you do something?
If I’d had Marco’s speed, I could have swatted the sword aside. If I’d had Aly’s brains I might have figured out in advance that the guard would do that. I could have taken preventative measures.
“Earth to Jack,” Aly said. “Your girlfriend is going to be all right. We need you. Escape plans are in order.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said.
“That’s encouraging,” Aly said under her breath.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
“What do you mean, what’s that supposed to mean?” Aly looked at me curiously, then sighed. “Never mind, Jack. You are such a boy.”
“Will you two knock it off?” Cass said, pacing back and forth along the rooftop. “Think. What do we do now? Wait here under lock and key until Prince Sadist reports to his dad and brings us our guard uniforms?”
Marco drummed his fingers on the edge of the roof’s half-wall. “Actually it might not be so bad. As guards, we’ll have access to the Hanging Gardens.”
“Be real, Marco!” Aly said. “The king will be keeping us close. He’ll probably want to train us. He’ll want us to prove we can do magic. To earn his trust. By the time we’re let off on our own, it’ll be the twenty-second century back home!”
“Right,” Marco said. “Right. We have to do this fast. I could try to disable the guards downstairs—”
“And if they stab you to death?” Aly said. “Maybe we can think of something else.”
“We could drop three pots on their heads,” Cass suggested.
“That’s the best you can do?” Aly said. “Jack, what do you think?”
But my mind was still on Daria. “‘You will go to Mother’s Mountain,’ Daria said. She told me she left us the way to do it.”
Cass, Marco, and Aly all turned in surprise. “Really?” Cass said. “What was it, a key? A secret password?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “I don’t see anything left behind.”
“Big help!” Aly threw up her arms.
“I can focus if I eat,” Marco said, bolting toward the stairs. “I always think better on a full stomach.”
As Cass scampered after him, Aly’s shoulders slumped. We were alone now, and the room’s temperature seemed to drop a couple of degrees. “Sorry I snapped at you, Jack,” she said.
“We’re all tense,” I replied.
“I said some things I didn’t mean,” she said.
I smiled. “I heard some things I didn’t understand.”
“Yeah. Well.” She opened her mouth to continue but seemed to have second thoughts. With a tiny smile, she gestured toward the stairs. “Last one to the fruit bowl is a rotten egg.”
Marco slurped green juice. Cass took tiny bites out of a dried date. Aly played with a bowl of yogurt but didn’t seem too interested. I had a plate full of fresh figs but had only managed to finish half of one. Marco kept swiping the rest, one by one, which was fine with me.
The pottery on the wall was decorated with images of hunters and animals. On one of the vases, a stylized mushushu seemed to be growling at me.
I reached over to the vase and turned it around so the mushushu faced the other way. Now a less-accusing bull faced outward. It looked vaguely familiar.
I have left you the way to do it. Remember . . . when I came to see you . . .
I jumped up.
The vase. I had used it the night before. To tuck something out of sight.
“Jack?” Aly said curiously.
I reached into the mouth of the vase and pulled out the leather pouch I’d put there. Daria’s pouch. Gently I pulled it open and looked inside.
Three green feathers peeked up at me.
“These aren’t knitting needles . . .” I said.
Cass, Aly, and Marco all looked at me as if I’d just grown fins. I held out the pouch so they could see inside.
“She knew,” I said. “Somehow she figured we might need some emergency help.”
My three best friends began to smile. “May I?” Aly asked.
I handed her the pouch, and she carefully spilled out six tranquilizer darts onto the table.