Jack be nimble.
Jack be quick.
Jack beware of trap and trick.
The steps kept curving down and around, down and around, circling in on themselves. Soon, the stairwell changed from sterile metal to earthen walls with wooden steps. The air grew damper. Then they were funneling through an arched doorway, older boys who must be leaders of some kind holding the door for the others to pass through. Beyond, Wren found steps leading deeper beneath the surface.
The girls near her were whispering. “The catacombs!” one said in wonder. “Have you ever been down here before?”
“Never.” The other girl shivered. “And I wish I wasn’t now.”
Wren looked around curiously. They were passing through a string of forgotten, empty rooms. They moved past piles of discarded wood and other places where it looked like fire had left sooty markings on the floor and walls. There were a few faded papers tacked up against walls and bits of rubbish in the corners. Whatever had once happened in the catacombs, they had been abandoned long ago.
They tromped through a warren of empty rooms, past store cupboards and wide gathering places. Through what had obviously once been bathing rooms of some sort. In and down. Around and through.
As they moved deeper, Wren could hear snippets of conversation.
“He’s called a quarantine,” the boy in front was saying. “We haven’t had a quarantine since . . .” His words trailed off as he rounded the corner.
“What’s a quarantine?” Jack whispered to Wren.
“I’m not sure what it means here,” Wren said quietly. “Back home it’s when they isolate people for some reason. Usually because of disease.”
As they moved farther into the catacombs, the spaces around them seemed to become more purposeful, with wide-open rooms designed to house large numbers of people and faded signs indicating assigned seats. Then the rooms gave way to smaller passageways that resembled tunnels.
Wren wondered where they led. Could she and Jack escape through them, or would they just end up wandering forever beneath the city?
The damp earthy smell tickled at Wren’s nose. No old papers dotted the walls here. Instead, someone had carved things into the stone. Silhouettes of men and women. Smaller figures that were obviously meant to be children. There were names below most of these. And dates.
“Do you think . . .” Wren began when they passed the fifth such monument.
“Um, yeah,” Jack whispered. “Tombs. This whole place officially gives me the creeps.”
Wren shivered. She thought Jack was probably right. The entire passageway felt like a huge underground crypt. The statues. The numbers. The regular nooks carved into the wall as if— “You mean, you think there are bodies back there?”
“Skeletons, probably,” Jack said matter-of-factly.
Wren felt a tickling at her ear and stifled a squeal, jumping around to see Jack grinning at her.
“Feeling a little nervous, Wren?” he said, waggling the falcon’s feather he had poked her with. “Don’t worry, the scary skeletons can’t hurt you. They’ve been dead for, what? Many years, I’d say.”
“I’m fine,” Wren said, smiling at the girls in front of her who had noticed her squeal and were now scowling at her. “Really.” Wren spread her hands innocently. “Just a practical joke, that’s all.” She laughed weakly in Jack’s direction. “He’s full of them.”
“Now’s not a good time for joking,” the frowning girl said. She spoke with a slight accent. Her forehead crinkled into a frown. “What unit are you from, anyway? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
“Hey, look,” Jack said, pointing up ahead and providing a welcome distraction.
They had arrived in a circular room with passageways sprouting off in different directions like the spokes on a wheel. The boys in charge were directing everyone to gather in the middle of the space, and Wren was glad to yank Jack in the opposite direction from the curious girls.
Seizing the moment, she pulled Jack into one of the dark tunnels. She didn’t want to risk anyone else noticing that they didn’t belong.
“Shh!” Wren said when Jack began to protest. “This might be our chance to escape.”
Jack looked pointedly down the black tunnel ahead of them. “Escape where?”
Wren ignored him. It was a good thing they had ducked aside, because the unit leaders seemed to be organizing everyone in groups and taking attendance. She pressed back against the wall and felt carved letters beneath her hands. The main room was lit with flickering gas lamps, and their glow spread far enough to barely make out the words:
To commemorate the end of the Great Plague of Magic from the Noddian year 231, in which 14,792 Fiddlers met their demise. Let it be remembered that tainted stardust was the cause of such deeds, and most solemn caution must forever be implemented to ensure that no Plague of this kind shall ever threaten our colony again. We honor the victims and their families with this monument, and we warn the generations to come not to follow in the wicked and foolish ways of Mother Goose, who brought this Plague upon our great colony. We do hereby declare a Memorial Day on the twenty-seventh of each month to grieve our losses and celebrate the successful containment and end of the Most Grievous Plague. Signed forthwith: The Most Solemn and Most Reverend First Council of Nod, this twenty-seventh day of the eighth month, in the 232nd year of our colony.
Jack snickered. “Mother Goose?”
Wren shushed him. “Remember what Mary said?” The fact that the nursery rhymes she had grown up with had dire significance hardly surprised her anymore. She read through the engraved words again. Almost 15,000 people had died. How awful!
“Attention, please!” a familiar, unwelcome voice called out in the big room.
Wren peered around the corner. William was there, wearing the same leather coat he had worn in Mary and Cole’s cell the night before. He stroked his pointy white beard while he waited a moment, but Wren didn’t know for what. All the units were already in perfect attention.
“You apprentices have been assigned to my research team,” William said in a too-pleased voice. “And what I say will be obeyed without question, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir!” the units answered in unison.
“Good. Your first assignment is to excavate these crypts.” William pulled out a pair of thin gloves and situated them snugly on his long fingers. “We will be studying the tainted stardust, particularly how much of the taint is required to cause a plague of this nature. Obviously, some Noddians were exposed to the taint and did not die. Others”—he spread his gloved hands—“well, others, not so much. Your job is to determine why. Now. Let us look at a sample together.”
Wren watched in horror as William turned to one of the crypts and pressed on a stone lever. Then, he carefully slid out a long tray.
“Ah,” William said, his eyes alight. “The remains of our first subject. Come closer, apprentices, and watch carefully.”
Wren wondered if the other apprentices were feeling as queasy as she was. She had done her fair share of dissection in her biology and anatomy studies, but this was a human cadaver!
“William always was a turd,” Jack said, wearing a pinched expression.
Wren stifled a relieved snort when suddenly a burst of static rent the stillness of the catacombs.
Some of the apprentices jumped back, startled, but William merely looked annoyed.
He pressed a button on a device resembling a walkie-talkie. “What is it?” he snapped.
“William,” the voice rasped, and Wren felt her neck throb with pain. Jack gasped, too, and clutched at the back of his head.
Boggen! Wren would know that voice anywhere, but it was especially recognizable after last night’s dream. Only this was no dream. She stifled a moan as the spot on the back of her neck where he had once marked her burned like it was on fire.
“You, too?” Jack whispered, his face lined with pain.
Wren nodded. Whatever Boggen had done to mark her as his apprentice in her dreams, he must have done to Jack as well.
“William, my apprentice is in the catacombs with you.” Boggen’s voice sent stabs of fear through Wren’s body. “The one that I have marked.”
William’s gaze was sharp now, scanning the rows of boys and girls in front of him. “Is this true?” he asked. “Which of you is it?”
Vehement denials came from the orderly regiments.
“Bring me my apprentice.” Boggen’s voice echoed throughout the chamber.
“We’ve got to run!” Wren said, stumbling to her feet. “Or they’ll catch us for sure.” She knew even as she spoke that trying to escape was probably futile. The units were already fanning out in orderly patrols, and there were far more of them than there were tunnels to search. It wouldn’t take them long to find Jack and Wren.
Wren pointed down the dark tunnel in front of them. “This looks like as good an escape route as any.”
Jack shoved at her shoulder. “Then you take it.” It took Wren a second to understand what he meant.
“No, Jack,” she said. “You can’t sacrifice yourself.”
“Why not?” Jack’s half smile looked a little forced. “He’s marked us both, but apparently the mark can’t tell him the difference between us. All he said was that his apprentice was here. If he has me, maybe he’ll stop looking for you.”
Wren grabbed his hands, pleading with him. “We don’t know how the marks work. Besides, if Boggen gets his hands on you, just think what he’ll make you do. You’ll be like Mary and Cole, forced into who knows what kind of research!”
“So what?” Jack shrugged. “I can’t work the magic anymore. He can’t use me to do anything useful. For all Boggen knows, I’m still on his side.” His voice grew sly. “I could be like a spy on the inside, you know?” He gave a weak laugh and then reached out and squeezed her hand. “But you. You he’d use for sure. Make it count, Wren.” He winked at her, and then he stepped out into the circular room, calling out in a loud voice, “I’m here. I am Boggen’s apprentice.”
Wren reached a useless hand out after him, but she knew she couldn’t throw away the chance Jack had just given her. She would come back for him. She would rescue him. Her last sight of Jack was one of the unit leaders grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him up to William.
“Ah,” William said. “What a pleasant surprise to find you on Nod, Jack.”
Wren shut her ears to the horrible sound of William’s laughter and fled into the darkness of the tunnel.