Dickory dickory dare,
The girl walked through the air.
The horrible sound
Soon brought her down,
Dickory dickory dare.
Maya didn’t take Wren back to the camp. Instead she led her through the farmland and to a side of the island Wren hadn’t yet seen. The path soon gave way to rugged terrain that Maya easily navigated. The vegetation had overtaken what might have once been terraces. Now, the ground had collapsed in on itself, leaving a slew of precarious tunnels and caverns. Maya hardly slowed. She had obviously been this way before. And more than once. “Faster, girl” was the only thing she said whenever Wren stumbled over a particularly cumbersome boulder. “The night wanes.”
Wren laughed weakly at that. She was still sore from the days of training sessions, and the thought of another sleepless night tripled her exhaustion. She scrabbled over a rock that rested precariously against another, trying to catch her breath. Maya wasn’t even winded. Wren didn’t think the woman was leading her to her death, but that was only because she knew that if Maya wanted to kill her, she’d have done it already.
Maya disappeared into the tunnel in front of her, and Wren plunged after. As suddenly as they had started, they had arrived at the last place Wren had expected to find on the Outsiders’ island.
“A laboratory?” she said, scanning the hidden room. Wren wasn’t familiar enough with the technology of Nod to know if these were new or old machines, but their weathered faces and the makeshift way some of them had been patched together led her to believe the latter. “I thought you despised everything having to do with Nod. I thought the Outsiders never compromised.”
“We don’t.” Maya’s face twisted. “And I do despise everything to do with Nod.” She reached over and began flipping gears, sending the machines whirring to life. The cool glow of gas burst into flame next to Wren, and she jumped aside to keep her shirt from getting singed. “But I despise Boggen’s evil use of stardust even more.”
Wren moved around the room. She didn’t recognize most of the equipment, but the different devices seemed to be connected by corkscrew wiring to a wide shallow bowl in the center. Indeed, Maya was directing most of her attention that way. She took a gauge and inserted it into the steaming liquid in the bowl, peering at the meter and scribbling a temperature in a leather-bound book.
“What does all of this have to do with Boggen’s experiments?” Wren asked. Her unease about Maya’s intentions was overcome by her desire to help.
Maya peered at her over the edge of the book, but she didn’t stop scribbling. “You know about Boggen’s plans?”
“I know the stardust is tainted.” Wren looked up from the map she had been studying. “And that Boggen is conducting human experiments to try to minimize the damage.”
“Oh, yes, his ‘research.’” Maya’s lips curved into a hard smile. “Well, he won’t be able to continue that without any stardust.” She glanced up at Wren again, a glint in her blue eyes. “I’ve been draining the wells.”
“You?” Wren stared at the woman. “The Outsiders are the ones taking the stardust?”
“Not taking it.” Maya looked horrified. “Destroying it.” She put her pencil in the book to mark her place and folded the cover closed, giving Wren her full attention. “I have made it my mission to stop Boggen’s drilling. Call it a”—she squinted up at the ceiling as though looking for the right word—“personal passion of mine.” She crossed the room and riffled through the maps spread over the table in front of Wren. “We’ve now found six of the seven wells.” She pulled out a detailed map with several Xs across the surface. “But not the last. Or Boggen’s stronghold.”
Maya ran a finger over the map. “We’re at a disadvantage, you see, because for every search party sent out, the Outsiders don’t only have to hunt for the secret wells; we also have to contend with surprise ambushes by the animachines. And now you’ve come.” She was eyeing Wren unsettlingly.
“Me?” Wren echoed. “I think there must be some misunderstanding. I don’t know anything about Boggen’s wells, and I haven’t the first idea how to destroy stardust.” Wren didn’t add that she wasn’t exactly sure she would destroy stardust even if she could.
“You are a Weather Changer, are you not?” Maya was back to shuffling around in the stack of papers.
In the second Wren took to deliberate, she realized that lying would do her no good. At least if Maya thought she was useful, she might not go all Outsider discipline on her.
“I am,” Wren said. “But how did you know?”
“Does it matter?” Maya knelt down and began rooting through a cupboard. “A Weather Changer is precisely what I need.”
Wren felt a flicker of unease. Should she tell Maya she wasn’t always able to work the magic? Or would that make her no longer useful? “I’m only an apprentice Alchemist,” she began.
“It would be better if you talked less,” Maya said dismissively. “I have little love for the Alchemists,” she said, enunciating the word with stinging precision. “But they are the lesser of two evils. Perhaps”—she looked up at Wren again, calculatingly—“perhaps you will prove useful even after you help me find the wells.”
Wren instinctively took a step back. The glint in Maya’s eyes looked positively malevolent. Still. She had to do something. “No,” Wren said in a quiet voice, and Maya’s eyes widened.
“No?”
“First, you agree to help me. Then I’ll help you.”
Bargaining with Maya wasn’t easy, and Wren’s shoulders were knotted from the stiff posture she had held while going back and forth with the woman. But in the end, it had been worth it. At least she hoped so. She was going to help Maya. “I’ll do what you ask,” she had said. “And then you will help me free my friends.” Wren was taking the risk that Maya might go back on her word, and the edge in Maya’s gaze still made her nervous, but she had given it her best shot. Hopefully, the rest of the Outsiders would come through. She shook her head. She should be focusing. She would need all her attention to get the stardust to work, and bartering or no bartering, Maya wouldn’t help her unless she found the well. The older woman stood on the other side of the steaming bowl, checking the temperature and pressure gauges one last time.
“It’s ready,” she said. “Are you?”
Wren gave her a tense nod. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.
Maya moved to a hidden niche in the rock and took out a carved wooden box before returning to stand next to Wren. Wren couldn’t make out the design etched into the metallic inset on the lid. Maya swept her fingers reverently over the pattern before opening the lid to reveal a faded velvet lining filled to the brim with glittering jewels. Maya ran her knobby fingers through them, sifting and pawing until she found the ones she was looking for. First, a silver gem cut into a diamond. Then a golden pear-shaped one. A glistening green orb. And finally a clear oblong streaked with yellow.
“What are those?” Wren asked.
Wren’s words seemed to snap Maya out of her reverie. “We’re not here for a lesson, girl,” she said. “But to find a well. Ready yourself.”
Wren wondered what exactly Maya was expecting her to do. The bowl in front of them was heating up as though it could sense that something was about to happen. The liquid bubbled and boiled, sending up clouds of steam that rolled over Maya’s hands and turned the hair around Wren’s forehead into damp curls. Maya pinched the green stone between two fingers, mumbling something under her breath as she held it above the scalding liquid. It was then that Wren saw what she hadn’t noticed before. The jewels weren’t jewels at all. She took an instinctive step back.
“Are those—”
“Eyes?” Maya asked, tossing the first glittering green eye into the liquid. “How else to see his wells?”
The potion hissed and bubbled even higher once the eye disappeared. Little pink clouds of mist arced above the surface like a fleet of invisible dolphins. Wren felt hard rock behind her and realized she had been steadily backing away from the cauldron. Was this some kind of dark magic?
Maya had thrown in the other eyes now, and rainbow arcs of green and orange and gold leaped higher, reaching almost to the ceiling of the cavern.
“Girl!” Maya shouted, noticing for the first time that Wren wasn’t beside her. She darted lizardlike across the room and grabbed Wren’s elbow, her piercing blue gaze pinning Wren in place.
“Frightened, girl?” She set her mouth in a thin line. “You should be. We all should be wary of the magic.”
Wren swallowed the squeak that started to come out of her mouth. “I won’t do dark magic,” she managed. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“Dark magic?” Maya’s face looked like a thundercloud. “You think I would ask you to do dark magic?” She yanked Wren forward, and Wren winced. Surely a bruise was forming on her elbow by now, the way the woman liked to haul her around by it. “They’re not real eyes, foolish girl.” She hauled Wren over to the water, which had settled down to a more moderate simmer, the colors congealing to make blobs of solid greens and blues and browns separated by the pearly pink liquid, which was reminiscent of the water in the moat around the island.
“They are gemstones taken from different regions surrounding Nod,” Maya explained. “I think these four most likely”—she tapped the map—“but we’ll only know for sure once you work your rhyme.” She let go of Wren’s elbow and turned to look at Wren, her face contorted in a painful expression. Wren watched her, perplexed, until she realized that Maya was trying to smile at her.
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” Maya said. “We can tell the others you found the well, but we must not tell them about the stardust.” She worked hard for another smile. “This lab was one of Malcolm’s from the early days. He was adept at playing the stardust. I only know it is here because of my respect for him.”
Wren realized what Maya meant. “The others don’t know,” she breathed. “About what you’re doing.” She thought of how Auspex had scorned stardust use, how the others used the word stardust as a curse. “All this business about no compromise.” She stared at Maya. “And here you are making the biggest one of all.”
The smile vanished from Maya’s face and the familiar hard-as-nails, no-nonsense expression was back in place. “You will not tell anyone.” She set her jaw, as though she was fighting a war within herself. “Evil must be stopped.” She shook her head. “I’m only using the magic to fight the magic. Sometimes one must compromise.” She gave Wren an expectant look. “Well? Get out the accursed stardust. We have work to do.”
Wren had to admire the woman’s tenacity, whatever else she thought about her methods. She almost hated to disappoint her. Almost.
“Maybe you won’t have to compromise after all,” Wren said quietly, avoiding the woman’s sharp gaze. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more stardust.” She shrugged. “The last of it was in that pouch you threw away.”
Maya’s eyes widened at this revelation, but only for a moment. She hastily checked the temperature gauge on the potion. “It will be all right,” she said. “Wait here.”
She disappeared the way they had come, but Wren barely had time to wonder where she had gone when the woman was back, a small stoppered jar cupped in one hand.
“Use this instead,” she said, handing it to Wren. “You will have to work the rhyme.”
Wren looked at it dubiously. The jar held a dark liquid that looked nearly black. She swirled the bottle to get a closer look, and tiny pinpricks of neon light blossomed inside it. “What is it?” she breathed, transfixed by the display.
Maya unclenched her jaw. “Starmilk. Preserved from before the plague. Take care, as it’s not very stable.”
Working the starmilk was very different from working the stardust. Maya had only the vaguest idea of what to do, and Wren found herself fumbling through the first rhyme. She poured out several drops of starmilk into her hands, and it clumped there, thick and gluelike. Maya read the rhyme instructions from an ancient-looking book, and the archaic language was hard to follow. Wren traced her fingers through the starmilk. Five vertical lines, crossed by five horizontal. Then again from the opposite direction. Nothing happened the first two times she tried it. Fortunately, Maya seemed to think this had more to do with the cursed magic than any fault of Wren herself, and she hovered over Wren’s shoulder with her painful-looking smile in place. Wren guessed Maya meant to be encouraging.
“Try again,” Maya said. “But this time perhaps you should start the vertical lines from bottom to top.”
Wren humored her. She wondered if Maya would be as encouraging if it turned out that Wren couldn’t help her after all. Wren pushed all thoughts of failure aside when the liquid flared with light, sending a warm pulse of energy across her palm.
This time it was Maya who took several steps back, her face tight with worry as she eyed the magic the Outsiders loathed so much.
“It won’t hurt you,” Wren said, buoyed by the feeling of light and life in her hands. And for once she wasn’t going to use it to hurt anyone, but to help them. How she had missed this! “What next?” she prompted, moving toward the bowl. Following Maya’s instructions, Wren sprinkled the starmilk over the bowl, reciting the words of the rhyme:
All night long my nets I throw
To the stars in the twinkling foam.
Then up from the waves comes the light I know,
to take me where I want to go.
As she did so, the landscape in the bowl shifted. The starmilk hovered above it, pulsing with brightness, and then fell into an unmistakable dome over the orange-hued hill near the western edge of the bowl.
“The Old City,” Maya whispered. “Only Boggen would put a well there.” The starmilk arced out, creating a maplike effect that pinpointed one location. Maya marked this all carefully on her map, muttering curses at Boggen all the while. While she did so, Wren slipped the little glass bottle of starmilk in her pocket. After all, Maya had thrown away the rest of Wren’s stardust. Finally, Maya was done, and she looked up at Wren, a feverish light in her eyes. “Well done. Now we drain it.”
They were back at the Outsider village by dawn. The bright glare of the sun was muffled by the smoke from the morning campfires. Maya, her expression blazing with purpose, strode down the main street of the settlement, clanging an old bell. Whispers and stares followed Maya and Wren as they wound their way past side roads where Outsiders gathered to gawk. Wren wondered whether their speculation matched the reality.
“We’ve located another of Boggen’s wells,” Maya announced when the others had clustered around the village green. “And a crew leaves this morning to deal with it.”
There was a rustle of movement: not the wide-eyed stares Wren had expected, but the purposeful strapping on of weapons, the whispering of good-byes between very young children and their parents.
“Not all of us will be able to go.” Maya pointed at a few of the fiercest and most scarred Outsiders. “Captains,” she barked. “Choose your crew. We leave in a quarter hour.”
The movement intensified. Some Outsiders were arguing. Others were making ready to fight. None was reconciled to staying behind. Even the younger Outsiders were begging their trainers to take them. Wren sat down on a nearby stump. Maya had seemed distracted by all the preparations. With any luck, she would forget Wren altogether. Wren yawned. Perhaps she could spend the day asleep in the hovel. Then when the Outsiders returned from emptying the well, they could plan the rescue. Every bone in her body felt tired. It was as if the night’s work was only now hitting her. She leaned her back against the side of a nearby hut and let her body relax. Perhaps if she just rested her eyes for a moment.
“Girl!” Maya’s sharp words jolted Wren to attention. She sat up, stifling a groan at the stiffness in her neck. How long had she dozed? The Outsiders had finished their preparations and were standing in a loose semicircle, packs strapped to their backs and weapons at the ready.
“Girl! Where is your gear?”
Wren rubbed her eyes. “Gear?”
But Maya ignored her. She flicked a finger impatiently at a sour-faced boy, pointing toward the weapon house. By the time Wren was on her feet and had gathered her wits, the boy had returned, an extra pack in hand and a hopeful expression on his face.
“Well done,” Maya said, taking the pack, then dismissing him and dashing his hopes.
Wren watched the boy go, wishing more than anything that she could swap places with him. “You want me to come with you?” she asked, the meaning of Maya’s impatience becoming clear. “But why? I can’t fight.”
“No,” Maya began, giving her a hard look. “But you can do other things. We have a bargain, and your part isn’t done yet.”
Wren supposed she meant something to do with the stardust, but Wren was too rattled by the cool stares of the Outsiders to argue her way out of this one. She had been able to work the magic last night; Maya probably wouldn’t believe her if she told her otherwise this morning. Shouldering her pack, she reached for the crossbow, hoping that her few days of lessons might pay off if a hovercat decided to stalk them. “This is it, though, Maya,” Wren said in a quiet voice. “One well. And then you fulfill your part of the bargain.”
Maya’s mouth twisted into a hard line, but she nodded her agreement. “Move out!” Maya called. Scouts skirted the clearing warily, as though they expected an animachine to pop out from behind the toddlers who stood in a doorway cheering for them.
Maya leaned in toward Wren. “Remember. No one must know about the starmilk.”
Wren studied the old woman’s implacable face. If she didn’t know better, she would think that Maya sounded anxious.
Wren thought of how she had seen one of the Outsider students disciplined merely for mentioning stardust. Maybe Maya was afraid of revolt. Or worse. “Don’t worry, Maya,” she said. “As long as you fulfill your part of the bargain, your secret is safe with me.”
Maya’s right eye twitched, but she didn’t reference the starmilk again. Instead, she was back to giving orders. “Stay close to me. And stay alive.”
The search party did not depart via the underground lake. Apparently, the well they were looking for was located on the opposite side of the island.
“Out near the ruined caves,” a boy Wren vaguely recognized said half ominously, half eagerly. Wren watched him move easily with the scouts, wondering what it would have been like to have grown up among the Outsiders, learning that courage and honor were the highest goals. She wished she felt that they were more worthwhile right now. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she would be terrified.
The group she was traveling with wasn’t large—two dozen or so. Most of them were grown-up Outsiders, both men and women, with a few older kids sprinkled in the mix.
She fell in beside a girl whose blond hair had been plaited into a long braid. She was a good bit older than Wren, but Wren remembered watching her in the weapons ring. She was the one who had clobbered the other girl on the head. An Outsider A-student. She walked deftly across the uneven terrain, an arrow nocked into her bow. She swiveled alertly with each footstep, but she also watched her elders, mimicking their movements.
“So what happens when we get to the well?” Wren asked her.
The girl let her bow fall to one side. “Does it matter?”
“Kind of,” Wren said. “Don’t you care what happens if all the stardust is gone?”
The girl spun, and Wren found herself looking down her nose at a very sharp arrow tip.
“What did you say?” the girl hissed.
“Never mind.” Wren waved her hands in front of her face. She was letting her exhaustion get to her. She knew better than to try and brave conversation with Outsiders. She had been fooled by the fact that the girl seemed to be around her own age. Wren tried for an apologetic smile. “Nothing. I said nothing.”
“That’s better,” the girl said, letting her attention return to the dense woods, and Wren thought twice about asking any more questions. She was beginning to suspect that the Outsiders didn’t ever ask questions. Courage and honor were all well enough, but without knowing what they served? She scanned the weathered faces around her. How many of them had even been to Nod? Or knew a Magician?
Wren wondered if she could do as they were doing. Follow orders that might mean her own death simply because she’d been told it was the honorable thing to do. She tripped over a sharp stone in the path and barely caught herself before falling, winning a scornful glance from the girl with the blond braid. It was just as well Wren wasn’t an Outsider. Between wanting to know the reason for things and her inability to stalk, she probably wouldn’t have lasted past her fifth birthday. The forest emptied out onto a high cliffside that bordered the island to one side. The Outsiders had spread out into a V-like formation, with some scouts fixing their weapons on the skies and others aiming theirs across the ravine that lay in front of them. Wren adjusted the crossbow strap across her shoulder.
Maya held up a fist to signal a halt, and the company drew in close together. A few of the men busied themselves at the cliff’s edge, pulling on a rope that seemed to be attached to a pole. The younger Outsiders had gathered around Maya, their weapons momentarily forgotten. Wren watched them, though she couldn’t hear their conversation. From this distance they looked like a pack of puppies, fawning over their owner for a dog treat. And it seemed that Blond Braid had won it. With a gloating smile on her face, she clasped forearms with Maya and then circled around the other kids.
Suddenly the blond girl sprinted back toward Wren, her face set in stone, tugging a rope behind her. Just in time Wren leaped out of the way, stumbling and falling gracelessly into a spongy bush, and by the time she righted herself, the girl had turned around and was sprinting just as hard toward the cliff’s edge. Now Wren could see that she had the rope tied around her waist, and the rope was attached to a towering tree. Wren stifled a squeak as the girl swung out over the gorge, her body hanging in the air for one long moment, before she landed sure-footed on the other side. She attached the rope to some sort of post, and then turned to face her friends.
A cheer erupted from the Outsiders, and even the kids who had been passed over looked pleased. Blond Braid stood on the other side with her hands raised in victory for a moment too long.
A cry of alarm came from someone on Wren’s left, and then arrows were in bows, shooting their way across the ravine, but it was too late for Blond Braid. Something had descended from the sky. It was the size of a fully grown Fiddler falcon, with claws like steel daggers. Its wings thumped the air with a metallic sound, and its war cry sounded like scrap metal being crushed at a junkyard.
Everything after that happened very fast. Crossbow bolts and arrows flew across the gorge. Some struck the initial animachine; others flew toward the second, which had just joined its mate. There were other weapons, ones that shot fiery bolts that seemed to maximize damage with each blow. Before Wren had even found her feet, the whole thing was over. The first animachine fell from the air, spiraling down and out of sight, while the second gave an ear-piercing screech. It scooped up the blond-haired girl’s body and flew off toward a mountain on the horizon. The group of Outsiders grew suddenly still at the escape of their enemy.
“They’ll be back,” Maya finally said in a hard voice. “Best we be across the gorge before they return.”
Wren was speechless. She looked around at the others, who were matter-of-factly packing up their gear and stowing away weapons. “What about the girl?” she asked Maya, who cut her off with an icy stare.
“You think you care more for one of our own than we do?” was all she said, and Wren didn’t dare ask any more questions. Even if she had wanted to, she needed her full attention for what came next. Apparently, the blond-haired girl’s task had been to connect the rope to a pulley. Once attached, Outsiders on this side could pull up a threadbare woven bridge that hung between the two cliffs. Wren realized with a sinking sensation that they all intended to cross it. She instinctively felt for the pouch around her neck and cursed the stupid Outsider fear of stardust. If she hadn’t spent her time back at camp snoozing, perhaps she could have gone looking for it. She had no idea how the unpredictable stardust could help her across the dizzying gorge, but she wished she had the security of it nonetheless. Instead she had to settle for the few drops of starmilk left in the bottle she had taken.
“Girl,” Maya said. “You’re next on the bridge.”
Wren gave her a blank look. Calling it that was generous. Two ropes, one strung above the other, did not make a bridge. Several of the Outsiders were already halfway across, hands shuffling quickly over the top rope and feet moving easily across the bottom.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Wren mumbled under her breath. Surely she could go back to the village. Help the Healer with Auspex. Do more training. Anything else.
“I never joke,” Maya said, and even if Wren doubted the woman, which she didn’t, the hard edge to her jaw made her intent clear.
“Perhaps I could—” Wren began, but Maya didn’t even let her finish.
“You will find your courage in the doing,” she said, piloting Wren by her sore elbow until she was teetering on the edge of the cliff. “You want the Outsiders to help you?” She nodded toward the ones who had reached the other side and were assisting their companions through the final stretch. “Act like an Outsider.”
Wren swallowed all her protests. Stopping Boggen and rescuing the others was too important. She gulped down her fear and edged her first foot out onto the rope. Her gloves slid smoothly over the top rope, and they kept her hands warm. This high up, the wind whipped cold around her cheeks, sending loose tendrils of hair stinging her forehead. Wren tried to keep her gaze forward, out through the gully and toward the high wall of the city of Nod. From this perspective, the Outsider island wasn’t an island at all. It was more of a peninsula surrounded by the pinkish lake. The fourth side merely ended in a cliff wall that dropped straight down into a heavily wooded area. The landscape seemed to repeat in this fashion, for she could see similar gullies and crevasses out toward the horizon. This was the rippled pattern she had seen on her initial descent into Nod. What had looked so peaceful now only kindled her fear.
She tried to keep her mind on the task in front of her. “One step at a time,” she told herself, moving first her right foot, then the left. It was about halfway across that she made the mistake of looking down. The ground far below was a carpet of treetops, and her shifting body weight caused the ropes to sway. Wren lost her nerve, clinging tightly to the ropes, which made them twist and buckle even more.
“Keep your head, girl” came Maya’s voice from the other side of her.
Wren peeked over and saw the stern-faced woman moving across the rope bridge toward her with an ease that indicated she had done this many, many times. Wren stared at Maya, willing her body to calm down, but she was paralyzed. The tiniest bit of fear had escaped from her shut-tight box of emotions, and she was captive to it. She didn’t dare release the rope and move her hands; she couldn’t even inch her foot a minuscule step forward. She loathed the thought that even once she got across the stupid bridge, she’d somehow have to cross it again on the return trip.
“Don’t look down,” Maya said, and her words were a hint softer this time. “Keep your eyes on your destination.”
Wren tore her gaze from Maya’s approaching form, and ever so carefully shifted her head a fraction of an inch. Something inside her was sure that talking, moving her head, even breathing would send the bridge swaying again. She saw the horizon, the faraway turrets of Nod, and then she looked opposite, to her destination. Why, it wasn’t much farther at all. She was more than halfway across the gully. She saw the Outsiders there, a few of them watching her appraisingly, others already spreading out into the forestlike vegetation beyond.
From somewhere else she heard the distant cry of an animachine, and fear jolted through her again. But this time it spurred her to action. She slid her feet forward, shutting out the swaying of the ropes, pulling herself along until the cliff’s edge was in sight. With one final leap, she was over, crouched on the spongy ground, her breath coming in sharp, relieved gasps. She could feel the dirt beneath her fingers, smell the mineral scent of it.
“Well done, girl,” Maya said gruffly from where she stood, disconnecting the rope and ensuring that no one could cross back over to the island.
Embarrassment enveloped Wren. Kind words from Maya equaled a standing ovation from just about anyone else. No more praise was forthcoming, but the old woman seemed to look at Wren less as an alien creature and more as a fellow Outsider. I might as well act like one, then. She got to her feet and brushed the dirt off.
The Outsiders were circled up near the cliff’s edge, and Wren realized it was the place where Blond Braid had first fallen. There were no speeches. No tears. Instead, one of the crew captains held a fist up to his chest in a gesture of respect. “Courage and Honor,” he said, and then he dropped to one knee. “May Hawthorne find peace.”
A little murmur of echoes ran around the group. Wren whispered it under her breath. “May Hawthorne find peace.” She hadn’t even known the girl’s name, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. What had happened to her? What did the animachines do with their prey? She watched the other Outsiders’ stony faces as they prepared to journey on. Even the kids seemed to accept it as a matter of course. She wondered how many such ceremonies they had witnessed. The search party began to move, and Wren shouldered her crossbow like the Outsiders in front of her and followed stoically behind.
It was hard work keeping up with the others as they hiked easily through the rubbery undergrowth, but the adrenaline kept Wren’s exhaustion at bay for a time. Even so, she was more than grateful when someone decided it was time for a water break. The group passed canteens around but said little. They rested in shifts. Ever-alert Outsiders stalked the clearing, looking for enemies, while others leaned up against trees in what would be very dangerous to mistake for a relaxed pose.
They journeyed and rested twice more, a stretch of time that was as hazy as a dream to exhausted Wren. No one spoke. No one told tales. No one did anything to pass the time. Wren carried her crossbow as Maya had instructed her, but she hardly thought she’d be able to shoot. Her arms ached with the weight of it. Maya must have noticed, because some time later she positioned Wren in the center of the group. “Don’t stray, girl,” she said, and disappeared with the others. Wren had given up hope of impressing them. They’d either have to help her out of the goodness of their hearts or not, because she couldn’t act like an Outsider any longer. She could barely walk without tripping all over herself. She stumbled yet again into a bank of shrubbery and got to her feet, but this time she didn’t keep moving. It wasn’t because she was tired. It was because she recognized the scene in front of her.
“What is this place?” she whispered, and then louder, in Maya’s direction. “Where are we?”
The scorched ground in front of them lay in a shallow bowl, and the knobby outlines of trees marked its rim. Wren felt goose bumps up and down her arms.
“The Old City,” Maya said in a weary voice.
Wren already knew this eerie landscape from the dream she had experienced back on Earth, but that didn’t make it any less creepy to see it in front of her while she was awake. When she had come here in her dream, there had been a bird that attempted to tell her something. She tried to gather her scattered wits. Had Robin brought her here? No. She scanned the horizon. She had come here on her own. In a reckless attempt to escape from Boggen’s hold in the dream. Somehow she had ended up here.
Maya’s mouth was pinched tight in a firm line. “You can see what comes of using magic.” She nodded sternly toward the desolate landscape. “So much loss.”
They walked single file, a stretched-out line of silhouettes against the deadened landscape. Wren had the uncanny feeling that they were being watched, but each time she glanced back over her shoulder, she saw that no one else was there. When she passed a gnarled tree a little shiver ran through her. She recognized the spot. It was where the bird had first crowed at her. But the air remained silent, without even a whisper of wind to break the quiet. The soft crunch of boots against dirt followed Wren as she caught up with Maya.
The group was entering the ruins of a settlement. Buildings must have once stood here, but now there was only rubble. Clay bricks lay in piles of ashes. Everywhere she looked was ruin and destruction.
“What happened here?” Wren matched her pace with the other woman’s, sending up little puffs of dirt as she walked.
Maya didn’t say anything, and at first Wren thought she simply wasn’t going to answer. Then, without breaking stride, she began to talk. “This was an outpost—a research station designed to study and improve upon the biological life native to this planet—but the Magicians here ended up creating the animachines.” She shook her head. “They should have known better, but they used stardust to tamper with things better left alone. The station was destroyed after the plague.” Her feet stumbled a bit when she said this. Wren wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been trying so hard to match Maya’s stride. “Would that all the stardust would have been destroyed along with it.”
“Did you . . .” Wren paused, wondering if there was a polite way to say this. “Did you lose someone in the plague?” Maybe that was why Maya was so hard and emotionless.
Maya’s eyelid twitched. “Yes.”
Nothing else was said, and Wren was wondering how she could delicately ask for details, when a strange whistle came from somewhere far ahead of them. In an instant Maya crouched down, shoving Wren up against the nearest half wall.
“The animachines are coming,” Maya hissed. “We won’t have much time.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the gems they had used to work the spell. It was glowing dully, pulsing with an internal light. “We’re getting closer to the well. With luck, we can drain it before the animachines find us.”
Wren knew better than to ask questions. The air was taut with tension. All the Outsiders had melted away into the ruins. Wren eased her crossbow out and waited. Maya crept forward, beckoning behind her for Wren to follow. Another whistle came. And then the haunting cry of an animachine. Wren scanned the skies as if one of the swooping creatures from earlier might snatch her up next, but Maya grunted. “Not that kind, girl. These ones come from the ground.”
They turned another corner, and then Wren understood. The barren, burned-out field wasn’t the only place she had visited in her dreams. She felt her skin turn to ice. She had been in this city before, too. She recognized the desolate, orderly rows of houses and the way they stopped before a wall of spikes. And a door in it that she was confident led to a deep underground pit.
“The spiders?” she whispered in a shaky voice.
Maya looked at her with piercing eyes. “Yes. They live in the research station itself. The first animachines. How did you know?”
Wren sighed. “Lucky guess.” She counted her crossbow bolts. She had five in the pouch that hung from her back. She wondered what they would do to one of the spiders from her nightmares.
“Hurry!” Maya ordered, waving Wren through the crossroads. There was no motion from the edge of the research station, and Wren hoped that meant the spiders were gone. Or sleeping. Or pretty much anywhere else. And then came another heart-stopping cry. This one was followed by human shouts and the sound of the firebolt weapon.
But Maya wasn’t distracted by that. “Come here, girl,” she said. “Hold the stone.”
She handed Wren the eyeball-shaped gem, which, though it glowed with light, was cool to the touch. As Wren closed her palm around it, a piercing green light burst forth, shooting through her fingers. She could see a matching signal flare up several streets over.
“There!” Maya said. “To the well. Before the animachines notice.”
Wren didn’t think that was likely. Unless the spiders were somehow blind. The stone was like a giant spotlight for any living thing with eyes. But she didn’t argue. Maya was running now, her weapon perched on her shoulder as she skidded around corners, scanning the scene. Wren followed, trying to manage her crossbow and hide the stone as much as possible. Neither was very effective, but it didn’t seem to matter. More animachine cries had sounded across the city, but Maya seemed wholly concerned with reaching their destination.
They ducked down another alley, and then they had reached the source. A circular panel that reminded Wren of a city manhole cover was set in the dusty ground. Maya stood looking down at it. “Excellent. Now open it.”
“Me?”
“Who else?” Maya said mildly. “You are the Weather Changer. You have the starmilk; I saw you steal it.”
“What do I do with it?” Wren asked, too tired to be ashamed. Even if the magic worked for her, it wasn’t like she knew the spell.
“The locator rhyme you used before will open the well,” Maya said with a determined expression on her face. “I’ll do the rest.”
There wasn’t time to argue. The commotion of the fighting was increasing, and given the volume, the spiders were on the move and headed in their direction.
Wren crouched down over the panel, which was labeled with an unreadable formula. But one thing was obvious. There was a gem-sized hole in the center, and Wren dropped the green stone into it. The light from the stone now burst forth from the well itself, sending brilliant green through the cracks around the panel. Along with the light came a fierce wind that nearly pushed Wren back on her heels.
“Work the rhyme!” Maya called.
Wren fumbled in her vest pocket for the near-empty bottle of starmilk. Fighting to hold her hand steady in the wind, she dumped the liquid into her palm and whispered the rhyme. Instantly, the magic flared to life, sending a rushing sense of well-being throughout Wren’s body. The panel in front of her began to move, swiveling up and out, hovering over the hole in the mighty current of green air. Despite the increasing volume of the spiders’ cries and the buffeting storm, Wren felt like laughing. Maya was laughing. She stood, weapon at one side, laughing in the warm flood of the magic, her tightly cropped gray hair ruffling in the wind and the unearthly green glow reflected in her eyes.
Wren did laugh then, forgetting for a moment that she was on a strange planet. Forgetting the threat of the animachines. Forgetting everything but the feeling of being alive, of having gotten through everything to be here with Maya. The magic was shooting up and out of the well, and for a moment it looked like the horizon of Nod was visited by an aurora. But then it dissipated into the atmosphere, the brilliant greens and blues fading into a smoky cloud that swirled around her, blocking Maya from sight and paralyzing Wren with chains of fear.
Jagged bolts of light shot through the dimness, sending matching pangs of pain through the base of Wren’s neck, and then he was there. Boggen, his face shiny with perspiration and framed by a strange otherworldly helmet, stared at her through overly bright, insane eyes. He was standing on a rocky precipice, surrounded by walls of obsidian. A neon glow pulsed from somewhere above him.
“My missing apprentice,” he said in a controlled, quiet voice. “I should have known.”
Wren was frozen in place. He had come to her in waking dreams on Earth, but then a whole galaxy had separated them. What would he do now that she was here on Nod? Could those awful spiked gauntlets reach through and grab her? Somehow his presence ushered in a terror so compelling, so complete, that it held her captive and unable to move.
“I was prepared to thank you for delivering Jack to me.” He gave her a wicked smile. “And now I find that you are aiding my enemies. Emptying my wells. Thwarting all I am working for.” His face became a mask of anger. “Why? Why do you fail me?” he screamed, and the sudden change in volume from near-whisper to raging cry took Wren’s breath away.
“I hate those who fail me, Apprentice.” The icy calm was back. “Now I will destroy you. And those you love.”
Wren willed her body to work, ordered her mouth to speak, to shout, to scream, “Never! Get away! Help!” Anything! But no words came. She fought her paralyzed legs and with a great effort forced herself to take a step backward. At first her muscles didn’t respond, but then she felt the slightest movement. She worked harder, fighting the pull of Boggen’s dream spell and its accompanying crippling fear, but instead of moving away from him, she fell to her knees, cowering before him.
Boggen’s pleased laugh sent spirals of shame coursing through Wren. Some Fiddler she was. Her friends were depending on her to rescue them. All of Earth was waiting for her to cleanse the stardust. Even the Outsiders thought she could help them put a stop to Boggen’s research. And here, when she was confronted with Boggen, she was powerless to do anything except bow before her cruel master. Maybe she did belong to him.
Boggen’s form towered over her, the pulsing neon cloud casting everything in an eerie glow. “You will come to me, Apprentice,” he said gloatingly. “A Weather Changer for a pet. I wonder what effects the tainted stardust will have on you.” He reached out with one arm, beckoning her, as if he could draw her to himself through the dream. As he did so, Wren felt a magnetic pull, a strong sense that Boggen was somewhere to the east. Everything inside her compelled her to go to him, as though she had a powerful itch that could only be scratched once she arrived. And somehow, Wren knew that she would go to him. Whatever magic he had worked, whatever he had done, held her captive to his will. She could fight it no more than she could fight the powerful fear that kept her paralyzed.
“You belong to me,” Boggen said with a leer. “And I will see you soon.” His words hammered nails into Wren’s soul. She knew it was inevitable. Her fate was inextricably tied to Boggen’s. Perhaps it would take one day, perhaps twenty, but he would have her. With a wave of his gauntleted arms, the cloud disappeared, and with it some of Wren’s dread. She could move her body again, and she worked her jaw carefully, but she still felt the powerful pull to the east, the inexorable draw of the reunion that must happen.
“We did it. The well is empty,” Maya was saying. The air had gone still around them. All the colors of the aurora had dissipated. It seemed that Maya knew nothing of Boggen’s encounter with Wren, which was likely a good thing. Maya might just kill her on the spot if she knew that Boggen had marked her in such a way.
Maya gave her a rare genuine smile, and Wren forced something like it onto her own trembling lips, until a screeching sound broke the moment. From the end of the street a gigantic silver shape stumbled into sight. The spider was even larger in real life, and it came crashing toward them, crushing the last walls of the ruins as it moved.
Wren dropped the starmilk bottle, fumbling at her shoulder for her crossbow, but Maya stepped in front of her, turning her around and shoving her back the way they had come.
“Go!” Maya barked. “Back to the rope bridge. Get to the island.” Maya was already unstrapping her weapon, sending a bolt straight at the spider’s metal underbelly. It struck dead center, sending the beast stumbling for a moment, but then it came implacably on. Wren saw the spindly legs of another spider cresting the top of a building.
“There’s no courage in getting killed needlessly.” Maya was moving toward the animachine, throwing a dagger into the thing’s eye. “I can fight better without tending to you, girl. We’re done here. Now go! Back to the island.”
Wren didn’t wait any longer. One of the first lessons she had learned in the weaponry ring was that distractions could be deadly. Maya was right. Maya would fare much better not having to watch out for Wren. She sped back the way they had come without turning to see if she was followed. She tore down the city streets, not remembering which ones they had taken at first, but knowing that the desolate field was behind the Old City. She dodged down one street only to see a smaller, human-sized spider scuttling through a crossway. Wren doubled through an empty building to escape it, racing past burned-out rooms and forgotten rubbish. Her right side ached, and her chest felt tight from the running, but she pressed on, driven by the cords of fear that bound her to Boggen and her increasing terror of the animachines.
She heard screeches in the distance and wondered how Maya was faring. How many spiders were there? She fought against the eastward pull of Boggen and pumped her legs faster. Now that she was in control of her own body again, she felt a glimmer of hope. Perhaps there was a way to fight Boggen’s magnetism. Perhaps the Outsiders or Winter or the Scavengers would know a cure for being marked as his.
As if she could outrun her connection with Boggen, she sprinted on. She was halfway through the field now, but she didn’t stop running. She barreled through the forest, crashing through the underbrush in what felt like an endless sprint. Twice she had to slow to a walk to catch her breath, but then the distant echo of an animachine’s cry spurred her on. She knew very well the spiders weren’t the only threat. What if a hovercat was in these woods? Or one of the flying ones? She had to be getting close. She recognized the ground here, the way it sloped down toward the flat outcropping where the rope was tied. She heard human voices ahead. Could it be that some of the Outsiders had already reached the ravine? She hoped so. She had been so busy sprinting she hadn’t even considered what would happen if she had to swing across the chasm on her own. She was almost there. Yes, those were definitely human voices, shouts, and cries. She wondered how many Outsiders had made it to safety. Then as she burst through the underbrush, she heard a scream and saw in unforgettable clarity the silhouette of an Outsider being snatched up by an animachine. Too late, she heard the thump of mechanical wings behind her. Wren screamed and dropped to the ground, narrowly dodging the outstretched claws of the flying animachine that tore through the air where she had been moments before. Now she realized what the cries had been. Battle was being waged here, too. Whichever Outsiders had escaped the spiders had made it through the forest only to discover the flying monsters on the other side.
“When it next circles around, I will draw it away. You get to the bridge,” said a gruff Outsider, who stood at attention at the edge of the woods. He pointed to the animachine, which was circling around and preparing to dive-bomb them again. “Our only hope is to get across before more come. The spiders are hunting through the woods, and soon they’ll have us all pinned.”
Wren couldn’t even find the words to answer him. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, and every muscle in her body screamed in protest. She leaned forward and rested her palms on her knees. Black spots swam before her eyes. How was she supposed to get across the bridge if she could barely catch her breath?
The Outsider was moving, expertly drawing a steel-plated arrow and aiming at the animachine. “Now!” he called, and Wren willed her exhausted body forward. She jogged to the bridge, grasping the top rope with trembling hands. The spots swam in front of her eyes again, this time not from exhaustion but from fear. She had thought the threat of the animachines would trump the agony of the bridge, but the dizzying depth below sent panic coursing through her body. She breathed deeply, willing herself to find courage. She had to do this.
She eased herself out onto the rope, and all her senses focused inward. She could hear the screeching cry of the animachine stalking the ledge, hear the twang of the bow as the Outsider shot his arrow. She heard calls from the other side as Outsiders who were already on the island tried to lend her their courage and distract the beast.
“Halfway done,” one of the other kids called. Wren felt the cold air against her cheek. Saw the blue sky with nearly painful brightness. Every sense was alive. Which was how she knew the moment another animachine had found her.
The cranking sound of its wings came from behind her, the mechanical chop of a machine coupled with the screech of a beast. In that moment, Wren wasn’t afraid. She held on to the rope with one hand and, trancelike, reached for her crossbow, pivoting to aim one final shot at the all-too-living eye that was examining her from several arms’ lengths away. The animachine was hovering there, not even fighting. Wren realized that it was waiting. It was so sure of its prey.
She glanced across to the island and saw the other Outsiders there, kneeling with their hands clasped in the gesture of respect. They knew she was already dead. Wren shot the crossbow straight at the bird, which easily evaded it. It rose up, higher and higher, until for one brief moment Wren thought that perhaps it would leave and she might escape after all, but then it gave a crowing sound and came racing toward her in a hunter’s dive that ended with a tight mechanical grasp around her waist. Wren struggled and kicked, tugging hard at the metal trap around her waist, but she knew it didn’t matter. Even if she could escape, only death lay at the bottom of the deep chasm, or worse, at the hands of Boggen. As it flew higher, she gave a bitter laugh. Her only consolation was that Boggen wouldn’t have the satisfaction of experimenting on her after all. The Outsiders’ kneeling forms were distant specks on the edge of the island when suddenly the bird slammed into something, sending a jolt through its body that Wren felt reverberating through its claws.
The animachine screeched, circling around to scan the area for enemies. Wren scoured the ground below them, hoping for a sign of rescue, pleading for a hint at a happy ending, but there was nothing. They were too high up, and the land below them looked desolate, bare of any living creatures. The invisible force hit again, this time spinning the animachine in a circle. The claws around Wren clenched tight and then loosened. Wren squirmed in her prison. If only the animachine was over water, then when Wren fell it wouldn’t be so bad—but she didn’t have more time to think about it, because the next jolt sent the animachine reeling, and its claws opened, dropping Wren into a free fall through empty air.