Animals, animals, huge and gray,
Open your mouth and gently bray.
Lift your ears and blow your horn,
To wake the world this sleepy morn.
The stillness of the morning was broken by the sound of contented murmurs from a nearby flock of animachines that looked like sheep more than anything else. Now, with her fresh perspective, Wren wondered how she could ever have been frightened of them at all. She rose, stretching, and left to get some water. The valley was surprisingly peaceful, with a gentle breeze ruffling her hair and the soft lowing of the sheeplike animachines as they began feeding on the spongy ground cover. Wren walked for some time, soaking up the stillness of the morning and opening her eyes to the alien beauty of Nod.
Wren wondered how different the history of Nod could have been if it had been founded on peace instead of domination. As she made her way past one of the rocky outcroppings, she stopped, frozen in place by what she saw. There, etched into the pillar on Nod as surely as it had been back in the city, was a bird in flight, the symbol of the Outsiders. What would the Outsiders have marked way out here in the middle of nowhere?
Wren bent down, running her fingers over the symbol. It didn’t look old or weathered; it must have been relatively freshly cut. She traced the path of the markings, following the series of birds as they led her through the rocky spires to the other side of the valley. There, she lost track of the markings, but the ground led upward in a swell that looked out onto the next valley. Wren climbed it, seeing in the distance what must be the Outsiders’ island. As she crested the hill, she gave a little cry of surprise when she saw the low building that crouched on the other side. She had seen it once before, back in the dream where Robin had brought Wren to her laboratory. There it was: Robin’s hidden lab!
Inside, Robin’s lab was in disarray. Wren pulled one of the matches she had pilfered from Maya’s hut from her pocket and struck it against the wall to light it. Tools were scattered across the tabletops. The ashes in the dish Robin had so conscientiously kept filled had long since gone cold. Wren righted a chair that had toppled over, bending closer to note a set of drag marks on the floor. She drew the match closer, following them. Had someone taken Robin from the room by force? The tracks led outside the small hut and to a cave hidden from sight by a large outcropping of purplevine. Wren hacked at the plant, shredding its ropy stalks until she could push her way into a cavern that pulsed with an unnatural glow.
The whole thing had been meticulously modified to house a giant apparatus hanging from the center of the roof. The semicircle hung within a frame of connected triangles, and flares of sickly stardust flashed and sparked across its surface like bolts of lightning. Beneath a glass dome, the apparatus was honeycombed with a million carved niches, but it wasn’t those that drew her eye. It was the figure hanging from a harness in one of the triangles.
“Robin!” Wren cried, rushing forward to stand below the girl. Robin’s form was still and motionless. “Robin?” The girl gave off a small snore. She was fast asleep. Wren scanned the room. There was nothing for it but to climb up herself. Bracing herself against one of the triangular frames, Wren saw that it would hold her weight. She pushed off with one foot, boosting herself up, and swung over to the next. The first few were easy, but the higher she climbed, the more dizzy she felt. Her breath came in quick gasps, and she felt a curious spinning sensation whenever she looked down. But with one final push, and a painful swing over to the triangle just below her sleeping friend, she was able to reach Robin’s boot.
“Robin!” Wren jiggled her foot. “Wake up.”
Robin’s snoring cut off and she mumbled something unintelligible. Wren yanked harder on her foot. That did the trick. Robin woke, looking around bleary-eyed.
“Where am I?” she murmured, and then, catching sight of Wren: “Hurry! You must leave the dream! She’ll find you!”
Wren was baffled. “I’m here in real life, Robin. You’ve been asleep.”
“But how?” Robin’s eyes were wide open now. “I just left you in the dream. We were in my lab.” She looked around her, panic crossing her face as she realized things were not as she expected. “You’re here on Nod?” She began struggling then, her harness swinging wildly as she worked to get free.
“Hold. On.” Wren grunted, maneuvering herself up another frame so she was nearly level with Robin. She saw that Robin’s harness held her fast with buckles. She began pulling on the straps, starting with Robin’s wrists, so the girl could help free herself.
“How long have I been asleep?” Robin asked, deftly loosening the bonds around her ankles.
“A week? Maybe two?” Wren guessed. She had lost track of the days since she’d arrived in Nod. “Wait. You’re telling me that you’ve been asleep this entire time?”
“And you’re telling me that you’re surprised?” Robin slipped off the final bond, and moved her muscles with a groan. “By now you have to know she’d do anything to stop me.”
Wren watched open-mouthed as Robin easily maneuvered her way across the triangular frames and swung down to the ground with a grunt. She rubbed her back. “All that sleep has made me weak.”
Wren worked hard to imitate Robin’s descent, and her questions came in short bursts. “Who’s trying to stop you?” She swung from one bar to another. “And why have they imprisoned you here?” Wren slipped and dangled wildly by one hand before finding her grip. “Wherever here is.”
“One of Mother Goose’s secret laboratories,” Robin said from the ground. “We thought they’d all been destroyed, but we were wrong.”
“Mother Goose?” Wren dropped to the ground and stared around her wonderingly. “Someone found one of her old labs and stuck you in here? But why?”
“Not someone,” Robin said, giving Wren a curious look. “Mother Goose herself imprisoned me.”
“Mother Goose is alive?”
Robin barked a laugh. “Oh, she’s alive. And well hidden, right in the middle of the Outsider camp. No wonder we all thought she was dead.” Robin was attacking the purplevines with a vengeance, but it was obvious she was weakened from her captivity.
“Here. Let me,” Wren said, retracing the path she had made coming in. “So Mother Goose is one of the Outsiders?” Wren wiped the sweat off her forehead. The remarkably resilient purplevines were already growing back together.
“Mother Goose is the Outsider. Maya herself.”
Wren stopped cold. “Maya?” She gaped at Robin. “But she hates stardust.”
“Exactly.” Robin pushed past her and stepped into the daylight. “That’s why she was so upset when she found out that I’d contacted the Alchemists and other Magicians. I thought we could all work together, but Maya can’t stand the thought of compromise. She’s too stuck on what happened back during the plague. For her, the only solution is to destroy all the magic on Nod.” She rubbed her forehead. “She’s even sending nightmares to scare people out of using the magic.”
“Mother Goose is the one sending the nightmares?” What Robin said made sense. It fit in with what Maya had already done in sneaking around trying to empty Boggen’s wells. She told Robin what she knew.
Robin snorted. “It doesn’t surprise me. For all her talk of courage and honor, I’d wager Maya’s the most fearful of them all.”
Wren nodded. She thought of what the Crooked Man had said, how the pendulum could swing too far toward fear and paralysis. They were back at Robin’s lab now, and Robin was already talking about all she needed to do. Making contact with her supporters in the city. Finding out how things stood with Boggen. Discovering the location of his stronghold.
“It’s to the east,” Wren said in a quiet voice. “Near obsidian mountains.”
Robin stared at her, mouth hanging open for a second before she said, “How can you possibly know that?”
Self-consciously at first and then more confidently, Wren told her story: how Boggen had plagued her nightmares and waking dreams, how he had marked her as his apprentice and tried to summon her in such a way that she could pinpoint his location.
“I don’t know for sure it’s his stronghold, but it’s as good a place to start as any.”
Robin was eyeing her warily. “But if you know where he is, what’s to say he doesn’t know exactly where you are?”
Wren laughed. Of course Robin would be worried. She had heard only half the story. “I forgot the most important part!” She described how the Crooked Man had freed her, though words failed her when she tried to explain the starfire’s magic.
Robin’s eyes grew wider and wider with each new revelation until Wren got to the part about the river of starfire. She whistled and sat down on a wobbly stool. “That’s amazing,” she breathed. “So the legends about him . . .”
“The legends are true,” Wren said. Now that she had told her tale, she felt a little wobbly inside, as though she had let Robin see into her very soul. She fought the old temptation to shut down and hide away. “I think they’ve been misinterpreted. Starfire will destroy Nod, but only the things that need destroying.”
Robin nodded. “Like refining metals. You heat them up so hot that the impurities come to the surface, where you can remove them.”
“That’s exactly what it was like.” Wren nodded slowly.
“So where is the Crooked Man? How do we get him to come use his starfire on the tainted stardust?”
Wren paled a little and joined Robin on the stool next to her. “He sent me,” she said simply, realizing how ridiculous it sounded. She, who had just admitted to once being Boggen’s apprentice, was now the one Robin was supposed to trust.
To Robin’s credit, she didn’t even hesitate. She didn’t ask Wren how she planned to do it, or whether she really thought it would work, and Robin’s faith in her bolstered Wren’s own faith in herself.
“Okay,” Robin said, turning around and shoving papers across the tables. “There are several mountain ranges to the east. Maybe if we find the right map, you’ll be able to—”
“Wait,” Wren said, looking at all the Dreamopathy equipment. “Can you show me how to use this?”
Robin did not waste any time when she heard that Wren meant to contact Jack, a spy among Boggen’s forces. “That’s very dangerous.” There was admiration in Robin’s voice. She opened a hidden container of stardust and carefully weighed it out, setting the Dreamopathy compass spinning. Soon, a mirrorlike surface—much bigger than the one Wren had managed the other night—shimmered in front of them.
Jack’s startled face appeared shortly afterward. It was wet, and Wren could see fresh bruises.
“We found him when he was awake,” Robin said. “This will be trickier to maintain.” She hurried back to the compass.
“Jack!” Wren rushed toward him. “Are you all right?”
Jack looked over his shoulder nervously. “You shouldn’t be here, Wren. Boggen could come in at any moment.” He leaned close. “It’s bad. They’ve started experimenting on Cole and Mary. It’s really bad, Wren.”
Wren gasped. “Did you find out where the stronghold is?”
Jack winked, and a flicker of his old liveliness crossed his face. “I sure did, but it cost me my freedom. They’ve brought me to it now.” His mouth twisted. “Boggen wasn’t happy with my snooping. I’m his prisoner, too, Wren.”
“Oh, no!” Wren exclaimed. “We’ll be there soon, Jack. We’ll rescue you.”
“Where is the stronghold?” Robin’s voice was sharp, all her attention focused on Jack, who rattled off some foreign-sounding locations.
Robin snatched a map off a crowded table and began marking things. “Beyond the illuminated lakes. Near the Valley of the Shadow. Okay. Got it.”
“Don’t lose hope, Jack!” Wren pleaded with her friend. She was worried by the frantic look on his face, the way he reminded her of a trapped animal. “Help is coming.”
Jack gave her a weary but hopeful look before the mirror shimmered and disappeared into thin air.
When he had gone, Wren was eager to get back to Simon, but Robin had other ideas.
“I’ve got to contact Winter,” she said, hurriedly preparing the ingredients for another Dreamopathy rhyme. “Going back to the city to find her will take too much time.”
Wren saw that she was right and moved close, studying the practiced way she used the equipment. Robin was clearly a skilled Fiddler, and soon Winter’s surprised face appeared in front of them.
“Robin!” Winter cried. “Where have you been?”
“Time for that later,” Robin said, impatiently waving away her question. “Your work in the city. Have you gathered anti-Boggen crew members?”
Winter’s face was all business. “The citizens of Nod are growing tired of Boggen’s tyranny. Many still don’t believe us, but at last count we had nearly two hundred who stand with us, ready for your command.”
Wren did a double-take at Robin. Who was this girl? Why was Winter, who had seemed so in charge back at the rally, deferring to her? And why would two hundred full Fiddlers be prepared to follow someone so young?
But, as Robin had said, there would be time for questions later. Besides, Winter wanted to know more about the location of Boggen’s stronghold. Wren described what she had seen in as much detail as possible, though without the long explanation of how she knew. Winter would gather her crew and meet them at the Valley of the Shadow as soon as they could march from the city. Robin had a few other instructions for Winter as well, which Winter accepted with curious deference, and then the interview was over.
As the flame on the Dreamopathy table flickered out, Robin studied Wren. “Where are your other crew members?” She shook her head with a little smile. “I mean, the other Alchemists. Will they help us?”
“Simon will,” Wren said without hesitation. “As Jack said, the others are imprisoned. But the Outsiders owe me a favor, and I think it’s time to collect.”
Robin looked impressed at this information, and then her mouth formed a thin line. “Yes. I owe a visit to the Outsiders as well.”
Wren frowned at the Dreamopathy equipment. It would be counterproductive to use magic to contact them. “We’ll have to do it in person. Come with me.”
When Wren and Robin arrived at Simon’s camp, they didn’t find him alone.
“Vulcan!” Wren cried, waving at the figure just arriving on Simon’s falcon. “You’re here!”
Vulcan dismounted easily, as though he’d been riding falcons all his life. “That never gets old,” he said, unstrapping a pack of food and handing it to a newly woken Simon.
“It’s great to see you, Wren,” Vulcan said, and then awkwardly began rummaging through the foodstuffs. “I mean, your time with the Outsiders seems to have suited you.” He knocked the pack off the stump. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” Wren said. “I feel different, like I can take on the world, you know?” Maybe someday she would tell Vulcan about what had happened by the river of starfire.
Vulcan dropped the food he was trying to put back.
“We may have to take on the world,” Robin said, looking at them both with an amused smile. They gathered together for the morning meal, making introductions all around and telling the others what the girls had learned from Jack.
“Boggen’s at the stronghold now, and it’s where he does all his research, too. We have to move fast, though, before he suspects anything’s amiss,” Robin said.
“Vulcan.” Wren set the roll she was eating aside. “What about the Scavengers? Are they willing to help?”
“Of course!” Vulcan said. “We’ve gathered a lot of support in the past few days. There are plenty of Magicians who would like nothing better than to dethrone Boggen. I can return to the city right away and notify them.”
“Some of the animachines will want to help.” Simon got to his feet. “They are quite passionate about freedom. When do we attack?”
“As soon as possible,” Wren said, getting to her feet. “Today.” She turned to Coeur, whose invisibility had worn off in the night and who was now preening her feathers. “But first Robin and I must visit the Outsiders. They have a bargain to keep.”
Wren hurried up the path through the Outsiders’ farmland, Robin struggling to keep up at her side, but hiding it very well. It seemed that days of inactivity had made her weak and breathless. They had flown Coeur directly to the Outsiders’ island in order to confront Maya. Wren was counting on the Outsiders’ fierce animosity toward Boggen to work to their advantage: she was nearly certain they would want to help fight Boggen and free the captives; she wasn’t so certain that they would do it side by side with the animachines.
Robin was more confident. “Mother Goose will do anything to keep her identity hidden. Believe me, she’ll help.”
Wren nodded, wondering if it wouldn’t be better for Maya to come clean about her past once and for all. Wren herself knew the folly of keeping things shut up and hidden. But perhaps there would be time for that later. They would need to hurry in order to join Winter and the others at the valley. Boggen would not give up willingly, and things would likely come to the use of force. They needed as many allies as they could muster.
Wren raced past the Healer’s hut and the outlying hovels, sparing a fleeting thought for Auspex. She hoped he was well again, but then she was in front of Maya’s hovel, ringing the little bell that hung outside.
Maya’s sunburned face seemed even more hardened than Wren remembered. “Wren. So you escaped the animachines,” she said, and the surprise that momentarily fluttered across her face at Robin’s appearance turned into what looked like displeasure. “And found another whose hands are dirty with stardust. Traitor,” she spit at Robin.
Wren was flustered. She hadn’t expected a welcome with open arms, but she hadn’t thought that Maya would be so hostile.
“It’s you who are the traitor,” Robin said without malice. “Not because of what you were. Mistakes can be forgiven. But because of who you are now. Hiding and lying. Sending nightmares and trapping allies.” Robin’s cheeks flared red and her words grew hard. “Your fear of magic could have destroyed the Outsiders. Still could unless you agree to help us stop Boggen.”
Maya folded her arms across her chest with a frown and a stubborn expression that Wren had come to know well. Perhaps a gentler approach was in order.
“Outsiders are defined by courage and honor,” Wren said, and Maya responded with a gruff nod.
“I know you will honor your agreement to help me free my friends,” Wren continued. “And I know you also want to stop his horrible experiments on other innocent people. Of course, it will take a great deal of courage.”
A steely glint came into Maya’s blue eyes, along with something else. Wren wondered if it could be a glimmer of fear.
“Wren?” Auspex’s face popped out from behind Maya, and he had a warm smile for her. “You’re all right!” He bowed deeply then, pushing past Maya and kneeling. “Courage and Honor, Wren. You saved my life when you slew that beast.”
“Oh, Auspex, I’m so glad you’re all right!” she said, helping him to his feet. “But it’s not like that at all, about the animachines, I mean. They’re not hostile, they’re just frightened!” She saw Maya’s cold gaze and stumbled over her words. “But I guess there’ll be time to talk about that later.” She was nervous, made more so by the frown that creased Maya’s face, but she didn’t have the box deep down inside to shove everything into anymore. So Wren let herself be nervous and get on with things anyway.
“What’s this about whether or not we will rescue prisoners?” Auspex gave Maya a slight nod of deference. “The Outsiders would like nothing better. Once we know where Boggen’s stronghold is, we can—”
“We know where it is,” Wren said, meeting Maya’s gaze. She wondered if behind all the hardness lurked a fear that drove her. Maya gave her a grudging nod, and Wren knew that she would keep her bargain.
“And today is the day we destroy it,” Robin said, and she spoke as one with authority.
Auspex bowed his head with the same deference he had shown Maya earlier. “It will be as you say. I will gather the Outsiders.”