Hey diddle, diddle!
The fire and the fiddle,
The falcon flew up to the tow’r.
The little girl laughed to see such sport,
And evil was stripped of its pow’r.
With Maya and Auspex hastening them along, nearly the whole settlement had procured weapons and set off in no time at all, leaving the few young children with the even fewer elderly Outsiders. Wren flew on Coeur’s back, instructing her falcon to go slowly and keep low. Robin, whom all the Outsiders clearly held in respect, led the way to the place where the allies had all agreed to gather. The others kept a steady pace behind her, their slow trot matching the speed of Coeur’s flight.
“I still can’t believe what you say about the animachines,” Auspex said, glancing up at Wren as he jogged across redbush-covered flatlands. “If it is true, we have wronged them greatly over these many years. There is no courage or honor in killing them when we can live peaceably together.”
“If what the girl says is true,” Maya said in a hard voice that plainly indicated she doubted the fact, “we will deal with the issue of the animachines later. Even if they are sentient, they are still products of twisted magic.” Her mouth was set in a firm, thin line. “No compromise.”
“Please promise not to attack them, okay? At least not today,” Wren shouted down at them. That part of the plan hadn’t gone so well. The Outsiders had agreed to an uneasy truce with the animachines, but only until the prisoners were freed and Boggen was defeated. For now, it would have to do.
There was little conversation on their journey. The Outsiders needed their energy to keep up their quick pace, and Wren found that, despite her newfound confidence from the encounter with the Crooked Man, she was still physically exhausted. Even with the few stops they made to rest, she was worn out when Coeur landed among the tight formation of city dwellers gathered around Vulcan, Robin, and Winter. Robin led Wren ahead a few paces to consult.
“According to your description and our map, the stronghold’s entrance is through that pass there.” Behind her, the foothills of two obsidian mountains loomed, shiny black in the afternoon light, providing a natural route that was narrow enough for only a few people to enter at a time. “The prisoners are kept in the stronghold when they’re not being used for research.” The cliffside behind was honeycombed with alcoves that reminded Wren of a warped version of the Crooked House. Instead of the familiar welcome of those balconies, however, there were bars over these apertures, and streams of sickly gray smoke trailed into the polluted sky. The whole exterior was coated in a yellow pulsing barrier that thrummed with magic. Wren recognized it as the same color she had seen behind Boggen.
“It’s a shield,” Vulcan said, coming up behind them. “That’s how Boggen’s kept the prisoners captive. Simon said it was similar to a substance from your world. E-lectruck”—Vulcan stumbled on the word—“e-lectruck-city, that’s what they called it. Does that mean something to you?”
“Electricity!” Wren echoed. “An electric shield! No wonder the prisoners can’t escape.”
“Oh, yes!” Vulcan said. “We should warn the Outsiders. They will surely die if they touch the shield, or at least that’s what Simon said.”
Robin was instructing Winter, and Wren was surprised to see that the city dwellers responded to her like the Outsiders had, as though she was their leader.
Vulcan scanned the horizon uneasily. “Where is Simon?”
“We don’t need this Simon. Or the animachines,” Maya shouted, waving her crossbow above her head, and the Outsiders cheered behind her. “We will fight Boggen’s evil magic. No compromise!” At the sound of her battle cry, the quiet facade of the stronghold transformed. Dark shapes appeared on exterior balconies and scurried down ladders, lining up into ordered rows of troops that stretched across the width of the mountain. More henchmen poured out from the pass between and began to march in tight ranks toward their foes.
Simon’s voice came from Wren’s shoulder. “It looks like it’s not going to be peaceful after all, doesn’t it?”
“Simon!” Wren exclaimed. “Am I glad to see you!”
Simon was astride a hovercat, the other animachines following behind him in glistening silver ranks. The Outsiders nearest them gave the animachines a wide berth, with suspicious glares for their historic foe.
“Get those beasts away from my crew,” Maya hissed, and Wren motioned Simon to the side.
“The Outsiders have agreed to keep the truce,” Wren told him. “But it would be better if you and the animachines kept your distance.” Simon didn’t have a great number of animachines, but the ones he did have were formidable in their own right. Ranks of hovercats were in the front, and there were the sheep and wolflike versions as well. A few flying ones soared overhead in menacing arcs.
“Spiders, too?” Wren whispered when she saw the awful shapes lurking near the back.
“Spiders are animals like all the others,” Simon said in an unconcerned voice. He was staring hard at his animachines, and Wren wondered if they were communicating. She saw them shift, spread out in a different formation, as Boggen’s henchmen drew near. It appeared that they were prepared to fight.
“Outsiders, ready!” Robin called, and they peeled off into smaller clusters of twos and threes that looked too eager to attack the forces that were headed their way. “They have starspears,” Robin warned, pointing at the stardust-powered weapons strapped to their enemies’ backs. “So watch for an attack from above.”
Then, all of a sudden, the wall of henchmen stopped, parting down the middle to provide a long walkway back toward the pass, and coming down the center of it was Boggen himself.
“Go home,” he boomed in a menacing voice magnified to carry across the entire plain. At first, Wren’s body froze, instinctively waiting for the pain to bloom in her neck or the crippling fear to overtake her body.
He has no hold on me. Even though Wren’s heart beat faster and every sense was alert to danger, Boggen couldn’t control her. She belonged to the Crooked Man now, and she carried starfire. At the thought of it, strength and courage surged through her, chasing any temptation to fear away.
Now Wren could see Boggen more clearly. He was taller and stronger, his form covered with dark spiked armor and crowned with a helmet that looked like a beetle’s. Boggen looked inhuman, as though he belonged more with the obsidian mountains than with the Fiddlers that surrounded him.
“Nod cannot exist without stardust,” Boggen was saying, “and we will have no stardust without my new research. The few must be sacrificed for the good of the many. It is the only way that Nod will survive, and you are foolish to try to stop me.” He leered at them, his features twisted into hate. “The Outsider wench is right. There is no room for compromise.” He threw back his head and laughed. “The Alchemists learned as much.” He pointed to something Wren hadn’t noticed before. The pass stretched up between the two mountainsides, and a glass box swayed between them at a dizzying height. Figures crouched in the glass box, figures Wren, with a sinking sensation in her stomach, recognized.
“You think to scare us with your empty threats?” Robin spit at Boggen, raising a crossbow to aim at his helmeted head. “None of us fears death. There is courage and honor in fighting you.”
Wren looked back with horror at the glass prison. Jack was up there. And Mary and Cole. She was glad Robin was drawing Boggen’s attention. She began to inch sideways, toward where Coeur was roosting near the back of the Outsiders’ armies.
“They will have a perfect view of your destruction.” Boggen laughed, too long and too loud, and Wren felt prickles of fear all up and down her spine. “Apprentice!”
Boggen’s wicked gaze locked on her. “You have long eluded me. But no longer. Come to me, Apprentice. You will wield my magic against my enemies.”
Sudden realization hit Wren. If she had still been under his power, she would have obeyed. She knew it as sure as she knew anything, and the horror of the future Boggen had intended for her loomed. She would have gone to him and betrayed her friends, betrayed everything they had fought for. She could see that Boggen was growing impatient. He reached out a spiked arm and beckoned imperiously, so sure was he that Wren would come cowering.
Instead, she stood still and straight. “You are wrong, Boggen,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “You will not win this fight. Your evil will not overcome the good just as darkness cannot overcome the light. All will be well.” She remembered the Crooked Man’s words and drew comfort from them.
Boggen’s eyes widened in amazement at her rebellion, but he quickly masked his surprise. He flicked a gauntleted hand at her as though he were flicking aside an insect. “Foolish words from a foolish child.”
“You’re a monster,” Vulcan said, pushing his way out in front of the others. The lifelong animosity of someone who had lived and suffered under Boggen’s oppressive rule was written plain across his face. “You won’t get away with this.”
Boggen drew one arm up and flung it across his chest, funneling an arc of tainted stardust straight toward Vulcan. Vulcan dove to the side, and the magic hit where he had been standing, searing a smoking hole into the ground.
“You cannot defeat me,” Boggen said in a deadly quiet voice. “But I will enjoy watching you try.” He raised both arms, and Wren saw the glint of silver underneath his armor.
“He’s transformed himself,” Maya gasped, and the horror in her voice was enough to help Wren interpret what she was seeing. Where there should have been pale flesh, silver-plated skin rippled in the sun. Black horns stuck out from Boggen’s back like a porcupine’s spine. Boggen had made himself into an animachine.
“Abomination!” Maya shouted. “He’s using twisted magic! No compromise!” The Outsider roar echoed her cry. No compromise! The hunting cries of the animachines joined them, and the forces behind Wren thrust forward with fury to engage the enemy.
“Vulcan!” Wren cried. She lost sight of her friend when the two armies surged together with a clash of weapons. She hoped that he would be safe, but she knew she couldn’t help him now. Instead, she pushed her way to the rear of the eager Outsider army and found her falcon. “Fly hard, little Coeur,” she said as she climbed up.
Wren had become so used to living a magic-free life that it took her a few moments to recognize what was happening. Boggen’s henchmen were using stardust. Their starspears fired flaming missiles that hit with surprising accuracy. A hovercat cried in agony as one reached its mark, but Coeur flew on. Boggen’s armies were fierce, their stardust spears flashing blue fire as they fought, but they were not prepared for the flying creatures. The animachines swooped and clawed, easily plucking henchmen two and three at a time from the ranks of fighting Magicians. Until Boggen joined the fight. Bolts of the twisted form of electricity he had created arced through the air, scattering searing missiles among her allies. Coeur climbed higher, dodging the streams of magic and the Outsiders’ crossbow bolts alike. Over the battle and up past the cages that covered the mountainside. Now that Wren was closer she could see that people were inside, people whose faces were pressed up against the yellow shield. Men, women, and children, all of them trapped in Boggen’s stronghold.
“Save us!” they called to Wren as she flew past.
“Take my son,” one woman with a small boy hugging her knees cried. She pressed up against the barrier and then jumped back with singed palms. “Save him!”
Wren felt hot tears sting her eyes as she saw the emaciated faces. “I will come back for you,” she shouted, but she didn’t think the captives heard. Up and up she flew, until the cages disappeared and the fortress turned into sheer rock. Ahead of her she saw the slick glass walls of the highest cell, and inside were her friends.
She could see them mouthing her name from their walled-off prison, and she instructed Coeur to fly closer. Mary was frantically calling to her, trying to tell her something, but Wren couldn’t make it out. She reached out a hand to the clear glass, and something invisible sent a jolt into her arm that seared through her body and into Coeur’s. The falcon emitted a horrible shriek and began to fall.
Wren saw Mary’s face crease in alarm, saw their mouths open in anguish as she and Coeur spiraled down, spinning out of control. “I’m sorry,” Wren saw Mary say.
“Coeur!” she screamed. “Coeur, fly!”
Coeur gave a weak cry and a feeble flap of the wing.
“Please, Coeur!” Wren whispered. “Please don’t die.”
Coeur’s wings beat harder, catching air and hovering in place. They were no longer falling. They were ascending, climbing, and Wren heaved a sigh of relief that was soon supplanted by panic. What was she going to do? Fly up there and get shocked again? She had been so focused on releasing the others that she hadn’t thought about the fact that Boggen’s spell might extend to their prison as well. How in the world was she going to save them?
And then in an instant she knew. She knew exactly how she was going to save the others. The echoes of the Crooked Man’s voice reverberated inside her, and she reached for the gemstone full of starfire. That was what had destroyed the plague. That was what made all things well. Save the others, he had said. Use your gift to save the others. The legend was true. The Crooked Man’s starfire would destroy Nod, and, in so doing, save it. Coeur was nearly back at the glass cage, and she heard a cry of alarm from the ground. Boggen had spotted her, and his rasping voice was issuing orders.
“Shoot the falcon down!” Boggen roared. “Stop that girl!” But Coeur flew on, higher and higher, until she was once again hovering in front of the glass box. Wren urged her on, past the glass prison and up to the very top of the mountain, where she could see the source of the yellow shield pulsing with energy. She cupped her gemstone in her palm, the brilliant heat of the amber liquid filling her with life and strength. Was she doing the right thing? Would this even work? And with the thrumming of Coeur’s wings, she felt the answering thrum of her own heart. Yes.
She shut her eyes, remembering the feel of the river of starfire around her, drawing on the peace she felt deep inside. Once, being a Weather Changer had made her magic go awry, stirring up a storm along with her conflicting emotions. But now, the starfire was a part of her, and her identity was aflame with the magic. “Like refining metal,” Robin had said, and Wren kept that image in her mind as she wove the starfire, letting it flood into and through her, whipping the air around her into a cloud of burning wind. Bronzes and oranges and golds enveloped her, circling the stone in arcs of living starfire. She wove it together, sending a pure jolt of starfire at the pulsing yellow shield, and the two energies met in a powerful clash. The tainted Magician-made electricity met living fire, and the top of the tower exploded in a brilliant flare of light. Heat from its combustion blew Coeur backward, and Wren scrambled to grip her feathers so she didn’t fall off. The bird spun, cartwheeling wingtip over wingtip before regaining her balance. The yellow shield was cracking, jagged bolts of lightning creasing down the exterior, shattering the prison doors for so many. From below, Wren heard cheers as the shield began to fail at the lower levels. Captives poured forth from their cells, empowered by all the injustice they had suffered and the residue of starfire, and came upon the enemy from behind. The confused rear guard of henchmen turned to face them, but it was too little, too late. The prisoners overpowered them, grabbing the henchmen’s starspears and snapping them in starfire-powered justice. Boggen’s massive army was crunched between its foes—the animachines and Outsiders from the front, and the newly freed from behind.
“Wren!” Jack was calling to her from the glass tower. “Wren, quick!” Wren coaxed Coeur near, and she felt like crying when she saw her friends. Mary’s face was thin and haggard, and she could barely stand. Cole was folded into a thin heap on the floor, bruises covering his skin. Jack looked like he might not make it at all, but when she was near enough, he climbed on Coeur’s back. “Take me through the pass. Hurry!”
“But what about the others!”
“Forget us!” Cole said in a hoarse voice. “Go with Jack!”
Wren didn’t stop to ask questions. Even if she had tried, it wouldn’t have mattered. Jack was urging Coeur on, flying straight through the narrow gap between the two mountains and into the stronghold.
“Boggen’s well of power is back here,” Jack shouted in Wren’s ear. “The final source of all his tainted stardust.” He coughed, and Wren could feel his thin frame rattle behind her. “Can you do whatever you did at the shield again there? If we destroy that, Boggen’s done for.”
Wren looked at the stone that still burned in her palm. There were still a few flickers of amber flame dancing there. “Maybe. But I don’t know how we’ll get close enough. The blast back there nearly killed me and Coeur.”
“Let me worry about that,” Jack said. They landed, and Jack slid off, racing toward a flight of steps that were cut into the mountainside. “It’s up here,” he said, taking the steps two at a time as Wren followed after him more slowly, her breath coming in exhausted gasps. The jolt of tainted stardust had sapped her strength. She bent at the waist, trying to catch her breath as Jack hurried on ahead.
Jack ran out onto a rocky balcony next to the neon pool of liquid Wren had seen in her waking dream.
“Stop!” Boggen’s voice came from a hidden crevice in front of her, but it wasn’t the rasping one he had used with the armies; it was the coaxing version she had heard once before, back when he had manipulated Jack. “Don’t do this, Jack. Don’t do this, my son.” Boggen’s inhuman body creaked out of its hiding spot toward Jack. He ignored Wren completely, and stood between her and Jack. Up close Boggen was even more horrible than he was from a distance. He had lost half of his face, and a metal plate covered one eye. Flesh and steel blended together in a monstrosity that chilled Wren’s blood.
But that wasn’t what made Wren freeze on the stairway. It was the sight of Jack, standing on the balcony, listening to Boggen with a hungry look on his face.
“My son,” Boggen continued, as if he could sense that Jack was desperate to hear those very words. “Don’t fight me. Join me, as you once did before.”
Wren watched in horror as Jack turned away from the last well. Jack, who had betrayed the whole world once before.
“Jack!” Wren shouted. “Don’t listen to him!”
Boggen howled in displeasure and turned to aim a spell at her, but it had no effect. The tainted stardust simply melted off her. Wren took advantage of Boggen’s confusion and tried to dart past him. Jack might be frozen under Boggen’s spell, but she was free.
Boggen was fast. One of his mechanical arms snaked out and clamped around her waist. His spells might have no effect on her, but that didn’t mean she was invincible. All he had to do was not use stardust. Wren struggled against her bonds. She couldn’t believe she had been so foolish.
“If you touch one drop from my well, my son,” Boggen said. “The girl dies.”
Jack tilted his head as though considering Boggen’s words, and he leaned back against the obsidian wall behind him, his arms folded jauntily across his chest. “And what will you give me if I help you?”
Wren’s eyes bulged in horror. Jack couldn’t do this. “No!” Wren screamed, until Boggen’s gauntleted hand smothered her mouth.
“Now that sounds more like my son,” Boggen said.
Wren bit down hard on Boggen’s gauntleted hand. Fortunately, not all of him was machine yet, and he yowled with pain, flinging Wren away with violent force.
All of the breath whooshed out of her as she tumbled down the rocky staircase. The world went dark for a moment, and then her breath returned, though all she could manage was a hoarse croak. She began to silently creep back up the stairs. Boggen had reached the balcony, and all of his attention was directed at Jack.
“For starters, I’ll need you to stop calling me your son,” Jack was saying with a cocky grin.
“Whatever you like, Jack.” Boggen worked hard to shift his expression into a fatherly smile.
“There’s another problem,” Jack said, his face twisted into a frown. “I can’t use the magic anymore.”
Wren inched forward, one painful step at a time. She knew how powerful Boggen’s hold could be on someone. She believed that Jack had meant what he said back at the airship, that he really wanted to make things right. But without starfire, what could he really do against a powerful Magician like Boggen?
“A pity,” Boggen said, “but not an insurmountable problem. I will make you a suit like my own. Together, we will rule Nod. We belong together, Jack; surely you see it.”
“Belong together?” Jack barked a hoarse laugh. “The only people I belong with are my real friends, and you are not one of them.” Jack, thin and weakened as he was, put up his fists as though he was going to punch Boggen to death.
Wren felt like cheering. Jack wasn’t lost to Boggen! Wren knew she couldn’t make it to the balcony in time. In a flash she knew what to do. Fanning the starfire into flame, she held the gemstone aloft. “Jack!” she yelled. “Here!” and she threw it with all her might.
It arced up toward the balcony, whipping the air around them into a frenzy of bronze and yellow fire.
Jack caught it with a triumphant cry. “Your heart is as dark as the magic that’s given you power. Let’s see how you do without it.”
“Jack,” Boggen said, taking a step closer, but it was to be his last. Jack threw himself into the well, the living fire of Wren’s gemstone meeting Boggen’s tainted magic. The whole balcony exploded in a brilliant blaze of white light.
The blast blew Wren back, and she fell on her shoulder with a sickening crunch. “Jack!” She scrambled past the burned-out form of Boggen’s suit, past the withered frame of what must be Boggen’s real body, which was moaning in pain. Up the cracked stairs to the remains of the balcony.
Her friend lay there, his body still among the ashes. Wren started sobbing. “Don’t be dead, Jack, please.” She felt for his pulse, her breath coming in ragged sobs. “I can’t do this, Jack. Not again!” His wrist was cold and limp in her hands. She looked around frantically for the gemstone. Was there the tiniest bit of starfire left? She could hardly keep her hands still, they were shaking with her sobs, but there—she held her breath—there was a faint flicker.
“Oh, please, Jack,” she begged. “Stay alive.” The flicker grew stronger, his pulse beating with the rhythm of life and breath, and then Jack opened his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes.
“Wren,” he said when he saw her face, and he gave her his crooked grin. “I’ve had the most wonderful dream. The Crooked Man was there. He said you knew him?” Tears leaked out of his eyes, and he smiled through them. “Wren, he gave me my magic back.”