NUREMBERG, ERNST LISTZ said to himself.

It sounded rich. Not as rich as Austria or Paris, but it would do. Anything was better than the terrors of the open countryside with its death strikes from above, and the moldy stench of damp tunnels. They had marched hard all the way from Boldavia, using log barges on underground streams when possible. They kept up their speed, even racing through tunnels and under mountains, knowing their enemy must travel the longer way.

A mouse could run twice as fast as a man could walk, if necessary. For this journey, the King of Mice had deemed it very necessary indeed. And so they had run and sailed, to the point of exhaustion.

For Ernst, anyway. These Boldavian mice never seemed to tire. Fanatics rarely did. Ernst had hoped Arthur and his brothers would eventually forget him, caught up in the tides of war. He was beginning to fear he would never be free.

A paw clutched him from behind. The paw of the Mouse King.

Ernst used every ounce of self-control he possessed to not jump out of his skin. “Sire.”

As the army approached Nuremberg, Arthur’s brothers had grown more agitated. The owl attack outside Vienna had only made matters worse. The rodent army had been forced to flee underground. For the first time in this ridiculous campaign, the mice had been frightened. What’s more, their spies in the city had lost sight of the clockmaker’s boy, which had only served to feed the anger of their King. The bloodlust in Hannibal’s eyes had become more apparent with each step as he gnashed his teeth, drunk on power and the promise of vengeance.

And now, per Arthur’s orders, each head wore its own golden crown.

When Ernst turned to face his King this time—not his king, he had to remind himself, merely an upstart rabble-rouser of lesser Rodentia—it was not Hannibal he saw, but Arthur. One of those odd eclipse-like times when the other heads were asleep and the boy seemed like himself again.

“Ernst, may I speak with you?” Arthur’s voice sounded hollow and young even though his body had grown to adulthood.

Pity wrapped around Ernst’s jangled nerves. Why did he stay, if not for this boy? Perhaps because Arthur was the only creature to treat him with real respect in all of the years since Ernst’s family’s decline.

“Of course, dear boy,” Ernst replied softly, not wanting to wake the other brothers. It seemed to be Arthur’s gift, to stay awake while the others slept. But it made the boy seem even lonelier than usual.

Ernst kept his voice soft and light, but he was afraid. For Arthur and for himself.

“Ernst, I’ve been having dreams again.” Arthur tucked his arm around his tutor’s elbow and they began to stroll. They were camped beneath the roots of a great oak tree in one of the parks outside Nuremberg. Intelligence had scouted it as the perfect headquarters. In fact, the chamber here was so large, it had allowed them to begin the curious work of assembling the siege machines.

“What kind of dreams, Majesty?” Ernst asked in real concern. Nightmares had begun to wrack all of the Mouse King’s heads in the past few weeks, but Arthur was the only one willing to talk about it.

“I see him in my dreams,” Arthur confided. The young face paled beneath the silvery fur. “Mother’s killer. I can’t face him, Ernst. I could barely stand up to my own mother. She was a sorceress, she had such power. What on earth could snuff her out?”

“You haven’t actually seen the assassin, then?” Ernst asked. Even he had caught a glimpse of the human boy, through a chink in the wall as he fled the Boldavian throne room. Ernst had been attempting to escape.

“I have. On that terrible day, and every night, in my dreams,” Arthur said softly. “He’s a monster. My brothers think we are invincible, that we will triumph by divine right. Not even the hawks have swayed them. But Mother reaped what she sowed, don’t you think? What hope have we against one man, let alone an entire race of them? I fear we will all perish.”

Ernst gripped the younger mouse by his shoulders. At last, a lick of sense in the entire escapade! “Then stop it, Arthur. You are the King—you are! If you can see your mother’s legacy as the idiocy it is, then call an end to it!”

“I can’t,” Arthur cried forlornly.

“Why not? Your brothers? Will you let them bully you into the grave?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Ernst’s heart skipped a beat. The voice was not Arthur’s. Hannibal was awake, leering at the rat through slitted yellow eyes. Ernst let go of the King’s jacket and stepped back. The other heads were awake, as well.

“I told you the rat was not loyal to us,” Genghis said.

“And you were right.” Hannibal frowned. “Herr Listz, you disappoint us.”

“Treachery!” Charlemagne hissed.

The other heads echoed the word. “Treachery.”

Ernst was bewildered. Arthur would not look him in the eye.

“Seize the rat. Lock him up!” Hannibal called out.

Two armed guards stepped from the shadows to follow their King’s command.

“Arthur?” Ernst’s voice cracked.

“I’m sorry, Ernst. We had to know if you were with us or against us,” he said in a voice Ernst hardly recognized. “You must understand. She was our mother. My mother.”

With a start, Ernst realized Arthur had truly loved her. She who had only ever seen him as a means to an end. Who had made him into this unnatural form. In spite of all that, Arthur loved her fiercely, and would follow her into the grave. Ernst’s last slivers of hope began to fade.

“Enough, Arthur,” Charlemagne snapped. “Visit him in the dungeon if you must.”

“The enemy has been spotted in Nuremberg,” Hannibal said. “We have work to do.”

So the Drosselmeyer was here. The war would begin by nightfall, if Hannibal had his way. All Ernst could hope to do was save himself.

“You can’t imprison me! You need me!” the rat called out as his escort dragged him from the chamber. Hannibal snorted. The little upstart would suffer for that, one day, Ernst swore.

His last sight was of the Mouse King laughing from all of his mouths but two. Ernst closed his eyes. Julius had been blank as ever, but the look on Arthur’s face was all too clear. Nothing would stop him from having his revenge.