At the end of that day, Falcon returned to his room in Paragon Castle, carrying an extremely heavy backpack and overwhelmed with homework assignments. In addition to Miss Bloodstone’s class, Monstrosity, there was another titled Weapons and Implements, another on the History of Virtue, and a fourth called Battle Strategy. In addition to these, the colonel taught the Literature of Mayhem, which was devoted to short stories and poems all about destroying things. Once a week, according to a schedule Mr. Drudge had given him, there was something called Field Research, which would meet for the first time the next day. And finally, as always, there was math. Unlike the moth man’s class back at the Academy, however, at Guardian Junior High they actually had to do the problems instead of just work them out on a calculator.
Falcon sat down at a large desk in the chamber that had been prepared for him and started in on the reading for the Literature of Mayhem. The first item in his textbook was a poem by Lord Tennyson:
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
A shadow crept over his right shoulder, and Falcon turned to see his mother standing behind him. She wore a white dress, and her long, white hair fell nearly to her waist.
“Ah, the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’!” said Vega. “A classic!”
“Mom!” said Falcon. He stood and took a step toward her, then hesitated. He didn’t exactly want to rush forward into the arms of a woman who had imprisoned him up in a tower when last they’d met.
“Oh, I know you’re cross with me,” said Vega. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to blast me with one of your fireballs. I let you down, Falcon. I’m so sorry.”
“Let me down?” Falcon said. “That’s what you call killing my friends? Turning Peeler and Woody into stars, turning Pearl and Max into crystal music?” He shook his head. “Yeah, I guess you could say you let me down.”
“Falcon,” said Vega, kneeling on the floor before him. “I made a mistake. I expected too much of you, all at once.”
Falcon smirked. “I think you expected too little of me, actually,” he said.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Vega. “I don’t know—I guess everything I’ve done has been a disaster. As far as you’re concerned, I mean.”
Falcon mostly agreed with her; everything she’d done had been a disaster, starting with trying to kill his father and then abandoning him when he was only a child. But now, with his mother before him, he was unable to feel angry; as he looked at her, all he could feel was pity.
“Remember last spring?” asked Vega. “When I played the piano for you, in the cottage by the sea? Since you left, I’ve thought about what our lives would have been like if we’d just stayed there, in the cottage, instead of—”
“Instead of starting up with the war again. Instead of hurting my friends.”
“Yes,” said Vega. “Instead of that. But now you know, maybe a little better, what they’re really like. Creeper has informed us of what they did to you at the Academy. I’m so sorry, Falcon. You did not deserve that after the loyalty you showed to them.”
Falcon was just about to defend the monsters back at the Academy but stopped himself. She was right. He had deserved better, after the sacrifices he had made.
“I am sorry the world is the way it is,” said Vega. “I remember how hard it was for me when I realized what the world is like. I was older than you are when I came to understand. Still, it broke my heart. I don’t think I’ve ever been the same.”
“What do you mean, what the world is like? You mean that there are monsters in it? That was a surprise to you?”
“Oh, I knew that monsters walked the earth—I’d gone to Guardian Elementary School, of course. But I didn’t want to be a guardian, Falcon, any more than you did. I didn’t want to devote my whole life to all this—destruction and strife.”
“So why did you?” said Falcon. “Why not try to get along with monsters?”
“Because I found what you found, Falcon, when you tried the same thing. They come for you. They suck your blood. They take your life. They are relentless, and terrible, and dark.”
Falcon thought back to his last night on Shadow Island, up in the Tower of Souls. He saw all of those angry monsters coming for him, shouting, Traitor! Enemy! Destroy!
“In a way,” said Vega, “it is unfortunate that you befriended so many of these creatures when they were young, before they came into their full powers. Because you learned to love them, just as I thought I loved your father.”
“Is that why you pushed him through the ice?” said Falcon. “Because he was so terrible?”
Vega gasped softly and looked at her son with shock. “I never tried to hurt your father,” she said. “I tried to protect him!”
“You tried to protect him by murdering him?”
“I never touched him,” said Vega. “It was Cygnus who snuck up behind him and pushed him through.”
“What?”
Vega nodded sadly. “That was when they came for me—Mortlock and Miss Bloodstone and the others. They captured and tied me, while Cygnus went out to destroy the Crow. I pleaded for them not to do it. I begged them!”
“But if you’d left their world, why wouldn’t they just leave the two of you alone? You weren’t doing anybody any harm, were you?”
“I was doing Cygnus harm,” said Vega.
“How were you doing Cygnus harm?” said Falcon. But even as he asked this question, he began to suspect he knew the answer.
Vega cleared her throat. “He did not take my defection well. Because we were close once. He brought me back here, in hopes I would . . . well. In this he was mistaken. I have given my heart away once. I will never do so again.”
Falcon looked at his mother and saw in her face a flicker of what she might have looked like when she was young. “You don’t want to be queen,” he said, “do you?”
“But I am,” said Vega. “And so here I stay. You really only get one chance in life to resist your nature, Falcon. My chance is done.”
“Well, I’m not like you,” said Falcon. “I won’t be like you.”
Vega waved her hand through the air. “I suppose we will see. You will make your choices, as best you can, between this life and the other.”
“What happens if I don’t choose a side?” said Falcon. “What if I just want to live . . . apart?”
“And live alone, you mean? Why would you choose to be a hermit? To live in isolation and exile?”
“Because I don’t want to spend my life trying to kill things, Mother,” said Falcon. “Because life is better than death.”
Vega opened her mouth, then shut it. She sighed. “I used to think that,” she said. “When I was young.”
The next day, on his way to Guardian Junior High, Falcon ran into Sam. He was chewing on a piece of beef jerky. “Hey, man,” he said. “I got some jerky. You like jerky? It’s excellent.”
“I’m partial to jerky,” said Falcon.
“Man,” said Sam, handing Falcon a piece. “Who isn’t?”
A platoon of men and women in uniforms marched by, each of them playing a drum. There were military snares and djembes and deep tom-toms, making a jubilant, celebratory noise. The warrior-musicians had large bows and quivers of long, steel-tipped arrows strapped to their sides. Although the guardians kept their faces forward, many of them followed Falcon with their eyes.
“So what do you play?” said Sam.
“Play?” said Falcon.
“Yeah. You a drummer? You must be, the way you’re checking out the pounders.”
“Pounders?”
“Yeah, that’s what they call the drummers. They can be pretty intense, once they get into a groove.”
“I play godzooka,” said Falcon.
Sam wrinkled his nose. “Hey, man,” he said. “I wouldn’t be, like, talking about monster instruments, okay? You might give people the wrong impression.”
“What do you play?” said Falcon.
“Clarinet,” said Sam.
“I used to play tuba,” said Falcon. “Back in Maine.”
“Weird,” said Sam. “I keep forgetting you were born in the Reality Stream. What was that like, anyway? Was it wacky?”
“Sometimes,” said Falcon. “I lived in a little town called Cold River. Maine’s a pretty great place to live. Except that it’s winter five months of the year. That can make you a little stir-crazy.”
“Winter,” said Sam. “I read about winter. Is it true that when the snow comes down, it doesn’t come down straight?”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw this video. When the snow fell, it was like, all wavery.”
Falcon nodded. “Yeah, it wavers, I guess.”
“I have always found the merits of snow more than a little overrated,” said a voice, and they turned to see Cygnus walking behind them.
“Juh—General Cygnus, sir,” said Sam, saluting the man awkwardly.
“At ease, Cadet,” said Cygnus. He nodded to Falcon. “Good morning, Prince. I hope you’ll forgive my eavesdropping. I remember seeing snow when I visited Maine. I was among the party that was sent to bring back your mother. As you know, she had a rather rebellious youth. Before she accepted her fate.” He smiled. “I remember how disappointed I was by snow, the first time I saw it. It is true, Cadet Samit, that it is beautiful when it falls. And then when it lies upon the ground, sparkling and pristine, there is something almost miraculous about it, as if the world itself has begun to shine.” His face darkened. “But then creatures begin to walk upon it. Dirtying and befouling it. Ruining it! I remember one morning, looking out a window at a field of perfect snow—not far from your town of Cold River, Falcon. I watched that field all morning. And then these creatures—idiots—tromped across it, destroying its beauty. Leaving behind their ugly, careless footprints.” He sighed. “We found out later they were a group of Sasquatches in disguise. I caught up with them later that day and solved that problem. They left no more footprints.” He shook his head. “But there are so many monsters in the world. Tromping through the world and wrecking its purity. Sometimes I fear we can never destroy them all.” He looked lost in thought for a moment more. Then he looked up. “But we shall try, won’t we, gentlemen? Yes. We will try. Because how else will we bring about a perfect world? How?”
“By killing monsters and stuff, sir,” said Sam nervously.
Cygnus looked very carefully at Falcon, and his eyes narrowed for an instant. “Indeed,” he said, and nodded. Then he walked past. Sam and Falcon watched him merge into the crowd on the street ahead.
“Okaayyy,” said Sam. “That was weird.”
“I’ve walked across a field of snow,” said Falcon.
“Dude,” said Sam. “Better not tell the general.”
“Running around in snow is fun, actually. I never thought I was wrecking the purity of anything.”
“It’d be cool to see it someday,” said Sam. “Don’t they have, like, lobsters and junk up there too?”
“Yeah,” said Falcon. “Lobster’s a big thing in Maine.”
“Snow, and lobsters, and moose! That’d be so awesome. It’d make it easier to—you know. Do the other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Dude. You know. Kill all the monsters.”
Falcon shook his head. “I don’t know how many monsters there are in Maine.”
“Oh, they got ’em, all right,” said Sam. “They showed us a chart. Maine’s a very high-density area for monsters. I think it’s second only to Texas. Course, in Maine it’s like, werecreatures and vampires, and in Texas it’s mostly zombies, but still. If I got sent up there, I’d have to do a lot of slaying.” He sighed. “It’d be better if they sent me to, like, Ireland, or England. I’d rather get rid of a bunch of leprechauns or elves or something that’s not, you know, all bloodthirsty or dead, or whatever. Actually, I’d rather be sent someplace with no monsters at all. Like Idaho.”
“Why?” said Falcon.
“To be honest?” said Sam. “Monsters kind of creep me out. What’s it like, being surrounded by them all day? Weren’t you afraid?” He got another piece of beef jerky out of his pocket.
“You get used to them,” said Falcon. “Most of the time, I mean. Then, other times—I don’t know, it’s like people turn on you, and then you feel like you don’t know them.”
“Dude,” said Sam. “That’s exactly how I feel about some of the guardians.” He looked around nervously. “Don’t tell anyone, though, okay? But it’s like everybody’s your friend, until the time comes when—you know. They’re all . . . not.”
Falcon looked over at Sam. “What would you be, if you could be something other than a guardian?”
Sam’s eyes danced with excitement. “Someday,” he said, “I don’t know how—but somehow I’d like to own a diner.” He looked at Falcon. “What would you be if you weren’t an angel?”
“I don’t know,” said Falcon. “I don’t think about it anymore.”
“Tell you what,” said Sam. “We ever get out of here? You could work at my diner, making pies. ’Cause if I have a diner, it’s totally going to have awesome pies.”
“You really think that’s going to happen?” said Falcon. “Us getting out of here, and you starting a diner?”
“Sure, why not,” said Sam. “You gotta dream of something.”