Chapter 13

THE GANG OF ROGUES

 

Alexia thought longingly of her Atherial Cloak as she sprinted across a rooftop toward the arena of black stone. And then—Wild! Alexia almost stumbled at the thought. How could she have forgotten about him? Wild had risked his life to save her. I’ll have to ask Father when I get back to the palace. She shook off the feeling of guilt and continued forward.

As she neared the edge of the roof, Alexia dropped to her belly and crawled the rest of the way. Black rock stretched high, forming archways that became lost in the clouds. The entire coliseum looked to be carved out of a single mountain.

Alexia wanted to sneak inside the arena and see the place that had haunted her dreams for as long as she could remember. Yet she was also afraid of what she would find. I never thought it was real!

She had just decided to climb down when a filthy boy in tattered clothes sprinted out of an entryway. He skidded to a stop and scanned the surroundings.

Before he could decide on a direction, four Oriax charged from the same corridor and quickly surrounded him. The beasts snarled and hissed as he turned, trying to watch all four at the same time.

“Come and get me!” he screamed. “I’m not afraid of you!” But the Oriax didn’t attack; they waited, circling to ensure he didn’t run. A moment later a Shadule slithered out.

“I warned you what would happen if you tried to escape again.” The creature moved with liquid grace. “Take him to the crack,” it said. The beasts growled and lunged at the boy to corral him back toward the arena.

“No, please! I promise I won’t do it again,” he cried. “I was just hungry; we all are. We need something to eat!” The Oriax snarled and swiped their claws, forcing him into the corridor until he disappeared from view.

Alexia let out a long, shuddering breath. She knew this boy. It was Josiah, and he was her friend.

Six years earlier

Alexia stared at the beige sheet of paper. She could barely believe it. Josiah hunched next to her, rocking on his heels excitedly. “Five pounds!” he almost shouted. “That’s enough to buy a horse, for goodness sake!”

Josiah had ripped the paper from a lantern post earlier that evening. The page showed an extremely good drawing of Alexia Dreager, and at the bottom were the words “This child is extremely dangerous: A five pound reward for information leading to her arrest.”

“Five pounds!” Alexia said. It truly was a ridiculous amount of money. “But why?”

Sitting nearby were four more children who were all close in age: Juno, Summer, and Benaiah were six, and Adeline had just turned five. Alexia had been living with Josiah and the others for the past few days. The children called themselves the Gang of Misfits, which Alexia thought was an absurd name.

In truth, they were five street kids who had no place to go and no one to look after them. Either their parents had died or they were runaways. The children had found one another somehow and looked after each other as best they could.

Josiah had brought Alexia here after they’d escaped from Korah and his Gang of Terror. She’d stayed because she was too heartbroken to go anywhere else. Their hideout was in an abandoned factory in the most dangerous slum in Belfast.

Alexia hated Korah more than she’d ever hated anyone. The man had ruined her beloved dress! She now wore brown pants and a cream-colored shirt. They were tattered and worn, and she hated them too.

Alexia looked at the five dirty faces around her. I don’t need these kids getting in my way, she told herself for the twentieth time. I should just leave. It’s not safe here anyway, not with Korah looking for me. But every time she thought of leaving, the look in Josiah’s eyes made her stay just one more day.

“Why does Lord Korah want you so badly?” Juno asked. “There’s no reward for Josiah.”

Juno was a small girl with white hair and a thick accent. She was quick on her feet and even quicker with her hands. That very morning Alexia had seen her pick the pockets of five men in less than two minutes.

“I don’t know what he wants,” Alexia said. Ever since she and Josiah escaped the Gang of Terror, she’d heard rumors that they were looking for her. But five pounds!

“Does this mean you’re going to leave us, then?” Josiah asked.

Alexia didn’t know how to answer. She liked these children. Josiah and his friends looked up to her; it made her feel important and responsible for them. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think we should get some sleep now. We can talk about it in the morning.”

While the children unrolled their blankets and curled up on the floor, Alexia tried to ignore the guilt that was growing inside her. But as she readied herself for bed, she made her decision. She would sleep a few hours, then wake early and sneak away. These kids would have to make do without her.

Sleep came almost instantly. Like most nights, she had the same dream of the red wildflowers, the massive arena, the three gravestones. She opened her eyes to see the sun peeking through the broken window—she’d overslept. It would be far harder to leave when the children were awake. She sat up and immediately spotted her opened satchel.

It’s gone! Alexia stood in a rage. “Where is it? Where is my dress?” she screamed.

The children sat up groggily.

“I have it!” Juno called from another room.

Alexia stalked toward Juno, who held the red dress out to her. Alexia shoved Juno with all her might, screaming, “How dare you steal my dress!”

“I didn’t steal it, Blade, really! I tried to fix it!” Juno cowered on the floor.

Alexia stopped. She held the dress up and was confused by what she saw.

“I couldn’t figure out how to fix the dress, so I used the pieces to make a cloak … I’m sorry, I thought you would like it; I wanted to surprise you!”

Alexia fingered the crimson cloak. She’d been on the verge of tears for days now. But Juno hadn’t stolen her dress—she had fixed it, rather. She’d transformed it! Alexia studied the stitching; it was beautiful.

“My grandmother was a seamstress,” Juno said. “She taught me how to sew before she died. I thought you would like it or I never would have taken it, really!”

“I love it,” Alexia whispered, suddenly teary. “It’s perfect.”

She tried it on. The cloak fit perfectly!

“I’m sorry I pushed you. I shouldn’t have done that,” Alexia said. “I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

Juno smiled as Alexia pulled her to her feet. “It’s the strangest thing,” Juno said. “It never should have been enough to make the cloak, but … there was exactly enough. It is a very peculiar material. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like it wanted me to make it into a cloak. Do you know what it is?”

Alexia had no idea, though she’d often wondered. The dress seemed to have a life of its own. She’d worn it for more than two years and it had still fit perfectly. Until Korah had destroyed it, the dress was still as good as new.

Alexia stood proudly and looked at the rest of the children. “If I’m going to stay with you and lead this gang, then we need a better name,” she said. “From now on we will be known as the Gang of Rogues, and we will rule this city!”

All five children jumped and cheered wildly, dancing about as they whooped and hollered in excitement.

Present day

Alexia was horrified as she watched the Oriax escort Josiah back into the coliseum. Why would anyone kidnap an orphan boy from Belfast? Her mind spun as she turned and raced toward the palace. She was meant to meet with Belial before the sun set, and unless she hurried, she was sure to be late.

Although she hated leaving him, Alexia knew she couldn’t just run in and rescue Josiah. She needed time to think, to make a plan. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe she could tell her father or Belial and they would release her friend.

Maybe they don’t even know he’s being held prisoner! she thought. Belial told me I could ask for anything and he would do it. I’ll ask for Josiah’s freedom!

At the palace, she began to climb. She wasn’t thinking as she leaped between two balconies and continued upward. The balcony to the throne room was fifty stories up, and she was in a hurry. It was far quicker to climb the outside of the palace than to run through the maze of endless corridors. Up, up, higher she went. Her fingertips curled around a slim edge of stone. Her heel hooked around the body of a gargoyle. Then, as she pulled herself up to perch on the windowsill, Alexia suddenly realized what she was doing.

What am I thinking? She was forty-eight stories up! When Alexia looked down at what she’d just climbed, she gasped. Suddenly dizzy, she leaned against the palace wall. She had great balance, but this was ridiculous.

Alexia pulled aside a heavy curtain and peered into a large chamber. Torches lined walls gilded in tanzanite, and elaborate tapestries hung from arched ceilings. Alexia stepped quietly inside, planning to walk through to the corridor.

“Father,” she whispered, as dread rose in her belly.

Every tapestry in the chamber depicted different scenes of her father just moments away from killing someone. In each tapestry he wielded a bone-white sword and had a look of ecstasy in his eyes. His victims’ faces showed only terror.

I must be in Father’s chamber! She had never been allowed to come to him and hadn’t been able to find where he stayed. Fear coursed through her as she walked past hundreds of tapestries into an adjoining chamber that held her father’s bed. Next to the bed was a large number of skulls, a mixture of animal and human. Alexia shuddered. She hadn’t realized she was afraid of her father until this moment. But now she was terrified.

She fingered a skull that could have belonged to an Oriax. Lying next to it was a black chain with a small, blue-veined stone at the end. As she looked closer at the stone, she saw something moving inside.

“How could you lose her?”

Alexia jumped at the sound of her father’s voice. She pocketed the stone without thinking and darted out of the bedchamber toward the outer window. Her father had entered from another room.

“Your only job is to watch a little girl—and you lost her in a city that we control?”

“I was watching her closely, master.” Whatever was speaking had a distinctly whiney voice. “But then she went to the rooftops. The girl is fast. I couldn’t keep up!”

Alexia stood frozen in the center of the outer chamber. She had been running to the windowsill when she’d spotted the largest tapestry in the room. It was huge and showed her father holding a blade to her mother’s neck. Lying at their feet was another man. Alexia could only see the back of his head.

What? Horror and confusion churned inside her.

“No!” the creature whimpered as something crashed to the floor.

Alexia darted to the window, quickly stepping onto the sill and out of sight.

“I do not accept failure,” her father said cruelly as he entered the chamber of tapestries.

“P-p-please?” the creature whimpered. Alexia peeked around the corner of the window. Her father was standing with his back to her, his sword in his hands. The whimpering creature had seen her. Its one eye opened wide in surprise. It began to point in her direction—

Alexia squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the chunk of the sword and the sound of something falling to the ground and rolling away. She trembled but didn’t wait. She leaped from the sill and grabbed the head of a beastly gargoyle. Panic and confusion roared inside her as she began to climb once again.

Alexia needed to be away from her father. She needed to think about the tapestry, and she needed to get to Belial. The sun had already set, and she was late.