Just like writing on paper, Mayka told herself. She knew the strokes and the lines. She could visualize it exactly. Bending over Jacklo, she held the chisel steady. A light touch. That’s all it needs. She tapped the chisel with her hammer.
It barely dinged him.
“Your time shortens,” Kisonan said. “The master is rarely gone for long, especially so close to the festival. He must work on his masterpiece.”
Jacklo looked up at her. “I trust you,” he said. “And whatever happens, I won’t blame you. This is my choice.”
Those words gave her the courage. She positioned the chisel, tapped it, and made a line. Concentrating, she continued, adding line after line.
“How do you feel?” Risa asked, anxious.
“Shhh,” Jacklo told her. “Mayka needs silence.”
“Never thought I’d hear you ask for silence,” Risa said, but then she was quiet.
Mayka didn’t know how much time passed before she was finished. But at last, she was. Leaning back, she studied the mark. “‘Master of the Sky obeys the winds.’ That is your new story, Jacklo. Use it as you will.”
“I’ll use it to soar,” he promised, as he spread his wings.
“Not yet!” Risa cried. “You aren’t healed! You don’t want have to come back for more glue, do you?”
He folded his wings, and Mayka scooped him up. She turned to Si-Si. “Ready?”
The little dragon let out a hiccup-like sigh as she looked down at her body, once perfectly polished but now flecked with chips and roughly chiseled gouges.
Gently, Mayka said, “We’ll find another stonemason to finish you.” She didn’t know who, but that was a problem for later, after they were far away from here.
Cradling Jacklo, she hurried toward the doorway—and the griffin who blocked it. Caught up in carving, she’d forgotten he was there watching them. He’d been standing so still that he’d blended in with the half-formed sculptures that filled the workroom.
Risa flew toward his face. “Are you going to help us leave, or keep us here?”
Kisonan didn’t flinch. “You should know that Master Siorn will pursue you.”
“Oh?” Risa flapped her wings and raised her talons. “Is that a threat?”
“It is a warning,” he said. “There is something you must see, if you are to take the right precautions to protect yourselves and your family.” He crossed the workroom to the back door, and Mayka, curious, followed him. “There is no length to which he will not go. He has broken the law already, in his quest to restore the reputation of stonemasons. Ever since the Stone War, stonemasons have been forbidden to make giants. But that is what Master Siorn makes in secret.”
Si-Si skidded to a stop. “But . . . but he can’t!”
“He can and did,” Kisonan said gravely.
“But . . . but . . . how do you know?”
“I am his obedient servant,” Kisonan said, bitterness in his voice. “It is I who brought him the stones. It is I who cleared the space in the back room. It once housed raw supplies. Now it houses his masterpiece.”
Si-Si shook her head. “But . . .”
“He believes that once he has demonstrated that the obedience mark works with ordinary stone creatures, the law will be changed, and stonemasons will once again be revered. It is then he plans to unveil this.” He unlocked the door and swung it wide open. Mayka stepped forward and peered into the private workroom.
And she saw a monster.
There was no other word for what he was. Mayka had never seen a creature so massive. Crouched over, he filled the room, as if he were his own mountain. His muscles were boulders, with huge arms that looked designed to crush and bash.
His stone eyes were closed.
She didn’t see any marks.
For now, he was inert stone.
“He’s not finished yet,” Kisonan said, behind her. “But if Master Siorn’s plan goes as he intends, the law against stone giants will be abolished, and he will have this behemoth at his command. He may send it after you if he wishes, and I believe he will wish to possess Master Kyn’s last creations. He will justify it, of course, in talk of the betterment of man, and claim that he and the monster are acting in the best interests of Skye, but the result for you and your friends will be the same: the loss of your freedom. You must be prepared to hide.”
Mayka stared at the griffin. Surely, she’d be safe on the mountain . . .
“And now you must flee, before it is too late for warnings to save you.” Kisonan led them out of the workroom and to the rock at the front of the house. He rolled it aside, and Mayka saw that it was nearly sunset. The fat sun looked as if it were about to drip onto the distant mountains.
We’ll have to hurry, she thought. Curfew begins soon. “Thank you,” Mayka said, “for not stopping us and for the warning.”
The griffin fixed his eyes on Mayka. “If it works, if the bird is able to leave, if what you did truly changed the mark . . . I wish you to return someday, when it is safe, and do the same for me. The mark is . . . a source of shame. I would have been loyal to him without it, but he took that choice from me. He did not, though, tell me how to feel about it, and I want it gone.”
“I will change your mark right now,” Mayka said. “Let me see—”
“There is no time,” Kisonan said. “You must be gone before he returns. Otherwise, he will issue orders, and I will not be able to allow you to leave.” He gestured to the yard. “Step on every third stone, and the otters will not touch you. Duck after the fifth.”
Hurrying, Mayka hopped from stone to stone. She felt the otters’ eyes on her, and after her fifth step, she ducked. Stones sailed over her head. She glanced back at the griffin, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was standing like a sentry by the door, looking into the distance.
“Ready to leave?” she asked Jacklo.
“Beyond ready,” Jacklo said.
And Mayka stepped between the two stone lizards, through Master Siorn’s gate. Jacklo lay in her arms, not trying to get back, not needing to obey. She hurried through the Stone Quarter with Risa flying above and Si-Si hopping beside her.
“Walk,” Risa whispered from her shoulder, as they approached the gate to leave the Stone Quarter. “You look like you’re fleeing someone.”
“I am,” Mayka said, but she slowed down to a brisk stroll, matching the pace of the apprentices and stonemasons who were scurrying to and from the gate. The cobblestones smoothed beneath her feet, leading her through the crowd. She hoped it wouldn’t be a problem to leave the Stone Quarter without Garit to speak for her. She wished she could tell the truth: Master Siorn has created an abomination, a mark that steals stories.
But she couldn’t be certain the flesh-and-blood gatekeeper would see it that way.
If it hadn’t been for Ava, the apprentice’s stone friend, Garit might not have sided with them. Mayka thought back to the way people had treated her from the moment she’d entered this city. No, it’s not safe to tell the truth. Better just to leave without saying anything.
“Lie to the guard,” Si-Si advised. “You must tell him you’re obeying your keeper.”
“I can’t say that,” Mayka said. It was one thing to omit the truth, but to say she had a keeper . . . The very idea of claiming someone owned her made her feel as if bugs were burrowing into her stone arms.
“You must.”
You can do it. It’s only words.
Except there’s no such thing as “only words.” Words are everything.
And then another voice in her head said, Yes. And the right words can give you freedom.
For the first time in her life, Mayka deliberately concocted a lie. She practiced it in her head, and when she reached the gate, she smiled at the guard and said, “My keeper, Stonemason Siorn, asked me to take these sculptures to him at the festival grounds. He plans to use them in his demonstration.” The lie burned on her tongue, but she didn’t waver.
“Huh, that one looks unfinished.” He pointed at Si-Si. “She’s a mess.”
Si-Si tucked her wings against herself and hunched over. “I’m in the middle of a metamorphosis. Caterpillars in cocoons are probably ugly too.”
The gatekeeper’s eyes widened as he saw Jacklo. “Wow, a stone bird! So that’s what he’s been keeping secret? Has he found a way to make it fly?”
“He can’t fly,” Mayka said. Another lie. “He’s only for decoration.”
The guard’s face fell. “There are stories of a stonemason who could create flying sculptures. All of them were destroyed when he lost his family in the Stone War.”
Did everyone but her know about Father’s past? “Do you mean Master Kyn?”
He beamed. “Yes, that’s him! Those were the days, huh? Stonemasons lived like kings, and we all benefited from it. Stone marvels everywhere, doing all the work. Until the stonemasons got too big for their britches.” Squinting, he glanced up at the sky—the sun was setting fast, melting like hot butter. “Eh, I shouldn’t keep you with my babbling. It’s nearly curfew. Best make your way to your keeper before it’s fully down. You’ll have a bit of a grace period since it’s so close to the festival, but best not to push your luck.” He shooed them forward.
She wanted to ask more, to hear another story about Father, but he was right: in a few minutes, it would be dusk. They needed to be beyond the city gates before they closed. She nodded politely at the guard and walked through the archway. She made it ten paces before she heard a shout: “Wait! Stop! That’s my stone girl!”
Master Siorn.
He was coming from the Festival Square, toward the Stone Quarter, toward them.
Above her, Risa shrieked, “Run!”
The guard lunged for her, grabbing her arm.
Si-Si shouted in a shrill voice, “He’s lying! He stole us from our keepers! He’s a thief!”
The accusation made the guard hesitate, and it was enough for Mayka to break away from his weak, meaty hands. She ran, her stone feet pounding on the pavement, while Risa flew overhead and Si-Si raced beside her. She held Jacklo tight against her and didn’t look back.
The streets were packed with people: workers setting up and families who were strolling by, gawking at the sights. Mayka weaved between them. “Sorry, sorry, excuse me!”
A few called out to her: “Are you all right?” “Is anything wrong?” “Who’s chasing you?”
I’m drawing too much attention, she thought. She scanned the area and saw other children, skipping as they played, and so as she rounded the corner, she switched to skipping. She painted a bright smile on her face and hoped she looked as if she was holding a toy instead of a live bird. No one shouted at them. She kept turning down different streets, each time choosing the most crowded.
Risa flew lower. “You lost them, as far as I can tell.”
“Now it’s time for us to get out of the city,” Jacklo said. “Please, I want to go home.”
Me too, Mayka thought. She wished they’d never come to the valley. It was a terrible place. No wonder Father had left it. Why didn’t he tell me what it was like? Or about his family? Or about the Stone War? He was famous, yet she’d had no idea.
Everyone here knows his story but me. If only his story had been written on his skin, instead of hidden, written on his heart.
“Which way is the gate out of the city?” Si-Si asked.
Mayka halted. They’d run down so many streets, and she hadn’t kept track of the turns. She’d been concentrating only on getting away. “Risa, can you fly above the buildings and see which direction we need to go?”
Launching upward, Risa soared toward the tops of the spires. The sky was a deeper blue than it had been moments ago, and a faint star shone above. Oh no, Mayka thought.
The sun had set.
The gate . . .
Risa plummeted toward them and then swooped up at the last moment. “The gate!” she cried. “It’s closed!”
Si-Si began to panic, chasing her tail in a circle. “What do we do? Where can we hide? Oh, he’s going to find us! Oh, we’re doomed! He’ll catch us! He’ll change us. He’ll destroy us!”
Mayka knelt on one knee, even though she wanted to run in a circle and shriek too. “Shhh, Si-Si, calm down. We’ll find a place to spend the night, and then we’ll leave the city at dawn.”
“Where? There’s nowhere to go, no one to turn to!”
“I have an idea: we’re going to walk calmly and purposefully to the Inn District, and we’re going to find Ilery.” She’d said she was staying at a place called the Marble Inn.
Si-Si paused. “But she’s flesh! She may have been friendly while she was waiting and bored, but do you really think she’d hide us?”
“I think we have to find out,” Mayka said. “Come on.”
Leading the way, Risa flew with the city birds, blending in with the pigeons, and Mayka had trouble keeping her eye on which one was Risa. She was glad Father had made the birds so lifelike. It made them easier to hide. She wondered if he’d ever thought about that as he carved them.
She had so many questions she could never ask him.
She wished she had asked him to teach her how to carve. She’d watched him and helped him. But she’d never thought that she too could create a sculpture like he did, complete with its own stories. He seemed as if he’d been born knowing exactly where to place the chisel, exactly what kind of shape to coax out of a stone.
But Garit hadn’t been born with those skills. She’d seen him learning, trying, experimenting, failing.
And she herself had changed the mark on Jacklo.
She could carve.
It was such a revolutionary thought that it almost stopped her in her tracks. I can carve. I am a storyteller. She could, if she practiced and tried, recarve her friends.
We don’t need a stonemason.
We only need me.
She could read Father’s marks, and she’d watched him carve. In a way, though she hadn’t known it and he may not have intended it, he’d been her teacher. She had his knowledge. All she needed, like Garit, was practice. And time.
I have time. Plenty of it, until my marks fade. And I have Father’s tools, up on the mountain. We’ve got to go home. I want to begin!
But first, they needed to leave the city.
And before that, they needed to make it through the night.