The griffin turned to Jacklo. “Trick him how?”
“Make everyone think it didn’t work,” Jacklo said. “The obedience mark. He’s going to demonstrate it at the festival, right? In front of everyone? Make them all think it failed. Make him look foolish. Then no one will believe him, and no one will believe the mark could ever work.”
Everyone gawked at the bird.
“Jacklo, that’s a great idea!” Mayka said.
Kisonan nodded. “Indeed, if we—”
Squawking three short chirps and one long, Risa swooped through the door. “Why are you still here? Get out, get out! He comes! He’s on the path! In seconds, he’ll be inside.”
“Is there a back door?” Mayka asked.
“There is not,” Kisonan said.
“We’ll hide you,” one of the mishmash creatures said. They scurried around her, and Mayka scooped up Jacklo in the basket and hurried with them. Si-Si hurried alongside her. She heard Kisonan shuffle toward the front door to greet Master Siorn, and she ran down the hall.
“Here, here, here,” the creatures whispered as they shoved her into the pantry. Clutching the basket with Jacklo, she wedged herself between a barrel of potatoes and a stack of plates, and Si-Si squeezed in with her. She was sure Risa would have the sense to hide herself.
They listened as Master Siorn stomped into the house. He shouted for Garit to join him in the private workroom, all the while bemoaning the amount of work that needed to be finished before tomorrow’s festival. Then he called for food to be delivered to the workroom and for no other disruptions. “Garit, what are you waiting for, boy? Grab your chisel and carve!”
She heard Garit’s voice: “But it’s your masterpiece! You want me to carve—”
“Yes, yes, you’re skilled enough, and I don’t have the luxury of complete secrecy anymore. There’s no more time! I must be ready to reveal my masterpiece as soon as I’ve won over the public, so that all can see the glory that an unrestricted stonemason can accomplish. Join me, my boy, and be a part of history!”
“But, Master Siorn—”
“Enough, boy. Come! This is the most important moment of my career, and I will not have the day ruined because I didn’t finish in time due to your dithering.”
Your day will be ruined anyway, Mayka thought. We will ruin it.
She heard a door slam, and then she waited. In a few moments, one of the stone otters sped into the kitchen. “He wants lunch!”
The mishmash creatures sprang into action. Chattering to one another, they stoked the fire, sliced vegetables, and began preparing a soup.
Mayka came out of her hiding place, but stayed close to it in case she had to dive back in. Jacklo poked his head out over the lip of the basket and said, “Hey, you don’t have to obey anymore, remember?”
One of the creatures paused, uncertain.
“It’s okay,” Mayka told them. “Just make lunch. We don’t want Master Siorn to get suspicious before the festival begins.” But it was a little worrying that they’d leapt so quickly to obey. Was it force of habit, or had she carved them wrong? Maybe it just takes time for their new stories to sink in, she thought.
“So what do we do at the festival?” the otter asked. “How do we trick him? We don’t even know what he has planned!”
Kisonan appeared in the kitchen doorway and squeezed himself inside. “I do. He intends to use a number of us in his performance, making us perform a variety of tasks that anyone with common sense would balk at.”
“Oh no,” one of the mishmash creatures moaned.
“What do we do?” another asked.
“Refuse,” Mayka said. “Show the audience that the mark doesn’t work.”
Kisonan nodded. “Wait until the audience is as large as possible, and then reject his orders. He’ll be undone. No one will take anything he says seriously. If his humiliation is severe enough, the city council could revoke his stonemason badge. He could be forbidden from ever carving another creature.”
The octopus waved his tentacles nervously. “But are you sure it will work?”
“He’s trying to tell a story about how he’s created an obedience mark,” Mayka said. “But we’re telling the story about how the mark doesn’t work. Once that story spreads, no one will believe the obedience mark is real. He’ll be the fool of the tale, not the heroic brilliant genius he thinks he is.”
“I love it.” One of the otters sighed happily.
“Yes,” Kisonan said, “this is what we’ll do. This time, we will shape the story.”
Dawn plucked with prying fingers at the kitchen windows. At Master Siorn’s command, all the stone creatures assembled in the front yard, while Mayka stayed behind, hidden with Jacklo in the kitchen—they’d slip out once everyone was gone.
“Do you think it will work?” Jacklo asked, after they were alone.
Yes. Maybe. “He’s trying to sell a story to the crowd,” Mayka said. “We’re going to change the story halfway through. It will work.” I hope. If I carved them well enough.
“They’ve gone now,” Si-Si reported.
Mayka crept out of the pantry and hurried through the empty house. She took a hammer and chisel with her, tucking them into the pockets of Ilery’s dress.
“Into the pack and basket,” she told Jacklo and Si-Si. “Let’s go.”
Outside, carrying her friends, she joined the crowd surging from the Stone Quarter to the Festival Square. People and stone creatures were everywhere, decked out in their finery. Flesh people wore bright colors and flowery hats, and stone creatures wore ribbons around their necks and had pompoms dangling from their stone ears. Mayka lost herself in the crowd, and for a moment, she forgot why she was there. She’d never been to a festival of any kind before. She felt as if she’d plunged into sparkles. Everywhere, color. Every moment, music and laughter. The joy swept away all worries.
Almost.
All these flesh people . . . If they knew about the mark, what would they think? What would they do? If we fail, will the mountain be far enough to be safe?
Throughout the Festival Square, musicians played, and dancers and acrobats performed. Vendors sold food from carts, and flesh people lined up to buy it. Flesh-and-feathers birds scavenged near them, scooping up treats that people had dropped, and Mayka thought she saw Risa hidden among them.
At last she found her way to the festival stages and stood with the crowd to watch.
On one stage was a stonemason who claimed she’d created the most delicate and exquisite carvings ever imagined. As she unveiled her creations, the crowd gasped, and Mayka gasped too. In the center of the stage was a fountain in which she’d carved water out of stone. It was motionless, frozen, but every droplet, carved of translucent blue stone, was linked to another in a detailed chain. Stone fish leapt through the water—they were made of orange and milky white stone.
On a second stage was a stonemason with a collection of stone cats. They were draped around his stage, and the audience laughed as the cats refused to come when he called, exactly like flesh-and-fur cats, and he bowed after they refused, showing it was all a part of the act.
Mayka wished they’d found one of these stonemasons instead. But then we wouldn’t have known to stop Master Siorn. And he must be stopped. She inched closer through the crowd to Master Siorn’s stage. She caught a glimpse of Garit scurrying back and forth, and she saw the otters clustered by the stairs, hugging one another. Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to get a better view.
A vendor walked past her and shoved a bag of roasted corn kernels under her nose. “Roast corn! Get your fresh roast corn!”
“No, thank you.” She scooted away. At least her disguise was holding.
“What’s happening?” Jacklo asked, his voice muffled from his basket.
“Nothing yet,” Mayka said.
“I want to see! Let me fly up with Risa!”
“I don’t want to risk you breaking again.” He should be healed by now—it had been another day, but she had enough to worry about with Kisonan and the other creatures.
Muttering, he settled back down.
“What was that?” she asked him, but before he could reply, she saw Master Siorn mounting the steps up onto the platform. “Never mind. Shhh!”
He was dressed in jewels: sewn onto his robes, strung onto necklaces, and circling his head. His ridiculous hair was laced with them. Garnets, rubies, amethysts. He looked as if he’d leapt into a vat of gems. Standing in the center of his stage, the stonemason spread his arms wide.
“Hello and welcome!” he boomed. “I am Master Siorn, stonemason extraordinaire!”
Most of the audience ignored him. They continued chatting, eating, and watching dancers, acrobats, and whatever shiny event caught their eye. One lone man on a stage wasn’t enough to attract their attention, even with all his sparkle.
“Today you will see miracles! Miracles that will change life as you know it. Have you ever had an ox who refused to plow? Have you ever wondered if you could trust your child’s stone nanny? Have your home and your loved ones ever been at risk because of an inattentive guard?” A few people nodded along with him. “What if your stone creature were utterly devoted to your family? What if you could ensure it obeyed your every command?”
Mayka heard people muttering: “Who’s that?” “Some crackpot.” “Master Sorb?” “No, that’s not it. What did he say his name was? Siorn?” “Hey, what are those? Eh, nothing new. Look over there.”
His mishmash creatures waddled onto the stage.
“These carvings aren’t new, you say?” Master Siorn said. “True! But what they do is new. I present to you a new mark, my own invention, inspired by legend: the obedience mark!”
That caught the crowd’s attention.
Mayka felt Si-Si peek over her shoulder, half hidden by Ilery’s scarf.
“Now what’s happening?” Jacklo asked.
“It’s beginning,” Mayka said.