ROZ HEFTED THE urn and trotted into the shadows. Sally grabbed Chibo’s hand and followed, while Ji slunk along more slowly, watching the goblins bustle toward the gate, their freaky knees bobbling. He didn’t trust them. For one thing, they ate humans. And for another thing . . . well, one was enough. You couldn’t trust people who found you delicious.
“Nin,” he whispered to an ant lion on his shoulder, “tell everyone to get ready just in case we—”
The wrought-iron gate slammed shut with a clang. The sound echoed in the burrow and the goblins knelt, belly-arms folded and heads bowed. A chain rattled outside, and Ji caught a glimpse of human soldiers beyond the gate before he slipped into the side tunnel.
“Tell the captain we secured the gobs,” a woman’s voice rasped from outside.
Another soldier murmured a question.
“Nah, they won’t make trouble,” the raspy woman answered. “Even if they tried, we’re stationed here until they catch the monsters.”
In the side tunnel, Ji sagged against a cool stone wall. “We’re locked in.”
“Catching them isn’t our job,” the woman rasped. “From what I hear, the queen’s working some kind of magic.”
“Great,” Sally growled. “Magic.”
The soldiers’ voices grew fainter, and Ji wanted to cry. Attacked by a water tree? Fine. Transformed into beasts? Sure. Surrounded by soldiers? Check. Hunted by the Summer Queen? Right. But now they were locked inside another goblin pen, all over again? It was all too much. He couldn’t handle it. He was hungry and tired, and he just wanted to be left alone.
Then Chibo sniffled, and Sally said, “Don’t worry. Ji will think of something.”
So Ji rubbed his eyes and took a steadying breath. He peeked from the side tunnel toward the motionless goblins near the entrance. A bonfire burned outside the locked gate, which meant the soldiers were settling in for the night. Ji looked into the darkness of the side tunnel but couldn’t see anything. Certainly not another way out.
“Give us some wing, Chibo,” he said, and green light brushed the tunnel walls. “Oh, that’s better.”
“Maybe for you,” Chibo grumbled. “I still can’t see.”
“There are soldiers outside,” Sally told him, “and the goblins are all in front of the gate. Why are they just staying there?”
“The soldiers must have ordered them to stay put,” Roz said. “We need another exit.”
Ji looked down the tunnel, then turned to an ant lion crawling along Sally’s leather bracelet. “So ogres and goblins are friends, right? Maybe they’ll show us a way out.”
“Ogres and goblins are enemies,” Roz told him. “At least they used to be, according to Ti-Lin-Su.”
“You’re the one who told them we’re affiliated with ogres!”
“That was a risk,” she said. “Still, I thought they might help, because at least we’re not . . . human.”
Goblins and ogres aren’t enemies anymore. Well, we’re still enemies, but working together. A few ant lions marched to the tip of a papaya leaf sprouting from the urn. Goblins burrowed to help us get closer to the evilqueen.
Roz’s granite-flecked brow furrowed. “You mean the goblins dig tunnels for the ogres?”
“Of course!” Ji gave a low whistle when he realized what was happening. “That’s why you were at Primstone Manor!”
“Who was?” Roz asked. “Nin?”
“Yeah, I saw him—cub—them in the goblin pen that night. I thought it was a dream.”
“So the goblins and the ogres are working together?”
“Yeah.” Jin looked at the urn. “Did the goblins tunnel under every single hacienda from here to the mountains?”
The ant lions waved their antennae. They dug one long burrow, from the mountain to the city.
“That explains why you saw eighteen goblins at Primstone,” Roz rumbled to Ji, “instead of twelve. Because the goblin burrows are all connected! But why?”
“Tell her,” Ji said to the urn.
For a surprise ogre attack on the city.
“For an invasion . . .” Ji nodded to himself as everything became clear. “The extra goblins were digging extra tunnels to secretly bring the ogres to the city.”
“That’s why Nin wanted to know about the Rite,” Roz said slowly. “Because the ogres can’t invade until the queen is weak.”
Have to attack after the Rite, Nin agreed. Or the clayfighters will kill us all.
“The clayfighters?” Chibo said. “You mean the terra-cotta soldiers?”
We have a few moons before the evilqueen is strong again. She can’t do magic so soon after the Rite! At least, that’s what we thought, but now—
“Forget about the stupid invasion!” Ji interrupted. “These tunnels crisscross the realm, right? That’s perfect. We can stroll out of the city and pop up anywhere!”
“We still need Ti-Lin-Su,” Roz said. “To explain how to turn human again.”
“She can wait,” Ji told her.
“How would you know?” Roz demanded. “What if we wait too long and this horrid transformation becomes permanent?”
We can’t uppop anywhere. One of Nin’s ant lions peeped at Ji from the edge of Roz’s hood. These tunnels don’t reach the others.
Ji groaned. “What do you mean? These tunnels don’t lead out of the palace, farther into the city?”
Not yet! Not past the outer walls. Not ready for invasion yet. Another few weeks, and then ogres uppop inside Forbidden Palace and—
“Okay, we need another exit. Can we ask the goblins for directions?”
“That strikes me as unwise,” Roz said. “At least while the guards are watching.”
Ji drummed his fingers against the rough-hewn wall. Two ant lions crawled from his collar onto his neck, then tickled his cheek with their manes. He thought for a minute. And another. Then he said, “Okay. The goblins at the gate are all wearing collars, right? Can you see them, Sal?”
“Yeah,” Sally growled, her tail lashing beneath her poncho. “They all have collars.”
“And if there are extra goblins in the Primstone burrow,” Ji said, “there must be extra goblins in the Forbidden Palace burrow. Right?”
“No,” Roz said. “Because this burrow doesn’t connect to the outside tunnels.”
Burrows always have extra goblins, Nin said. They don’t tell the humans about all the gobbabies they have.
“Good!” Ji said, exhaling in relief. “So we just have to find the extra goblins and—”
“—they’ll lead us outside!” Chibo finished, his wings spreading.
“That’s the plan.” Ji turned to Sally. “Can you follow the sugary smell to the rest of the goblins?”
“Sure,” she said, her ears flattened against her head.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Mm,” she growled.
“Let’s go!” Chibo said, and marched into the darkness, his wings flicking against the tunnel walls.
Sally leaped forward to steer him around a rock while Roz followed with the urn, her toes sticking through her torn slippers.
“Could you not walk on my face?” Ji asked Nin, following behind.
The ant lion on his cheek crawled into his hair.
“Oh, that’s much better,” he said.
After heading downward, Sally paused at an intersection and lifted her snout. She sniffed a few times, so Ji sniffed too. Smelled like the kitchen at Primstone when Cook made plum jam. His stomach rumbled and he looked from one green-tinted tunnel entry to another.
Sally prowled along a new tunnel, then spun and stared at Ji like an angry chipmunk. “We have to stop this.”
“What?” Ji frowned at her. “Stop what?”
“This invasion, the ogre invasion.”
“No, we don’t. We just have to run away and become human again.”
Should help the ogrevasion and stop the evilqueen, Nin said. Not stop the ogrevasion and help the evilqueen.
“I am no longer entirely fond of Her Majesty,” Roz said. “However, I agree with Sally. A battle will flatten the city.”
Ji shrugged. “If we stick around, the queen will flatten us.”
“We can’t do nothing!” Roz said. “We can’t simply watch people getting hurt.”
“Then close your eyes,” Ji snapped, suddenly angry. “They’re trying to kill us, Roz. The Queen, Proctor, the soldiers. You think they care if we get hurt?”
Roz hunched her shoulders and bowed her granite-flecked face, while Sally’s tufted ears drooped. For a long moment, nobody spoke. Ji heard his own breath, ragged and harsh in the narrow tunnel.
“Nobody cares about us,” Ji told them, “except us. “
“Protecting the city is the honorable thing,” Sally growled, more quietly than usual. “Even if they hate us.”
He scowled at her. “Have I ever cared about honor?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I have not.”
“Innocent people will die,” Roz told Ji.
No innocent people, Nin said. Just the evilqueen. Ogres will burst from tunnels and overthrow her in an eyeblink.
Ji flicked an ant lion from his shoulder. “You stupid ogres should’ve stayed in the stupid mountains.”
Not stupid, Nin said, almost sulkily.
“If the ogres attack the queen,” Roz told Nin’s urn, “the entire realm will fight back. It won’t be one raid, it will be a whole war.”
“Let the realm burn,” Ji said, his eyes stinging. “I don’t care.”
“We cannot simply—”
“I don’t care!” he lied.
“But if we stop the ogres—” Sally started.
“How?” Ji interrupted. “How can we stop the ogres?”
Roz quietly told him, “You’ll think of a way.”
“I don’t know a way,” Ji said. “Look at us, Roz. We’re monsters, we’re mistakes. And worse, we’re servants. We’re worthless, we’re nothing.”
“We’re better than they are,” Roz said.
“You are!” Ji said, almost accusingly. “You’re better than them! Not me. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not letting us risk our lives for this stupid realm.”
Sally’s tail pouffed. “Why are you in charge?”
“Because I don’t care about honor, Sal,” he told her. “I don’t care if I’m right or wrong, I don’t care if I’m good or bad. I don’t about anything except you.”
“Oh,” she said.
“All of you.” Ji picked up the ant lion he’d flicked. “Even Nin.”
Roz shifted her grip on the urn. “There’s truly no way to stop this?”
“Not that I can think of.” Ji dropped the ant lion onto his shoulder. “If we ever get out of this burrow, we’ll ask Ti-Lin-Su for advice. Okay?”
Sally tugged at her bracelet. “Okay.”
“Will she even talk to us?” Chibo asked. “Isn’t she a recluse?”
Ji almost laughed. “She studies weird creatures, Chibo. Believe me, she’ll talk to us.”
What did the wreck lose?
“‘Recluse,’ Nin,” Roz explained. “Like a hermit.”
Oh, we understand now! Nin said. What did the hermit lose?
While Roz rumbled softly into the urn, Sally led them along a passageway with lumpy walls. From there, she headed into a wide tunnel with swirly grooves in the walls.
She stopped in a chamber where three bamboo poles rose from dark pits. The sweet smell was almost overpowering—and delicious, like warm blackberry jam on honey bread.
Ji’s mouth watered, and Chibo said, “I’m starving. Flying takes a lot of energy.”
“You haven’t flown anywhere,” Ji told him.
Chibo flicked a wing at Ji. “Oh, now you’re an expert on sprites.”
“Let’s slide down the poles,” Sally said.
“Um.” Ji eyed the dark pits in the cave floor. “Or not.”
“I’m not certain they’ll hold me, in any case,” Roz said. “And I can’t carry the urn while—”
“Hai-ai!” Sally yipped, her ruff rising. “That one’s moving!”
One pole swayed gently, and a scratchy clicking sounded in the pit beneath it. Faint at first, then louder. Something was climbing toward them from the darkness.
“More light.” Ji hustled Chibo away from the poles. “Sally, get back!”
Sally smiled wolfishly—well, wolfpup-ishly—and prowled closer to the pits. She didn’t say anything about facing danger with honor, but Ji knew she was thinking it. He stepped in front of Chibo as the bamboo pole swayed faster.
The scratchy clicking went scratchclick scratchclickscratchclick.
Then a small pink hand appeared, followed by another hand—and a tiny goblin head rose into sight. Followed by the rest of the goblin, about half normal size, with bright-pink skin and no teeth. And not wearing a collar.
“A baby!” Chibo fluted. “A goblin baby! A gobbaby!”
The little goblin pointed at Sally. “Ka-ute!”
“Oh, great,” Sally muttered. “Even goblins think I’m cute.”
“She is highly capable, as well,” Roz told the goblin, then curtsied. “It is such a pleasure to meet a young Kultultul.”
“Very ka-ind.” The goblin hopped from the pole to the cavern floor. “I beg you will pardon me, but I thin-ka you should not be here.”
“Than-ka you for telling us,” Ji said, remembering to bow. “We’re sorry we’re in your burrow, but we’re lost. Um, where’s the nearest exit? “
“I don’t mean in our burrow!” The little goblin gestured with tiny belly-arms. “I mean here! In this ka-ave.”
“What is this cave, anyway?” Chibo asked, inhaling deeply. “It’s my favorite.”
“Yeah,” Ji said. “It smells delicious.”
“Delectable,” Roz rumbled.
The goblin cocked its pink head in confusion. “You tease? You tease me?”
“No, no,” Sally purred. “This cave smells gooooood.”
“Delicious?” The goblin’s belly-hands wiggled in glee. “Your favorite?”
“Yeah.” Sally peered into the dark pit. “What’s down there?”
“Poop! Our poop! That’s where we poop! You’re smelling our poop!”