“I CAN’T!” BRACE flopped onto his bed, sending toy soldiers tumbling to the floor. “The bone crypt is crawling with goblins.”
For hundreds of years, every member of the Primstone family had been buried beneath a mausoleum with three marble walls. The fourth wall—a jade wall facing a serene courtyard—was carved into curlicues, with gaps the size of a man’s fist. You could see through the latticework into the mausoleum, where desert lotus vines twined around hundreds of decorative burial urns . . . but you couldn’t enter. There was no doorway in the jade wall, because it symbolized the separation of the living and the dead.
The only way into the mausoleum was through a jade-studded door in the rear wall, which opened into an enclosed stone chamber. A flight of stairs in the chamber led downward into the bone crypt, a maze of tunnels where goblins lurked. Ji shuddered at the thought. Goblins had pale, wrinkly skin and teeth like beavers, strong enough to crack rock. They walked upright like humans, on two legs. But they had two pairs of arms: one short, muscular pair with bony shovel-claws and one spindly pair that sprouted from their bellies.
Noble families kept goblin slaves for digging cellars and ditches and burial chambers. A crypt in an old hacienda like Primstone branched into hundreds of tunnels, all tended by the goblins who lived in a pen on the grounds. Nobody human entered the crypt, except for priests during funerals.
If commoners set foot in the mausoleum—much less messed with the lotus vines—they’d be hanged for desecration. Things were different for nobles, though. They’d get punished, but not too badly. That was why Brace needed Nosey and Pickle to help him: the three of them together could brave the crypts.
“Yeah, but the twins want to explore the tunnels,” Ji told Brace, crouching for the fallen toys. “Maybe they’ll help for once.”
“They pretend they want to explore, but even they’re scared,” Brace said, his voice trembling. “And we’re not allowed. I—I wouldn’t want to upset the baroness.”
“Not even if it means getting trained in the city?”
Brace bit his lower lip. “I can’t. I can’t.”
Ji grabbed the last toy soldier from the floor. He knew what he had to do, but he kept thinking about lightless tunnels and goblin eyes. About rotting corpses and bottomless pits. He set the toy on the bureau, then rubbed his neck, mostly to keep his hands from shaking.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“You will?”
Ji nodded, unable to speak.
“You mean . . .” Brace looked scared and hopeful at the same time. “You’ll sneak through the crypts and kill the flower?”
Ji took a steadying breath. “Yeah.”
“I—I can’t go with you!” Brace blurted, then looked down for a second. “I mean, not because I’m afraid. Only I promised the baroness that I wouldn’t misbehave, and I can’t break my word. It’s different for you. You’re a commoner.”
“That’s okay.” Ji didn’t actually want Brace to come along, panicking at every shadow. He could do that all by himself. “I’ll bring Sally.”
“That frizzy-headed stable girl?”
“Yeah.”
Brace fiddled with a toy soldier. “But why? Why risk it?”
“Because you and I are . . .” Ji shrugged. “We’re sort of friends, aren’t we?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“And because then Proctor will take you to the city. And when he does, I want you to bring me and Sally along.”
Brace chewed his lower lip. “But there are goblins in the crypts.”
“They’re tame.” At least, Ji hoped they were. “Probably.”
“No. No, this is nuts. They’ll hang you!”
“Only if they catch me.”
“You’re totally forbidden to go in there.”
“Are you going to tell on me?”
“And miss my only chance to get trained? To leave Primstone Manor? No way.” Brace chewed his lower lip. “You really think you’re brave enough?”
“No,” Ji admitted. “But Sally’s brave enough for both of us.”
“And in return,” Brace said, “I’ll bring you to the city?”
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t get eaten by goblins first,” Brace said. “Or hanged.”
Ji gulped. “So do we have a deal?”
“We do,” Brace said, and stuck his hand out.
After his chores the next evening, Ji headed for the library, a horseshoe-shaped room packed with bookcases. Leather couches scattered the floor, flanked by low tables with ornate glass lanterns. Servants weren’t allowed to enter, unless they were, well, serving: bringing drinks, dusting books, polishing shelves. Which was why Ji’s heart hammered in fear every time he snuck in.
Still, he needed to snag a book for Roz. She loved books, for some reason. Maybe they were more fun if you knew how to read.
Ji slunk inside and eyed the shelves. He couldn’t read the titles, so he ran his fingers across the spines. When he saw a book that looked good, he pulled it from the stacks. Roz had once told him, You can’t judge a book by its cover, which just proved that even smart people said stupid things. Judging a book was what covers were for.
The first book smelled like pickled goat, so he shoved it back onto the shelf. The second was full of sketches of noses. Big noses, small noses, hairy noses, warty noses. Ji flipped through, looking for his own nose. He found Butler’s instead, a bony spigot with thin nostrils.
Ji started tucking the book into his bag, but stopped when he noticed that a few pages were torn. Forget that; Roz went berserk when people abused books.
He replaced the nose book, grabbed one with a leopard on the cover . . . and spotted a thick tome splayed open on an end table. Drawings covered the open pages—in color, which was amazing. Though the pictures themselves were horrible.
At the top of the page, a woman and a man stood beneath a leafless tree. A little lower, the woman hunched painfully and the man’s face turned bright red. In the next picture, skinny arms burst from the woman’s stomach, and fangs sprouted from the man’s mouth. Below that, the drawings showed the couple turning into monsters: she looked like a half goblin and he looked like a half ogre. And at the bottom of the page, they slumped across the tree’s roots, malformed and dead.
“Gross,” Ji muttered.
What kind of freaky guest was reading this stuff? He turned away—and heard murmuring from the hallway.
His stomach twisted. Someone was coming!
He jammed the leopard book into his bag and ran to the library door. He didn’t see anyone, but the chattering sounded louder. He trotted into the hallway—and a bunch of noble kids stampeded down the grand stairway.
Ji scuttled against the wall and bowed his head. The noise tumbled closer and Ji peeked toward the stairs and saw a gangly noble boy tossing a fluffy white doll over the head of a little girl.
“Give her back!” the girl sobbed.
An older girl caught the doll. “If you want her, come get her,” she said, tossing the doll back to the boy.
The doll peeped, Pwoh!
It wasn’t a doll. It was a fuzzy white kitten. They were throwing a kitten around. Anger pounded in Ji’s temples. The ache in his shoulders faded, and he lifted his head. He shouldn’t get involved—he couldn’t get involved—but he also couldn’t let them hurt a kitten.
He wanted to say something. He wanted to punch the stupid gangly boy in his stupid gangly face. Instead, he unsnapped his bag. Once he dumped dirty boots on the floor, the noble boneheads would focus on beating him and leave the kitten alone.
But before he opened the flap, a new girl’s voice said, “Stop teasing her.”
The noble kids looked higher on the stairs, watching Nosey and Pickle descend from the landing, as petite and graceful as their mother. Three tendrils of gold-painted hair glinted among Nosey’s ebony waves, and the dragon embroidered on her silken pants matched the one on Pickle’s shirt.
Pickle extended his hand to the gangly boy. The boy gulped and handed the white fuzzball over.
“Shall we get her a saucer of cream?” Nosey asked, taking the crying girl’s hand.
The girl whispered, “Yes, please, Lady Posey.”
Nosey and Pickle led the girl away . . . and Ji got even angrier. Nosey and Pickle were horrible. They were always horrible. Cruel, selfish, and proud. They had no right to suddenly start acting kind, saving a kitten and helping a little girl. They should be horrible all the way through, so Ji could enjoy hating them.
He glowered at the floor. For once he didn’t feel sore and tired. All he felt was bitter.
After the noble kids wandered away, Ji exhaled. Forget Nosey and Pickle. He still needed to learn about this Deedledum Rite, just in case it mattered. He still needed to talk to Roz about the goblin pen, and learn how to sneak into the mausoleum. And he still needed to survive the bone crypts without getting eaten or hanged.
He crept toward the servants’ door, rubbing his neck. Some days he felt like a tiny kitten in the hands of deranged giants. You never knew if they’d toss you downstairs or bring you a saucer of cream.