“Can I help you?” Dr. Pym said.
For a moment, Kate could only stand and stare, trying and failing to grasp what had happened.
“Dr. Pym—” she began, then stopped, remembering her mistake in the dungeon the night before, when it turned out he hadn’t the foggiest notion who she was. “Do you—do you know who I am?”
“Of course,” he replied amiably. “You’re the young lady who just appeared in my study.”
Her heart sank. She had traveled even further into the past, back to a time before their meeting in the prison. And not just into the past—to another place. As she looked out the window, seeing the cars, a lamppost, everything that suggested a normal human city, it was obvious she was somewhere very far from Cambridge Falls. How was any of this possible? She hadn’t placed a photograph in the book. She hadn’t even opened it!
“My dear,” the old man said, interrupting her thoughts and pointing with the end of his pipe at the book, “is that what I think it is?”
“Yes—but why did it bring me here? All I did was touch it!”
“Did you now? Fascinating.”
“I picked it up before Hamish could! Just like you told me to!” She knew he wouldn’t understand what she was saying, but she couldn’t help herself. It was all pouring out.
“Hamish? Is that oaf involved in this?”
“Wait! You must’ve known what was going to happen! That’s why you told me to touch the book first!”
“I did? Can’t say as I remember—”
“No, not now! In the future! But how would you know the book would take me here? Unless …” Kate could feel the answer tugging at her, that she just had to keep talking. “You must’ve done something! Back in the dwarf throne room! When you told me to make sure I touched the book first! You put your hand on my head and I felt this tingling. You must’ve done some spell to make the book bring me here!”
Dr. Pym leaned back in his chair, placed his teacup on a messy stack of papers, stuck his pipe in his mouth, and proceeded to pat himself down for matches. “I think you had best tell me everything. But first”—his pipe lit, he shook out the match, then reached forward—“why don’t you give me that? I suspect the type of magic that brought you here is somewhat unstable, and I don’t want you popping off.”
“But what if the book disappears and I can’t get back? It must already exist, right? In this time?”
“Ah. I take it the book has disappeared once before?”
“Yes.”
“And this other instance, how much time passed before it vanished?”
Kate thought back. She and Emma had gone into the past, found Michael, been captured by the Secretary and dragged to that strange fantasy ball, then had been forced to sit on the patio talking to the Countess.…
“Half an hour. About.”
“So we have a bit of a window. Come, come.”
He held out his hands, and Kate relinquished the book. Dr. Pym placed it on the desk behind him.
“Now,” he said, “from the beginning.”
Kate stamped her foot in anger. “No! I’ve already told you twice; you just don’t remember because it hasn’t happened yet!”
“Well, that hardly seems my fault.”
“But there’s no time! Hamish is going to have his dwarves kill us if we—”
“My dear, why do you keep mentioning Hamish? That scoundrel would never have the authority to kill anyone.”
“But he’s king of the dwarves!”
Dr. Pym chuckled. “No, no. I’m afraid that simply couldn’t be. I am close friends with the present queen. Esmerelda, lovely woman. And she agrees with me that Hamish would make a disastrous king. Robbie is to assume the throne.”
“But she died without a will!” Kate could hear herself shouting. “And because Hamish was older, he got to be king! And he wants the book! He’s in the vault right now with Michael! Well, not now-now, future-now!” She knew she wasn’t making much sense. She wanted to pick up something and throw it at the wizard to make him understand. “And you can’t do anything because you’re still locked in the dungeon back in the dwarf city!”
“Oh, that is bad,” Dr. Pym said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Very bad indeed. But I’m afraid I still don’t understand. How could Hamish get into the vault? It’s quite impossible without …” He stopped and gazed at Kate. His voice became very soft. “You. You opened the vault.”
Kate nodded.
He leaned forward. “You say you have a brother?”
“And a sister! Michael and Emma! And they’re both in trouble! You have to do something.” Kate could feel her eyes welling with tears.
“Oh dear,” Dr. Pym said quietly. “I’m afraid now I must insist you do tell me everything. From the beginning.”
“Stanislaus?” It was a woman’s voice. Kate turned, listening to footsteps approaching down a hall, the voice getting closer. “Richard’s stuck at the college. I think we should just go ahead and have lunch, don’t you? And who are you talking to?”
The door opened and a young woman entered. She was wearing jeans and a gray sweater. She had dark blond hair, hazel eyes, and a kind face. She was casually beautiful. The moment Kate saw her, two things happened. First, she realized the woman she was looking at was her mother. Second, the floor disappeared beneath her feet.
“WHERE IS IT?!”
Kate stood at the pedestal, bathed in greenish light, gasping, her heart hammering in her chest. Before she could begin to process what had happened, she was seized by the arm and yanked around.
“Where is it?”
Her face was sprayed with spittle. She was dimly aware of being shaken violently. The book. That’s what he was yelling about. The book was gone. But so what? She had seen her mother.
“You tricked me! You and that wizard!”
… Her mother. She had seen her mother.
“I’ll kill you!”
Kate saw something flash in Hamish’s hand, then heard footsteps behind her, and she was wrenched out of his grip and thrown to the ground. She could hear Wallace arguing with the King that they might need Kate to get the book back; they had to bring her to the wizard. She knew he was saving her life.
“Are you okay?” Michael was kneeling beside her. “You disappeared, then you came back, but the book was gone. What happened?”
Kate gripped her brother’s hand. “I saw—”
There was the sound of a blow, and Wallace staggered back. Hamish was breathing loudly through his beard, one hand grasping his knife, the other curled into a meaty fist. For a moment, the dwarf king glared at Kate, then he sheathed his knife and barked, “Bring ’em! But if that wizard don’t get me book back, they all die! The old man and the brats!” And he turned and stalked out of the chamber.
A dwarf grabbed Michael by the collar and dragged him into the tunnel. She hadn’t been able to tell him. Another dwarf approached Kate, but Wallace waved him off. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided her toward the door.
“You all right, then?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Kate replied, her mouth dry. “Thank you.”
Walking down the dark tunnel, Kate replayed the memory of her mother entering the room. She wanted to lock in the details before they had a chance to fade. She saw her mother’s blond hair and hazel eyes, her face, intelligent, gentle, surprised at finding this girl standing before her. Richard! That was the name her mother had said. That had to be their father. Kate marveled at how seemingly so little—a voice in a hall, a name, a woman walking through a door—could mean so much.
But (and here Kate felt herself growing angry) why hadn’t Dr. Pym told them he knew their parents? Why would he keep that secret? Could he find them now? And how was it that simply touching the book had sent her into the past? For that matter, how had she come back with no book at all? Her head spun with questions. Kate forced herself to stay calm. She had seen her mother. For now, that was enough.
The party arrived in the golde
n cavern and clustered around the pool. The dwarves stared at the dark water nervously. Kate could tell Michael was burning to talk to her, but the guard held him back.
Hamish was ranting about the things he was going to do to Dr. Pym. “I’ll rip ’is bleeding spine out! I’ll make ’im eat his own foot!” And, still ranting, he pushed the first dwarf into the pool.
The monster did not reappear, and the journey back through the trench was uneventful. As she swam, Kate could see the twin lights of Michael and his guard ahead, and the few times she looked back, Wallace was there, knife gripped in his hand, staring into the darkness below, ready to protect her in case of attack. But nothing happened.
Then her head broke the surface of the pool, and she sucked in the stale cave air and heard a voice that froze her heart.
“Ah, there she is.”
Cold hands lifted her up. As the water cleared her eyes, she saw that all the dwarves, including old white-bearded Fergus, were on their knees, hands bound behind their backs. A dozen black-clad figures, brandishing swords and crossbows, stood guard over them. One of the Screechers held Michael by the shoulders. He looked frightened but unharmed.
Kate’s eyes went to the speaker, who was moving toward her, giggling and rubbing his hands.
“My dear, my dear,” cooed the Secretary, smiling his gray-toothed smile, “how very nice to see you again.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Raven
Emma and Gabriel, along with the girl Dena and the rest of the band, climbed the mountain along no trail that Emma could see, but that Gabriel and the others seemed to know by heart. Gabriel explained they would circle the peak to a secret tunnel that the village scouts used to spy on the Dead City. The way was steep and rocky, and they had been climbing for less than half an hour when Gabriel abruptly picked Emma up and swung her onto his back.
“We must move more quickly.”
Gabriel had not wanted to take Emma. But Granny Peet had insisted.
“She is tied to the Atlas. If you find it, you will need her.”
“That’s right,” Emma had said. “And you gotta take Dena too. Or I’m not coming.”
And so Emma had been outfitted with new clothes and boots and a knife and, an hour after the meeting, she and Dena and the small band of men had been given a blessing from Granny Peet and had set off up the mountain.
Gabriel called for them to stop in a stand of pines just below the summit while he sent a scout to the tunnel entrance. The men squatted and checked their weapons in silence. Gabriel was conferring quietly with two of his men, so Emma wandered off through the trees. Ten yards in, the mountain gave way to a sharp cliff. Emma found a boulder jutting out past the trees and scrambled up the side.
Lying on her stomach, she had a view out across the valley, and for the first time in two days, she saw Cambridge Falls. The blue expanse of lake shone jewel-like in the midday sun, and on its far side, Emma could make out a dark clustering she guessed was the houses of the town.
Seeing Cambridge Falls again, the place where everything had begun, made her think of her brother and sister. Granny Peet had said Dr. Pym was with them. That gave her hope. Perhaps Kate and Michael would even be waiting in the village when she and Gabriel returned. Wouldn’t that be something? Arriving in the village having defeated the Countess’s Screechers, leading all those poor, grateful men. Michael would no doubt want to hear the details of the battle, but she’d just wave her hand and say, “Oh, you know how battles are. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” And if Kate scolded her for abandoning them back in the tunnels, Emma would apologize and tell Kate she was absolutely right. “Though,” she would add after a moment’s pause, “if I hadn’t gone back, I couldn’t have saved Gabriel’s life, but you know best, Kate dear.” Emma smiled, and for a moment she actually relaxed, allowing herself to savor the warmth of the rock beneath her, the cool of the wind against her face, and what was, in many respects, a beautiful summer’s day.
“You oughta get down from there.”
Emma lifted herself up and looked back over her shoulder. Dena stood just inside the trees.
“Someone could see you.”
Emma laughed. “Who’s gonna see me up here?”
“You don’t know. The witch, she’s got ways. You shouldn’t take the chance.”
Emma sensed the girl was right; unfortunately, whenever someone told Emma she “should” do this or “shouldn’t” do that, her lifelong habit had been immediately to do the exact opposite.
“Let her see me. I’m not afraid of her.”
Just then a caaawww echoed across the valley. Emma looked up to see a large black raven soaring high above their heads. She felt a sudden queasiness in the pit of her stomach as she remembered what Abraham had said the night they escaped from the mansion, that the Countess used birds as spies. Emma was trying to make up her mind what to do when she heard feet pounding down through the trees, and Gabriel was there, calling to her in a fast, angry hiss:
“Get down! Now!”
She scrambled off the rock, skinning the heels of her hands.
Gabriel unslung his long rifle and put it to his shoulder. The bird was flying away from them, and though it grew smaller and smaller with each wingbeat, Gabriel didn’t fire. He merely followed it, as if there were an invisible string stretching from the bird to the tip of his rifle. With each passing second Emma’s panic rose, and she prayed for him to shoot, as if by killing the bird he could erase her fault. Finally, he did, when the bird was no more than a black speck against the blue. For a moment, nothing happened, and Emma was sure he’d missed. Then the bird torqued sideways and fell in a twisting spiral into the trees.
The other men were beside him now, gathered at the edge of the cliff.
“One of her messengers. She knows.”
“Perhaps.” Gabriel slung the rifle back across his shoulder. “Our only hope is speed. We leave immediately.”
As one, the men disappeared into the trees up the hill.
Emma seized Gabriel’s hand. She was on the verge of tears. “Gabriel, I’m … It’s my fault. Dena told me to get down, but I was stupid.… I …”
Gabriel knelt beside her. She expected him to be angry. The mission was already dangerous; now it was only more so. But when he looked at her, he seemed simply disappointed. Somehow, it made her feel even worse.
“If the raven was tracking us, it has been tracking us since the village. Seeing you made no difference. Come.”
He turned and allowed her to clamber onto his back. She locked her arms around his neck, burying her head against his shoulder as he rose and started up the mountain. Hot, silent tears streamed down her face, her fantasies of a minute before, of acting haughty when she saw Kate and Michael, returning to haunt her. She promised herself she would be smarter. She would do whatever Gabriel said, sacrifice whatever was asked, if only it meant seeing her brother and sister again. She would be better.
Emma closed her eyes and let herself be borne, effortlessly, up the mountain.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Battle of the Dead City
Hamish had refused to get out of the pool. He stood there, waist-deep in the black water, knife in one hand, roaring at the Secretary and his Screechers to come get him. But something must’ve brushed his leg, for he gave a yelp and, with one remarkably nimble leap, flew out of the pool. He was fallen upon and bound immediately. Even then, with a Screecher’s boot on his neck, he kept up a string of curses.
The Secretary ignored him. Grinning victoriously at Kate, he jerked his football-shaped head toward the stairs, and the morum cadi yanked the dwarves to their feet and began marching them up toward the Dead City.
Kate and Michael, the only two whose hands weren’t tied, were allowed to walk together, in the middle of the group. Wallace and the white-bearded Fergus were at the head, while Hamish, who sounded like he was being dragged protesting up each step, brought up the rear.
“Kate …”
&nbs
p; “I know. It’ll be okay.”
“You always say that. How is it going to be okay?”
Kate had to admit Michael had a point. “I don’t know. But it will be. I’ll think of something.”
She took his hand and for a moment they walked in silence, listening to Hamish cursing the Screechers behind them.
“So what did you see?” Michael asked, even more quietly than before. “What were you going to tell me?”
Kate opened her mouth to tell him about their mother, but the words that came out were, “I saw … Dr. Pym.”
“You saw Dr. Pym? In the past?”
Kate had to shush him, and he continued in an excited hiss:
“Oh, Kate, that’s not a coincidence. Absolutely not! The odds would be … Well, I’d need a calculator, but it would be highly, highly unlikely that the book would happen to take you to Dr. Pym. You’d better tell me everything.”
So as they climbed the steep corkscrew of stairs, she told Michael about Dr. Pym, the study, the snowy city outside the window. But though she commanded herself—Tell him who you saw, he deserves to know—each time she started to, she was seized by an inexplicable fear. In the end, she said nothing, and the memory of seeing their mother stayed locked inside her.
“Amazing,” Michael said. “He’s up to something. Some wizardy plot; I can feel it. But how were you able to come back without the book? You need it to move through time. Then again, the book took you to Dr. Pym and you didn’t need a photo. It’s all very curious.”
“I kno—”
Suddenly, Kate heard something and looked over her shoulder. The Secretary, wheezing from the climb, had come up behind them. “What are you two birdies talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure. Just so happy to see you again. Very bad losing you in the tunnels. Couldn’t tell the Countess that. Thought to myself, Where will they go? Clever little birdies like them. To the book, of course. So off I hurried to the Dead City. And came you did. Saw you and the little dwarvsies, sneak-sneak-sneaking around.” He coughed violently and hacked something gray against the wall. “But where is little sister? Separated? Lost? Dead, perhaps? Such a shame.” He clucked his tongue in exaggerated sympathy, and Kate had to fight the urge to knock him backward down the stairs.