"Who told you this? That you were only expected for the meeting?" asked Vikus with concern.
"Ripred," said Gregor. "He said we just had to come for a couple of hours. That you didn't need us to find the cure. Then he sent a swarm of rats to scare us out of the apartment."
Gregor could tell by the look Vikus exchanged with Solovet that this was the first they had heard of any of this.
"I am afraid he was not forthcoming," said Vikus.
"What do you mean?" asked Gregor's mom.
"He means Ripred lied," said Solovet.
"He may in fact have thought their presence was unnecessary for the —" said Vikus weakly.
"He lied!" repeated Solovet. "Do not defend him. He knows perfectly well there will be no quest for the cure without the Overlanders! He obviously thought there was no other means of bringing them below. I would have done the same, Vikus, if you would not have."
Gregor bet she would have, too. Solovet would not have cared what Gregor or his family wanted. Not at Regalia's expense.
"We will not force them to stay, Solovet!" said Vikus. Gregor had never seen him so angry. "They have been brought here under false pretenses. We will not force them to stay!"
Gregor's mother clutched Vikus's arm as if it were a lifeline. "You'll send us home now, then? We can leave?"
"No!" said Solovet.
"Yes!" said Vikus. "Nike! Prepare to take the Overlanders home!"
"Guards!" barked Solovet.
Gregor was bewildered at the power struggle playing out before them. He had never seen Vikus and Solovet fight like this, and it rattled him. Who could actually make this decision? What would happen if his family tried to leave? What was he supposed to do?
"Wait!" Gregor took his mom's hand. "Look, Mom, I've been to see Ares. He's really bad. He's dying, Mom. I can't leave him like this. So, how about you take Boots back and I stay and try to help? Okay? You take Boots and Lizzie and Grandma to Virginia. Dad will wait for me to come back up. Then we'll come to Virginia, too."
"That might be an acceptable compromise," said Vikus, eyeing his wife.
"We could put it to the council," said Solovet, although she did not sound convinced.
"I can't leave you down here, Gregor," said his mom. "I'm sorry about your friend. I really am. But I can't leave you here."
"Look, Mom, I don't think all three of us are going to be allowed out of here," said Gregor. "Please, take Boots and go home." He squeezed her hand tightly. It took him only a few seconds to register that something was wrong.
His mom was talking back to him now, but the words weren't reaching his brain. He moved his fingers over the skin on the back of her hand. No, he hadn't imagined it. It was there.
"Gregor, are you listening to me?" pleaded his mom.
He wasn't. He was trying to make sense of what his fingers were telling him. And trying to wish it away. But he couldn't.
Gregor slowly lifted his mom's hand into the light of a nearby torch and wiped off the yellow powder. A small red bite was swelling up on her skin.
PART 2
The Jungle
CHAPTER 10
His mom stared at her hand and became very still. As the rest of the group saw the bite, all movement and sound stopped. There was not a whisper, not a rustling of a wing or robe.
Curious, Boots climbed up on a seat to see what everyone was looking at. "You need pink," she said when she saw the bite.
Gregor knew she meant the pink calamine lotion they put on bug bites in the summer.
"I need to go home," his mother whispered.
"We cannot let you," said Vikus with a sad shake of his head. "Not now."
"If the plague were unleashed in the Overland, it could mean the annihilation of the warmbloods there as well," said Solovet.
"We must place you in quarantine at once," said Neveeve.
Solovet touched his mother's shoulder. "We are so deeply sorry this happened." She sighed. "Nike, take her in and report to be inspected for bites."
Gregor was still holding his mom's hand. He couldn't let go. "Mom..."
She gently pried his fingers loose and stepped back from him. "You take your sister home."
Did he nod? Gregor wasn't sure. But his mom got on Nike's back and disappeared.
"We must all be checked for bites immediately," said Neveeve.
Somehow they were all on bats. They did not go through the city, but took some tunnels that opened out over the white seething river that ran by Regalia. At the dock, no one assisted them. The yellow powder was enough to keep people at bay.
They were sent to bathe and then had to stand naked while no less than seven teams of doctors inspected their skin for flea bites in bright light. Boots, who was exceptionally ticklish, giggled through the whole thing. Gregor submitted to the inspection without objecting, but he was almost certain he and Boots had not been bitten.
"You can run away, but the prophecy will find you somehow," he heard his grandma saying.
Oh, it had found him, all right. And dug its teeth into him. Into Boots, too. And it would not let them go until the whole terrifying episode had been played out. Their mom was infected with the plague. Now the warrior...the princess...they had to go try and find the cure.
Gregor wanted to scream out to no one in particular that it had been enough for Ares and Howard and Andromeda to be sick. He would have found a way to go on the quest. But his mother would never have let Boots go to the...what was it? The Vineyard of Eyes? For the prophecy to be fulfilled, his mother had to be taken out of commission. Quarantined. Made a victim. Yes, prophetically speaking, everything was right on schedule.
He felt exhausted by the responsibility that lay ahead. He was so sick of being dragged into the Underland. Of being expected to solve its problems. Of having the rest of his family suffer for causes that did not even really involve them. After he and Boots had been pronounced free of flea bites, they were given new silky Underlander clothes. Gregor managed to talk them into letting him have his boots back, but they had to be inspected for fleas and disinfected first. While they sat on a bench in the hospital waiting to hear about the others, Boots nodded off on his shoulder. No wonder, she'd only had a couple of hours of sleep. Vikus sent for Dulcet, the nanny who had looked after Boots on earlier visits.
Dulcet took the sleeping little girl from Gregor's arms and then touched his shoulder. "I am very sorry to hear about your mother. But do not lose heart. You will find the cure. Of this, I am certain."
Her tone was so kind that Gregor almost broke down and told her about how he had to find the cure. How his mom just had to live. How his whole family would break apart into splinters if she wasn't there to hold it together. How she could not die because he could not imagine the world without her. And how it would be Gregor's fault...her horrible death...the purple bumps...the struggle for air...because he had wanted to make this trip to the Underland...and she had not.
But all he said was, "Thanks, Dulcet." When everyone who had been at the meeting had been scrupulously checked, a total of three were sent into quarantine: Gregor's mom and two bats named Cassiopeia and Pollux.
Gregor saw Neveeve at the end of the hallway, writing something on a clipboard. He walked over and touched her arm.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. Her arm jerked to the side and the quill pen she'd been writing with left a large blot on her parchment.
"Sorry," said Gregor. Boy, she sure was jumpy. Of course, spending your days treating plague patients was not exactly a vacation.
"Can you tell me where my mom is?" asked Gregor.