Her brow furrowed, but she did not argue any more.
I crossed to her table, gathered all her Trumps into a single stack, and put them back in their little wooden box. Had a fire burned in the fireplace, I would have cast them into it.
“Don’t look at your Trumps again,” I said in a firm voice. “Promise me?”
“I promise,” she said slowly.
“Keep your word,” I told her. Then I kissed her on the forehead. “I will send someone with food. Eat, then go to sleep. Something will occur to us sooner or later. Some way to win the fight… the war.”
“Yes, Oberon,” she said softly. “And… thank you.”
I forced a smile I didn’t feel. “Don’t mention it.”
As I left her room, I found my mind suddenly racing. She had given me an idea, with her stubborn clinging to the power of the Logrus. I knew the Logrus had become useless. Something had cut off Juniper from its power, isolated us, left Dworkin and all the rest of my family powerless. Without the Logrus, they felt like cripples.
Our enemies depended on that.
Talking to her had given me an idea… an idea so crazy, I just thought it just might work.
I sent servants running to the kitchens to prepare a hot meal for Freda, then went back toward Dworkin’s workshop. Again the guards let me pass without question.
I strode straight to the door, found it standing open, and an impromptu war conference going on inside. Conner, his head and shoulder wrapped in blood-stained bandages, stood inside with Titus and our father. The jumble of experiments had all been dumped onto the floor or shoved into the corners, and maps now covered every single table.
“—not going to work,” Conner was saying heatedly.
They all grew silent as I entered.
“I know I’m interrupting,” I said, “but get out, both of you. Now. I have to speak to our father alone. It’s important.”
“You get out,” Conner said, bristling. “We’re working.”
“Go,” Dworkin said to them both. “We are not accomplishing anything. Get some sleep; we will talk again later.”
Conner looked like he wanted to argue, but finally gave a nod. Titus helped him stand, and together they limped out.
I shut the door after them, then barred it. I didn’t want to be disturbed again.
“They are trying to help,” Dworkin said. “You cannot lead the whole army yourself. You are going to need them.”
“Forget the army,” I told him. “Aber showed me something of what goes into making a Trump. You incorporate the Logrus into it, making it part of the image. Right?”
“In a way. Yes.”
“You’re supposed to be good at it. He said so.”
“Yes. I made thousands of them in my youth.”
“I want you to make me a Trump, right now. But instead of the Logrus, I want you to use the pattern within me.”
He raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “What?”
“You’ve seen it,” I said. “You said it’s in that ruby. You know what it looks like. If it’s so different from the Logrus, perhaps we can use it to get away from Juniper. It took me to Ilerium, remember.”
“Yes.” He stared, eyes distant, envisioning something… perhaps the pattern within me, the pattern he had seen deep within that jewel. “What an interesting thought.”
“Will it work?” I demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to try.”
“It may be possible,” Dworkin mused aloud. “If…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, but rose and fetched paper, ink, and a cup full of brushes. After clearing a space on one of the tables, he sat and began to sketch with a quick, sure hand.
I recognized the picture immediately: the street outside Helda’s house. He drew burnt-out ruins where her home had been, with only the stone chimney still standing.
“No…” I said. “I don’t want to go there. Anywhere else, please!”
“You know this street well,” he said, “and that will help you concentrate. It is the only place we have both been recently.”
“Ilerium isn’t safe!”
“It should be by now. Time moves a lot differently between these two Shadows… a single day here is almost two weeks there.”
“What about my pattern?” I asked. He hadn’t drawn the image the way Aber had, starting with the Logrus in the background, but went straight to drawing the street. “Don’t you need to work it into the picture?”
He gave a low chuckle. “You begin to see the difference between Aber and me,” he said. “Aber does not understand why the Trumps work. He doesn’t want to understand. Instead, he slavishly copies my own early efforts, when I painted a flat representation of the Logrus as part of each card, behind the image. It helped me concentrate. The Logrus does not actually need to be part of the card… but it does need to be foremost in the artist’s mind as he creates. It shapes the picture as much as the human hand. They are, after all, one and the same.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You do not need to. That is my point!”
He dipped his pen in the inkwell and finished quickly. The image was sketchy, little better than a simple line drawing, with the faintest hints of shape to the background. But despite the lack of detail, it had an unmistakable power that I could feel as I gazed upon it. A power which the Logrus Trumps no longer held.
I concentrated on the scene, and it swiftly grew more real… colors entered… a deep blue sky… black for the burnt-out foundations to either side… blue-gray cobblestones littered with broken red roof tiles… and suddenly I looked out onto the street in late afternoon. Not a single building still stood, just fire-blackened chimneys by the dozens. Neither man nor beast stirred anywhere that I could see.
Had I stepped forward, I would have passed through to safety. Kingstown and Ilerium lay within my reach.
Dworkin’s hand abruptly covered the picture. Blinking, I stood before him again.
“It worked!” he said, and I heard the awe in his voice. “We can leave!”
“Make more Trumps,” I told him, “for five distant Shadows, places where everyone will be safe. We’ll send everyone through, scatter the family to places our enemies will never find them.”
“Why separate?” he asked. “Surely together…”
“We still have a traitor among us,” I reminded him. “I don’t know who it is. But if only you and I know where everyone has gone, they will be safe. I think that’s how they found us here.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling now, his confidence returning. “A good plan. Freda and Pella can go together. Conner and Titus. Blaise and Isadora. Syara and Leona. Fenn and Aber. No one will be able to track them if they stay away from the Logrus…”
“Exactly.”
“You and I will go last,” he went on, eyes distant, envisioning some special Shadow. “We must work on mastering the pattern within you… for that is where our future hopes must rest.”
“Whatever you say, Dad.” I rose and clasped his shoulder. “Be strong for now. We’ll win. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I never had any doubts.” He smiled up at me.
Then I went to find the rest of our family. We had a castle to abandon.
Chapter 21
With everyone living on the ground floor, I didn’t think it would take long to find all my brothers and sisters. I found Aber waiting impatiently outside Dworkin’s rooms.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Well what?”
“From the way you went racing in there, I thought something had happened. Did it?”
I shook my head. “Actually, we have come up with a plan. I think it’s going to work, too.”