Frustrated, Cyrus banged his head back against the chair. “Please! Just let us go.”
Sterling peered into the Quick Water. Sighing, he glanced back at Cyrus. His mouth twitched into a smile, but his eyes were heavy.
“You may look Cataan, lad, but you’re a Smith through and through.”
Footsteps drummed on the stairs.
Sterling hesitated, but then he nestled the liquid ball into a pile of onions on a crowded shelf and eased quickly away.
Four men tumbled into the pantry.
“Storm or no storm, Greeves or no Greeves, Phoenix is coming in,” one of them said. “Rhodes is ghost-white and pig-sweating. Rupe grilled him good, but he didn’t crack. Not yet, at least. Still no sign of Nolan.”
“Greeves is bayin’ for you, too, Ben,” said another. “And he made a scare speech to the whole dining hall. They’ve gone gun-ready, every last one of them, and they’re as edgy as wildcats. He’s been in and out of the kitchen.”
“Why do you think I’m not in the kitchen?” Sterling asked. “I’ll speak with him after his meal. He has been served, hasn’t he?”
The men grinned.
“He grabbed something,” said the first. “And special deliveries have been made to all the guards. We should have some fun with this pair before the action starts.”
Cyrus bit his lip and twisted in his chair to see Sterling.
The cook shook his head. “Leave them for Phoenix.”
“Why?” All four men were confused.
“Why don’t you go watch the show?” said the first man, grinning. “We’ll stay and cut off their toes. Shouldn’t take too long to learn what they know.”
“Get out,” Sterling said. “Out! I know orders, and I know what Phoenix wants, and it isn’t dead or toeless boys. What there is to get, he’ll get, and no one else. Out of my pantry until your heads hold something more than air!”
The four men squeezed quickly up the stairs and a door slammed behind them.
Sterling sniffed loudly and moved over to the shelf beneath the onions. From the shadows in the back, the cook pulled out an old mayonnaise jar. It was full of clear liquid.
“Strong stuff,” he said loudly. “Remarkable. If I should ever find myself needing to save a life”—he pulled an eyedropper out of his apron and set it on the jar—“I think I’d use two drops beneath the tongue.”
Looking at Cyrus, Sterling curled his own tongue and clicked it behind his teeth. “Farewell, lad. And to your sister, too.” He scratched his beard and smiled. His eyes were hollow. “You’re right,” he said. “I did have a fondness for your father and his bride. Old Billy Bones lived two years running on the road. Don’t know if I could do half that, but it might be time to try. It might.”
He climbed the stairs. His voice tumbled back down. “You were a good porter, Dennis Gilly! One of the best.”
A door opened and shut. Bolts slid.
Cyrus looked at Dennis, again trying to writhe his way to his feet. He looked at the Quick Water, nestled into the onions, and at the mayonnaise jar with the eyedropper. He still had little idea what was happening, but he’d picked up enough, and none of it was good.
“Come on, Tigs,” he said. “You can see us. Now find us.”
Antigone heard the clock strike eight — through the trees, through the wind and the rain and the early storm darkness. She looked down at the small, heavy box in her hand. The sides were wooden, but broken up with the mounding backs of smooth brass tubes. On top, black-and-white images shot past on a glass screen, bulging even more than an antique television — like a slice off a crystal ball. Staring into it gave her a headache.
Antigone blinked and shook her head. An hour ago, in the dining hall, she’d listened to Greeves address the Order. But she hadn’t stayed to watch the members react. Greeves had hurried her outside, given her the box, attached her to Diana Boone, and disappeared. Supposedly, the box showed her what one of Rupert’s flying “hunters” was seeing. But the images moved too fast. She’d barely been able to make out the lake.
When she’d tried her Quick Water, she had seen Cyrus’s fingers and thumbs but only briefly. After that glimpse, the Quick Water had only shown distortion, shadow, and dim greenness. Olive green. Pickle green. Forest green?
While the images had flitted through her hands — treetops, tree trunks, odd shapes, and glowing windows — she had searched every trail through the trees between the zoo and the main buildings. She had kicked every bush. Twice. Next, she was going to start looking under individual blades of grass. She didn’t care how hard it was raining. She didn’t care if her stupid flashlight had died. She didn’t care if the black clouds had swallowed the sun and killed the day’s last light. She was not going to stop until she had found her brother.
Diana Boone came striding down the path wearing a hooded raincoat. The wind whipped it around her. She carried her own box.
“Tigs!” she yelled, and Antigone flinched. She was soaking wet for the second time in one day, her feet were blistered, her legs were chafed, her soaked leather jacket was lead-heavy. Cyrus was missing, and a psycho had her mother and brother. She didn’t want anyone calling her by the name Cyrus had given her.
Diana slowed down and stopped beside her. The wind and the trees were fighting. Somewhere close, a big branch popped free and tumbled to the ground. Trunks groaned.
“I brought you a better coat.” Diana held out a large parka shell.
“Too late,” Antigone said. “I drowned an hour ago.”
“Put it on.”
Antigone did. It didn’t matter one way or another.
“Gunner’s got nothing. And he did a pretty full sweep. He just stopped into the kitchen to grab a bite. You should, too. It would help. As for me, I went to all the entrances and down to the harbor. The hunters haven’t turned up anything, no one’s seen anything, and believe me, they’re looking.”
Antigone looked down at her box. Trees warped and flashed. And then she saw two shapes — girls, standing in the rain. A flash was all she needed to recognize herself. She looked up. A shape sliced through the air and the rain above them. Slowing, an enormous dragonfly circled around and paused, staring at Antigone from two compound eyes the size of tennis balls. Two more shapes shot by above it, wings clattering like machine guns. Her dragonfly turned and shot away through the trees. It was the first time she’d managed to see it.
Antigone’s mouth was open, but she didn’t even taste the rain.
“Rupe raised them, and he has all of them out,” Diana said. “One patrolling for every guard, and a couple extra hunting for your brother. But they won’t be able to fly much longer in this storm.”
Antigone looked back down at her box. “And I see what they see.”
Diana leaned over Antigone’s shoulder. “It takes a lot of getting used to, especially when you’re trying to fly behind them. They have three-sixty vision and they’re crazy fast. The translator does what it can, but you’re still left guessing a lot.”
Diana grabbed Antigone’s arm and began pulling her up the path. “It’s time to find Rupe. He might have learned something.”
Stepping out of the trees, they met the full force of the wind. The main building of Ashtown loomed on top of the hill, guarded by an unshaken stone regiment of rooftop statues, lit windows eyeing the storm.
Antigone’s rain hood snapped up in the wind. It actually did help. She looked at the overly confident, overly nice, overly competent girl beside her.
“What am I going to do?” she asked. “My mom, my brothers …”
Diana threw her arm around Antigone’s shoulders as they marched up the hill. “You’re going to hang in there,” she said. “That’s what you’re going to do. You’re a Smith. I’m a Boone. We don’t roll over.”