“What point was there in telling you until now?” Damara brushed the damp hair off Neel’s face. “You would have grown up feeling cheated of a destiny that could have been yours. But now it will be. You’ll become king of the Roma.”

“Well, I don’t want to! Who’d want to be that bony hag’s son? Not me. And I guess I’m not your son, either. Never was.” Neel turned away from her and fled down the narrow tunnel.

Petra and Tomik ran after him, with Astrophil helping track Neel as he burst from the tunnel and zipped down palace passageways.

He wasn’t easy to follow, and soon Tomik said, “We should let him go. He’s hunting for a place to be alone.”

They stopped, hearts beating, breath quick, then slower, then calm.

They stood on a balcony that stretched into the night air, the stars above shining sharp and brilliant. There was no moon, so they couldn’t see the waves below, but they could hear them rushing against the rocks. Petra stepped to the balcony’s edge and felt like she was floating in darkness.

Tomik joined her at the railing, leaning his back against it. Settling onto his propped elbows, he said, “A king. Neel’s going to be a king. Where does that leave us?”

“I believe that leaves us approximately three thousand, four hundred miles from Prague, Bohemia,” replied Astrophil. “It leaves us, as Neel would say, in something of a fix.”

They smelled Treb’s burning tobacco before they heard him speak. “Yes, you’re in a fix, but I haven’t forgotten about you.”

They whirled to face him.

“Your honorable pal Captain Treb has arranged for you to meet the Metis tomorrow,” he said.

“The Metis?” said Petra.

“They’re the Vatra’s experts on magic, and if anyone can help you find a cure for your father, it’s them. They’re a bit dangerous, though. Snappy. Quick to take offense. Powerful, too. So don’t get them angry, or they’ll turn you into worms for baiting hooks.”

6

The Metis

“PETRA, WAKE UP!” Astrophil cried.

She bolted upright in bed. “What’s wrong?” She ripped away a frothy mosquito net. “Where are you?”

“Here!” he called from a corner of the white stone room. “Help me!”

Petra swung her bare feet to the floor and was about to race to save Astrophil. Then she saw the cause of his distress and laughed.

A furry brown spider had cornered Astrophil and was trying to touch him with one curious, hairy leg.

“Who’s that?” asked Petra. “Your sweetheart?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Astrophil folded his front four legs. “Very amusing. Now get rid of it.”

Petra reached for one of her sandals.

“Don’t kill it!” he cried. “Just … make it go away.”

Petra crossed the room, nudged the brown spider aside, and scooped up Astrophil. “It’ll go away on its own.”

As Astrophil crept up her arm to her shoulder, Petra looked around the sun-bright, simple room. It contained one luxury: a sunken bath filled by a mountain spring. Petra dipped in a dirty foot. The water was a chilly but refreshing contrast to the tropical heat of the morning. She pulled off her shift and slipped into the small pool, leaving Astrophil on its edge. He kept a wary eye on the brown spider.

Aside from standing fully clothed on the deck of the Pacolet during the occasional rain shower, Petra hadn’t been clean in ages. She discovered a bar of coconut-scented soap in a nook carved into the stone wall, and as she scrubbed away, her body seemed like it belonged to someone else. It had been so long since she had seen her skin uncovered by salt-encrusted clothes, and her dark brown hair felt like knotted yarn. Once, she would have hacked it off with her dagger, but now she discovered that there was something calming in trying to untangle it. Doing this helped her think, as if working out the knots in her hair somehow made it easier to untangle her emotions.

Petra was anxious to meet the Metis, but what kind of help could they offer her father? She doubted his cure would be simple, and even if it was, returning to Bohemia and finding him wouldn’t be. Would her friends go with her? Astrophil would, of course, but what about Tomik? Petra admired him—and envied him. He seemed to succeed at everything he tried, like becoming so skilled at sailing that Treb had once called him Tom of the Maraki. Tomik fit so easily into Roma life. Maybe he would want to stay in the Vatra and study magic.

As for Neel … Neel had his own problems.

She ducked her head under the water and rinsed the soap from her hair. When she surfaced, she turned to Astrophil. “Why do you think Neel was so nervous last night, even before he entered the palace and the queen spilled her secret? I know he thought he was in trouble, but he’s been in trouble lots of times. Usually, he pretends like nothing’s wrong.”

Astrophil considered this. “Some people in this world have unusual origins. Like somebody abandoned at birth and raised with no knowledge of his true parents. Or a creature with sparkling legs and an equally sparkling wit who was built out of tin to look like a spider. Now, in these cases, one might imagine many things about one’s own existence. A boy, tired of being mocked, might pretend that he is in fact a lost prince. I used to wish sometimes that I was a real spider, but”—he glanced at the brown spider in its corner and shuddered—“I have changed my mind. It is easy to dream dreams—even if, in our secret hearts, we do not really want them to come true, and we might be in danger if they did.”

Danger. The word echoed in Petra’s mind when she stepped outside the palace entrance to meet Tomik and Treb, as they had agreed last night. Like her, they were so clean they looked like strangers, and wore cotton clothes as bright as the orange dress someone had left folded at the foot of Petra’s bed. The skirts swished against her ankles, thin and airy. Astrophil perched on her shoulder.

“Where’s Neel?” she asked. “Is he coming with us to see the Metis?”

“He’s missing,” Treb said.

“Missing?” Petra turned to the captain. “‘Missing’ as in your older brother tossed him off a cliff because he’s competition for the Roma crown?”

Tomik rolled his eyes. “‘Missing’ as in he’s sulking somewhere.” He caught Petra’s reproachful glance. “What? Do you expect me to feel bad for him because he’s going to become king?”

“I expect you to try to understand what it’s like to have your life change so suddenly you can’t recognize it anymore!”

“Quit your yammering,” Treb told them, “or I’m not taking you anywhere. If Neel doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”

Petra fell silent, and the friends remained quiet as they followed Treb down through the city.

Every house and shop in the Vatra seemed as if it had sprouted from the mountain. As they walked past a cliff, shuttered windows in the rock wall sprang open like clam shells, the people inside cranking out long, wooden rods clipped with laundry. Petra had become familiar with the way the Roma here liked to mix nature with the man-made, but she was still surprised when Treb led them to the mouth of a cave. She had been expecting … well, she wasn’t sure what she had expected. Something like a schoolhouse, perhaps, or a temple.

“Go on in,” he said. “The Metis are expecting you.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Petra asked.

“I’ve got a political crisis to attend to,” said the captain. “Plus a grouchy brother and a missing cousin. My poor aunt Damara constantly looks like she might burst into tears. So I’ve got enough on my hands and, anyway, the Metis make my skin creep and crawl. See you back at the palace.” With a flip of his hand, Treb turned around and walked back up the steep street.

Tomik looked at the cave. “Treb did say that the Metis are human, right? Not bears or mountain lions or dragons?”

“Hmm,” said Astrophil, “I think he neglected to say exactly what they were. He only warned us not to anger them.”

The three of them looked at each other. “Well, let’s not waste any more time,” said Petra. “We’ll find out soon enough what they are.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a small oval crystal. Tomik did the same, and they stepped into the cave.

They squeezed their Glowstones, which flared with pale blue light. For a moment, all Petra heard was the sound of her heartbeat and their footsteps on the rocky floor. Then she seemed to hear a soft whispering, and saw a tricky sort of light, white and flickering.

They stood at the mouth of a tunnel. As they ventured down it, the light became clearer, and they soon saw four sunken pools. Floating in each one was a body.

“Are they dead?” Petra asked uncertainly. The submerged bodies were ancient—so old and shriveled that they were as small as children. Although they were na**d, the vast number of wrinkles made it impossible to tell which bodies were male and which were female.

Petra stepped closer to the edge of a pool, and noticed the ball of white light in the body’s open mouth. Suddenly, the eyes jolted open, the mouth coughed, and the light rocketed to the surface, bursting through the water to bob up and down in front of Petra’s face.

“Dead? Of course we are not dead!” exclaimed the light, which stretched into a shape like steam from a kettle.

Three lights exploded from the other pools.

“The dead learn nothing,” said one of the four. “And so they are not very wise.”

“And we,” said another, “are the Metis, and most knowledgeable indeed.”

“Indeed!” chorused a third.

“Although,” one said in a soft tone, “death must be a fascinating experience, else why would everyone do it?”

“Not everyone!”

“Not us!”

“Sister, why must you always doubt our choice?” a Meti said. “For a hundred years now, it’s been nothing but ‘death might be nice after all.’”

“One hundred and twelve years,” corrected another.

“I am simply curious,” said the soft voice. “It is our calling to be curious.”

“Not about that!”

“Never that!”

“We are neither here nor there, you understand,” a Meti said to Petra.

“Not quite dead, yet not quite alive,” another agreed.

“You’re ghosts,” Petra stated. The cavern echoed with her words.

“Oh, I suppose.”

One giggled. “If that’s how you want to put it.”

Tomik said, “We thought this cave was a school for magic. Are you the teachers?”

“Just as you are students,” a Meti replied.

“People come, they inquire, we answer.”

“We have many answers, do we not, brother?”

“Indeed. Almost a thousand years’ worth.”

“And what sort of students have we here?”

A shining vapor approached Tomik. “A handsome young man!”

“Like in a fairy tale!”

“With sighs and swoons!”

“But, you know, my dear boy,” one said in a serious, wispy voice. “Beauty is a burden. Not every tale ends happily. We know the dark stories, and heroes like you sometimes suffer.”

“We could help him, sister.”

“He doesn’t have to be so smooth and bright.”

“Indeed! Shall we cut him, brother?”

“Or stretch him?”

“Burn him, I think. That will make him better.”

“Stop that!” said Petra.

The four lights flew to her shoulder and clustered around Astrophil, who shrank into the hollow of her neck.

“A cunning machine!”

“Built with gears. Built to last. Built to live forever.”

“Like us!”

“But how will the spider feel, my brother, when he outlives his mistress?”

“Petra,” Astrophil said in a shaky voice, “may we leave, please?”

“And what kind of person is this mistress?” The Metis ignored Astrophil and flew close to Petra’s face.

“Ah,” said one knowingly, “she is the one with the questions.”

“I’ve come to ask you about my father,” Petra said.

“Well, where is he?”

It was difficult for Petra to bring herself to explain. “He was seized by the Bohemian prince.”

“I see.”

“He was taken from you.”

“Or perhaps she lost him, brother,” suggested a Meti. “It is careless to lose your family, and we don’t teach careless girls.”

“I didn’t lose him,” said Petra. “Either I would have gone to prison with him, or would have tried to find some way to free him. Except…” Her fingers lifted to touch the scar that ran from her jaw to the base of her neck. “I was attacked by the prince’s monsters, creatures called the Gray Men. Someone rescued me by pulling me through a Loophole to London. He saved my life, but trapped me for months in England.”

“And who was he?”

“His name is John Dee,” Petra said. “He’s a spy for the English queen.”

“Well, why would he want to keep you? What are you, that you were special to him?”

“I think…” Petra searched for a response, and slowly spoke what she thought was the truth. “He was intrigued by my magical talents. He tried to teach me … maybe because he thought I’d be a useful tool for him. Or maybe because he genuinely wanted to protect me. I’m not sure.”