The Familiars #4: Palace of Dreams (23 page)

“Speak for yourself,” Gilbert croaked. “I’m still mad. You know what they feed you in those dungeons?”

Urbaugh led them through the open doorway and left them with the queen. She was standing alone in the hallway.

“I’m running out of ways to say thank you.” Loranella smiled warmly. “First you saved the queendom. Now you’ve saved me.”

“How could no one know who Warden truly was?” Aldwyn asked. “That he was the great-grandson of Uriel Wyvern?”

“I knew,” the queen replied.

The familiars all were taken aback.

“You knew?” Skylar asked. “Then why would you allow him into your inner circle? Make him one of your most trusted advisers?”

“He came to me many years ago as a young man. He said he wanted to fight in my army, but feared I would reject him. I asked him why, and he told me of his lineage. At first I told him that was impossible, that Wyvern had no heirs. Warden said that Wyvern had a secret son, and that he was one of that son’s children. I didn’t think it fair to punish him for the wrongs that a man he never met had committed. If I could go back now, I would do the same.”

“He said the storm diamond embedded in your crown is a fake,” Aldwyn told her. “And that once he finds the real one, Yajmada’s armor will be ready.”

“Yes, he’s trying to complete what his great-grandfather was unable to. But there was one thing he didn’t count on. The whereabouts of that fourth storm diamond. Even I don’t know where it is.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Gilbert asked.

“It was stolen about eight years ago,” Loranella said. “My jewel keeper and his wife raided the palace vault and left with a bounty of treasure. The only item that I truly cared about was that storm diamond. I sent my greatest Beyonders to retrieve it. Jack and Marianne’s parents.” Aldwyn was taken aback. He couldn’t believe that Jack’s mom and dad were involved in this mystery as well. “Unfortunately they never returned. Additional parties were sent out in search of them, but they found no sign of them, and no sign of the diamond, either.”

“Warden says he’s not working alone,” Skylar told her.

“I hesitate to ask after all you’ve done,” Loranella said. “But I need the three of you to find that diamond before he does. Otherwise I fear that his revenge will destroy us all.”

“There’s just one question I still don’t have an answer to,” Aldwyn said. “While we were imprisoned in the dungeons, a message was drawn on our cell floor. Words were written in the dirt that spelled out, ‘Thompson Warden has storm diamonds.’ They were upside down and backward. But we don’t know who could have sent it.”

The queen appeared puzzled.

“I really don’t know,” she said.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Skylar said. “If we had only looked at those words right side up, we would have understood the message immediately. Whoever was trying to signal us didn’t know exactly where we were standing to receive it. Which makes me think they weren’t looking at us when they sent us that warning.”

“Gilbert, do you remember what you asked me when you saw those words forming in the dirt?” Aldwyn asked. “You wondered if it was my telekinesis that was doing it. What if it was somebody else’s? Maybe another prisoner in the dungeons?”

“That’s impossible,” the queen said. “Each of the cells has a counterspell within it that prevents those inside from casting magic. It had to have come from somewhere else in the castle.”

“What’s directly above the dungeon?” Skylar asked.

“Just rock and stone,” Loranella replied. “But there is something below it. Abandoned tunnels. There used to be a well that provided water for the palace, but it dried up long ago.”

Aldwyn’s heart began to beat faster.

“Did this well have a name?” he asked.

“It did, but I don’t recall what it was,” the queen said.

“Was it the Well of Ashtheril?” Aldwyn asked.

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“How do we get there?” Aldwyn asked.

“A staircase below the kitchen,” Loranella replied.

The words had barely escaped her lips and Aldwyn was running.

“Aldwyn, what is it?” Skylar asked.

“Follow me,” he said. “And quick.”

Aldwyn couldn’t move down the palace halls fast enough. He burst into the kitchen, Skylar and Gilbert trying to keep up. He took the steps two at time, past the dungeon floor, going deeper. There he found a boarded-up door. With a mighty push of telekinesis, Aldwyn bashed it open and hurried inside. It was a large, cavernous room that smelled of mildew. At its center was a ring of stone with a bottomless hole beneath it. Ancient writing was scrawled all over its walls. Melted candles and cups still wet with cider were left behind. People had been here recently. But no one was here now.

“I still don’t understand,” Skylar said. “What are we doing down here?”

“Gilbert,” Aldwyn said. “Do you remember when I asked you to find Yeardley? I had read the guard’s mind, and he indicated that the justiciary had taken her to the Well of Ashtheril. During your locavating at the party in the courtyard, your stone didn’t move. We assumed that was because it wasn’t working. But it was working. It was working perfectly. The well was right here. Yeardley was here. It was her telekinesis that warned us.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Our dungeon cell must have been right above here.”

“But my locavating never works,” Gilbert argued. “Remember when we tried to find the shortest route to the Mountain Alchemist. The stone went all over the place. It didn’t help at all.”

“No, Gilbert,” Skylar said. “The stone was right then, too. The Mountain Alchemist was already dead. He was in the Tomorrowlife, all around us. The stone was trying to tell us that.”

Now Gilbert was stunned.

“She must have known we were in trouble,” Aldwyn said.

“She can read minds, just like you, right?” Skylar asked.

It was all starting to make sense. He was spinning around, looking closer at the drawings on the walls. There were images of clouds with a different jewel at the center of each.

“We know that the justiciary was working with the Legion of Mindcasters,” Aldwyn said. “They must have been meeting here. And I’m guessing they’re the ones Warden was talking about.”

Aldwyn had been so close to his sister, without even realizing it. Although he hadn’t even met her yet, she had already become an important ally.

A long tunnel exited the well from the other side.

“They must have been using that passageway to sneak in and out,” Skylar said.

“We need to find that storm diamond before Warden does,” Aldwyn said. “And this time, we’re taking our loyals with us.”

Aldwyn leaned down and his paw brushed past a tuft of black-and-white cat hair just like his own.

“I’m going to find you, too, Yeardley,” he said.

Aldwyn’s sister was close and Vastia needed saving. Again.

“Come on,” Aldwyn said to Skylar and Gilbert. “Let’s go find Jack, Marianne, and Dalton.”

“Just once, can’t we make it to the end of a party?” Gilbert asked. “At least until after cake?”

But Aldwyn didn’t answer him. He was already bounding for the stairs.

Adam Jay Epstein (left) and Andrew Jacobson (right)

Photographs by Elizabeth Yarwood

ADAM JAY EPSTEIN
spent his childhood in Great Neck, New York, while
ANDREW JACOBSON
grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the two met in Los Angeles. They have been writing together for film and television ever since.

One day, Adam asked Andrew, “Are you familiar with what a familiar is?” And from that simple question, Vastia was born, a fantastical world filled with the authors’ shared love of animals and magic. This is the fourth book in The Familiars series.

Adam Jay Epstein lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Jane, and their daughters, Penny and Olive. Andrew Jacobson, his wife, Ashley, their son, Ryder, their daughter, Willa, and their two dogs live close by.

Visit the authors online at:
WWW.THEFAMILIARS.COM

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Cover art © 2014 by Peter Chan and Kei Acedera

Cover design by Cara E. Petrus

T
HE FAMILIARS
#4:
PALACE OF DREAMS.
Text copyright © 2014 by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Dave Phillips. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

ISBN 978-0-06-212029-8

EPub Edition October 2013 ISBN 9780062120304

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