The Fire Chronicle (30 page)

Michael took one trembling step forward. He could feel the heat coming off the creature’s body. The dragon was right; he was scared. But also angry. It shouldn’t be ending this way: he and Emma separated from Kate. Emma not able to fight for herself. Him all alone.

“You don’t know anything!” he shouted, tears now streaming down his cheeks. “You don’t know anything about us! Me and my sisters, why we’re doing this! You’re just—you’re just a stupid worm!”

“That’s it, Rabbit. Let your anger flow. Your death will be so quick you won’t even know it. Strike.”

The dragon’s breath was steaming Michael’s glasses. But as he raised the knife above his head, he saw, once again, the golden bracelet around the dragon’s foreleg. It stopped him. If the bracelet was gold, shouldn’t it have melted in the lava? Unless, Michael thought, the bracelet was enchanted in some way. Just as the iron gate had been enchanted. Suddenly, the song the elves had sung in the clearing came back to him:

The dragon had said that a curse had been put on the elf princess.…

And the Guardian had said the dragon was a girl.…

But was it possible? Was it actually possible?

“Strike, Rabbit! Now! Strike!”

There was no more time to think. Michael swung down with all his might. He felt the knife cut neatly through the golden band and into the dragon’s leg. The dragon shrieked in rage and reared up, claws raking the sky. Michael closed his eyes and waited for the talons to rip through him.

I was wrong. I’m dead. Emma’s dead. I’ve killed us both.

And he was aware of an enormous, crushing sadness, greater
than any fear of death, because he knew that he had failed his sisters.

Then he heard a sound like a moan, and something struck the landing. Michael opened his eyes. The dragon was gone. In its place, a golden-haired elf girl, the living, breathing image of the sculpture in the clearing, lay amid the ruins of the tower. A severed bracelet was beside her. And beside that, a glowing red book.

Well, Michael thought, look at that.

And then he collapsed.

“
Separation
. That’s their word for it.
Surrender
is more like it. Cowardly. Base. We are lions fleeing before rats. Nature revolts at the very idea. Cigar?”

Rourke produced a leather case from inside his fur coat and flipped open the top, displaying four cigars lined up like missiles. The carriage was rumbling along the cobblestone streets, and Rourke, sitting across from Kate, had stretched out his great legs so that his feet rested on the seat beside her. He seemed a man very much at his ease.

“No, thank you,” Kate managed.

“Well, sick to my stomach it makes me, and that’s no lie.”

Rourke bit off the end of his cigar and spat the nub out the window with such force that it knocked off the hat of a passerby.
He chuckled and lit a match with his thumb. Soon, sweet cigar smoke filled the carriage.

“I’m not denying that something had to be done. How the nonmagical vermin have been multiplying, the abuse and oppression of our kind. But nature teaches the rule of the strong. Let me tell you a story. Do you know Ireland at all?”

Kate gave a small shake of her head.

“My home, it is. And a beautiful and tragic place. I grew up in an orphanage outside Dublin run by the Sisters of Sweet and Enduring Charity. Never knew my parents. Though I was told that my mother was half giant, which is not difficult to believe, given the eye-boggling size of me. As it was, I was regarded as a freak. A thing not wholly human. And treated accordingly.”

Kate said nothing. She was only half listening. She was searching through her pockets. It had to be there. She couldn’t have lost it.…

“By the tender age of nine, I was larger than any man in Dublin, and was sold by the good sisters to a fella who owned a quarry. He chained my leg to a spike and I spent twelve hours a day hammering big stones into smaller stones. But I wasn’t yet finished growing, was I? Got bigger and stronger every day. Finally, my own master came to fear me. Indeed, so great was his fear, he plotted to kill me. Luckily, I discovered his sanguinary intentions, broke free, and, with the very hammer he gave me, smashed that empty head of his to pieces. Ah, a great day that was, dark and bloody and beautiful.”

He smiled at the memory and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“Sure, I was caught easy. Too stupid to run. And sentenced
to hang as soon as rope could be found strong enough to hold me. But the night before the sentence was to be carried out, I’m sitting alone in me cell, and suddenly I’m not alone. He’s there with me.” The man leaned forward eagerly. “And what did he say? ‘Declan Rourke, you are not human. Their laws cannot condemn you. If I free you, will you serve me faithfully?’ And how did I respond? ‘Brother,’ says I, ‘if you get me out of here, I’ll clean the mud from your boots.’ And didn’t he take me away and make me the man I am? Opened my eyes. Gave me power. A great, great man. And now, lass”—the bald giant smiled, leaning back—“you’re about to meet him.”

The carriage passed through a pair of iron gates and into the courtyard of a large four-story mansion set in the middle of a block of mansions. An Imp stepped forward and opened the door. Rourke peered at Kate through the smoke.

“You all right, lass? You do look awful pale.”

“I … lost something,” Kate said. “It was in my pocket.”

“And what was it? I’ll send an Imp back to search for it. Must’ve fallen out when we collided.”

Kate imagined one of the Imps picking up her mother’s locket, touching it. She realized she’d rather never see it again.

“It’s not important.”

“In that case”—he gestured with his cigar—“my master awaits.”

“We’re not blaming you.”

“You should!” Abigail cried, pointing a finger at the two boys. “Ain’t they the ones that threw those snowballs? Hadn’t been
for that, those kids never would’ve chased us and the Imps never would’ve gotten her! It’s their fault!”

Beetles and Jake were both uncharacteristically quiet. They stood, side by side, twisting their caps in their hands. They were gathered in the belfry atop the church, arrayed in a line before Henrietta Burke’s desk. Rafe stood to the side. The old magician Scruggs, wrapped as always in his shabby brown cloak, sat against one of the pillars. The sun was low in the sky, a dull smudge visible through the clouds. It would soon be dark.

“And it was definitely Rourke who took her?” Henrietta Burke asked.

“It was him,” Beetles said quietly. “There ain’t no mistaking him. They put her in a carriage and took her to their mansion uptown. We followed ’em. Ran the whole twenty blocks behind the carriage.”

“Yeah, you’re a coupla real heroes,” Abigail sneered.

“Enough,” Henrietta Burke said. “You children can go.”

Abigail, Jake, and Beetles headed toward the trapdoor. The boys paused at the top of the ladder and looked back at Rafe.

“We didn’t mean nothing to happen,” Jake said. “We liked her.”

“Yeah,” Beetles said. “We’re real, real sorry.”

Rafe nodded. He was clenching something in his right hand. As soon as the boys were gone, he turned to Henrietta Burke.

“I’m going to get her.”

The woman shook her head. “She was never our responsibility, and now that is doubly so.”

“Didn’t you hear? She got caught trying to protect them! We owe—”

“Our duty is to those here! All day there have been reports of human mobs attacking magical folk. The humans sense that something is happening. I need you here. The Separation is only hours away. The girl is on her own.”

“No.”

Henrietta Burke had already gone back to her papers, but now she looked up sharply. Even Scruggs, who had been chewing his fingernails, took notice.

“Excuse me?”

Rafe stepped close to the desk; his voice, his whole body, was trembling with emotion. “Scruggs’s spell keeps the church hidden. You don’t need me. You just don’t want me going there. Ever since the Imps showed up, you’ve tried to keep me clear of them. Why?”

“Because there is nothing to be gained by feuding—”

“That ain’t it. I know Rourke’s looking for me—”

“How do you know that?”

“It ain’t important. Tell me what he wants!”

Henrietta Burke stared at him. Her face gave away nothing. Finally, she said, “It is not Rourke who hunts you. He is merely the right hand. It is his master. A being whose power is beyond any of us.”

“Whoever he is, if he needs something from me, I can bargain. I can get him to give up the girl—”

“He will never give up the girl. And if you enter that mansion,
you will not emerge from it.” Then her gray eyes appeared to soften. “I know you want to save her. But you cannot sacrifice yourself.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” The boy struck the desk.
“What do they want from me?”

Henrietta Burke glanced at Scruggs, looked back at the boy, and shook her head.

Rafe stepped away. “Fine. But I’m going to get her.”

“Why? What is it between you and this girl? Why would you risk so much?”

For a moment, Rafe was silent. He was no longer trembling. He opened his hand and glanced at the golden locket Beetles had given him. The boys had picked it up from the sidewalk after Kate had been taken. He said, “You have your secrets. I have mine.”

He’d started to turn when Scruggs spoke.

“Wait.” The old magician shuffled to his feet. “There is a way to save her and still escape. You just have to enter without being seen.…”

Kate had expected to be taken to the Dire Magnus immediately. But after entering the mansion with Rourke, she found herself engulfed in a flurry of activity. Imps in their shirtsleeves were moving about furniture, carrying crates of champagne, iced platters of salmon and oysters, large bouquets of flowers; there were small, wizen-faced creatures—gnomes, Kate learned—polishing floors, cleaning windows, spitting on and wiping down anything brass.

“We’re having a bit of a do tonight,” Rourke said as he led
Kate up a wide set of stairs. “You certainly picked the right time to drop in.”

Still gripping her arm, he led her through a pair of double doors and into a ballroom. Kate had only ever been in one ballroom, the one in the mansion in Cambridge Falls, and this one dwarfed the other. The floor was a shining expanse of blond wood. To the right, French doors gave onto a balcony that looked out over the street. To Kate’s left, a wall of mirrors reflected the snowy scene outdoors. Red-cushioned chairs were being placed along the walls by a crew of Imps, while in the center of the room, an enormous crystal chandelier, with twisting, briar-like arms, had been lowered till it hung a foot off the floor, and three gnomes were using long metal tongs to fix white candles into dozens of holders.

Rourke stopped Kate beside the chandelier.

“Mistress Gnome.”

One of the tiny creatures turned. She was three feet tall, with a face wrinkled like an old apple; she wore a gray dress that went to her toes, and she had a faded red kerchief covering her head.

“This young lady is here for an audience with our master. Clean her up a bit, won’t you? There’s a dear.”

The little creature set down her tongs, snapped at a female gnome who was polishing the floor, and seized two of Kate’s fingers in her small, rough hand.

“I’ll be seeing you very soon,” Rourke said.

The gnome led Kate out of the ballroom and down a dark-walled, portrait-lined hallway, with the second gnome trailing behind. Kate thought that this was her chance to get away—she was, after all, nearly twice the size of the gnomes—and when they
reached a stairway and the gnome matron had started up, Kate tried to jerk away her hand, intending to bolt down the stairs to freedom.

“Ahhhh!”

Kate fell to her knees as the gnome bent her fingers to the point of breaking. The second gnome thudded into her back with both feet, so that Kate was slammed flat onto her face. The first gnome kept bending and twisting her fingers while the other jumped up and down on her back, cackling gleefully. The red-kerchiefed gnome peered into Kate’s face.

“Now, Missus Big-Shoes,” she said in a high, squeaking voice, “are we going to have any more kerfuffle from you?”

“No,” Kate cried as the other gnome dug her doll-like fingers into Kate’s hair and yanked.

“Ah, but big-shoes is all liars, ain’t they?” And the wrinkle-faced gnome gave Kate’s nose a painful wrench.

“No! I’m not lying! I promise!”

“Hmph,” said the tiny creature, releasing Kate’s fingers and nose and nodding to the other, who let go of Kate’s hair and leapt off her back. The lead gnome started up the stairs, and Kate, her fingers, scalp, nose, and back aching, followed obediently.

She was bathed in a tub of scalding water. Her skin was scrubbed raw. Her hair washed. Her chewed-up nails filed down evenly. One of the gnomes raked a hard-toothed comb through her hair, pulling at the tangles with such fury that Kate was sure that by the time they finished, her scalp would be bald and bleeding. They yanked her into undergarments, like a dress, and then into a long-sleeved, high-collared ivory dress that had intricate
lacework across the breast. And finally, one of the gnomes buckled Kate’s feet into a pair of leather boots with dozens of hooks, while the other tugged her hair this way and that in a complex braid.