The silver sword split down its center, and both doors swung open.

Petra faced a long, dark, windowless hallway. Green brassica lamps lined each side, glowing dimly as if under water. The carpet was red and so thick that it seemed to be made of fur. Petra’s feet sank as the red plush came up to her ankles. Walking forward felt as if she were slogging through mud. She was wondering if the carpet was indeed made from some animal’s pelt and, if so, what kind of animal it could be, when the hallway opened into a vast chamber.

Here the carpet bloomed into a network of elaborate hunting scenes. With arrows, spears, and swords, men on horses were chasing down boars, foxes, quail, and even mythical beasts like unicorns and griffins. Seven doors flanked the chamber. Birch logs burned in the fireplace, the heart of the fire glowing blue amid shreds of orange flame. There was no furniture, save a large wooden throne in the center of the room. The throne was empty. Prince Rodolfo stood before an enormous, many-paned window, watching the sparse snow sift down.

Petra meant to be silent. She meant to wait for the prince to notice her. But then she happened to glance at the ceiling and gasped.

The heads of countless men and women were staring down at her.

At the sound of Petra’s stifled cry, the prince turned around. He examined her. “Do not worry, they are made of wood.”

He advanced. His velvet robes were dyed a color Petra quickly recognized as Tyrian purple. The color, made from a spiny snail shell, looked like clotted blood. The cuffs and hem of the robe were trimmed with the rough gray fur of a wolf.

You had better bow, Petra.

Though disliking herself for doing it, she obeyed the spider and sank into a deep curtsy.

“Rise.”

She looked up, and her father’s eyes flickered over her face. Prince Rodolfo sat, and pondered why he felt so kindly toward this young girl. “They are the heads of the former rulers of Bohemia,” he explained. “Quite gruesome, are they not, even if they are made of wood? Someday I, too, will look down from the ceiling. Between you and me, I do not look forward to that day.” He smiled.

Petra was taken aback. Was the prince trying to be friendly?

“Much here is not what it seems. That window, for instance, is not real.”

“But isn’t it actually snowing outside, Your Highness?”

“Indeed it is. But the window is really bewitched rock. Watch.” He pulled a gold coin from a pocket and flung it at the window. There was no crack or shatter, but a mere thunk as the coin hit a windowpane and fell to the carpet. He let the coin rest there. “There can be no real windows in my chambers, for reasons of security. Which brings me to the subject of my presence and yours. I interview every one of my personal servants—my valets, my pages, and my chambermaids. I am forced to do this, because some servants have proven to be … disloyal.” His face did not grow angry. It emptied itself of any expression.

Petra. Astrophil tapped her head.

“You don’t have to worry about that with me, Your Highness.” She took a deep breath and dragged out the next few words: “I am devoted to Your Highness.”

He nodded, pleased. He sat in his throne. “Tell me about yourself.”

Petra spun a story of country life. She was an orphan, she explained, from the hills.

“You are quite all alone, then?”

She nodded.

“No brothers or sisters?”

She nodded.

“You need not look so sad. I assure you that having siblings is overrated. And if you miss having a family, Salamander Castle offers you hundreds of mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers.”

Petra remained silent, unsure how to respond when he looked so earnest.

He studied her. He was perplexed. Why were the Kronos eyes so interested in this girl? She possessed no special beauty. She seemed like every other servant girl in the castle—except, perhaps, less afraid. Nevertheless he had to admit there was something intriguing, and also … familiar, about her, as if he had encountered her face many times before. But where? Perhaps she reminded him of a work of art … No. Prince Rodolfo dismissed that idea. The girl’s face was too common to remind him of anything in his collection.

“These seven doors”—he gestured at the sides of the room—“lead to seven different rooms. There is only one door you will be allowed to open, and only one room that you may enter. That room is my study, which you will clean. Can you read?”

She hesitated, then gave him the answer he seemed to expect:

“No.”

“Can you guess which door leads to my office? I will give you a treat if you can.”

Petra was not sure she wanted whatever “treat” Prince Rodolfo would give her. But as she looked around the room, it became utterly clear to her which door led to his office, even though every door was identical and plain. She simply knew what the right answer was. She pointed to that door with a confidence that might not have been wise.

Prince Rodolfo was startled, though he did his best to hide it. “Why, well spotted!” The silver eyes glinted. “There is one door that leads to a room I value most of all. Can you guess which door that is?”

Again, a feeling of certainty stole over Petra. She started to raise her hand when Astrophil commanded with alarm: Point to whichever one you think he values least, Petra!

She did.

The prince noticeably relaxed. “Our conversation is nearly concluded. I am to attend a meeting in a few minutes. I need to … change. You will wait here. When I have left my chamber you will remain, and clean my study.”

She nodded.

The prince rose from his throne and walked slowly to the very door that Petra would have marked as the one most important to him. He withdrew a large key with complicated swirls and squiggles of metal, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

When he emerged a few moments later, the gaze he directed toward Petra was no longer silver, but an ordinary dark brown.

She couldn’t help herself. “Your Highness … your eyes …”

“Yes. As I said, much here is not what it seems. I am attending a meeting of the Tribunal of the Lion’s Paw, and my other eyes are distracting.”

Her father’s eyes were a plaything to Prince Rodolfo, Petra realized. They were something to change his vision of the world, to amuse him.

“I promised you a reward.” He held out something spherical. It was an orange. Oranges were the prince’s favorite fruit. He always peeled them himself, and took some pleasure in tearing the bright skin away to expose the soft wedges within. He liked the spray of tiny citrus beads, he liked the tangy taste, and above all he liked that an orange is a fruit to be eaten piece by piece. If he came across a pebble-sized seed, he would swallow it rather than spit it out, even if he was alone.

This orange, however, was not meant to be eaten. It was studded all over with cloves that were stuck into the fruit like nails.

Petra accepted the orange. She forced herself to curtsy again. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

He peered at her. To his own eyes, the girl looked like nothing, nothing at all. “You are quite a mystery.”

She was silent.

“Luckily for you, I enjoy mysteries.” He smiled, like the young man he was, like someone entertained.

As Petra walked away from the prince’s chambers, an unfinished thought swam at the back of her mind, wriggling away like a slippery minnow. Petra grasped at it. Even if stealing and wearing her father’s eyes seemed to be just a game to the prince, he must have wanted them very badly. Petra wondered why she was so certain of this. Then she realized something so obvious, yet so unthinkable that she had never before considered it: the prince must have undergone the same painful operation he ordered to be performed on her father. The prince had done it willingly. He had had his own eyes gouged out and enspelled so that he could trade them for another’s.

Petra was stunned. What kind of person would do that?

24

Bad News

PETRA SAT AT THE EDGE of the wooden bench, gripping the towel around her and watching the young women climb out of the large bath. She listened to their laughter and the slap of wet feet on stone. None of the other girls waiting for their turn in the bath sat next to her. They crowded together at the other end of the bench like pigeons. Petra peered around the bathing room one more time for Susana. She was nowhere to be seen. Even Astrophil had abandoned her, asking to be left in a corner of the dormitory. Spiders do not need baths, he had said.

“Hey, Poxy!” Dana called. Sadie followed closely behind her. Their faces glowed from the bath. Dana gently tugged Petra’s ponytail. “Your hair has grown.”

“Poxy?” Petra was confused, and then remembered how she had explained away her unconventional short hair during her first week at Salamander Castle. She claimed to have had the pox. It seemed so long ago that she had told that lie. “Listen, Dana,” she began, choosing her words carefully. Dana was Sadie’s friend, and she was friendly to Petra. But that did not mean she was Petra’s friend. “I know that I’m overwhelmingly popular here, and that nothing can make a dent in the long line of people who want to be my friend, but could you maybe not call me names like ‘Poxy’? Because somehow it’s not appealing to have a nickname that’s a disease.”

Dana giggled. “I’m sorry. But your hair has grown, and gotten darker, glossy. I was trying to pay you a compliment.”

“In her own illogical way,” Sadie added. She looked at the empty bench. While they were speaking, the other girls had plunged into the bath. “Where’s Susana?”

“I haven’t seen her all day,” Petra grumbled.

Dana had a stricken look on her face.

“What’s wrong, Dana?” Sadie asked.

“Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Susana’s village, Morado, was burned to the ground. I heard that … that there was a freak lightning storm. It was a nice day. Cold, windy, but nice. Then suddenly several buildings were struck by bolts of lightning. They caught fire, the fire spread, and … Morado’s small and, well, kind of poor. Everything was built with old wood and thatch. Everything burned. Susana’s family died in the fire.”

“All of them?” Petra was horrified.

“Her parents. Her brothers and sisters. Susana has a cousin, though, that lives in a village not too far from Morado. She sent for Susana. Master Listek said she packed up her things and left in the night. She was too upset to say goodbye to anybody.”

“I can’t believe it.” Sadie shook her head. “Who expects a lightning storm this late in the year? It’s such bad luck.”

No, Petra thought. It is worse.

“NO! NO, no, NO!” the prince howled, sweeping pieces of metal to the floor. They glittered in the dark, torch-lit clock tower. The prince pressed his gloved hands to his head and listened to machinery spinning around him, to the cogs of the Staro Clock fitting and turning together like something inevitable. He listened to the clanking, he saw the pendulums swinging, and he thought his head would explode from frustration.

The guards who flanked the entrance to the inner chamber of the clock tower gazed straight ahead. They kept their faces as blank as if their lives depended on it. And their lives did.

The woman at the prince’s side exchanged a glance with the wispy-haired, pointy-chinned man standing at the other end of the worktable.

“Your Highness,” the man began hesitantly. “I have a small gift for metal. If I might try —”

“I want to do it myself,” the prince snarled.

“Yes—of—I—course—”

The gloved hands dropped from the prince’s face. The fury of his expression smoothed away. His silken black fingers reached for a small scrap of metal that still rocked on the table. He approached the pointy-chinned man, who backed away, skirting the table’s corner. “Your Highness, I apolo—apologize …”

“Stop.”

The man stopped. He gazed into the marble features of the prince’s face and trembled.

“Open your mouth,” the prince said, his voice soft. “You will like this.” He offered the glittering metal. “It is sweet.”

“No!” the man cried. “Please! I’m so sorry! I’m so —”

“Your Highness.” The willowy woman approached. “It would be a shame to let Karel go to waste. May I have him? As it pleases Your Highness, of course. But I am working on an experiment for which he might be apt.”

“Ah, Fiala.” The prince gazed at her. “I always admire your flair for invention. Take him, then, if he is useful to you. Karel, you will go with Mistress Broshek to the Thinkers’ Wing.”

The man nodded, but was still shaking. He looked at Fiala. “An experiment? What kind of—?”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby, Karel,” she snapped. “Of course, if you prefer your other option”—she tilted her blond head toward the metal scrap in the prince’s hand—“just say so.”

Karel shook his head and backed away until he bumped into one of the guards.

The prince let the glittering fragment fall to the table. “I cannot assemble it properly,” he muttered to himself. “Nothing is working the way I wish. I cannot control the clock’s power if I cannot piece together the heart.”

“You will,” Fiala Broshek consoled. She pulled on an extra pair of silk gloves and gathered up the metal pieces, placing them in a silken bag that she slung over her shoulder.

They exited the inner chamber of the clock tower, the guards forming an armored shell around them. They didn’t notice that one of the guards had an unfamiliar face. Nor did Prince Rodolfo and Fiala Broshek notice, after they had mounted a carriage, crossed Karlov Bridge, and reached the castle, that the unknown guard did not follow the other soldiers to the barracks, but slipped away to meet his true master, the English ambassador.