Petra, Astrophil said anxiously, why don’t you let one of them go first?

But she was already stepping forward.

One second, her foot was on stone. The next, it was on tall grass. One second, Petra heard the clattering of horses in the street. The next, birds were singing.

She was standing on a hilly field. She spun around. Petra was alone.

Astro, where are they? Had they tricked her? Was she stranded here in Sutton Hoo?

Do not panic, said Astrophil, though he sounded a little panicky.

Petra was about to lunge at the spot in the air she thought she had come from, when Dee and his daughters appeared.

Dee observed Petra, and his eyes were (yes, there was no mistaking it) mischievous. “Did you think we had abandoned you?”

“No,” she lied.

Madinia opened her sack and pulled out a clean horse blanket, which she shook out over the ground. She sat down, and Margaret joined her, unpacking bread, cheese, cold meat, and green apples.

Her stomach growling, Petra stepped toward the blanket.

Dee blocked her. “Not you.”

“But I’m hungry!”

“I am unsympathetic.”

“Here.” Margaret tossed an apple to Petra.

“Have fun!” Madinia leaned back against the gentle rise of a hill.

“Come, Petra,” said Dee.

“You’ll like it,” said Margaret. “We’d go with you, but we’ve been here dozens of times.”

“It’s Dad’s hobby,” Madinia added.

“But it’s just a field!”

“Is it?” Dee quietly asked.

Petra might have chucked her apple at him, but then decided that would be a waste of a good apple. She bit into it, looking around. I don’t see anything interesting, she told Astrophil. Only hills.

The spider peeked through strands of her blowing hair. True . . . but are they not rather small?

Petra chewed thoughtfully. You’re right, Astro. The swells of grass were also spread around them in a regular pattern, as if they had been made deliberately. “Is there something . . . hidden underground?”

“Buried,” said Dee.

Petra swallowed. Then she looked at the white flesh of her apple and remembered the orange-colored seed she had found by Thorn’s body. She bit again, crunching through to the core. She spat the fruit into her hand.

The seeds were brown.

“Can’t you try to eat your food properly?” said Madinia.

Petra put the fruit back in her mouth and ate it. She walked to the top of a mound. Dee strode at her side, carrying the box of mice.

“What’s buried here?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

And Petra could sense it, beneath her feet. “Metal. Gold. A lot of it.”

“Yes, and many other things as well.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

Dee paused. “When I asked Ariel for information about you, I got more than I bargained for. I knew—or as good as knew—that you were a chimera. But I was surprised by how much Ariel had to say. There is a great deal even I don’t understand. What do the heavens pressed into a ball have to do with you? Or a king of the air-swimmers? Or black teeth?”

Petra fought back a superior grin, remembering the inky blocks. She knew something he didn’t.

“But Sutton Hoo . . .” continued Dee. “This is a place I know well. For years I have come here in fair weather to unearth its secret treasures, at the queen’s command. Last autumn, I had hired diggers to excavate another one of the mounds, and they uncovered what seemed to be a doorway. But then the order came from the queen to travel without delay to Bohemia as an ambassador to Prince Rodolfo’s court. I haven’t been back to Sutton Hoo since.”

Dee led the way to a mound not far in the distance, one that had been stripped of grass. Petra readily followed, drawn by the desire to understand one more piece of Ariel’s puzzle.

They walked to the other side of the excavated mound, where piles of sandy dirt were heaped up by a square door about three feet wide and tall. It was fastened with an ancient iron lock, but it was corroded and green. Dee swept aside his cloak to reveal a leather satchel at his waist. He pulled out a hammer, and swung it at the lock. It broke easily.

“Stand back,” he ordered, and heaved at the door, which opened with a splintery moan.

“Now for the mice,” Dee said, and lifted the crate’s lid to reveal many wire cages, with one mouse in each. He took a length of twine from his satchel and attached it to a cage. The mouse pressed its paws against the bars.

“What are you doing?” Petra asked.

He didn’t answer, but lowered the cage into the open doorway. Petra watched it descend until it disappeared in the shadows.

He is testing the air, Astrophil explained. Whatever is below, it has been there for hundreds of years. Sometimes dangerous gases build up in sealed sites like these. We will need to wait until the foul air has flowed out, and fresh air has filtered in.

After a few minutes, Dee raised the cage. The mouse was dead. He untied the string and attached it to the next cage. He lowered it, and Petra could hear the mouse squeaking below.

She said, “This is cruel.”

“It is necessary.”

After four more dead mice, Dee lifted a live one out of the cavern. Then he unpacked a stout rope from the satchel, knotted it around the base of a tree several feet away, and tossed it through the doorway. There was the sound of the rope hitting bottom.

“Wait until you see a light below,” said Dee. “Then follow after me.” He grasped the rope, and began to climb down.

When she saw the flickering of candle flame, Petra asked Astrophil, What if Ariel is evil? Dee said she could be dangerous. We’ve been so focused on trying to understand what her words meant that we didn’t think that she might be trying to trap us.

But there is the light. Dee seems to be just fine.

Yes. Pity about that.

“Petra?” Dee’s voice echoed. “You will want to see this.”

And she did. Whatever Ariel was, whatever she meant, Petra had to know what was below. She grabbed the rope.

As she lowered herself, she watched the square of sunshine above her shrink. She glanced at the bottom, where Dee’s face was distorted by shadows.

When her feet touched wood, Dee drew another candle out of his satchel, lit it with his own flaming wick, and passed it to Petra. Tomik’s Glowstone would have worked far better, but she didn’t want to reveal it to Dee, so she raised her candle high.

They were surrounded by gold. As Petra looked more closely, she saw curved wooden beams arching above them, and treasure heaped on either side. There were shields decorated with winking garnets, and pins shaped like eagles. She saw scabbards with golden, twisting dragons. There was a great deal of weaponry, but most of it was iron, and had rusted.

Petra looked at the walls and noticed poles sticking out among the gold. She stepped forward to examine one. “Are these . . . oars? Are we in some kind of boat?”

“Yes,” said Dee. “The ancient kings of England were buried in ships. Tread carefully, Petra. The wood is hundreds of years old, and fragile. One false move could bring the ship’s roof down on us.”

But Petra had not walked very far before she gave a strangled cry.

She was face-to-face with a skull.

A ghost! cried Astrophil.

The Gray Men! Petra saw their bony faces. She felt the burning tongue.

Petra tripped and fell. Her candle went out, and she heard something metallic spilling across the floor. She spun around in terror. Dee’s candlelit face loomed before her. “I said to be careful.” He grabbed her elbow and hauled her to her feet. “Do you want to be buried alive by rotten timber?”

“I saw—”

“This?” Dee swung his candle, illuminating a skeleton. It stood before them, arms crossed, wearing a golden helmet. Its jaw had fallen off, and lay by the bones of its feet. “It’s a skeleton, nothing more. Learn to control your fear, Petra, or it will control you.”

But Petra couldn’t look away from the jawbone. She saw then that it rested on a pile of coins mixed with scraps of disintegrated cloth. More coins were scattered into the shadows. She realized that she had tripped over the remains of a purse. Her heart still hammering, she bent to pick up a handful of gold coins.

Dee brought his candle close to her palm.

Each coin is unique, Astrophil observed. Each one bears a different mark, and language.

“They come from many countries,” said Dee. “From hundreds of years ago. Some of the kingdoms that forged these coins no longer exist.”

Petra stirred the coins with her finger, and then froze.

In the center of her palm was a disk stamped with a fierce bird. Its wings were flung wide, and it was hatched with lines. She touched the bird. “An air-swimmer?” she muttered. “Is an air-swimmer . . . a bird? Maybe, for Ariel, flying is like swimming through air.”

“King of the air-swimmers.” Dee nodded. “Changed into gold. Tell me, Petra: what is the history of this coin?”

Her finger still resting on the image of the bird, Petra closed her eyes. Only a few seconds had passed before they flung open in shock.

“What is it?” Dee asked.

“Nothing,” she said, but saw that he didn’t believe her. “It’s . . . each of these coins is from a different country, like you said. They were sent by rulers from all over the world as a sign of friendship to him.” She pointed at the skeleton.

That is not the whole story, said Astrophil. What else did you see?

I’ll tell you later.

“Keep the coin,” said Dee. “This must be what we came for, and it clearly belongs to you.”

Petra slipped it into her right trouser pocket, and heard it clink against the Glowstone.

Petra and Dee scaled the rope. When they were in the sun again, Petra leaned against the hill. She sucked in the spring air, pondering what she had just discovered about the coin.

Dee fastened a new lock on the door, which Petra now knew was a ship hatch. He asked, “How have your lessons with Christopher progressed?”

“What? Uh . . . they’ve been all right.”

“Hmm.” He packed his satchel with the coiled rope. “Have you grown fond of him?”

The last thing Petra wanted to say was the truth. “No.”

“Good. Because I fired him.”

He turned away then, toward his daughters picnicking on the grass. For a moment, Petra stood stock-still, her hands balled into fists. Then she strode after him, because she had no choice but to follow.

Petra was ruthlessly glad that she had hidden what she had learned about the coin from Dee, who was not only her competitor in the race to solve Thorn’s murder. Dee was also someone who seemed determined to thwart Petra’s every chance at happiness, however slender or slight.

The gold coin is Romany, she told Astrophil. It was minted during the reign of Danior of the Kalderash, about eight hundred years ago.

She reached into her pocket, touched the coin nestled against the crystal, and wished that her friends were with her now.

24

Arrival at Deptford

WHEN THE PACOLET limped into the harbor at Deptford, the other ships gave it a wide berth. The flag it flew belonged to Sea-Gypsies, and nobody wanted to tangle with them.

The Pacolet docked, and the sailors on ships close by watched curiously as the Gypsy crew lowered a small boat. When it hit the water, everyone could see that there were four people seated at the oars. And—how odd—one of them was blond. His hair was stiff and long and filthy, but there was no mistaking its color as it fluttered in the late April breeze.

Murmurs were exchanged. Everyone knew that Gypsies didn’t like outsiders. But—the English sailors took one look at the dark-skinned crew thronged along the deck—they also didn’t like people nosing into their business.

The whispers died, and Treb, Andras, Neel, and Tomik rowed up the Thames toward London.

TREB TAPPED ASH from his pipe into the water. “The Pacolet’s taken a beating.”

“That last storm . . .” muttered Andras as he pulled on the oars.

Tomik never saw anything to rival the tempest. But over the past few months, he had sailed through many storms where the green sea washed over the deck and the ship was surrounded by glittering hills of water.

“The rest of the crew can patch up the Pacolet in Deptford and guard the Terrestrial Globe while we search for its twin,” Andras continued. “We’re not far from London Bridge.”

Soon they were slipping under the bridge along with dozens of other small boats, and pulling into a wharf that reeked of fish. Tomik swung his legs over the side of the boat. Oyster shells cracked under his feet as he stood quickly, and swayed.

“Steady, Tom,” said Neel, though he was wobbling, too.

“It’ll pass,” Andras told Tomik. “Your legs aren’t used to being on land.”

“Where do we go now?” asked Tomik.

“Why”—Treb grinned—“to the Liberties, of course.”

As Tomik and Neel walked side by side, they were day and night, sun and moon. Looking at them stroll into the lawless part of London, you might not think they were friends, but you would still sense that to raise your hand against one of them would mean facing both.

“Get two rooms at the Sign of the Spoked Wheel,” Treb told them. “Andras and I are going to scout around and see what happens when we say the English word cotton.”

“Someone’ll try to sell you a dress?” Neel smirked. “You’d look awfully pretty in one.”

“Make sure you take a bath before we get back, little cousin, because you and your jokes stink.” With that, Treb and Andras turned away, walking toward a knot of villainous-looking people prowling on a street corner.