Now she stood alone in her bedroom, her back turned to the window with its view of tents. Astrophil had twinkled down the hall to talk with her father, and though she was reluctant to share the hours when her father felt well enough to see people, she understood when Astrophil asked to see Master Kronos by himself.

Petra turned around the room, unsettled—and unsure what, if anything, might settle her. She started toward the open bedroom door, and yelped when something scratched her ankle.

It was Amoretta. The white cat purred, giving Petra a very innocent look.

Whatever fate awaited Fiala Broshek, who was imprisoned in Krumlov Castle’s dungeon, Zora had decided that the cat was guilty of nothing worse than a bad habit of bringing dead birds indoors. Amoretta became the castle pet. She had a special fondness for Petra, and one of her favorite games was to claw the girl until Petra chased her. She did this now.

Petra ran after Amoretta, happy that some things don’t change. She could still outrace almost anyone and anything.

If, that is, she knew where it had gone. Petra slowed her pace when it was clear that the cat hadn’t gone upstairs after she’d disappeared around a corner. Petra moved stealthily, her eyes searching for a white paw. She tiptoed down the third-floor hallway, then paused when she realized exactly where she was. She stood outside Iris’s sitting room. Her heart tightened when she recalled her last conversation with the woman, and how Iris had said that making new colors made her feel like an explorer of undiscovered countries. Petra wondered what color the land of the dead was. She hoped it was beautiful.

Like during that night, voices floated from Iris’s sitting room. “I made this for you,” she heard Tomik say.

“For me?” It was Zora. “It’s beautiful.”

“Break it.”

“What? I can’t break your gift.”

“The gift is in the breaking. Go on, Zora. It’s just like any other Marvel.”

Too curious to stop herself, Petra peered through the slightly open door. Zora and Tomik were standing close together, Zora cradling a glass sphere in the palm of her hand. Petra was too far away to see what was inside the Marvel. “Well,” Zora said reluctantly. “If you’re sure…”

“I am.”

Zora dropped the Marvel. It shattered on the stone floor, and a plume of rose petals drifted into the air, swirling around Zora and Tomik like a pink blizzard. Zora laughed, trailing her fingers through the flowery swirl.

Petra caught her breath. She ducked out of sight—but not before Tomik glanced up and saw her there. She pulled away and rushed down the hall.

That night, Petra knocked on Tomik’s door. He opened it. “Can we talk?” she asked.

“Finally.” He beckoned her inside with a smile. “Petra comes to talk to me. Have I gone to sleep and woken up in some upside-down, backward world where Petra Kronos tries to find out what I’m thinking?”

She hesitated.

“I’m teasing you,” he said.

“Right. Um. So … Zora?”

Tomik gave her a shy, blissful look. “Zora.”

“Oh. Good. I didn’t know … but I’m glad.”

It was Tomik’s turn to look tentative. “You’re not … jealous, are you?”

Her answer was honest. “No.”

He gave her a relieved grin. “I didn’t think you would be.” He shrugged slightly and said, “I’m not exactly sure where things are going with Zora. I mean, they’re going well. But I have to visit my family and face my father’s wrath. He’s not going to be thrilled about me going missing for more than a year. And then Zora and I … will see.” Tomik looked at his hands and said awkwardly, “We’re very different. After all, she’s got a castle.”

“That doesn’t mean that you are different, as people.”

“Maybe. I guess we’ll find out.” He smiled, and Petra could see how much joy he took in the prospect of this discovery. It occurred to her that this joy was a kind of courage, and that if certain feelings need to be protected as a lamp protects a flame, others need the wind to let them burn, and breathe to life.

“You know,” Tomik said, “I’m not the only person you ought to talk to.”

“What do you mean?”

Tomik’s smile grew sly. “I don’t think the entire Roma army is still here, waiting to go home, because Neel wants to talk with me.”

50

The Jewel

PETRA HAD TALKED TO NEEL, right after the battle, when everyone had returned to the castle. She had thanked him for saving Astrophil’s life.

“It was nothing.” Neel had spoken as if it had meant nothing.

His indifference hurt. Petra wanted to tell him that the Neel she knew wouldn’t shrink something so important into nothing. She wanted to say even more. Her throat felt full with words she had guarded for so long. She wished she could have her mind-magic back—just once, only for a minute—so that she could predict what Neel’s face would look like when she spoke.

His eyes darted past her to Master Kronos, who was asking a repaired Astrophil to test each remaining leg. Petra followed Neel’s gaze. When she saw what he did, she couldn’t keep the happiness from her face.

Neel’s expression closed, and everything Petra had wanted to say tasted suddenly bitter. How could she ask Neel for anything, when his family was broken and hers was now whole? How could she ask him to give her any part of his heart, when he had lost so much?

She stayed silent. He went cold, and went away. She had not seen him since.

The morning after she visited Tomik’s room, Petra set out toward the tent-covered hills. The sight of them made her feel outnumbered and small, so she kept her eyes trained on the four-colored flag of the king. Soldiers gave her keen glances and got out of her way. She didn’t stop until she reached Neel’s tent, where she paused with the awkward realization of the obvious: that there was no door, only a closed flap cut into the cloth. She couldn’t very well knock. She supposed she should call out. She should let Neel hear her voice, and decide whether she could enter. But she was afraid of being turned away. She lifted the fabric door and stepped inside.

Neel was sitting on his bed, which was little more than a pallet and a blanket. He looked up from the book in his hands. The expression on his face stopped her breath.

He dropped the book and scrambled to his feet.

“Sorry,” Petra mumbled. “I shouldn’t have—but—”

“It’s all right—”

“I wanted to talk to you,” they said, and heard their voices mingling together. They laughed.

“I thought you were angry with me,” said Petra.

Neel stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Nah.”

“I seem to remember someone saying he would hate me forever.”

Neel grew serious. “Truth, then?”

“Truth.”

“I was angry. I was furious. I thought my anger would eat me whole. It was just…” Neel ran a rough hand through his black hair. “After Sadie, it would have been too much. It would have been too much to lose you, too.” He gave her a hard look. “I need to know something. I’ve been wanting to know for a while. Why didn’t you want to talk to me through dreams? Why didn’t you want to see me?”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“I wanted to see you too much,” said Petra.

The corner of Neel’s mouth lifted. A soft silence fell.

He almost spoke, then paused and glanced at the sloping walls of his tent with an air of slight confusion. Petra wondered if he, too, expected to see green waves and pink sand. He touched the sapphire on his ear—not anxiously, as he once had, but thoughtfully. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said. “You like to do that, don’t you? I’ve seen you.”

“Yes.”

When they stepped out of the tent, Petra noticed that there were many more soldiers gathered around it than there had been before. They all seemed to have a very important task to do, one that needed to be done within view of the king’s tent. Petra heard their voices fade. She caught their sidelong looks. She smiled and slipped her hand into Neel’s. His tightened around hers. They drew close, their shoulders and arms brushing. They walked like that away from the encampment, sheltering each other from the raw spring wind.

He led her to a new place, a hill high enough to see very far. They saw the tents, the castle, the curled ribbon of the river, and the scar in the earth where the battle had been.

“What will you do now?” Neel asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s strange not to have anything to do. I feel like the rest of my life is waiting for me, and I have no idea what it will look like. Does that sound silly?”

“It sounds about right.”

“My father and I will go south with Astro to see our cousins. After that … I’ll let my father decide.” Her voice lowered. “He’s not well. I think he will be, someday, but being a Gray Man … it’s left him sick at heart. So I’ll go where he goes.” She looked at Neel to see if he understood.

“Yeah. I need to have a long talk with my ma, too.” Neel rubbed at his forehead. “I have to tell her I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“Oh”—he gave her a mischievous look—“for gambling my life when she begged me not to.”

“I’m sorry,” said Petra.

“No need to be. Everything turned out all right, didn’t it?”

“I guess so. Maybe ‘sorry’ is the wrong word. But I’m not sure what the right one is.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. He peered, and pointed at a butterfly. It was too early in the season for butterflies, but there it was, a scrap of yellow carried by the wind. Neel watched it fly, then said, “Hey, maybe after you visit southern Bohemia, your da would like to rest up someplace really warm. Someplace tropical.”

“Like someplace off the coast of India?”

He looked at her.

“I’d like that,” said Petra. “I’ll ask him.”

“It’d be all right if he doesn’t want to. I’ve only got about a year left of this king business, and then I’m free … at least until I’m practically thirty.” His eyes widened, and they both laughed at how old and far away that sounded. “But a year is just a year,” he said. “And I’ve got the globes, which means…” He trailed off, hesitant.

“We’d never be too far away, wherever we are,” said Petra. “That’s good, because otherwise I would miss you.”

“You would?”

“I miss you even now,” she said, thinking of the mind-link they had once shared. “I miss this.” She let go of his hand to touch the air, and couldn’t swallow her sadness that she’d never again feel the fluid ghosts that flowed from Neel’s fingers. She felt only the wind. “It’s hard to be ordinary.”

“You? Never.” Neel seemed to brush his hair out of his face, but Petra realized that this had been a sleight of hand when his palm opened and revealed the Jewel of the Kalderash. “Here.”

“What?”

“Take it.”

“I can’t take that.”

“Borrow it, then.”

“Neel.” She closed his fingers around the sapphire. “That’s not something you can give away.”

He sighed. “Maybe not.”

“Anyway, I don’t have anything like that to give you in return. A treasure.”

“Not true,” he said. “Not true.”

She smiled, though she didn’t quite believe him, and said, “Will you tell me a story?”

He lifted his brows.

“I always like your stories. You tell them well. Give one to me, and I will give something to you.”

He let out a breath. “A fellow can’t refuse an offer like that, can he? Hmm. Well.” He glanced away from her, and his gaze lighted again on the butterfly, which had dwindled into a dancing yellow mote. “Why don’t I tell you the story of how the butterfly came to be? It’s a Lovari tale.”

“Those are the best kind.”

“Once upon a time there was a little shell that lived in the deep sea,” Neel said. “A plain shell, one that opened and closed itself like a mouth. This shell had a secret. It loved to sing. And it tried to share its song, but its music was lost on the waves. So it went to the sea witch and revealed its hidden heart’s desire. ‘Why, you foolish thing,’ said the witch. ‘Everyone knows that music is for the air, not the sea. You need to go above the waves to be heard.’

“The shell sank into the sand. ‘But I can’t,’ it said.

“‘You leave that to me,’ said the witch. ‘I’ll change you into an air creature. For a price.’

“‘Anything.’

“The witch smiled, and cast her spell. The little shell rose through the waves, floating through the black until the water became blue, then green. The shell skimmed along the sea foam, and unfolded into the air. The two halves of its shell became transparent wings, and stretched, and caught the wind. The shell wondered what it had become, but decided it didn’t matter, because its tiny, colorless, frail body was full of joy. It would sing. It would sing and be heard. It opened its mouth … but nothing came out.”

“Neel?”

“Shh. The witch had her price, you see, and had taken the little shell’s voice.”