The Dragon's Tooth

seven. ASHTOWN

CYRUS HAD NO way of knowing how far that first launch took them, only that it was far and fast and black. The basket bobbed and swung in the wind, occasionally grazing the walls where they narrowed, occasionally kissing the surface of the water, and at one point just missing another basket hurtling in the opposite direction.

Eleven times, the basket slowed and flipped some sort of switch. Naked lights sparked to life on the tunnel ceiling, hooks snagged the pulley, flaps opened in the river, and long-dormant springs uncoiled in the ceiling. Eleven times, they were launched, and the lights flickered off behind them. And then Cyrus stopped counting.

The tunnel changed. Brick became stone, and the bones of old arches dotted the walls and ceiling. At one launch, the ruins of another basket, rotten with moisture, dangled in a snarl of cable against the wall. At another, the river veered to the right while they continued on, straight through a much smaller, circular hole in the wall of the tunnel. By the time the next light tripped, the river — or another river — had joined them.

When the basket finally slowed and stopped for the last time, Antigone moaned.

“I was sick before this,” she said. “Can you see, Cy? Are we slingshotting again? I can’t do it.”

Cyrus sat up. He could hear gears and splashing, but the sound was different. No clicking. No whining springs. He felt his way tentatively to his knees and glared at the darkness.

With a crack, two delayed lightbulbs surged to white. One exploded, dropping its glass into the river. The other sputtered and survived.

The current was turning a stone waterwheel. The wheel was powering two tarnished green gears. The gears were cranking a cable up into a hole in the ceiling and back down out of another. Small, hinged wire cages two feet across were rising and descending with the cable.

Beside the basket, a wire platform had been bolted to the stone. Cyrus gauged the distance. It would be easy enough to climb onto the platform and then lean out, grab the rising cable, and hop into one of the cages. At least if you weren’t also trying to carry an unconscious lawyer.

“What do you think, Tigs?” he asked. “You first or me first? This is gonna be tough. He won’t stay in one of those by himself.”

He looked back at his sister. Antigone was huddled in a corner, as pale as Horace. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was forcing herself to breathe long, even breaths. It was her county-fair face — the face she made before losing her elephant ear and corn dog. It was the face that had thrown up in the front seat — and the backseat — of the Red Baron. And in the boat, out fishing with their dad. Many times.

“We’re here,” said Cyrus. “Tigs, you made it. Come on. See if you can stand up.”

Antigone opened one eye, and then shut it quickly.

“Open your eyes.” Cyrus grabbed her hands.

“You were moving,” she said. “The basket is still rocking.”

“Hardly,” said Cyrus, and he pulled her up.

Both of Antigone’s eyes opened wide and her head bobbed.

“No!” Cyrus yelled. “Turn! Point away!” He spun his sister around and leaned her over the rim of the basket. He couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t smell it. If he did, he’d be chucking, too. The county fair had seen it happen. Twice. The Red Baron hated it. “I’m not listening!” Cyrus began to hum an old car song his parents had used to distract them. His sister’s back quaked beneath his hand. He looked up at the ceiling, breathing through his mouth.

Antigone straightened and turned back around slowly. “Worst ever,” she said. “Seriously.”

Cyrus raised his eyebrows. “Maybe in this state. What about Highway One, the windy one on all the cliffs?”

“Oh, gosh.” Antigone shivered and raised her hand. “Don’t even say that right now.”

“And at least this time the river just takes it away. Sharing a bag is worse, and poor Dan sitting in between us, and Mom and Dad trying to sing us out of it.”

“Shut up, Cyrus.”

“I’m just saying …”

“Don’t.” Antigone bent over and got her hands under Horace’s arms. “Help me. We have to get him to a doctor.”

In the end, Antigone rode up first. Cyrus followed, his feet balancing on the outside of the wire cage, his hugging arms pinning Horace to the cable.

He had only begun to rise when the light clicked off, controlled by some kind of timer. The sound of the water faded beneath him. In the narrow shaft, the squeaking of the cages blended and echoed with the lawyer’s rasping breath.

“Hold on, Horace,” Cyrus whispered. “Wherever it is that we’re going, we’re getting closer. Hold on.”

The cable bounced and shook. Above him, dimly silhouetted, Antigone’s legs disappeared as she hopped out of her cage.

“Hey!” Her voice roared down the hole. “They turn quick, so you won’t have much time.”

Cyrus hooked his arms through the lawyer’s armpits and flexed his legs, ready to lift.

His head rose into a musty room, lit only through cracks. He shoved the little lawyer at his sister, watched her stagger back into a wall, and then jumped, clipping his head on the ceiling before his cage vanished through the roof.

Antigone was coughing under the weight, sinking to the floor. Cyrus walked straight to the tallest crack of light, a seam between two doors. They were locked, but they were also thin and old, and they bent a little with pressure from his shoulder.

He backed up.

“Try one of Skelton’s keys,” said Antigone. “Is there a keyhole?”

“Nope.” Cyrus threw himself against the doors. Wood popped, but he bounced back. “I can break it.”

“You mean a rib? Maybe your shoulder?” Antigone adjusted her grip, propping Horace in front of her.

“There’s just one little bolt,” said Cyrus. “And it’s set in old wood.” He paused. What was he hearing? Voices. Shouting. “You hear that?” he asked.

Antigone nodded. “They don’t sound happy.”

This time, Cyrus used his foot. The wood splintered, and the two doors wobbled open onto a world of emerald and sunlight.

A butter-smooth lawn stretched away from the doorway. Dangling Horace between them, gripping his arms tight around their shoulders, Cyrus and Antigone staggered into the light and looked around.

They had emerged from a small building on one side of the lawn. In front of them, an enormous obelisk rose from a circular fountain. Well beyond that, the lawn ended in an iron fence. Beyond the fence, narrow roads were lined with gray stone buildings and townhouses.

Cyrus and Antigone were standing on a fine gravel path, separated from the grass with a clean, sharp cut in the turf. The path curved through the lawn until it met a much larger path and became stairs. The stairs grew into a looming forest of grooved columns guarding lean towers and railed balconies, porticoes and paned windows the size of the Archer’s swimming pool, glistening in the sun. The place was a fluid behemoth of stone crowned with blue sky and a towering choir of statues. It was a museum, a palace — a hulking glory large enough to hold several of both. Two long mezzanined wings bent forward off the central structure, embracing the lawn on opposite sides.

Cyrus pulled his eyes away from the building. On one end of the lawn, a group of lean people were running in tight, synchronized formation, dressed in matching white shirts and very short shorts, changing stride and direction, accelerating and slowing as a man yelped orders from the front. But the real shouting was coming from the other end of the lawn.

Between the fountain and the stairs to the main building, a small group of adults stood with clipboards watching five sweating teenagers pedal furiously on a bizarre contraption of bicycles attached to five oversize spinning, umbrellalike propellers.

“It’s like …,” Antigone began. “I don’t know.”

Cyrus didn’t know, either. While he watched, the contraption inched off the ground and thumped back down. The adults made notes.

“Dig!” a pedaler shouted. “Dig, dig, dig!”

The five pedalers hunched over their handlebars, yelling, groaning, and whooping as they pumped frantically. The contraption shook. The big-bladed, wobbling propellers beat at the air, working to tear themselves free. And then, while Cyrus watched, the whole thing eased up off the ground. One foot at first, and then three. Yelling became laughter, and the elevation increased while adults ducked and the flying bicycle team slid sideways above the lawn. Ten feet. Twelve. Twenty.

“Cyrus!” Antigone said, tugging Horace. “Come on!”

Cyrus gaped. The design wasn’t that complicated. It was just bikes and … He needed to learn how to weld.

“Cy!” Antigone pulled on her side of Horace, dragging Cyrus toward the grass.

“Tigs, aren’t you watching this?”

Twenty feet up, one of the bikes snapped and dangled. A boy dropped, flapping and screaming, and then bounced in the grass and went limp. They were all screaming now. They were falling. The pedalers pedaled but only four propellers spun. The contraption slid down through the air, faster and faster, toward the fountain.

When the first propeller hit the obelisk, it tore free, whirring off in the direction of the synchronized runners. Another flipped through the grass, stopping at Cyrus’s feet. Bikes and riders tumbled down the statues and into the water. The adults made notes on their clipboards.

“Cyrus, come on,” said Antigone. “We have to find someone.”

The two of them, with Horace’s arms over their shoulders, stepped forward off the path and onto the grass.

A sharp whistle rolled down the steps from somewhere in the columns.

“Grass!” someone shouted, and a shape materialized, double-timing down the distant stairs, running with his toes pointed out. He was short, wearing a bowler hat and a suit, and he was blowing a whistle with each breath. At the bottom of the stairs, he broke into a rigid run, but he didn’t come straight toward them across the lawn. He stayed on the footpaths.

“Hey,” said Antigone as he finally approached. She shrugged Horace’s arm farther up around her shoulders. “Where’s the hospital? We have to get this guy a doctor right away.”

The bowler hat staggered to a stop in front of them, straightened, tugged his coat, and blew his whistle one last time.

“You,” he said, panting, “are on the grass.”

Cyrus looked down at his feet. They were about eighteen inches from the edge of the path. He looked at the propeller, dug into the turf beside him, at the wreckage around the fountain and the distant team of runners. He looked back up at the man’s face. But he wasn’t a man. Too young and pimply.

“They’re all on the grass, too, and you’re just a kid,” said Cyrus. “Now tell us where the hospital is or I’ll stomp on the grass.”

“I’m seventeen,” the kid said. “And all contact with the grass is strictly prohibited without a usage permit, excluding sheep and gardeners.”

Cyrus laughed, shifting his shoulder under Horace’s arm. “You’re not seventeen. You look ten.”

“Sixteen,” the boy said. “And I can write you up.”

“Yeah, right,” said Cyrus. “I’m taller than you.”

“Excuse me!” Antigone gritted her teeth, flashing irritation at her brother. She was sweating. “This guy has been shot, and we need to get him to the hospital or a doctor or whatever you have here.”

“Please, step off of the grass.”

“No.” Cyrus shook his head.

Antigone stepped back onto the gravel path, tugging Horace and Cyrus behind her.

For the first time, the boy examined the limp body’s face. Even his pimples went pale. “That’s Mr. Lawney. You shot Mr. Lawney?”

Antigone sputtered in frustration. “No, we didn’t shoot him. He was bringing us here and got shot on the way.” Struggling to hold up her side of the lawyer, she heaved Horace, adjusted her grip, and began to yell. “Tell us where the hospital is, you ten-year-old tick!”

“I’m fifteen,” the boy said. “And don’t yell. The hospitalers are gone right now anyway. Everyone not testing is in the Galleria.” He pursed his lips, lofty and disdainful. “Even the other porters left their posts. The outlaw, William Skelton, named two Acolytes, and people said they were actually coming. I don’t believe it. They’d have to be crazy. But they’re too late anyway.”

Antigone looked at her brother, and then back at Pimples. “How late?”

The boy turned and squinted at a clock tower on the building behind them. “Well, late enough, anyhow. They’d have to reach one of the gates and be granted clearance. That could take five minutes by itself — the guards won’t exactly be helpful — and they have to present themselves at the Galleria in three.” He looked back at Cyrus and Antigone. “At least if the other porters were telling the truth. They don’t always. At least not to me.”

“Grab his feet!” Cyrus said. “Quick!”

The kid blinked beneath his bowler hat.

Antigone nodded. “Please? Hurry! We can’t be late.”

Cyrus and Antigone turned, swiveling Horace’s toes through the gravel toward the porter. The boy bent tentatively and gripped Horace by the ankles.

“Okay?” Cyrus glanced back over his shoulder. “Great. Is the Gallery in the big building?”

“The Galleria,” the boy said. “And yes. Up the main stairs.”

With Horace bouncing between them, Cyrus and Antigone steered straight across the grass, beelining for the stairs.

“Hey! Whoa! Stop!” the boy yelled. “I can’t reach my whistle. My hat! My hat has fallen! In the grass! My hat is in the grass!”

Cyrus grinned at his sister. Breathing hard, Antigone managed to roll her eyes. Behind them, the boy jogged on tiptoe.

When they reached gravel and began climbing the stairs, the boy stopped yelping. Puffing, keeping his breath even, Cyrus concentrated on the steps. The treads were deep, but each step was short. He would have been able to skip a stair if he’d been running alone. He probably would have skipped two. But not now, trying to keep time with his sister and dragging a body.

“Come on,” Antigone gasped. “We can do this, Cy. We’re doing it. We’ll make it.”

They reached the top and rushed forward between two grooved columns. Huge wooden doors, taller than the Archer, were closed in front of them.

“Are you …,” the kid began, gasping. “Did you come … through the waterway? It’s prohibited. Waterway’s closed. Hazardous.” He began coughing. “Use the wicket.”

“What?” Balancing his part of Horace, Cyrus reached out with one hand and tugged on a dangling iron ring.

Horace’s feet dropped, and the kid porter scrambled forward, pushing Cyrus aside. He grabbed a knob, and a small door swung open inside the large one.

“The wicket gate,” the kid said, stepping out of the way.

A bell pealed loud and long, the sound ricocheting around the stone.

“Go. You have five rings. Follow the people. I have to stay here.”

Antigone ducked through the door with Horace’s arm and shoulder. Cyrus and the other shoulder followed. Inside, both of them froze. The huge corridor was crowded, and every face had turned toward them. High above the mob, the ceiling was vaulted, and each vault was frescoed with maps. An enormous reptilian skin was mounted on one wall, running around a corner and out of sight. In the center of the hallway, a large leather boat perched high on a stone pedestal.

The bell rang again.

“Um, hi,” Antigone said. “Is there a doctor here?”

The crowd parted.

“Go!” someone yelled. “Hurry!”

Cyrus and Antigone Smith, caked with blood and soot, dragged their lawyer through the path in the crowd, his toes squealing on the marble floor. Whispers and murmuring swirled as the crowd closed behind them.

The bell rang again.

“This way!” A man’s voice echoed through the hall. “Over here!”

“He lies!” a woman shouted. “Over here!”

Cyrus and Antigone stopped. The crowd pressed in, grabbing, pulling, pushing.

“Is that Horace?”

“Is he dead?”

The bell rang again.

Cyrus looked into the faces around him. Some were angry. Some were laughing. Some were worried.

“Cy! This way!” Antigone lowered her head and plowed into the crowd. A woman was leading her toward a tall open door. They were through, but still surrounded by the mob. “Don’t ring it!” Antigone shouted. Her voice bounced through the vaults, and silence fell on the crowd. “We’re here! We present ourselves! Or declare ourselves! Whatever! We’re here! And we need a doctor!”

The bell rang again, and the echoes died slowly.

“Hello?” Antigone said, her head on a swivel. “A doctor, please? Our lawyer’s been shot.”

“Initiates, step forth!” The voice was deep — rumbling irritation.

The crowd pressed back to the sides of the enormous room, and Cyrus, regripping Horace, began to move toward the front.

“No!” Antigone pulled back. “Not until we have a doctor.” She looked around the room. “He bled a lot!”

Two middle-aged, pale-faced women in white skirts edged nervously out of the crowd and then hurried forward. They took Horace and laid him gently on his back. One finger-checked his pulse.

Massaging her shoulder, Antigone nodded at her brother, and the two of them walked slowly toward the front of the huge room. Cyrus’s eyes skidded through the crowd. White-haired men in safari jackets stared at him. A group of older girls in tall riding boots sneered. Behind them, deeper in the crowd, Cyrus spotted a small flock of starched nuns’ hats. He moved on, past a cluster of fit, sweating boys in tall socks and the same short white shorts and shirts as the runners outside. They all stood with their arms crossed, each with a simple black medieval ship printed high on his cotton chest. Farther on, a young group of flushed, ponytailed girls in similar uniform whispered and giggled. Instead of a ship, each girl’s shirt had a small snake curled in a ring, swallowing its own tail. Cyrus’s hand went to his neck as women and men in pocketed shorts and trousers and jodhpurs scowled and stepped aside. A group of monks in brown robes with rope belts and sandals stepped backward, crossing themselves as Cyrus and his sister passed. Cyrus tore his eyes from theirs, from the crowd, and focused on the room.

Columns of different colors, scaled like fish, held crowded mezzanines on both sides, and light streamed down through large windows. In the front, a forest of enormous portraits collaged the wall with color. Men and women stood on ships, beside strange creatures, on mountains and beaches and walls. The paintings at the top, arranged beneath the high, black-beamed ceiling, were crude and simple. Below them, the canvases became more ornate, crowded and medieval, cluttered with red robes and dragons and sea creatures. Even farther down, the styles changed again and again, until, at the very bottom, a single abstract portrait hung — a boy’s face, intense in its wide strokes, colored only with red and black. In front of the portrait, the same boy sat behind an ebony table. His face was freckled and sharp. His hair was brown and strawberry, and his loose linen shirt was open at the neck, revealing a heavy silver chain. A red cloth dangled over his shoulders, and a book the size of a small hay bale was open beside him.

At one end of the table, a tall black man stood behind a paper-covered lectern with his arms behind his back. His head was shaved almost to the skin, his strong jaw ended in a tight, pointed beard, and his eyes were as sharp as they were dark. At the other end of the table, sitting open on a low pedestal, there was a long wooden box. Inside, with tattooed hands crossed and eyes closed, lay the pale and charred corpse of William Skelton.

“Cyrus,” Antigone whispered. “Cyrus …”

“Shhh,” Cyrus whispered back. “I see it.”

“Name yourselves,” the bearded man commanded. His voice was accented, British.

Antigone coughed and cleared her throat. “I’m Antigone Elizabeth Smith, and this is my brother, Cyrus Lawrence Smith.”

“Hi,” said Cyrus.

“Do you present yourselves as the heirs of William Cyrus Skelton?

Cyrus blinked. William Cyrus? “What?” he asked.

Antigone hit him with an elbow. “Yes, we do,” she said. “And we’re his apprentices or acolytes or whatever.”

A thin man with a pencil mustache, wearing a cream suit and a skinny blue tie, stepped out of the crowd. He smiled at Cyrus and Antigone and then turned to the bearded man. “The Order challenges. With my colleague John Horace Lawney unfortunately injured, there is no longer a Keeper to confirm the children’s identities. Without confirmation of identity, their presentation as Acolytes and claims to inheritance cannot be acknowledged.”

The bearded man turned to the boy behind the table. The boy’s eyes were down, but he nodded slightly.

“Will any Keeper stand up as witness?” The bearded man scanned the crowd.

The thin man winked at Cyrus.

“Hold on,” Cyrus said. “Can’t we wait till our lawyer wakes up?”

“You could have requested an emergency deferral.” The thin man smiled. “But you didn’t. You presented and declared yourselves.”

“Seeing no witness …,” the bearded man yelled.

“Wait a bit there, Rupert Greeves!” An old woman in a belted safari jacket forced herself forward. “Eleanor Elizabeth Eldridge will stand up. I watched them born, and I watched them grow.”

Cyrus gaped.

“Mrs. Eldridge?” Antigone asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Identity has been confirmed,” said the man called Rupert Greeves. Mrs. Eldridge nodded, and retreated to the rim of the crowd.

Stunned and confused, Cyrus watched her go. Then an old and very bald monk hustled forward, bowing to the boy as he came. “Perhaps,” he said, bobbing, “I could remind the dais that William Skelton was duly excommunicated from the Order of Brendan on charges of theft, murder, and other gross misconducts. He was an outlaw with no standing to bring Acolytes into our Order.”

The boy ignored him. Rupert Greeves cleared his throat. “Perhaps I could remind you, Gregory, that Brown Robes and Brendanites do not have the authority to expel anyone from this Order with your own declarations. Your charges were thrown out without a hearing.”

“But our evidence,” the monk said. “So much evidence.”

“Visions, spectral testimony, and dreams are inadmissible,” Rupert said. “You know this. Now step back.”

Sniffing, the monk spun and retreated, glaring at Cyrus as he did.

The thin, cream-suited man jumped even farther forward. He was almost to the table. “The Order wishes to establish Passage.”

The big, bearded man grimaced. “On what grounds, Cecil?”

The lawyer turned, smiling to the crowd. “These children stand before you, hoping to be established as Acolytes and heirs to one of the most notorious outlaws this community has ever seen. No, he was never successfully expelled, but his misdeeds have become a matter of record. If the community were to reclaim the entirety of the Skelton estate, it would be no injustice, and only the slightest step toward righting a lifetime of wrongs.”

The crowd murmured its support, and the thin man turned, locking eyes with Cyrus. “In addition,” he said, “twenty-one years ago, their father, Lawrence Smith, was himself expelled from this Order. Children to an outlaw, Acolytes to an outlaw? I have to wonder how committed these two would be to our ways and to the rule of our law. I have to wonder why we would want them at all.” Again, he winked at Cyrus, and then turned to face the bearded man. “Their Acolyteship was filed literally minutes before the death of Mr. William Skelton — suspect already, to say the least — and their family has a questionable history with our Order. In fact, these two would become the only living members of the Order to have a known ancestor contained in the Burials. At a minimum, Passage as established in the case of Earhart, 1932, would seem an extremely reasonable request for the community to make before acknowledging such a substantial inheritance.”

Rupert Greeves scratched his pointed beard and turned his dark eyes to Cyrus and Antigone. “Any response?” he asked.

Cyrus looked at his sister. Her brows were down over eyes that looked as confused as he felt. Turning back to the big man, he shrugged. His shoulders ached, and his head was spinning. “Honestly, I don’t have a clue what’s going on. But that guy is snaky.”

“Our lawyer …” Antigone looked back over her shoulder. Horace was gone.

“If I may,” the thin man continued. “The Order would like to suggest the achievement of Explorer for inheritance, and the …”

The boy behind the table shook his head. Whispers raced through the crowd as they strained to see.

“The Order would like to suggest the achievement of Journeyman, and the successful …”

The boy shook his head.

“The community would like to suggest the achievement of Journeyman?” The thin man’s voice hooked up nervously.

The crowd waited. Rupert Greeves waited. Cyrus and Antigone, unsure of what they were waiting for, waited.

The boy at the table pursed his lips. For the first time, he looked at Cyrus, and then at Antigone. He nodded and dropped his eyes.

Chatter climbed the walls.

“Seal the records!” Rupert bellowed. “The estate of William Skelton, Keeper in the Order of Brendan, is declared dormant!”

Two men moved forward out of the crowd and closed the lid on Skelton’s coffin.

“A final thought!” the thin man shouted, and the noise in the enormous room died. The boy looked up from the hay-bale book, where he had been writing. “According to Mr. Lawney’s Acolyte filings, the oath — declared and assented to — was the Latin variation, last used by mandate on this continent in the year 1914. The Order would like to suggest that the Acolyte requirements correspond to the oath. Let the achievement of Journeyman be established according to the standards of that year.”

Gasps of surprise were swallowed by laughter.

“That’s ridiculous.” Rupert Greeves shook his head. “Even for you, Cecil.”

All eyes turned to the boy at the table. He shrugged, nodded, scribbled something in the enormous book, and rose. Turning his back, he walked toward a small door in the wall behind him.

Cyrus stood, surrounded by a wash of surprised voices while he watched the strange boy leave. He was hungry, he still had Horace’s blood all over him, his throat was still phlegm-full of last night’s smoke, and his feet ached. That much he knew. But he had no idea what had just happened.

“Cy,” Antigone said. “I don’t think that was good.”

Before Cyrus could answer, the thin man stepped in front of them, clutching a folder, smiling, and scratching his mustache with a long finger. “Children,” he said, nodding. “Lovely to meet you both. My name is Cecil T. Rhodes, and no, that wasn’t good. At least not for you.”

Cyrus glared at him. The man had a face like a mustached rabbit. “I don’t like you,” Cyrus said. “And I don’t think I ever will.”

“Ha,” said Cecil. “Amusing.”

The big, bearded man thumped on his lectern. “Rhodes, step back. Initiates!” His voice filled the crowded hall. “Approach the Book and place your hands upon the table.”

Looking over his shoulder at the crowd, Cyrus moved cautiously forward. Most of the faces were smiling. But they weren’t all happy, supportive smiles. Smirks. Giggles. Whispers. He knew the tone. He felt like he was being called forward in class after he’d fallen asleep and drooled on his desk.

Antigone’s hands were already palms-down on the table, and she was studying the huge book. Cyrus made fists and pressed his knuckles against the smooth, waxy wood.

Rupert Greeves moved away from his lectern and stood behind the table, looming tall across from them.

“Kneel.”

Antigone dropped quickly. Cyrus eased his knees down carefully onto the cool stone.

Greeves cleared his throat. “Do you renounce evil and all the powers of wickedness in this world and others?”

Cyrus glanced at his sister. “Yes?” they both said quietly.

Greeves leaned over the table. “I do renounce them,” he whispered.

“I do renounce them,” they said, almost in unison.

“Do you renounce all dark knowledge and sorceries which corrupt the body and destroy the soul?”

“I do renounce them,” Antigone said.

“Yes,” said Cyrus. “I mean, I do renounce them.”

“Do you renounce all vile incantations, demonic snares, and dark communications with the dead?”

“I do renounce them.” Cyrus twitched a smile at his sister. He’d nailed it that time. But what exactly were they worried he might do? Dark communications with the dead? How did you even try something like that? Suddenly, he could feel the weight of the key ring between and beneath his collarbones and his smile was gone. The room seemed colder. He tried to breathe slowly. With one quick pulse, nervousness had tightened his chest.

“Will you tread the world and tend the wilds? When the world whispers her secrets, will you keep them? Will you protect the weak and face your own end without fear?”

Cyrus swallowed. “Yes,” he said.

“I will,” said Antigone.

“Do you now honor and bind unto yourself the strength of heaven, the light of sun, the radiance of moon, the splendor of fire, the speed of lightning, the swiftness of wind, the firmness of earth, the will of stone?” Greeves leaned forward again. “I do honor and bind,” he whispered.

“I do honor and bind,” they said.

Rupert Greeves looked up at the crowd. “Do the assembled receive these among them, a brother and a sister to Brendan?”

A few laughed. Many muttered. But a cluster of loud voices announced their agreement.

“We do receive them.”

Rupert Greeves nodded at Cyrus and Antigone, and they both quickly stood. Leaning across the table, Greeves gripped their shoulders. He spoke, and as he did, his dark eyes met Cyrus’s. His accented voice softened. “May you be shielded from poison, from burning, from drowning, from wounding, from betrayal, from the rage of seas, the anger of mountains, and the plottings of men. May you be a strength to the Order, and the Order a strength to you.” He turned to Antigone. “Miss Antigone Smith, Acolyte in the Order of Brendan, congratulations. Would you please sign the book?”

Greeves picked up a battered quill, dipped it in ink, and handed it to Antigone. Then, heaving pounds of dusty pages to one side, he found the appropriate place and set his finger above it.

Cyrus watched his sister sign her name in blobby ink, and then Rupert Greeves took back the quill and blotted her signature. The big man’s pointed beard swung up, and his eyes were back on Cyrus. He redipped the quill. “Mr. Cyrus Smith, Acolyte in the Order of Brendan, congratulations. Would you please sign beneath your sister?”

While the crowd began to disperse behind him, Cyrus bent over the book, and the smell of dusty leather and ancient pages rose up to meet him. The paper was beyond yellow, aged to brown. He was signing in a long column of names, and all of their owners had better handwriting than he did. Biting his lip, he scratched his name as neatly as he could, but the lines thickened and bulged as he went. When he finished Lawrence, he began to breathe. And then he left out the “i” in Smith. Smth.

Greeves reached for the pen.

“Darn it,” Cyrus said. “Hold on a sec.” It was too tight to squeeze the letter in, but he added a large dot — more like a raindrop of ink. Straightening, he stared at what he’d done.

Smiling, Rupert took the pen and blotted the ink. “Come on, then. I’ll show you each to your Acolyte quarters.” Closing the book, he glanced up. The thin lawyer slid up beside Cyrus.

“The Polygon,” said Cecil Rhodes. He giggled and then grew suddenly serious. “Show them to the Polygon, Mr. Greeves. The standards of 1914 have been applied. Don’t go and disqualify them so soon.”

Laughing, he hurried away.

Antigone sputtered her lips. “I really don’t like him.”

“Who cares about him?” Cyrus looked up at Rupert Greeves. “Hey, you know, we’re actually in a lot of trouble. Horace said you would help us once we were members. And, well, a guy named Maxi killed Skelton and burned down our motel. Then he took our brother, Dan. He chased us here — probably shot Horace, too, him or one of his sidekicks.”

“Maxi?” Rupert’s jaw clenched beneath his beard. His eyes narrowed. “Why would a creature like Maximilien be after the two of you?”

“Ask him,” Cyrus said.

Rupert shook his head and sighed. “You have brought trouble, haven’t you? Maximilien wouldn’t attack a member of the Order without reason. We are too large a threat to his appetites.” He looked at Antigone and back at Skelton’s coffin, and then he turned sharp eyes onto Cyrus. “You may have something his master wants.”

“His master?” Antigone asked. “What kind of master are we talking about?”

“The kind of master capable of controlling a man like Maxi.” Rupert inhaled slowly, inflating his broad chest. “He calls himself Dr. Phoenix,” he said quietly. “And at times, Mr. Ashes. He is the stuff of nightmares, I will not say more. If Maxi took your brother, then he took him to Phoenix. I am very sorry.”

Cyrus looked at his sister. Antigone tucked back her hair and crossed nervous arms. “Can’t you … do anything?”

Rupert stepped between them. A few people were still loitering by the big doors. One of them was an old woman in a safari jacket. Rupert whistled sharply.

“Eleanor Eldridge!” he yelled. “Can I beg some assistance?”

Cyrus watched the old woman approach, avoiding his eyes. When she got close enough, she began to chatter.

“Rupert Greeves,” she said. “I don’t care how big you think you are, and I don’t care what you call yourself or what you think you can make me do. I knew you when you were as timid as a possum and as awkward as a young giraffe. I swore off these two ungratefuls. I washed my hands and shook the mud off my boots. I wouldn’t tie their shoes if they lost their arms. I’ll not be helping them.”

Rupert almost smiled. “Something has come up. I’ll need you to show them to the Polygon for me, Mrs. E.” He turned back to Cyrus and Antigone, and for a moment, he simply stared, unblinking, breathing slowly. Cyrus squirmed, fighting to keep his hands from drifting up to his neck. The big man’s face was worried, his eyes searching. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“Today, you two have become a brother and sister to me. Your brother by blood is now like my own, and I will do all that I can for him. I wish I could make you promises, but I cannot. Not when it comes to Maxi and Phoenix. For now, I will see what can be seen and hear what can be heard. When I know more, we will speak again. Soon.” He smiled with tight lips. “I must hear more from the Order’s outlaw Acolytes.”

Turning, he strode toward the tall doors, the sound of his boots doubling and tripling in echo.

“Listen to Mrs. E!” he shouted, and he was through the doors and gone.