The Ever Breath (14 page)

“Hey,” Artwhip said. “Watch it!”

Truman stifled a giggle.

“It grates my flesh that you can sit there when there’s such an important task to be done. I don’t know why he chose you at all. Look at you! You’ve already gotten a death warning!”

“I haven’t been chosen for anything. What are you talking about?” Artwhip asked.

The waiter paused a moment. “Isn’t that boy half of it?” he said, pointing at Truman. “Right there.”

“Truman?” Artwhip said, arching an eyebrow.

“Half of what?” Truman asked.

The waiter shot Artwhip a dirty look. “Right,” he said. “As if you didn’t know!” They came out the other side of the storage closet and passed an open meat locker where a woman stood in the cold mist, holding a chain of frozen chickens.

“Good day,” the waiter said, in his shy, nervous voice, the one he’d used earlier.

“Hello, there,” the woman said gruffly, swinging two frozen chickens by their stiff necks.

Once she was gone from their sight, the waiter looked at Artwhip again and said over his shoulder, “I been in this for five years. You know that? Five years, and not one real thing to show for it!”

“You’ve been in
what
for five years?” Artwhip asked, impatient. “And where are you taking us, anyway?”

The waiter shook his head, disgusted by Artwhip’s stupidity. Finally they arrived at a wide loading door. The waiter opened it to a burst of cold air, and there, down a long alley lined with caged creatures, was a ruckus tent, pulsing with music and noise. “You need to get lost in there,” he told them. “Shake off any trail and then get back to your mission. Collect the other half.”

“Do you have a mission?” Truman asked Artwhip.

“I don’t think so.” Artwhip looked at the waiter. “Why should I trust you?”

The waiter smiled and then bent down and lifted his pant leg. There, strapped to his leg by a leather harness, was a dagger just like Artwhip’s, with a silver hilt in the shape of the snake with flared plumage on its head. A jarkman’s dagger.

“You’re a jarkman too?” Truman said.

“Hush,” the waiter said, peering around. “I’m Coldwidder.”

“I’m Artwhip of Hindman near Toot Hill—”

“I know who you are.”

“And I’m Truman.”

“I know that too,” Coldwidder said, and then he gave a low bow.

Artwhip looked at Coldwidder and then back at Truman. “What’s that for?”

“I’d have bowed when I first saw him in the restaurant, but that would have tipped people off,” Coldwidder said. “Don’t you think?”

“Tipped people off to what?” Artwhip asked.

Truman was pretty sure this had to do with his father—the King of the Jarkmen. He was nervous. Even though Artwhip seemed to be devoted to Truman’s father, Truman didn’t want to be pegged as the son of Public Enemy Number One. If news got out, he’d have people hunting him too.

Coldwidder considered Artwhip for a moment, as if trying to gauge whether he was kidding or not. “Don’t you know that he’s the son of Cragmeal?”

Artwhip gasped. He looked at Truman’s blue pajamas, the handmade shoes and jacket made of leaves, and the snow globe curled in one arm. “The son of Cragmeal?”

Truman lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers. “Hi.”

Artwhip ripped off the blue hat, showing his horns, and bowed.

“You don’t have to do that,” Truman said. “I’m just a kid. An ordinary kid!”

Artwhip rose. He and Coldwidder smiled at each other.

“Ordinary!” Artwhip said.

“Ha!” Coldwidder said.

“Well, I’m not completely ordinary. I mean, I have medical issues. I have a lot of allergies, and I’m lactose intolerant and I have sports asthma….”

Coldwidder and Artwhip stared at him, baffled.

“I don’t follow,” Coldwidder said. “What’s all that you just said?”

“Never mind.” Truman took a deep breath, one that flowed in and out of his lungs, clean and clear. He was used to rattling off a list of his ailments to teachers and camp counselors and coaches, but none of that mattered here. “Let’s get back to Artwhip. Does he have a mission or what?”

Coldwidder looked at Artwhip, annoyed by him once again. He threw his hands in the air. “You don’t know? What kind of fool are you? You are wearing the hat,” he said slowly. “That’s how we all can know that it’s you. It was in the note.” Artwhip wore a blank expression. “You have to know! Didn’t you get your note?”

“What
note?” Artwhip said, and then Truman remembered the story of Artwhip’s landlady spilling tea on the letter that had come with the hat.

Artwhip remembered too. “Oh, no,” Artwhip said. “It was ruin’t. I never read it. Miss Spottem, you see, she only has paws and …”

Coldwidder stared at him. “Cragmeal,” he whispered. “Your mission is from Cragmeal himself.”

“Cragmeal himself?” Artwhip repeated.

“Have you heard from him?” Truman blurted out. “Is he okay?”

Coldwidder looked around in every direction, and low and high too, just in case there were any mice listening in. He motioned for Artwhip and Truman to lean in close.

“You’re in charge of Cragmeal’s children,” he whispered to Artwhip. “You’re their guide!”

“But—but—” Artwhip stammered. “Where was I supposed to find them? This one found me! And I don’t even know where the other one is—”

“Camille?” Truman said, his pulse racing. “She’s not here. She’s at our grandmother’s house.”

“You’ve got to make it to Ickbee’s in the Ostley Wood,” Coldwidder said. “Ickbee tends the passageway. You’re an Academy boy, aren’t you? Rich kids!” He snorted. “They don’t teach you the truth in that expensive Academy. Only Office of Official Affairs facts and figures. Their own prissy cleaned-up version of things.”

“I know plenty,” Artwhip said, indignant.

Coldwidder’s face grew serious. “It doesn’t matter now. You just have to keep them safe.”

“Cragmeal’s children …” Artwhip was still stunned.

“You got half of your charge right here. You got to find the other fifty percent,” Coldwidder said. “And fast.”

“I’ve seen my father in my snow globe,” Truman said. “He’s all bound up in a museum of strange things. And he’s a kid.”

“In your snow globe?” Coldwidder asked. “Those things are oldfangled nuisances. You could have been looking at something that happened twenty years ago or twenty years from now.”

Truman glanced down uncertainly at the snow globe.

“That’s right!” Artwhip said happily. “Maybe I won’t get stabbed today! Maybe—”

“He saw you get stabbed in a globe? I’d keep in mind that
the death warning is pretty fresh. It still smells like the broiled rat it was tied to,” Coldwidder said.

“But still, are there any museums—dark, spooky ones with chopped-off fingers and dead stuffed creatures?” Truman persisted.

Coldwidder shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“This is what I don’t understand,” Artwhip said. “Why are Cragmeal’s children here now?”

“We’re just on winter break,” Truman tried to explain. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”

“There’s no mistake. You’re here for a reason. The Ever Breath,” Coldwidder said, glancing between Artwhip and Truman, “is gone.”

And then someone back in the restaurant called for Coldwidder. “Where are you? Your customers, Coldwidder!”

Coldwidder clapped Artwhip on the back. “I guess there aren’t many free jarkmen to choose from. Almost all of us are in the cages filling these streets or in the bowels of prison. Still,” Coldwidder said. “Why
you
and not
me
?” And with that, he turned and shouted back in a shaky voice, “Coming!” The door shut, leaving Artwhip, Truman, and Praddle in the alley.

Down on the alley’s far end, the ruckus tent’s flaps were snapping in the cold air. Light snow began to float down from the sky. Truman remembered the scene in the snow globe—the blood spreading across Artwhip’s shirt, the snowy ground, the tent flaps, the woman in the hood. “Do you believe that the future is the future and there’s nothing anyone can do about it?” he asked.

Artwhip looked up at the snowy night sky, the ruffled
moonlit clouds. He said, “The Ever Breath. I’ve only ever heard people talk about it. It’s the breath of A Being Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived, and it’s set in stone. That’s what they say. It’s set in stone, but that breath …” He looked at Truman. “That breath is still alive. It’s still breathing. If that’s true, anything can happen.”

By the time Binderbee heard Dobbler’s shoes clacking down the tiled hall toward his office, the mouse had written a hasty note with Dobbler’s inkhorn and plume. He kept it brief.

And then he’d splashed chatterbroth tea on it until it was illegible and dried it out by the fire. He then, very quickly, put the tincture on it and let the words bleed through.

The original? Neatly folded and hidden in his leather briefcase.

Dobbler strode into the room, wearing his locust-fairy hat. “I’ll be here late tonight,” Dobbler said over his shoulder to his secretary. “Brew another pot!” Then he spotted Binderbee standing on his desk, next to the fake note from Artwhip’s mother. “Ho! Binderbee!” Dobbler said. “You scared me!”

“Sorry, sir. I know mice can be frightful.”

“I’m not afraid of mice! Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just that I forgot you were here.” He whistled and the locust fairies darted off his head and onto the peg on the wall. He sat down behind his desk and smoothed some of the rumpled feathers sticking out of his sleeves.

There was a light knock at the door and a man with a jowly face and a tight starched collar poked his head in. He was wearing a long overcoat and a fur scarf. “You sent for me, sir?”

“Oh, Ostwiser. Yes. Come in.” Binderbee was startled. Was this Ostwiser a relation of Artwhip Ostwiser the Jarkman? Dobbler went on, “I was just saying I’ll never get used to mice working here in the Office. Will you, Ostwiser?”

Ostwiser shook his head. “Doubtful, sir.”

This was an insult.
Why wouldn’t you get used to us?
Binderbee thought.
We can do just as good a job as you can. Better, if you consider that we can fit into places that you can’t! And why sign a contract with us if we didn’t deserve to be here?

“I’ve called Ostwiser in to hear this firsthand, Binderbee. Sit down, Ostwiser. This is about your son. A serious matter. He’s a suspected jarkman.”

“My son?” Ostwiser gasped. “Oh, no. Not possible. The boy is on the up-and-up. He’s going to apply for the new position in the Confessions Department. He told me so just today.”
How cruel
, Binderbee thought,
to bring the father in when he thinks the boy’s about to be accused
.

“Really? Well, I hope that’s the case,” Dobbler said. Then he turned to Binderbee. “Did you find anything in the ruin’t letter?”

Binderbee looked at Ostwiser. Would he know that Binderbee was lying if he said it was just a letter about a hat? Would he contradict him and send his own son to jail? Binderbee had no choice at the moment. The fake letter was sitting out on Dobbler’s desk. “Sorry, sir,” Binderbee said, pursing his lips and wagging his head. “Nothing.”

Dobbler looked impatient and tired. His eyes were weighted with fatty pouches for lids. “Nothing at all? Look, I’m working with someone who might know exactly where Cragmeal is and I’m on the brink of getting said person to hand him over to us. And I don’t know if you have noticed, but the beasts in the highlands are growing viciously restless. Howling like madmen. The ruckus tents are getting fevered. There are wild fire-breathers starting small fires in the woodlands. There’s a restlessness that can’t be explained. It’s as if the magical creatures are puffing up on their own power … as if there’s something wrong with the passageway itself, as if the flow of imagination and dream and magic were bogging down somehow … as if the Ever Breath itself were gone.” Dobbler stared at Ostwiser and Binderbee piercingly. “And my said person might know a thing or two about that as well! If we could get in now, while the power is up for grabs, there’s
no telling what we could do. And if we can get Cragmeal, once and for all, pegged as the troublemaker he is, if we can make a case to the people of this city that he is a betrayer, that he is the
thief
of the Ever Breath itself, then we can put him behind bars forever. And then we can make a world where everyone is good, and evil is simply done away with.”