Thornghost (23 page)

The cage had opened.

I
t was a long climb up the ladder. The rungs gave slightly, and even though the Rosa had averted its thorns, they had to be careful. Sometimes a burst of light filled the shaft, but they saw no movement at the top, no skull-headed silhouette peering down.

When they emerged from the hole, the Sparrow King's desk was empty and the door to the balcony was open to the moonlit night. But Marcelius himself and his guards were gone.

The light bursts that illuminated the whole chamber came from the upper speakwood. Rid of its dark veins and Rafsa's obey rune, the ring of wood gleamed clear, framed above and below by glowing signs.

Secret's good ear turned toward the open door. “I hear yelling and screaming.”

They all stepped out onto the balcony.

The castle courtyard lay abandoned, the Nighthouse road empty. But far away at the bottom of the hill there were Nightmares in the Falcon Circle. The entire plaza between the jewel orchard and the docks milled with trolls.

Trolls by the hundreds, claws out, shrieking and howling for battle. Above the jewel orchard, skullbeaks flew in a churning cloud, directed by the Sparrow King himself. He sat atop the giant skullbeak they had seen in the workshop, awakened now, big as a skeleton dragon. They circled above the docks, amulet glowing red in the Sparrow King's hand.

And inside the jewel orchard, barely visible along the top of the walls: strange creatures with spikes.

“What are those?” Niklas squinted. “Another kind of Nightmare?”

“No.” Secret lashed her tail. “It's the Brokeners!”

“You mean they're not dead?” Kepler rummaged in his vest pocket and produced his telescope. He leaned so far over the railing, it seemed he might fly down to join the battle. “They're in armor! They're
fighting
!
”

Sebastifer wagged his scraggly tail. “They must have gotten away somehow!”

But when Niklas looked through the telescope, he felt a cold claw in his gut. The Brokeners hadn't gotten away. They had gotten themselves trapped.

The trolls hadn't breached the gates to the orchard yet, but it was only a matter of time, and not a lot of it. They were crawling up the outside of the walls like ants.

The Brokeners did their best to push them back. They didn't have swords or axes, but they had teeth and claws and hearts. As Odar said, it wasn't nothing. The raccoon himself stood on top of the wall, brandishing the sign of the Second Ruby for a weapon. “That sign is oak,” Kepler said. “That crazy, brave old hero!”

But neither was it enough.

The gates shattered. The stubs swung open, revealing the Brokeners inside. They stood in tight ranks, three deep across the opening. Niklas thought he saw the tiny form of Too, nearly drowning in her spiky armor. Odar jumped down from the wall and landed in front of the line, batting off troll claws with his sign like he had led rebel armies his entire life. But they still resembled a ragtag band of petty thieves that had stumbled into an army of executioners.

This wasn't going to be a fight. It would be a slaughter.

“I need my bow!” Kepler gripped the railing. “I need to get down there!”

“You can't reach them,” Secret said. “Castine is already doing her best. Look.”

They couldn't see her behind the orchard walls, but it must be her firing into the skullbeak flock. Her arrows rose up like reverted shooting stars. But even if the odd wing of cloth burst into flames, it didn't make much of a difference. There were too many skullbeaks.

“We have to do something!” Niklas clenched his fists. But what could they do against an army of Nightmares?
Nothing. Unless they knew their weaknesses. Something that would take out all of them, at once.

“If only we had acorns,” he groaned.

“Or dawn would come,” Secret said. But there was no sign of it, not even a graying in the east. Niklas wished he could pull the sun over the horizon and into the valley.

The sun.

Something the Greenhood had said stirred at the back of his mind.
A rose tree that sent its rays of sunlight into the night.
“A beacon, to show the way . . .” He said it out loud, trying out the idea on his tongue.

“What?” Secret turned her good ear toward him.

“Petrify,” he whispered, because he knew a girl who was good with words like that. Niklas bolted for the balcony door. “The lighthouse!” he called. “We have to get it working!”

The Rosa had pulled its living branches back from the walls and ceiling, curling them into a lovely tree. The speakwood formed a bright ribbon around the stem. But Niklas quickly realized he had no idea how to turn the light bursts into a lighthouse ray.

“We need the beacon lens to focus the light,” Kepler said. “It's over by the wall. I glared at it for hours.”

“You know how to work the lighthouse.” Secret didn't sound surprised.

“Lady fair, I've been waiting to take back this place since I got here. Of course I know how to work it. In theory.” Kepler pulled the sheet off a three-foot-tall round object
with a hole in the middle. The lens shimmered in angles and layers of jewel glass. It was crafted like a ring that opened up on hinges. “Huh. It doesn't look like the ones in the book.” He cleared his throat. “But I think it goes around the speakwood.”

Niklas and Secret helped him carry it over to the Rosa Torquata. It clasped perfectly around the stem. “It should probably sit on a base that swivels,” Kepler said. “But we'll need to hold it in place and turn it to control the ray.” He glanced up at Secret. “Together?”

“I suppose.” She helped him lift the lens so it enclosed the speakwood.

“Better shut your eyes,” Niklas said. “It's going to get pretty bright.”

“Better hurry,” Kepler said. “It's going to get pretty heavy, too.”

Niklas ran back outside, where Sebastifer was watching the battle. “How are they doing down there?”

Sebastifer's tail drooped as he handed Niklas the telescope. “Let's hope your plan works.”

There were crumpled forms outside the orchard gates. Niklas didn't see how many.

Yes,
he thought.
Better hurry.

The first ray of light shot out of the beacon and out across the Frothsea, blasting the moon out of the water with its wedge of gold.

“To the left,” Niklas yelled, and Kepler and Secret
turned the lens. The beam swept across the mouth of the Kolfjord before it went out.

“More left,” Niklas yelled.

The second ray hit the ivy ruins of Lostbook and almost made it to the docks before it went out.

The third ray struck the Falcon Circle, licking over the tiles like a tongue of light. Shooting in from above, it grazed everything, spared nothing. Everywhere it hit, the trolls turned to stone.

No ugly screams rent the night. There were no gargles or howls to blend with the skullbeaks' cry. Just a sudden silence as their limbs froze. Once the beam had done its work, a host of standing stones filled the circle. Alive no more. Dangerous no more.

Odar swung his sign an extra time, stopped. He looked around at the stone trolls. Looked up at the flashing beacon. And as he pointed up to the Nighthouse, the other Brokeners howled, waving madly, a giant roar that could be heard all the way up on the bluff.

But there was one living creature who did not join in the cheer. The Sparrow King wrenched around on his bird of bones. He, too, saw the beacon. His skull mask glinted as the ray passed over him again. Then came a red flash from his amulet as his great skullbeak banked, head hooting as it set course for the Nighthouse.

“Put the lens down,” Niklas yelled. “The trolls are out, but the Sparrow King is coming!”

“What now,” said Sebastifer. “Hide inside the tower?”

Probably a good idea, Niklas thought. The only reasonable thing to do, really. Except the skullbeaks over the jewel orchard hadn't moved. The wind brought the sound of their skulls:
Hooooowoooo
. Now the cloud formed into a whirling, rattling funnel of death that touched down in the garden. They must be striking blind, and jewel trees provided some cover, but the Brokeners were still like fish in a barrel in there.

Secret and Kepler came rushing out on the balcony, drawn by the distant screams. “We have to stop him,” Niklas said. “He controls the skullbeaks with his amulet. We have to take it from him!”

The Sparrow King held the spiky disc in his hand. They could knock it out of his hand. They
had to
knock it out of his hand. But Kepler had no bow, Secret couldn't reach, Sebastifer was no fighter, and Niklas for once in his life found himself without a single stone to throw.

“I need a rock,” he said. “Something to throw!” He pawed through his satchel, but there was nothing there that could help, not unless the Sparrow King came close enough to be hit by a book. “Secret, look inside,” he called, but Kepler stopped her before she could go.

“No time.” Kepler fished his broken Marti medallion out of his vest pocket. “But I have this.”

“You're sure?” Niklas's hand drifted to his own medallion, felt a soft sting. “Maybe I should use my own . . .”

“This is broken already.” Kepler placed the locket in Niklas's hand. “Just make it count.”

The medallion was cracked, but heavy. It felt like it could count if he hit well.

The Sparrow King was getting near. Niklas waited until the great skullbeak flapped its wings over the courtyard, so close that he could see Marcelius's eyes burning inside the mask.

Don't miss now.

He hurled the medallion at the Sparrow King.

It may have been sheer luck, or it may have been all those stones Niklas had thrown at Mr. Molyk's rusty barn roof. But whether it was one or the other, the medallion hit the Sparrow King's hand, knocking the amulet out of his fingers.

The amulet fell through the air, flashing red all the way down to the courtyard. The spiky glass shattered on the flagstones, leaving Peder's medallion bare.

Above the jewel orchard, all the skullbeaks came apart and tumbled to the ground. Not as Nightmares, but as cloth and empty skulls, raining bones into the garden.

They did not fall alone. The giant skullbeak's wings stopped. It careened down and to the side until it crashed into the grand hall, smashing the leaded glass window of the ballroom.

The Sparrow King was thrown off. He caught the ledge
below the window and dangled by his fingertips. His mask pulled to the side, so heavy now. But Marcelius couldn't let go of the ledge to take it off, or he would fall.

Something fluttered above his head. A sparrow. Another appeared in the frame of the broken window. It perched for a moment between the shards of sparkling glass before it took flight. Suddenly a great cloud of birds streamed out through the opening and gathered in the sky. The caged sparrows had been flying loose inside the ballroom, and now at last, they were free.

Chirping and screeching, the flock grew and grew, hovering over the courtyard as if it waited for something.

But the last sparrow didn't join them. It flew down to the Sparrow King's mask and began pecking at the holes. It was only little, but the Sparrow King still couldn't help himself. He had to cover his eyes.

So he fell.

The sparrow flock dove after him and caught him before he hit the courtyard. It rose up into the sky with Marcelius trapped inside, hanging by his cloak like a black tangle in the center. And while the lighthouse sent its flashes into the night, the birds struck out over the sea, carrying the Sparrow King into the horizon, to meet whatever fate they thought fair.

I
t was Odar's idea to hold the feast in the Falcon Circle. “We always celebrated here back in the Jewelgard days, so why not? Standing stones or not, the city is ours now.”

They cleared away the troll filth and withered dark vine, the shattered bones and broken skulls, and the tiles emerged for all to see, gems glittering between the flagstones in a sweeping pattern of soaring wings. Odar had three Brokeners carry the old stove out of the Ruby's kitchen, and he fetched his last bottles of starmead all the way from the Second Ruby himself. Now the smells of baking drifted across the plaza, crisping crust and aniseed, sweet apple and cardamom.

“Let's have a toast while we wait,” Odar bellowed out to the Brokeners gathered by the fountain, starmead cups in hand. A bonfire burned at the tile falcon's heart, and torches and floating candles in the fountain's water
painted the Falcon Circle gold. “To Niklas, the not-quite Twistrose, and Secret, his not-quite Wilder! Though only one of them has fur, I say they both earned their stripes this night!”

The Brokeners cheered until Secret licked her paw, thoroughly embarrassed. But Niklas knew she enjoyed every second of praise, just like he did. He raised his cup in thanks.

The air in the valley felt so different now that the trolls had left. The salty ocean breeze had swept away the evil smells, and blended now with the scents of the garden. The Brokeners had changed, too. They stretched taller and moved more easily, and their fur picked up the gleam from the lights and the jewels of the orchard.

“And to Kepler!” Everyone fell quiet as Odar held his cup high. “There is much to be said for keeping the treasures of an entire people safe. But I'll be scratched if hope isn't the greatest treasure of all.”

Kepler stared at him in confusion for a moment, but then he grinned. “There is much to be said for showing up for the fight, too, even dressed in an apron. Don't worry, Odar. Next time we'll make sure you have a proper coat of armor.”

“Ha!” Secret was the first to laugh, and it spread all over the plaza. Odar laughed louder than anyone, tipping his cup to Kepler.

It turned out Too did know the healing rune after
all.She held a doctor's court inside the jewel orchard, sharing her magic with everyone who needed it. Niklas came to her last, when no one was looking. She healed his head wound, but Niklas had one more request. “Don't tell anyone,” he said, unbuttoning his sleeve. “But you've given me an idea. I just need your help.”

The smashed orchard gates had been removed entirely.Once the toasting was done, Petlings and Wilders walked along the silver gravel paths, some for memories and some to see the garden for the first time. To tide them over until the apple cakes were ready, Gidea the fox had brought baskets and filled them up with diamond apples, emerald pears, sapphire plums, and ruby morellos. At last Niklas had a bite of fresh jewel fruit. “Huh,” he said to the diamond apple. The shards crackled with just the right twist of sour candy, while the flesh melted tart and sweet on his tongue, filled with all the tastes of a warm summer.

“Good?” Secret sat beside him on the marble steps of the fountain, brushing away crumpled leaves with her tail.

“Very.” Niklas licked the diamond shard, careful not to slice his tongue. “But Willodale apples taste better to me.”

“You mean Molyk apples,” Secret said.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Niklas took another bite to hide his smile. “Speaking of which, why didn't you try to stop me in the sparrow pens tonight? It was sort of doomed to go wrong, that trick.”

“Because you didn't free those birds to cover yourself or
to prove a point or annoy the grown-ups. You did it because it was right and it had to be done.”

Niklas made a mock frown. “That sounds strangely like praise.”

Secret yawned, but the medallion tingled as she leaned against him. “Don't think it makes you any less of a cub. Just slightly less stupid.”

Niklas tossed the core into a pile of roots. “You're right. I do like them better when I've worked for them.” He smiled at her. “Don't tell my grandmother.”

• • •

T
ime slowed toward morning like dark, sweet marmalade. Someone brought in fiddles and a drum so everyone could dance while they waited for the stew that cooked over the bonfire. Niklas had talked to each and every Brokener now, and between all the slaps on the back, the well-dones, and the better-late-than-nevers, he had pieced together the events of the night.

The Greenhood had come to the Second Ruby, telling Odar they must flee or fight. The Brokeners didn't hesitate at all: Out came the armor, and Odar had led everyone into the gardens and through the tunnel of the jewel orchard to either hide in the only place the dark vine had not yet reached, or if that didn't work: to make a final stand.

Sebastifer sat in a folding chair at the rim of the music and the light. He looked tired, but he wagged his tail when
Niklas brought over a cup of starmead. “Thank you, boy.”

Together they watched the revelers. Right now, Castine skipped about in the middle of the circle, tail bound with tinkling bells and legs so quick they were almost a blur. She grinned wide at the shouts and whoops she got from the others.

“I've been wondering about something,” Niklas said. “Rafsa marked you with a
sleep
rune to keep you under, and a
dream
rune to make you reach for my mother, and the one for power to make you strong enough to keep the gate open. But why the rune for
awake
? Doesn't that go against the others?”

Sebastifer looked away. “They put that on me because I'm not supposed to be here. When our humans die, we don't linger. We leave. Become travelers. I've been aching to go for seven years.”

“Oh.” Niklas wanted to say something comforting, but he couldn't think of anything that would help. Instead he asked, “But where do you go?”

“No one knows. Travelers leave in the middle of the night, and there are no bodies or anything. Many think that we get to be with our children again.” He shrugged. “Like Odar said, there's no greater treasure than hope.”

Niklas nodded at Castine, who kept glancing over at them. She had spent half the evening by Sebastifer's side. “I bet she's itching to make an Erika medallion for you.”

Sebastifer smiled. “I've got my own, back at the cabin.
They're not as pretty, but I sure worked my fingers off to make them.”

“She did the same.” Niklas found the little figurine from the bird castle and held it out for him to take.

Sebastifer ran his claw gently along the back of the carved dog. “Well, she was slightly more talented than me. Thank you for showing it to me.” He closed Niklas's fingers around the figurine. “But you keep it. Put it where it belongs. I have a gift for you, though.”

He smoothed back the fur on his arm, bringing out the
read
rune. “I know how you remember the day your mother died. No one can take that memory away. But I could show you how it looked for her.”

Niklas stared at the rune. “You want me to see her dying thoughts?”

“Yes. But it's not what you think.”

And it wasn't. Niklas put his hand on the rune, expecting the cold tug to take him to the memory of a pale and scared boy standing in the doorway and then backing into the dark hallway. He expected fear and pain and the word
Thornghost
. Instead it showed him a blur of sunny images, fraying at the edges. Niklas tucked into his bed in the yellow room. Niklas throwing rocks in the Summerchild. Niklas wide-eyed over a page in the science books. Niklas chasing Tobis across the yard, laughing and light, fading slowly, until he and everything was gone.

He opened his eyes and found Sebastifer's brows pulled
up in that odd combination of heartbreaking and warm particular to dogs. “It's not good to carry guilt for things you can't help.”

Niklas couldn't speak. His throat hurt too much. He just nodded and put the dog figurine into his pocket. Over by the Ruby's great stove, Odar shouted with a tray in his arms. “Apple cakes are ready! Get them while they're hot!”

Sebastifer nudged his shoulder. “Go dance with your cat. I've never heard of a lynx Wilder before, but if you ask me, she's quite something.”

“Yes, she is,” Niklas said, searching for her golden fur in the crowd. “But please don't tell her that, or she'll be impossible to talk to.”

“I won't,” Sebastifer said, squinting up at the stars. “But you should.”

• • •

H
e found Secret at the entrance of the jewel orchard, in deep conversation with Idun Greenhood, who to everyone's surprise had come down from the woods to join the party. His cat, as Sebastifer called her, leaned gracefully against the gate post, no longer self-conscious on two legs. Niklas felt a small sting of worry. How long had they been away from home? He had lost track of the nights, but it couldn't be much more than a week since they met in the oak tree. She had changed so much since then. How would it feel for her to change back to a normal lynx?

“There you are,” she said when he came close. Niklas knew that voice, the calm one that meant danger. “You need to listen. Idun has something to tell you.”

“About my mother?” Niklas saw that Idun was carrying the Book of Twistrose. He had been wondering if the fall of the Sparrow King would blot out the Thornghost stain on his mother's name. Maybe the two of them together would make a whole Twistrose. “It wasn't fair, you know. Couldn't she have gone through a different gate, one that didn't mean crossing Sorrowdeep? She almost drowned there!”

Idun shook her head. “I don't know why the Rosa did that. But it's not infallible, as the Sparrow King proved. Runes or no runes, it should never have tolerated him.” Idun hugged her book. “I fear I bear some of the blame. Marcelius of Molyk was once my apprentice. But I found him feeding blood into the speakwood, so I threw him out. I thought I removed him from the danger, and later I believed him dead. But it was I who gave him the tools he needed to feed his hate.” She lifted her chin. “However, that is not why I must speak with you.”

“It's not?”

Secret's eyes brimmed with reflections from the jewel trees. “It's about Summerhill. Niklas, we came here to stop the thing that caused the taint.”

“And we have,” Niklas said, staring from one to the other. “Haven't we? The Rosa Torquata destroyed all the dark vine?”

Idun inclined her head. “It did.” She brushed the Book of Twistrose with her fingertips. “But say you have a bowl of clear water. And say you have a pen that dribbles ink into the bowl. Even if you remove the pen after a while, the water will still be blue.”

Niklas rubbed his forehead. “What do you mean?”

“She means,” Secret said quietly, “that whatever magic has already passed through the gate will still be there.”

“And whatever monster.” Idun put her hand lightly on Niklas's sleeve, and he understood. Rafsa. That's why her standing stone was not to be found. She had left for safer ground. She had gone home.

On the mosaic of the Falcon Circle, the Brokeners still clapped and laughed. Odar and Gidea twirled around in the center now, and Too capered about with an apple cake in each hand. Only Kepler glanced their way over the rim of his cup. He sat on the fountain perched on the hind leg of a marble horse, looking content. The horror of the
obey
rune seemed to be slipping off him like a bad dream.

“We can't tell them,” Niklas said. “They're celebrating.”

“You can go quietly if you like,” Idun said. “It's what we do when the time comes. We leave them dancing.”

Dancing?
Niklas turned to look at Sebastifer's place. It was empty, save for his cup of starmead placed neatly on the seat of the folding chair.
Go dance with your cat,
he had said, and meanwhile he had gone, and all his memories
of Erika with him. To travel only he knew where. Niklas whispered, “You leave them dancing.”

Idun pulled her cowl up. “I'll let the Rosa know you are ready. Farewell, Niklas.” She bowed. “Secret.”

As they edged closer to the darker parts of the feast, where there were more shadows than torches, Niklas snuck two apple cakes, like a thief in the night. Which was his favorite part to play, but right now, he would have liked to give everyone a hug instead.

“You've hugged them all already tonight,” Secret said. “Once more doesn't matter.”

“Yes, it does,” Niklas said. “You should at least say good-bye to Kepler.”

Secret frowned at the fountain, where the marble horse now pranced alone with no ferret to keep it company. She shook her head. “No need.”