

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book was originally published in the United States of America in 2012 by Aero Studios.

Nikolas & Company Episode 3: The Foul and The Fallen. Copyright © 2014 by Kevin McGill. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced. Any other form of reproduction may not be performed whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, please email at _theaerostudios@gmail.com_.

SECOND U.S. EDITION

ISBN B00D73QA1A

Designed and illustrated by C. Carlyle McCullough and Aero Studios.

Arcadius Extraordinarius original image by Pete Stoppel, www.solos-art.com.

Contents

Chapter One: Blue Möon Days

Chapter Two: Grimmelwald's Grief

Chapter Three: Miss Emma's Invitation

Chapter Four: Portlorn Forlorn

Chapter Five: Helen's Hex

Chapter Six: Nikolas Holds Ugly Helen's Hand

Chapter Seven: Birth of The Dryads

Chapter Eight: Polythana Speaks

Chapter Nine: The Creature Most Foul

Chapter Ten: Way of the Dead

Chapter Eleven: Tweeling & Hocgager's Home For Huronite Orphans

Chapter Twelve: Ictree Brag House

Chapter Thirteen: Arcadius Extraordinarius

Chapter Fourteen: Marionids

Chapter Fifteen: King's Highway Confessions

Chapter Sixteen: Call of The Lionsbran

Chapter Seventeen: The Lie of The Merrows

For my Jenny

Decemberist 2nd, Monday

  ikolas watched the snow pile up against the living room window, every fleck whispering _pit, pat, pit, pat_. The wintry brilliance made him squeeze his eyes twice. Instead of a dull white, the snow shimmered blue, which hurt to stare at for too long. During Huron's winter months, Möon's residual magic froze with the snow, turning Huron Valley into an icy indigo. Huronites called the season "blue Möon days." It marked the end of school and ushered in the Festival of Lights, which also ushered in the Ferret Festival—a day Nikolas dreaded. It was the deadline Dr. Mendesmuss had given for Xanthus's gorgon infection. Without a cure, he would turn to stone.

And all Nikolas could do was watch.

The Council of Teine had forbidden him from finding a cure.

He turned his gaze to the parlor couch at the far end of Manor Minor's west wing. Xanthus's foot poked out from layers of afghans. Being Xanthus, one would expect a rotund shape under the blankets, but it was nearly concave. Months of fighting the gorgon infection had left him emaciated.

The heap of afghans trembled as Xanthus mumbled about the cold. Yeri rushed across the room holding a yellow blanket. Soon, Xanthus would complain about the heat, and Yeri would be back on his feet stripping the blanket from him. Strangely enough, the gorgon infection hadn't worsened for Yeri. His skin was still slightly gaunt with spindly pockmarks. More than that, the stagecoach driver refused to take any of the tongue-of-gallitrot, insisting that it be saved for Xanthus.

"I don't want to go. . . ." Xanthus groaned while Yeri tucked in the blanket.

"There, there, Mr. Kobayashi," Yeri's comforting tone echoed throughout the quiet house. "You never have to leave us. Your friends are here."

"Please," Xanthus said, "I don't want to go. . . ."

The infection attacked the mind, Nikolas discovered. Just last week, they found Xanthus wandering through the forest screaming like a raving lunatic. They had to subdue him with a powerful rue elixir before he would calm down. Xanthus claimed a voice called him to join the rest, and he was trying to run away from it. Nikolas considered telling his friends about the incident, but they ignored any news concerning Xanthus's illness. Ever since the Council of Teine had threatened to throw Nikolas's friends into a workhouse if they got involved with his illness, they refused to bring it up. Usually they would deflect Nikolas, pointing out that Dr. Mendesmuss would find a cure any time now, so there's no need to worry about any of that.

Nikolas flexed his palms. His fingers ached from clutching the Harynne's nuncio for too long, but he couldn't bring himself to put the book down. The nuncio was a book filled with sketches and notes by the Harynne. It reported the elvish guards' activities in real time, helping him track the gorgons' movement across Huron. Scanning it for the gorgons' attacks had become an obsession for Nikolas. Every day he would wait patiently for a page to flash red. When one lit up, he would flip to it, almost ripping the book apart. Without fail, the nuncio was sketching a Merrow with hands raised, mouth open. Much like Mr. Waters, their skin looked like jellied fat, leaving no insides to speak of. The nuncio would then report that a troop of mermen had unexpectedly appeared and taken the transmutating body away to ensure "proper" stratification and placement on the streets of Huron alongside the other stone Merrows. After awhile, Huron's stone-Merrows had multiplied into the thousands. Citizens began to avoid King's Highway, Muntly Boulevard, and any other road that displayed those "horrid stone carcasses," as one dwarf woman described them.

Among the many sketches of transmutating Merrows, Harynne officers also reported their frustration:

But Nikolas had only one question—the obvious one. Why did the gorgon only attack Merrows?

When Nikolas would show Tim, his fraternal twin brother, all of the Harynne's worried notes, he'd dismiss Nikolas, saying, "It's great that we have the Harynne. . . . They'll take care of everything. . . . We should leave it up to them and just focus on school."

When not attending Huron Schoolhouse's remedial class, Nikolas's friends were forced to spend the remainder of their time cooped up in Manor Minor or risk being dragged away by the Harynne to the nearest orphanage.

In spite of seven teenagers being trapped in one place, Manor Minor felt like a ghost house. Everyone had adopted his or her own part of the manor. Tim dutifully did his homework in his bedroom, dutifully studied the medicinal elixir books that Dr. Mendesmuss had given him, and not so dutifully snuck out with Brandy to hit the social life when he thought Malmedy wasn't looking. Helen spent most of her time in the stables practicing the _Call of the Lionsbran_ on Portlorn's flute. Caroline did what she loved to do—shadow Malmedy in the kitchen. Daniel spent his waking hours in the library where he threw himself into books on Möon's magic, philosophies, bestiaries, and anything else that would ensure him a class transfer by the second semester. Daniel believed a U.S. government virtual program had set up the remedial class as an assessment of Daniel's capacities. If he could test out of remedial class, the assessment would end, and he would be unplugged from "the Huron construct," as he called it. Daniel would find Xanthus completely healthy and everyone else returned to the safety of the refugee camp—relatively speaking.

Then there was Jack Gorringe, son of the evil sheriff, Silas Gorringe. After a week of uncomfortable nods in remedial class, Nikolas decided that if the Council of Teine was wrong about him, then they were definitely wrong about Jack, even if he was the son of the sheriff. Despite Tim's protests, Jack stayed at Manor Minor more nights than not.

The parlor was the one room not occupied by all of Nikolas's friends—that was Xanthus's room. None of his friends wanted to be in _that_ room. No one wanted to watch a best friend slowly turn to stone.

Nikolas wondered how they could just pretend nothing was wrong when Xanthus left dead skin and clumps of hair everywhere. Malmedy would clean up the discards mumbling to herself, "Something gots'ta be done. Something just gots'ta be done." Tim would fire back, "The tongue-of-gallitrot sure has some interesting side effects. At least we know it's working."

Nikolas wasn't surprised; people were the same everywhere. Everyone orried about the next shopping sale, ignoring the hemorrhaging boy at their feet. Still, he never thought the hemorrhaging boy would be Xanthus, and that the shoppers would be his friends, his _best_ friends.

It made him sick.

So, all Nikolas could do was watch fall become winter and Xanthus turn to stone.

"You can't just stay cooped up in here like an old hen, Master Nikolas," Yeri interrupted Nikolas's train of thought. The stagecoach driver from Nuus village was leaning against the parlor door, arms folded. His lanky body reminded Nikolas of a pod of beans.

Nikolas shrugged. "I'm good."

"Forgive me for saying so, but no you're not, sir," Yeri said. "And that's not good for Xanthus. He needs his friends to be high of spirit. You are anyhing but that. Go on. Be with your friends. Get outside of this drabby old shack."

"There's nowhere to go," Nikolas said.

"Beg your pardon, Master Nikolas, but Malmedy would disagree from here to Sunday. She gave you a chore list as long as my arm while she's off to the city."

Nikolas looked to the mantle. Malmedy had left everyone a laundry list of things to do while she was on holiday. Nikolas, being the master of the house, had a list three times as long.

"Now me and Xanthus here, we can get on without you. Take that list and do something with yourself."

Nikolas stood up and trudged over to Yeri. Guilt about the unfinished list had been building over the last week. Grand had left him in charge of Manor Minor, and Malmedy reminded him of that before she left to visit her relatives. Nikolas hadn't even bothered to look at it. He snatched it from Yeri.

That was just the front side.

Nikolas sighed, "Alright, fine. I'll get my coat. Try to be back before dark."

"I'm coming, too," Xanthus croaked from the hallway.

"Master Kobayashi," Yeri protested.

Xanthus set a bottle of tongue-of-gallitrot on the shelf. "I downed half-a-bottle. Could puke it up if Rug gets grumpy, but other than that, I'm good."

Yeri squared his shoulders. "Forgive me, but—"

"You're forgiven," Xanthus said. "Look, dude. I can't lie around here for another minute. There's a great big fantasy world out there, and I'm stuck in here. If I'm going to die, I don't want to die looking at paisley wallpaper in some girlie tearoom. I want to see the world. If I go onto glory while clutching the mane of a flying Pegasus, well, awesome. Getting out of this house was your idea anyway, Yeri. That's what you told Nikolas."

Yeri said nothing for a moment before nodding slowly, "You are right. You are also indefensibly morbid, but you are right, nonetheless. Well, we'll need to summon a proper carriage then. I cannot allow you to ride atop a throw rug in this weather in your condition. In the meantime, I do believe Malmedy has a few hexed overcoats in the broom closet just under the stairs. They'll keep you warm in any condition save a black ice storm."

  oices barked and balked, battered and bellowed throughout the Mt. Lycenius crowd. Three-foot talons and gentlemen's riding boots and brackish toenails of troll packs mushed the blue snow underfoot. To Nikolas, it seemed that every creature from the valley villages to the Huronite boroughs had turned out for their Ferret Festival shopping. A Minotaur laughed in the face of an overly confident marionette shopkeeper, and three blackhounds sniffed at a rack of sizzling ham hocks, looking ready to skip the whole pay-for-what-you-eat, step.

At the moment, two Rickaboos (froggish creatures that seemed to be all legs and mouth) were bouncing about Nikolas's feet, offering a slightly used Mr. Teetum's Tonguenoculator, which had been hexed by the finest families of Huron. The tonguenoculator had an iron ring that spread one's lips into an oval. It also had a silver conical contraption that was supposed to slip over your tongue. To showcase their tonguenoculators, they had forced one into the mouth of a glowering, waxy-haired teenage boy. The two Rickaboos explained that Mr. Teetum's Tonguenoculator was perfect for transforming your mother's coma-tongue-inducing, tasteless stew into a gourmet party for your mouth, although it was not recommended with black licorice or weevil jelly. Both had been known to react negatively to the tonguenoculator's hex and turn one's tongue into a blubbery puss. They would _even_ throw in a nice set of rubber clamps for the tongue instead of the conventional metal one. Yeri told them to get lost, using the heel of his muddy boot to make his point. They scurried around Xanthus's wheelchair and onto the next teenage boy with the hopes that he was suffering from his mother's horrible cooking.

Xanthus and Yeri began chatting about the hordes of fantastic creatures, but Nikolas had very little to say. Being out here with Xanthus in this weather only made him feel more agitated. He didn't want to spoil the fun though, so he told himself to find something he might enjoy, some point of interest. A sign caught his attention.

Tin cars in the shape of the half-boat, half-animal aeros were jettisoned into the air by small rockets. Children were strapped in and wearing goggles just like the ship captain, Grimmelwald. They hollered as the tin aeros swirled and flipped through the air.

"There," Nikolas said, half to himself. "Let's go over there." They began to cross the street when he saw an older man. He recognized the wilted hair and drabby clothes.

"Hey." Nikolas stopped walking. "Isn't that Grimmelwald?"

The old man's shoulders tilted with the aero fliers. He rose up on the balls of his feet and clapped his hands together, as if he wished to fly the aero himself. The old man turned around to the crowd, but he didn't see Nikolas. Instead he was looking around nervously, as if he were doing something very bad.

"Isn't that—the ship captain from the Mottle Craw," Nikolas said. "When we crossed the tether? I'm pretty sure that's Grimmelwald. Hey, Grimmelwald!" He waved his hands. "Grimmelwald!"

Grimmelwald eyes zeroed in on the voice. He stared at Nikolas, trying to puzzle out this young man's face. Then he stuttered, "M-master Nikolas?" A smile grew, his missing teeth creating a set of train tracks across his mouth. "Master Nikolas!" Grimmelwald lunged at Nikolas, who was thrown onto his back heels. "My friend, Master Nikolas Lyons. How have you been? You've grown a foot and ten! Look at you, just look at you. How long has it been? Why, last I saw you was on the Mot—" A shadow rolled over Grimmelwald. His fingers stayed firmly gripped to Nikolas's shoulder, but his head fell to the side.

"Where's your ship?" Nikolas said. "What happened to the Mottle Craw, Grimmelwald?"

"I've lost her, Mr. Lyons," Grimmelwald said. Nikolas could see his pruney Adam's apple shaking as he tried to hold back the tears. "Oh, I've lost her. She was sold off to some scalawags after my arraignment. They took her from me."

"Why?" Nikolas said.

"It was all that business with the foul creature—the one who attacked your friend, Xanthus, I believe. By the way, how is the boy?"

"I've been better," Xanthus said.

Grimmelwald almost didn't hear the voice, but when he saw Xanthus, his arms dropped to his sides. "My dear boy. You're just bone upon bone. And your skin? Did the creature do this to you?"

Xanthus nodded.

"It's a gorgon. It's turning him to stone."

"My dear, lad." Grimmelwald's brow bent. He dropped to one knee in the muddy ice. "And under my watch. But what could I've done? That flight was cursed, I tell ya. It has darkened everyone involved. It even got the prime minister of the Merrows, Mr. Shale. Turned him into stone, I hear. You know they held me responsible. And now Sheriff Silas has stripped me of my ranking. Sold my sweet Mottle Craw to a gang of thieving—"

"The Sheriff!" Nikolas said.

"Oh, now boy. Do not get angry; do not get angry." Grimmelwald waved his hands at Nick. "I was the Captain of the Mottle Craw. It was on my shoulders. Though I cannot bear to live without her. It is our fate, we Dujinnin. Our people are meant for the mud of life while the Merrows are meant for the stars. But I deserved to be stripped and any other punishment due me. I am such a weak, spineless man. I miss her so much." He turned a tear-streaked face to Nikolas.

"Who?" Nikolas said.

"Who?" Grimmelwald grimaced and looked at the mechanical flying aeros. He paused, watching the kids leap up and down in their tin carriages. "The Mottle Craw. I think about her everyday. My love is most likely abused beyond hope, beyond life. I've lost her, dear boy. I've lost everything." He bowed his head, letting the tears drop onto the cobblestone. Nikolas looked to Xanthus and Yeri. Neither one of them knew what to do.

After a few minutes he breathed, straightened his shoulders, and turned his sad eyes to Xanthus. "Forgive me. Just an old man blubbering all—" Grimmelwald stopped, his gaze fixed on Xanthus's earring. "Where did you get that?"

Xanthus tilted his head. "Get what?"

"The earring. Where did you get that earring, boy?" Grimmelwald stood shakily to his feet.

"My mom gave it to me," Xanthus said. "On one of her rock tour—er, musical tours. She got it from a shop in Afghanistan. Um, Earthside."

Grimmelwald squeezed his cheek corners. He studied Xanthus for a moment. Finally, he spoke. "That is false, Mr. Kobayashi. Your mother got that from a Merrow if I live and breathe the deep jynn'us."

"She what?" Xanthus said, now touching the earring self-consciously.

"A Merrow. Your mother got that from a Merrow."

"That's the same earring you lost on the Mottle Craw," Nikolas said, "when that gorgon attacked you."

"Yeah," Xanthus said. "But it _really_ couldn't have come from a Merrow, Nikolas. We both know that is totally impossible."

"I guess," Nikolas said. "Then again, we are standing on a magical moon tethered to an ancient Earth."

"I'd bet my teeth on it," Grimmelwald said. "I should know. They enslaved my people, the Dujinnin, for thousands of years. We became quite familiar with their commodities and valuables. Every Merrow, big or small, young or old, rich or poor, carries that exact earring. They either wear it as a necklace or earring. It is made of sulmare. Odd though, it is usually in the shape of a mermaid. Wore this on the Mottle Craw, you say? How did I not see it. Allow me?" Grimmelwald held his bony hand out.

Xanthus shrugged and handed the earring over.

"Yes, yes," Grimmelwald's voice sounded like a moan. "These legs were fins once. They've been worn down, and so have the scales. See here, the–aighh!" Without warning, Grimmelwald suddenly bent backward and forward at the waist. The earring spun to the ground. Nikolas put his hand out to steady the aeroship captain.

"Oh, dear," Grimmelwald wheezed. "I've been found out."

"Grimmelwald," a voice came from the road. The crowd parted to reveal the merwoman, Mrs. Parcels. Her automaton spiderlegs hissed as the pneumatic pistons strained to lift her heavy frame forward. Nikolas remembered her. How could he forget? She was the one on the Deep Council who forbad him from finding a cure for Xanthus, under threat of sending his friends to the nearest orphanage.

On seeing Mrs. Parcels, Yeri's expression melted, and he clenched his fists nervously. It seemed strange to Nikolas for the stagecoach driver to be afraid. He wasn't at the Deep Council. Had they met before?

"Tell me, Grimmelwald." Mrs. Parcels raised three thick fingers and tugged at the air. An invisible hand picked Grimmelwald off his feet and threw him chin first at her mud-speckled spiderlegs. "Did your Magwich measles suddenly cure themselves? Or did you lie to me to get a sick day, _again?_ You stupid Dujinnin. The pearl-of-devotion knows when you're lying!" She raised her flabby arm up. Grimmelwald was lurched into the air by his stomach, like an invisible cord had been wrapped around his body. Her face swelled with rage, and she pulled her arm back as if to throw something.

If Nikolas had a conscious thought about his next move, he wasn't aware of it. He launched at the merwoman and grasped her doughy wrist. He had put a little too much lean into the grasp, so she began to teeter back, her fin whipping up and down for balance.

"Get your hands off me, you mole-spotted liverworm! He's my slave!" The chubby merwoman couldn't hold her balance any longer and crashed into the mud. Glop flung everywhere, and the automa-spiderlegs reached into the air. They wheezed and whined, trying to right themselves up. The chubby merwoman looked like a turtle thrown on its backside.

"Let him go!" Nikolas said.

"You stupid boy!" Mrs. Parcels snarled. She squeezed the air and Grimmelwald screamed, clutching his stomach.

"Stop that!" Nikolas raised his boot and rammed it through the joint of her spider leg. There was a metallic crunch ,and hot air blew everywhere. "Let him go!"

"You boil-riddled rat tail! You do not understand the pearl-of-devotion," Mrs. Parcels spit. "He is mine. The pearl-of-devotion means he's devoted to me! If the scum betrays me, he is seaweed and kelp. And he cannot run, for every inch of his miserable Dujinnin body is leashed to me!" She squeezed her hand, and Grimmelwald cried as a demonstration. "So remove yourself from my presence, or watch me squeeze the life out of this Dujinnin filth."

"I don't care!" Nikolas screamed so loud that his voice cracked. He began slamming his foot into her automalegs, his bowler hat rolling to the ground. "I don't care! I don't care about your stupid threats anymore! You and Sheriff Silas and the Merrows, you're all monsters! Go ahead and try to kill him. I'll kill you! Go ahead! Please, I dare you! Try to take my friends away. Try to stop me from curing Xanthus. See what happens. If you even touch one of my friends, I will hunt you down and make you pay!" Nikolas picked up a broken automaton shin and raised it over his head.

She stretched out her hands in horror. The crowd gasped.

"I'll make you pa—!"

"Nikolas!" Xanthus yelled. "Dude. Stop. Please, don't do that."

Nikolas felt hot, even his tears burned. He wanted to drop the broken leg down on Mrs. Parcels's face. He wanted her to feel what Xanthus was feeling, what he was feeling.

Pain.

"Please, man," Xanthus said. "I'm going to turn to stone and die. I don't want to go knowing everyone's been shipped off to a workhouse because of me. I just—I just want to have some fun."

"It's not fair," Nikolas said. "You don't have to go. We don't _have_ to lose you. It's stupid. So what if you're all sent to an orphanage? At least we'll all be alive."

"Please," Xanthus said, but his voice trailed off. He was too weak to form an argument. That only made Nikolas angrier.

"Mr. Lyons," Grimmelwald said. "She is allowed to treat me in any way she deems fit. It is my punishment. When I took the Captain's allegiance, I became wholly responsible for every soul onboard. Now the laws of Huron bid me to be Mrs. Parcels's indentured slave for ten years. Once a Dujinnin slave, always a Dujinnin slave, I suppose. There is nothing that can be done." Grimmelwald grabbed Nikolas's arm and slowly lowered it down. As his arm lowered, he felt the fight drain away. "Nothing can be done, lad."

Without another word, Grimmelwald bent down to Mrs. Parcels, unbuckled the automa-spiderlegs and reached a hand to help her sit up. She grunted a curse at him. Grimmelwald turned his back to the merwoman and bent to one knee. She reached her large arms around his neck. He inhaled deeply, pursed his lips, and stood to his feet. She curled her large fin around his leg and over his thigh. Slowly, he began to make his way down King's Highway.

They quietly looked on as the aeroship captain carried the large merwoman on his back. When Nikolas met Grimmelwald, he'd had all the magical skies and a flying boat at his command. Now he had nothing but enslavement to an obese merwoman.

And Nikolas couldn't help but feel like it was all his fault.

  _ANG. BANG. BANG!_ Nikolas jumped up from the couch, startled. He'd been obsessing over the Harynne's nuncio again. The gorgon was attacking a Merrow family near the Loch Huron stables.

_BANG. BANG. BANG!_ The pounding came from the front door.

"Is anyone in there?" Brandy shouted through the door, followed by the sound of Tim giggling.

Nikolas got to his feet and headed toward the parlor. He needed to get back to Xanthus; he'd only come to the living room to take a break. Besides, he couldn't deal with Tim and Brandy right now.

_BANG. BANG. BANG!_ The knocks demanded again.

"Hurry up," Brandy yelled. "It's _so_ hot out here."

"Coming!" Caroline wiped the red brawswood sauce onto her apron and swept around Nikolas. "Didn't you hear them, Nikolas?"

"Make sure they look down," Daniel called from the library. "I've laid laudaniums out to dry. The stickers will double the size of their feet if they step on them."

Just as Nikolas started to slide the parlor door shut, Caroline opened the front door, letting in a billow of red smoke. It was snowing in the windows, but the open door revealed a cavern of molten lava.

"Close the door! Close the door!" Tim yelled.

Caroline slammed the door shut and locked it, just in case.

"Hah . . . hah," Brandy laughed between coughs.

"You're crazy!" Tim said, jabbing Brandy.

Nikolas peered at them from behind the sliding door. He kept telling himself to pull the door shut, but for some reason he just watched Brandy and Tim giggle while trying to catch their breaths.

"We almost got there! Stupid knocker." Brandy threw a brass doorknocker to the wood floor. It was the shape of a monkey paw.

"Got where?" Helen said, walking in from the kitchen.

"Miss Emma's party," Brandy said. "I'm making my appearance in high society."

"You smell like smoke." Caroline pulled off their cloaks and waved her hand at them. "I'll have to soak these in mollburr for a week."

With the cloaks removed, Brandy glowed like a lighthouse, a _pink_ lighthouse. She wore a sparkly pink hoop skirt and pink shoes with a pink sash.

"Pink." Jack whistled from the top of the stairs. "Aren't you the brave one, Miss Wendell. No one's worn pink in nearly a thousand years, not in Huron Valley anyway. I quite doubt they'll even remember what the color looks like."

"I've decided to start my own club: The Pink Club," Brandy said. "It's all part of my popularity strategy. Henrietta's club is all about red sashes. Maggie has her Cat Eyes club. I'm bringing pink back! Conclusion: Anne Hightower will understand that Helen is a genetic misstep from my family and forget about her brother being turned into a walking carpet. No offense, Rug."

The magic carpet lifted for a moment, ready to take flight, then floated back down.

"Clever strategy, Miss Wendell," Jack said, bouncing down the stairs. The hundreds of elixir vials in his coat-of-potions clinked and clanked all the way. "But pink has been frowned upon since the plague of the Pinxies. You _are_ aware of the Pinxies?"

"Yeah, yeah." Brandy waved her hand. "Pink draws out the evil Pink Pixies. The Pinxies attack anyone with bad fashion sense. Banished for terrorizing high society over a thousand years ago or something. Whatever. I so don't buy that. Just a myth to take away all of the fun of getting dress—"

"Cah!" Xanthus began to heave and cough. As if trained, everyone stopped talking. A few moved their gaze toward the coughs. Nikolas quickly stepped away from the parlor doors. He felt caught, like he'd been spying on them or something. Xanthus coughed again until his face turned red. He pulled back the bloody handkerchief, crumpled it, and threw it to the ground. Yeri nearly leapt across the room, pinched it away, and flung the parlor doors open. Nikolas tried to step into the parlor door's shadow.

Daniel watched Xanthus, and Nikolas watched Daniel. Fear flickered across Daniel's face as his brother nearly gagged on blood. Finally, Daniel made eye contact with Nikolas and looked back to his laudanium stem.

"What's with the knocker?" Helen said, trying to change the subject.

"It's totally cool," Brandy said. She pulled out a small card with a series of dots and lines printed across it. "You can open doorways with it. See, you put the knocker on th—"

"Cah! Cah!" Xanthus heaved. Yeri pulled out another handkerchief.

"You put the knocker on the front door," Brandy restarted her sentence. "Then you have to use one of these secret knock cards. Most high society invitations come with one. I got one for Emma's birthday party, except I don't know how to use it at all."

Tim snickered, "OK, so genius here opened the doorway to Mt. Rossom—yeah—it's a volcano. Um, excuse me, troll, sir?" Tim mimicked her. "I was looking for Emma's birthday party? Was it supposed to be in the belly of an erupting volcano? I'd be cool with that, but, you know." He laughed long and hard at his own joke. No one else did.

"The Harynne are going to catch you, Brandy," Helen chided. "I can't save you from a workhouse."

Brandy rolled her eyes. "Don't freak out, Helen. It's a society event. They hex the party. The Harynne would only see a dark, empty house. High society hates it when Harynne guards break up all the fun. Hey, you should come, Helen. You could even protect me from the big, bad Harynne. In fact, _all_ of us should go for once."

"I agree," Daniel said.

Brandy raised an eyebrow. Boy genius Daniel loathed everything about high society.

"I've been meaning to study magic used by the affluent," Daniel explained, "and a comparative analysis of magic between the poor and rich."

"Of course," Brandy shook her head at Daniel disapprovingly and looked past him to Nikolas. The wheels ground into the track as Nikolas started to pull the parlor door shut.

Just when the door moved over his left eye, Brandy called out. "What about you, Nikolas? It would be fun to see you. School's been out for a whole week! It's the holidays. We should be having fun. Going to parties and stuff!"

Nikolas debated whether or not this was a good time for a verbal meltdown. Brandy really wanted to hang out with him? Then she should come over to the parlor. That is, if she didn't mind seeing one of her best friends turn to stone.

"We really should go." Caroline's line of sight joined Brandy's. " _All_ of us."

"Go on, sir," Yeri whispered over Nikolas's shoulder. "Bad for the constitution to be holed up. I'll keep an eye on Xanthus."

Suddenly, the edge of the parlor door seemed really important to Nikolas. He traced the brown speckles of the singing oak wood with his thumbnail. Truthfully, he missed his friends. He missed them a lot. Months of being angry with them had left him tired, lonely. Would it be completely evil to have fun for one night?

"Yeah." Nikolas shrugged. "Sure."

Xanthus curled into the couch, readying himself for another fit of coughs.

After it had passed, Daniel spoke up, "And—and maybe we could collect some specimens for Xanthus's bestiary?"

_Whatever eases your conscience,_ Nikolas thought.

"If you're coming, Daniel—" Brandy poked his chest. "You have to be nice. No spiking people's drinks with your little elixirs. This is _so-ci-e-tee_ , not one of your controlled experiments."

"Every experiment I conduct has an expiration date, Brandy," Daniel said. "Besides, the test subjects are usually not aware of the experiment. For example, Caroline, say 'striped socks.'"

"What?" Caroline said, wiping a smudge of the red brawswood sauce from her nose.

"Just say it."

"Stripe so-eeeiigh!"

Everyone squeezed their ears shut. Caroline's words had come out like a screech owl.

"What just happened?!" Caroline half-covered her mouth.

"I am working on an elixir that disrupts verbal hexes," Daniel said. "It blocks the necessary word of the incantation. 'Striped socks' was just a test phrase. And Brandy, refrain from saying mandarin. Not in public, anyway."

"This. Is. Not. The. Ma. Trix." Brandy punched Daniel's shoulder with every word. "We. Are. Real. Peo. ple. You. Jerk!"

It took an hour for everyone to change. Caroline walked into the room wearing a simple white dress, which did not match her black horn-rimmed glasses "at all" as Brandy so quickly pointed out. Nikolas had on his favorite bowler hat and golden vest. Daniel even traded in his informal cane for the one with a wildebeest's head.

And then, Helen.

All the boys snapped to attention the moment she breezed into the room. She wore a lavender dress; it was a little low on the shoulders with white ribbons crisscrossing the torso. Her hair was pulled into a chignon, revealing a thin, sloping neck.

_Wow, Helen. You are so beautiful,_ Nikolas thought. _I mean, you're totally—_

Nikolas stopped that line of thought. What kind of person fantasizes about a girl when his friend is dying on a couch one room away? Even if he imagined running his hand through the golden tassels of her hair while—

Brandy punched him in the kidney. "Anyone tell you it was rude to drool?"

"I wasn—I was, I was—"

"Foaming?" Brandy shook her head at Nikolas and slipped out the knock card with her pink studded glove. She put the monkey paw knocker on the door. The claws sealed into the wood.

"OK. I think I've this figured out," Brandy said. She lifted the knocker, tapped it like she was playing the drums, and pushed the door open.

_Hissssss._ A large anaconda's mouth filled the doorway.

"Oops!" Brandy slammed the door.

"Give that to me." Daniel snatched the knock card from Brandy. "You'll call a door to the bottom of the ocean and submerge all of Huron Valley."

"OK, bossy." Brandy said with a "humph."

Daniel studied the dots and dashes. "Similar to Morse code. The dashes mean a longer period between knocks, and the dots mean a shorter period."

"Sure," Brandy feigned disinterest.

Daniel gave two quick knocks, one long knock, and another two quick knocks. He glanced back at them and twisted the door handle. It moaned open to a manor three times the size of Manor Minor. Its entryway seemed to be all marble stone and candles, leading them into a long golden hall. The room was so great the candlelight faded away before it reached the ceiling.

At the moment, the manor seemed to be filled with a horde of teenagers. They were being thrown into the air by some unseen force. On closer inspection, white gloves, uninhabited by persons, grabbed the waists of couples and spun them upward. One would have thought that a dance floor full of teenagers being flung into the air would end very badly, yet the gloved hands had a rhythm to their chaos.

Nikolas smiled and said, "Awesome," but when he said that word, a pain filled his stomach. That's exactly what Xanthus would have said. He looked back to the parlor, and his smile faded. How could he do this to his best friend? How could he go to a party when Xanthus is home dying?

Caroline gently patted Nikolas's back. "We can get away from our problems for one night, Nikolas. It's OK."

"Yeah, OK." He nodded and tipped his bowler hat to Xanthus. "We'll be right back." _Just_ _don't change to stone on us._

Xanthus nodded back, squeezed his eyes, and prepared for another round of coughs.

"OK." Nikolas turned toward the door and stepped over the threshold.

Chapter 4

  coat rack skittled at their left, bowed, and offered six coat hooks as they stepped through the doorway. A butler and a pear-faced maid began taking their cloaks.

"Welcome to Miss Emma's birthday party," the butler announced.

Nikolas thought he recognized the butler's droll tone. "Persimmons?" he said. "Isn't that Cornish Portlorn's butler?"

"Portlorn?!" Helen said. "You mean the creepy Baron who's trying to marry me? Brandy, which Emma is this?"

"Yeah, about that." Brandy bit her bottom lip. "I forgot to tell you who the invitation was _actually_ from."

"Brandy," Helen's voice rose. "Which Miss Emma is this?"

"Miss Emma Portlorn," answered Persimmons, "the daughter of Baron Cornish Portlorn."

The front door slammed.

"Brandy," Helen hissed. "I can't believe you dragged me to—"

"Helen Wendell!" Baron Portlorn cried from across the room, rushing toward them. He broke up several conversations while trying to balance a sloshing stein of spiced harjuice. He walked toward them with an odd hip-thrust, his swaggers squealing after him. On seeing the hems of the girls' dresses, the strange creatures aimed their snouts at them and started nibbling.

Portlorn's coat of priceless jewelry was twice as bedazzling as when they first met on the Mottle Craw several months ago. More importantly, Portlorn appeared twice as infatuated as Helen Wendell than when they first met on the Mottle Craw several months ago.

He threw back a final guzzle of harjuice, smacked his lips, and grinned. "Hope you've been enjoying your glass flute, dear Helen. And I see you've received my invitation?"

"Ah . . . sure." Helen's voice trembled. "In a way."

"And the knock card, too? I assure you, my daughter sent them to a select few. Only the youth of the highest pedigree and most well known families were invited."

Helen's smoldering brow of death found Brandy. "Yes. We got your knock card too. Unfortunately, the messenger was very badly hurt in the delivery. Lost complete use of her motor skills from what I heard."

"Oh, hey, look!" Brandy said, avoiding her sister's line of sight. "There's Anne Hightower. Time to bring pink back. Wish me luck."

"Helen." Baron Portlorn closed the gap between the two of them, a swagger squealing out of his way. "I would be a man of ill repute if I were not to confess. I convinced my daughter to invite you under false pretenses. You see, the Festival of Lights is only a few weeks a—"

"The Wendell sisters." A girl's voice squeaked from across the room. "You came after all."

"Emma Portlorn!" Helen called back, waving an S.O.S. to the Baron's daughter.

Emma skirted around a boy and an elf comparing sabers and glided toward them. She was thin, blond, and had no resemblance to the Baron whatsoever. She clasped arms with Helen and Caroline.

"Oh, hush now, Father. You and your romantic notions. These are _my_ birthday guests." She swung them in the opposite direction. "Come see the new fountain, my dear Wendell sisters. Daddy's present to me. He just had it installed last week. . . ."

Baron Portlorn sighed, "Oh, Helen. My morning jewel. Speak truth now, Persimmons. Did she even notice me?"

"Did all I could, sir." Persimmons's bottom lip flattened sadly. "I really did. But no, I'm afraid not."

"He commissioned Wizard Renault to construct it." Emma directed them around the ballroom and to a fountain in the backyard. "I've been told Renault and Company uses the purest morphiseleus for the shape-shifting. Straight from the Ictree Brag House."

The fountain changed form every few minutes. First, it was several children spitting water into the air, then a series of large clams with smaller clams inside, followed by a six-legged elephant with a baby elephant on its back.

Once they were out of Portlorn's range, Emma stopped and stared directly at Helen. "Forgive my father. Ever since Mother's death, he has been lost. Wedding women seems to be his only means of coping."

"How many wives does the guy have?" Nikolas said.

"Eight hundred and thirty-three."

"Wow." Nikolas stopped walking. "That's a lot of stepmoms."

"Yes," Emma said. "He collects them up like swaggers. Quite costly, you know. He had to sell off a quarter of his herd to pay for their expenses last year. Father marries one a month at least. He will make a public announcement of their engagement and then never looks upon their face again. No ceremony or anything, just documents and lawyers. Once the paperwork is processed, they're sent off to Jurable Manor, south of the city, and he pays for their every delicacy. It is common for Father to see a wife on the street and not even recognize her."

"But . . . why?" Helen said. "Getting married once isn't bad enough?"

"He's looking for her." Emma's gaze moved just above the dance floor to a massive portrait which rose to the ceiling. It was a painting of Emma's mother. She was young and blond with a smile that danced between joy and strength.

She could have been Helen's twin.

"Freaky, Helen," Nikolas said. "That's not good."

"Remember when you met Father on the Mottle Craw?" Emma said. "Well, he travels the brother worlds looking for a woman who might have something of my mother in her. Sometimes it's the color of her eyes, sometimes it's the way she walks, or even her laugh. Whatever it may be, he hopes to recreate my mother through all his wives—something of a living collage. That is, until he met you, Helen. You _are_ Mother in every way, down to the way you play with the ends of your hair."

"That's great and all." Helen let go of the wisp of hair she'd been twisting nervously. "But I'm not going to join his little collection of—"

"Helen Wendell, ward of the house of Lyons and steward of my heart," a voice bellowed from the dance floor. The dancers silently floated to the ground, revealing Baron Portlorn standing precariously on a stool in the middle of the hall. The only other noise in the room was a half dozen swaggers snorting about. "Allow me to hack the chicken head here—"

"Father!" Emma stiffened her arms.

"Wanted to do this publicly anyway. I'm going to the Festival of Lights. Think it best if you accompany me."

A sick understanding came over Helen. "Like—like—on a date?"

"Naturally."

"Dude. You're old," Tim scowled.

"Old?" Baron Portlorn said. "I beg your pardon. Granted we Portlorns aren't known for our soft, even skin, but don't think me old. Not a day over a hundred and seventy."

"A hundred and seventy!" Helen couldn't help herself.

"That's seventeen in Earth years," Daniel reminded Helen.

"One-hundred . . . two-hundred . . . minus . . ." Tim counted. "That's a hundred and fifty-four year age difference. You're old enough to be her—her—"

"Forefather," Nikolas offered.

"Huronite law allows one to marry by the age of sixteen," Jack explained, "and there is no law against marrying someone a hundred years their senior, since most live to be nearly eight hundred."

"Something the matter?" Baron Portlorn wobbled off the chair. "Does she have leechwarts or is she under a wiggen's curse? I cannot put up with any family curses."

"No. I don't have a wiggen's curse," Helen said. "Whatever that means."

Baron Portlorn continued. "Well then, I assume your answer—"

"Aah!" Brandy's shriek echoed through the manor.

"Saved by the Brandy." Nikolas twisted around.

Someone from the crowd screamed, "Squatter! She has a squatter!" The room scrambled into a large circle around Brandy and Anne. Brandy dropped a bouquet, trying to wipe flower pollen from her eyes. The bouquet rolled to the feet of a girl dwarf who screamed and pushed several people out of the way.

"What's happening to me? This stuff stings," Brandy yelled, keeping her eyes squinched. A hush fell while Nikolas stepped slowly toward her, his gaze fixed on her forehead. A large pimple was beginning to rise through the pollen.

"What, Nikolas? What is it?!" Brandy kept one eye squeezed shut.

The pimple popped into a stem. Nikolas tried not to laugh. He didn't do a very good job at it.

"Oh no," Emma said.

"Guys, what is it?" Brandy flapped both hands over her face.

"I'm so sorry, Brandy." Emma held a mirror to her.

Brandy opened the other eye and focused on a point just below her hairline.

"No, no, no . . ." Brandy put her fingers up to touch the budding flower and uncurling leaves.

"Don't." Emma grabbed her hand. "It'll spread."

"Oh, and your _pink_ dress, Brandy?" Anne Hightower wrinkled her pointy nose. "I lied. I think it's terrible. How dare you wear pink! A disgrace to high society! I hope the Pinxies have your hide for it!"

"Thanks to that feral rat sister of yours, Helen, and her hair elixir," Anne said, pointing to Helen. "Three jynn'geons operated on my brother for a month, and they're still unable to reverse the hair growth. Do you know how painful it is to remove tongue hair?"

"Jynn'geons?" Helen said. "What are you talking about? So your brother has a hair problem. What's that have to do with me? Actually, _who_ are you again?"

"Who am I?" Anne's voice rose to a shriek. "Who am I? Anne Hightower! Sister of Rosenthal Hightower. You know, the boy who you covered in a lifetime supply of hair growth elixir because he dared show a little decency to an ungrateful rodent and invite you to the Festival of Lights."

"Yeah, not ringing a bell." Helen shrugged. "But it sounds like something I'd do. I spend my waking hours fending of creeps. And I assume your brother was a creep. "Anyway." She shed her gloves. "That was a stupid thing you just did to my kid sister. I may not remember you, but I promise, you'll never forget me."

Before Helen could wipe the ground with her face, Anne growled, took out something that appeared to be a riding whip, flicked the air, and disappeared in a crack of gray smoke.

"Mmhhhmm!!" Brandy ran from the room, covering her mouth.

Nikolas shook his head. "Fun times."

They were all in Emma's room consoling an inconsolable Brandy. She sat weeping in front of an ivory vanity mirror. She gripped its corners with both hands, as if trying to stop from slipping down the chasm of unpopularity.

"I'm—a—so—cial—tra—ge—dy," Brandy sobbed. She lifted her eyes to the vanity mirror, tracing the squatter's petals with her finger. "Lame! I look so lame!"

"Yes," the vanity mirror agreed. "It does nothing for your piggy eyes, either."

"Shut up." Brandy flipped the mirror over.

"Much better," the vanity mirror snorted. "Floral wallpaper is loads more becoming."

"Shut up!" Brandy smacked the backside of the mirror. There was a crack, and a shard of glass tinkled to the floor.

"Ow."

"What was Anne's problem?" Caroline asked.

"I showed her my pink dress," Brandy muttered into her handkerchief. "Anne told me it was the most magnificent thing she'd ever seen. In fact, she was really sorry about all the trouble between the Hightowers and the Wendells. Then she handed me the bou—quet—of—squa—tters!" Brandy fell apart again.

"Oh, dear Brandy." Caroline squeezed her sister's shoulder.

"This is so your fault, Helen Rose Wendell." Brandy's puffy-eyed guidance system found her sister.

"My fault?"

"Yes, _your fault_ ," Brandy said. "You're a social plague—terrorizing every boy you meet. Rosenthal Hightower, for example! Who, _of course_ , happens to be the brother of Anne Hightower, the most famous girl of like, all Huron Schoolhouse. This is her getting revenge. We would be best of friends if it wasn't for your whole 'I don't need a man' routine!" Brandy moaned again and moved her hand to the flower.

"Don't pick it, Brandy," Jack warned. "Tether knows it'll spread."

Emma kneeled beside Brandy. "Persimmons told me squatters last two months at the most."

"Two months?" Brandy whipped her head around, the flower swinging after. "I get to look like this for two months? What about the Festival of Lights and the Ferret Festival? Uggh! And it itches! If I don't get this squatter off me, I'll die!" She broke into another round of sobs.

Caroline gently placed an arm on Nikolas. "She really needs some words of comfort."

"Really?" Nikolas said. "Aren't there bigger problems in this world, like Xanthus turning into a pigeon stoop?"

"She looks up to you," Caroline said, tilting her horn-rimmed glasses at Nikolas. "You're her big brother."

Nikolas was tempted to say, "There is a gorgon out there turning people into stone, the sheriff wants to take over the city, the Merrows are involved somehow, and this is the earth-shattering crisis? I have a better idea; let's quit wasting our time at stupid parties and save Huron."

But Caroline's steely expression told him he didn't have a choice.

"Hey, um, Brandy," Nikolas said, clearing his throat. "It's not a big deal. School's out and won't start back up until February. So, you know, we're the only ones who have to see your face. So . . . there's that."

"Aaaaahh!" Brandy bellowed.

"Really?" Caroline mouthed.

"Whatever," Nikolas mouthed back.
Chapter 5

  or the next week, Nikolas did his best to ignore the insanity that was Manor Minor. Brandy had decided to camp out in the library to the displeasure of Daniel. She spent days trolling through _Animal and Plant Implantation Extraction for the Common Huronite._ She read them meticulously, although not quietly. Two days before the Festival of Lights, Brandy still hadn't found a cure. She abandoned her research and took to sobbing and kicking walls and sermonizing to Daniel about the tragedy that was her life. She blamed Helen. She blamed Anne Hightower. At one point, Brandy even hinted she would have been better off at the refugee camp.

Meanwhile, the Baron Portlorn situation had only escalated for Helen. After a particularly long and chilly lesson under Father Frost, she was met with a horde of serenadium flowers bellowing at the foot of the Huron School House steps. They sang a serenade penned by the Baron himself: _My love lost on words. Oh, so few words. My love lost on words. If I could only find the words. I know these words are quite terrible. I'm not very good at words, being that my love is lost on words. . . ._

Helen squashed nearly fifty flowers on her way to Rug, but that didn't stop the other three hundred from chasing her down. Hoping to outrun them, she whipped Rug's tassels until he broke out into a foamy sweat and threatened to cast her to the city below.

In spite of the serenadiums taking heavy casualties from a gang of wild-winged oxen that terrified Wainscot Pass through the winter, the serenadiums found their way to Manor Minor. Nearly one hundred bouquets now filled the blue snowy field in front of the house, all singing of Portlorn's unrequited love for Helen.

She responded by standing at the living room window playing loud, violent melodies on her glass flute.

"Seriously, Helen!" Brandy yelled from the library. "Can you turn it down?"

Ignoring Brandy, Helen blew so forcefully that the veins in her neck ribboned up her cheek and across her forehead.

"Helen!" Brandy said.

"It _is_ a little distracting, Helen," Yeri said. "Xanthus is resting. Can you not take it outside?"

"You don't want to be outside when this comes." Helen said, taking a breath. "I'm calling fire down from the sky."

Yeri looked up for a moment and quietly scuttled out of the room.

Nikolas saw a songbook open and the title, "Rain of Fire."

"Is it out of tune?" Nikolas said.

Helen flung the glass flute to the couch. "No. It's not out of tune. A flute can't be out of tune. My jynn'us only works when I'm not amped up."

"Then . . . like never?" Brandy said.

"I swear, Brandy," Helen said.

Daniel and Tim had just walked in from the kitchen, each holding a bundle of firewood. They were fulfilling Malmedy's chore list.

"What's wrong, Helen?" Tim said.

"Ignore her," Brandy called from the library. "Just being her usual freak-self. She's mad 'cause she has a date with Baron Geriatric of Geriatrica."

"I don't have a date with anyone."

"Uh, yeah you do." Brandy slammed the book onto the desk and marched in. "I know you have the social intelligence of a monkey, but the Baron sits on the Council of Teine. You know, the one that could throw us in an orphanage. You don't have a choice, so get over yourself."

Helen jumped to her feet. "Get over _your_ self!"

Nikolas had had enough of the drama. He shut the parlor door to Xanthus and slipped through the kitchen door.

He'd hoped to be alone, but Caroline was out back. She sat on the deck, holding Daniel's shoe while sucking out icenits with an extremely small copper tube. The tube had a cornucopia-shaped contraption attached to its other end. She swept every corner of the shoe with the device, cleaning out the icenits. The tiny parasites were born in the snow and latched onto shoes and boots of passersby. They looked like a small pinch of ice, freezing anything they touched. If allowed inside dwellings, the icenits would eventually infest the home. There was a horror story of a hatch of icenits invading a home one evening, and by morning, the entire family was frozen in their beds.

Beside her was a row of boots ready to be de-icenitted. Nikolas tried to quietly walk toward the woods, hoping she wouldn't notice him.

"We need you," Caroline whispered.

"What?" Nikolas looked back. Her chin was pushed down to her chest as she focused on the heel of Daniel's boot.

"We need you, Nikolas Lyons. Our family will fall apart if you don't keep us together."

"Family?" Nikolas said. "We're _so_ not a family."

Caroline turned off her tiny vacuum and gently placed it on the wood deck. Her curly hair had been braided into two pigtails, and she wore a dark orange jacket. She walked slowly to Nikolas, her boots crunching the snow.

"Jack is the crazy Uncle," she began, grabbing his hand. "Tim is the prudish Aunt. Brandy is the baby. I'm the grandmother. Daniel is the grandfather. You're the father. And Helen is the . . ." Caroline's voice drifted away.

"What about Xanthus?" Nikolas flung her hand off him. "You kinda left someone out of your family. What happened to him? Or is that it? He doesn't fit into your nice picture, so you just ignore him. You told me back on Earth that people aren't cut-outs. Remember? Well, are they, Caroline?"

"It's still true. We _aren't_ cut-outs," Caroline sighed. "You look at us and think we're just a bunch of selfish kids. You don't understand, dear Nikolas. We're refugees. We don't know how to believe like you do. We learned at the refugee camp that death isn't a choice, it's inevitable. All we had to do was look at the readout on our BioFarm's wrist leash to know our life expectancy. With that knowledge, BioFarms could reasonably project their inventory. To them, we were merely a future organ harvest so that they could raise the quality of life for some rich housewife. How can you expect us to believe like you? To have hope the way you have hope? Except for Tim, of course. He's just spineless. But the rest of us, this is our life."

"Why don't you trust me then?" Nikolas said. "You listened to me back on Earth. Why don't you listen to me now?"

"Yes," Caroline said, putting her hands under her arms for warmth. "Grand overwhelmed us with that magic and fantastic world stuff, and so, at that moment, we believed you. But at the end of it all, we trust the bad things more. It's all we know, dear Nikolas. Still, we can change. We _want_ to change, please believe me. But if you let our family fall apart, then there's no hope for us. It is only when we are together can we overcome. And you are the only one who can hold us together."

"You're wrong," Nikolas said. "I can't hold all of you guys together. I don't _want_ to hold all of you together. I—I should have never brought you here. Biggest mistake of my life."

Caroline flinched as if she'd been struck in the face. Her eyes started glistening, making Nikolas feel terrible. He wanted to take it back the second he said it, but another part of him wanted to hurt Caroline too.

He went back inside before he said anything else mean. Brandy and Helen were still arguing. Now they were standing on top of the couch yelling at each other.

"Don't you talk about her like that!" Brandy said. "She's my mother."

"She's my mom, too!" Helen said. "I'll talk about her however I want to talk about her. She was a—"

"Enough!" A voice boomed.

Helen and Brandy jumped. Everyone looked up. Nikolas peered around the room, looking for the source of the angry-voice.

"That was me." Caroline slid her glasses back up. "I said that."

With one confused expression, they all turned their sights on Caroline.

She dropped a pair of boots and, in her loudest whisper ever, announced, "I've had it with the arguments and the fighting and the overall . . . nastiness. That's all we do now. We're supposed to be family." Caroline's eyes hung on Nikolas for a moment before she stormed to her room. A few minutes later, she returned with seven purple bracelets. Without a word, Caroline began binding their wrists with the bracelets. They would have objected, but everyone was still recovering from angry-Caroline.

"Friendship bracelets," Caroline said.

"Friendship bracelets?" Daniel's brow rose, and he grabbed the studded wristband. "What have you done, Caroline?"

"They grow tighter and tighter the more we don't act like family," Caroline explained. "They loosen when we do. When we are truly family, they'll fall apart."

One wrist was left: Nikolas's. Caroline snatched it quickly. He was still in shock over angry-Caroline and didn't attempt to resist until she had his arm locked down under her tricep.

"Wait, what? Are you nuts?" Nikolas tried to wiggle away, but Caroline's grip was strong, surprisingly strong. It was like she was born with mother arms.

After a few more seconds, Caroline let go.

"Oww! That really hurts." Nikolas whipped his hand, trying to find some kind of circulation.

"A friendship bracelet cannot be taken off by any magic. At least good magic." Caroline crossed her arms. "They're symbols of our family."

"They're purple." Nikolas wedged his fingers between his wrist and bracelet.

"That is right, Nikolas. Purple means devotion."

"It means seven-year-old school girl!" Nikolas raised the sparkly purple band.

"You will not forget what family you belong to," Caroline said. " _Someone_ has to keep us together, _Nikolas Lyons_."

Angry words bubbled inside of Nikolas; words about their selfishness, about dumb parties and lame friendship bracelets, about whining over old rich barons when Xanthus was turning to stone one room over. But he decided to clench his jaw and look at his boots.

Brandy rubbed the purple bracelet. "Crazy Caroline. At least I won't be the only freak at the festival."

"Yeah," Helen chuckled to herself. "One big freak party. Too bad Portlorn doesn't have an aversion to purple sparkly brac—" Her eyes grew. "That's it, Caroline!"

"What is _it_?" Caroline said.

Helen cupped both hands around her sister's ear and whispered.

Caroline twitched her nose in reflection. "Well . . . it would definitely keep Portlorn away."

"Yeah?" Helen fished for reassurance. "I mean, seriously, isn't that an awesome idea?"

"It is. I'll . . ." Caroline swallowed. "I'll do it with you."

"You will?" Helen giggled . . . for the very first time in recorded history.

"Yeah," Caroline said. She breathed deeply and smiled. "Like I said. We're family, right? I'll do it with you."

"Awesome. We just need someone who knows elixirs." Helen glanced around the room with a toothy grin. "Or should I say some _ones_?" She snatched Jack and Tim by their collars and dragged them up the stairwell. Before they disappeared, Jack looked back to Nikolas with the expression, "I am so confused right now."

The Wendell sisters held the boys captive for the rest of the day, allowing them out only to plunder Malmedy's elixir closet and gather up thyme, turtleboar liver, dried horn-toad skin, and morphiseleus, lots of morphiseleus.

Around eleven that night, the boys were cast from the bathroom but not before Helen threatened death unimaginable if they blabbed to Malmedy. The self-appointed housemother would return shortly from visiting relatives in the city, and if she discovered their anti-Portlorn scheme, it would be all over.

On the night of the Festival of Lights, Malmedy stood at the bottom of the staircase with her pudgy hands bunched up. She called up the stairwell, "You youngin's need to get on down here and eat yo' food. Festival of Lights is tonight. I leave for two weeks, and the whole place is gone to pot. You girls have been up there far too long now! Git on down here. Festival of Lights is tonight, I says!" She turned back to the kitchen to exchange her winter coat for an apron. "Them girls mess around too much. Silliest little sprites I's ever seen. . . . And where is that Dangus? Dangus! Dangus! Oh, if that don't beat all. Where is that silly redheaded man? Grand up and leaves, them girls doing Möon knows what? And now I can't even find Dangus. Whole house is falling apart, Nikolas. Drama, drama, drama!"

"I was under the impression that Dangus rounds up the swaggers before sunset?" Daniel said. He slid the cane beside his chair and sat down slowly at the kitchen table.

"Oh, is that what he's been telling you?" Malmedy said. "Aw no, he don't. I knows that much. We've got a swagherder for that. Dangus has gone and skipped dinner for the last two months. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Don' know what that silly git's up to, but he know the rules. Servants and family is suppose to be eatin' together. I work too hard in the kitchen for him to be messin' around."

"Achwee!" A voice echoed from the chimney.

Malmedy stopped in her tracks. She curled her lip and pivoted on her foot.

"Achwee!" The voice echoed a second time.

Malmedy mimed to Nikolas to grab her broom. He silently walked over to a broom resting against the wall and handed it to her.

She lifted her skirt slowly, her striped stockings showing, crouched onto her knees and shoved the broomstick up the chimney.

"Git' outta there. I said, git on outta there!" Malmedy yelled.

She turned onto her back and shoved the broom two more times. "Now I done said, git on out!!"

"Malmedy?" Dangus took a step closer.

"Where you been, Dangus?!" Malmedy sat up, soot falling from her head. "If you'd been keeping our chimneys clear, we wouldn't have critters moving in. There's a nasty lil' vermin all up in my chimney!!"

She gave the broom another shove. The sound of a mousy squeak answered her, and a reedy voice began to sing.

So warm and nice this chimney is,

With bits of sparks and coals.

Don't shove this little clim from home,

To live among the brolls!

"If I says it once, I says it a thousand times. I don' wan' no vermin up in ma chimney!" With that, Malmedy gave a final poke with the broom, and bits of honeycomb-shaped soot fell into the firebox.

"Squeak!" The mousy voice cried. In the middle of the firebox stood a mound of trembling soot with two needle-like rat hands clutching a serrated scrub brush and pointing it at Malmedy. The soot sneezed, revealing a small creature no bigger than the palm of a hand and completely covered with a fine layer of blond hair. It had a potato-shaped face inset by coal eyes, and its only article of clothing was a stovepipe hat pushing down a set of pointy faerling ears.

"I hears the murmur among the clims," said the strange creature. "I hears you returns to Manor Minor. I come to find a new home. Don't send me back out there. So cold, so cold!"

"Poor little guy." Brandy ran over with open hands. The clim looked at her momentarily and scurried into her palms.

"Missus, that ain' nothin' but a little rat," said Malmedy. "Cloggin' up ma chimneys, I tell ya. Make a mess of everythin'. Ya gotsta clean 'em out!"

"Let's not be too harsh, Malmedy," Dangus said. "It is a faerling still. And they can be quite useful. Can't you, Mr. . . . ?"

"Mr. Boggess the third." The clim bowed.

"Well, Mr. Boggess. Do you have family?"

"Oh, yes. _Achweee_ ," Mr. Boggess said as his head spasmed with another sneeze. "We Boggesses hail from the Manor Major district. Lived there for nearly a millennium. But they turned on me this very night because they asked me to do the unforgivable: spy on the Lyons' family. Never been accepted into the Boggess side of me family anyway. Always been more of a Drenal. They spy for the good but keep to the Cliffs of Somber district, mainly villagers' hearths and such. Anyway, Boggesses have been spying for Sheriff Silas these last few years."

"Spying?" Brandy said. "Is it like a family business?"

"Yes. It's come to that." Mr. Boggess met Brandy's sympathetic expression. "A chimney with a hot blazing fire is home to our kind, and most secrets are shared at the heat of the hearth."

Suddenly, Nikolas had an idea.

"Tell me, Mr. Boggess." He dropped to one knee. "How much access does your family have to other estates, say Ironvale Estates?"

"The home of Silas Gorringe? The sheriff?" Mr. Boggess gave Nikolas a knowing smirk, crouched, and began singing.

Secrets I can tell you,

Things you shouldn't know.

Offer I will make you,

To bring your villains low!

Mr. Boggess removed his hat, decompressing a mash of blond hair, and bowed again.

"You can make a pact, Mr. Lyons," Dangus said. "Clims will be faithful to you and spy in exchange for a warm hearth."

"Oh no, you don't," Malmedy shook her head at Nikolas.

"Yes," Nikolas said. "You make the promise, Dangus."

"Very well." Dangus nodded. "Mr. Boggess."

"Don't you do it, Dangus!" Malmedy yelled.

"In exchange for a home in Grand's fireplace," Dangus said, "you will serve as a spy for the House of Lyons."

Mr. Boggess smiled. "It would be my honor."

Dangus stood to his feet. "Let us seal this with a vow. You are all witnesses today. Whilst Manor Minor stands, Mr. Boggess will have a home in the chimney of the master's room. In exchange, he will spy on Sheriff Silas and his cohorts. If either party breaks this vow, may he be cut off from hearth and home to wander the wilderness until death takes him."

Dangus, Mr. Boggess, and Malmedy said the pledge in unison: "May it be so." Malmedy's pledge, however, sounded more like a grumble.

"Now begin your home in the master bedroom. Malmedy will always have a fire to warm you. Malmedy, transport the ashes from here to the master bedroom."

She snatched up the clim by the nape of his neck and held him out arm's length, muttering something about "vermins taking over da' house."

Soon the table was filled with hungry stomachs, all waiting on Helen and Caroline to end their bathroom lock-in. Everyone had dressed in their most elegant evening wear for the Festival of Lights. Remarkably, Brandy had managed to find a pink dress even louder and pinker than the first one. Tim wore a classic black and white suit with a top hat and a white scarf vying to be a tablecloth—one of Brandy's creations, no doubt. Dangus returned dressed in something that resembled a Scottish evening outfit. Draped over his shoulder was a plaid cloth tucked into the belt of a frayed kilt, revealing bleach-white legs. Nikolas tried to dress up, but white fancy gloves were too much, and he wouldn't give up the bowler hat. Nikolas was happy to see Xanthus sitting at the table. He wore a baggy tweed suit jacket and derby cap. To ensure that he could go to the Festival of Lights, he had doubled his dosage of gallitrot. Missing the birth of the dryads would be an abomination to all who call themselves geek, according to Xanthus.

Daniel began to grumble about stomach pains when Malmedy raised a pudgy finger. "Don' cha eat until all ladies are seated and accounted for. You'se gentlemen now. Gotta learn to treat women like they'se princesses. I see how you'se forget to open doors and such." With her next breath, she bellowed so loudly the windows rattled. "If you'se not down here by the time I'm done a' hollering, it's me up there with the pointy end of my broomstick!"

A door creaked open, followed by Helen and Caroline's suppressed giggles. Ivory white slippers appeared at the stairwell. Blue gloves, studded with pearls and cuffed in white sheer, glided along the staircase banister. Nikolas could see that their two dresses were trimmed in blue and they were traced with the webbing of a treenid, giving it a membranous appearance. Their faces were hidden by the kitchen ceiling.

Everyone stood ceremonially.

Both girls, in royal unison, took their last step. Yeri's jaw dropped . . . and so did he. All six-foot-two, one hundred and sixty pounds of him fell to the kitchen floor.

"Um. I'm not hungry." Tim stumbled over Yeri on his way out.

At the end of the table stood two of the ugliest teenage girls Nikolas had ever seen. Helen's lips were toad-like, her face an assortment of warts, misguided teeth, and a bulbous nose, which sprouted shoots of thick nasal hair. Caroline had dry, craggy skin. Her makeup had collected in pores and the cleft of her now large chin.

"What splendor and beauty!" Jack bowed dramatically while holding back snickers.

The girls curtsied, revealing legs covered in a network of spider veins.

"Wha—wha—" Malmedy switched from one foot to the other. "—in the name of all that's good and sane. . . . What in the world has you two gone and done?"

"Oh. I'm sorry, Malmedy." Helen flared her dress. "Is it the blue trim? Blue has never been my color."

"You know what I's talking about," Malmedy said.

"Ingenious." Daniel nodded approvingly.

Jack smacked his knee. "Legendary! The ugly Wendell sisters!"

"It was the only way to get Baron Portlorn to back off," Caroline explained.

"Relax, Malmedy." Helen swiped the air. "It'll wear off by midnight."

"What about yo' suitors?" Malmedy pointed out the window. "What you think yo' suitors are gonna say when they see's you like this?"

"Suitors?" said Helen. "You mean dates? We don't have dates. . . . _Brandy_?"

The youngest Wendell buried her face in her pink shawl.

"Brandy?"

"It was supposed to be a surprise," Brandy lifted her head, her squatter flower bending sideways. "I set the three of us up. I was trying to apologize for making you feel bad about Portlorn."

"By setting me up on a date??" Helen said. "Do you even know me at all?"

"I give up," Brandy said. "You want boys to hate you? See if I care."

"Well." Malmedy shook her head. "Sit on down. Ugly or not, I'se obliged to feed ya. Drama, drama, drama."

All during dinner Helen talked and giggled and even cracked a joke or two. When pretty, she was stiff and distant. But now that she looked liked someone had shoved her face into a landmine, she laughed openly. Nikolas realized something. By being ugly, she was finally free of all the attention that boys put on her. And it made her even more beautiful.

He envied Helen. Nikolas wanted that—to laugh and have fun, not to be some bitter jerk who hated his friends. But how could he when Xanthus sat next to him, turning to stone?

Malmedy, on the other hand, was far from impressed with Helen. She riddled the dinner with, "What yo' suitors gonna say? What they gonna say?"

Malmedy didn't have anything to worry about. When the sisters' suitors arrived, they didn't say one word.

They screamed.

Seelaprim bouquets were flung to the snow while they dove into their geese-drawn stagecoach. The coach lifted into the night clouds with three wailing teenage boys.

Brandy refused to let the night be a complete disaster. She informed them that Helen was to go with Nikolas, Daniel with Brandy, and Tim with Caroline. No one seemed to mind except for Tim. He refused to go with Caroline on account of how ugly her face was, so Jack lent Caroline his arm, tipped his stovepipe hat, and said to her, "You, Miss Caroline, are the most beautiful date in all the Festivals of Lights, past, present and yet to come. It is an honor unimaginable."

Caroline snorted, then hocked a loogie.

Chapter 6

  banner read:

For the first time in two months, Huron spoke to Nikolas. _A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!_

Nikolas tilted his head. He wondered why the banner set her off after two months of silence.

She seethed again. _A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath._

Nikolas turned his sights to Creachling Theater. Every Huronite citizen must have been at the Festival of Lights. Mingling among them were thousands of Merrows

And Nikolas could sense every single one.

Like needles marching across his back, he could feel the Merrows' automaton legs, velles, and merminors' tanks creeping between booths and walkways.

The unsettled feeling didn't end there. Another evil grew just below the cobblestone, an undercurrent of darkness coursing its way through the city. It was this darkness that Huron feared would overcome her.

Nikolas closed his eyes. "Sorry, Huron. I can't help you. The council has my hands tied. I—I have to protect my friends," he sighed. "You need to find another steward."

"Some kind of date you are," Helen said, her arm draped over Nikolas's.

"What?" Nikolas blinked. He had almost forgotten about his night out with ugly-Helen.

"Why won't you look at me, sweet Nikolas?" Helen giggled. "Am I not pretty enough for you?"

Nikolas smirked. "Oh. More than I can handle. One look upon that unibrow and you've got my knees-a-shakin'."

She laughed and elbowed his arm.

"It's Huron." His eyes moved back to the banner. "She's really edgy tonight. I think something bad is going to happen."

"Well!" Helen flicked a clump of oily hair over her shoulder. "Tell Huron that you already have a date. She can horn in after our vicious break-up, which will be mired in bitter letters of forlorn passion and unrequited love."

Smiling at the ugliest face in Huron, Nikolas realized something. He really _did_ envy Helen. In spite of all they'd been through, she managed to have fun. If Helen could take a night off, why couldn't he?

Helen smacked Nikolas with her party fan and giggled, "What's with the puppy eyes? You're not getting swept away by my supple warts now, are you?" She slipped out from under his arm and joined Caroline, who was applying another thick layer of blush.

The girls winked at two passing Harynne guards. The guards screamed and unsheathed flaming katanas. They stumbled away quickly, the swords still drawn. The ugly Wendell sisters laughed so hard that Caroline landed on her rump.

Nikolas understood. He wasn't angry at his friends about Xanthus, not really. He was angry at himself. His friends couldn't trust him to find a cure. Any idea he'd had tended to end badly. They didn't believe in him, and whose fault was that? Had he ever given them a good reason? It was time to stop being bitter, Nikolas decided. It was getting him nowhere. Tonight he would have fun. He wouldn't think about Xanthus turning to stone. He wouldn't think about Grand being gone for two months. He wouldn't think about the sheriff or the Merrows . . . especially the Merrows. Nikolas had to look beyond the doubts and worries and see the festival for what it was meant to be.

Fun.

Nikolas scanned the Festival of Lights, wondering where he should start looking for fun. He recalled taking in the festival earlier that night when Rug descended to the ticket booths. Located in north Creachborough, the festival grounds were erected over an extinct volcano. The rim of the volcano was wide enough to hold the festival's stalls, booths, and tourneys. Much like the city of Huron, the booths were divided into its different lings. Creachling booths were on the northwest side, marked by a massive kite in the shape of a Pegasus. The kite above the faerling booths on the southeast was a Rickaboo. For humlings, it was a redheaded maiden, and for midglings, a dwarf-shaped kite. Above the bigling booths flapped a kite in the shape of a gargantuate.

Past the booths, the volcano sloped toward the theater. The slopes were filled with Dujinnin campers and anyone else not able to afford proper seats. The slope stopped at a stone ledge, which bordered Creachling Theater itself. The theater was similar to a Roman coliseum, except this one was buried so deep, and its walls so steep, that it would induce vertigo for even the most brazen daredevil.

Just as Nikolas suggested that they check out the bigling booths, he heard a barking voice.

"Excuse me!" Baron Portlorn announced. "Pardon me! Oh, very sorry there! Didn't mean to slap you. Couldn't see your front side from back here," Baron Portlorn said, scurrying past two Centaurs. "Nikolas! Fine festival this has turned out to be. Say, good lad, have you seen Miss Helen?"

"Yeah. She's right there." Nikolas pointed to Caroline and Helen. At the moment, Helen was reapplying makeup on an abnormally large wart resting just below her right eye.

"I'm sorry. Afraid I've missed her. What's that you say?" Baron Portlorn earnestly scanned the crowd.

"There. Right there. In the white dress with that, uhm, blue trim stuff?"

Baron Portlorn squinted. "Have you been in the mad melons, son? I don't see her."

Helen glanced up from her handbag and called out with a sing-songy voice, "Baron Portlorn! How _are_ you?"

Baron Portlorn rested on his cane like a lean-to as he quizzically examined the ugly girl. Then, as Helen approached, the Baron recognized her blue eyes.

His cane snapped.

"By the winds of the tether. Your face!" Baron Portlorn said mortified. His bottom lip dropped, making a third chin out of the two he already had.

"What? Oh, my face?" Helen smiled displaying her buckteeth. "I'm afraid I wasn't honest with you at Emma's party. You were right. I _am_ under a wiggen's curse. I just didn't know how to tell you. Actually, my entire family was hexed by a wiggen a long time ago. See, my great-grandfather killed this wiggen's adder because it snuck into our estate and . . . and bit one of our Westchester dragons. So . . . um, she cast this spell, that is, the wiggen cast this spell on my great-grandmother, right? Well, it was a hereditary spell, and so it, like, totally passed down from generation to generation."

"Not me," Brandy interjected. "The curse went right around me."

"Yes." Helen rolled her eyes. "Not Brandy."

"I'm a miracle of beauty!" Brandy added.

" _Any_ way," continued Helen, "it's been in our family so long, I don't even notice it."

"Even notice . . . it." Baron Portlorn's eyes glazed over for an awkward moment. Then hope was rekindled. "It—it happens once a year? During the dryad birthing to be sure?"

"Oh, no," Caroline said. "We don't know when it'll occur. Kinda like a rash. This isn't even a really bad breakout."

"Wait 'til you see the boils," Jack said, gripping his coat-of-potions lapel for effect.

"Boils!" Baron Portlorn's left eye twitched. He gawped around dizzily. "Forgive me. I best be getting on to the show. Persimmons reserved seats in the Council's Boils—uh, er, _Booth._ I meant booth. The Council's Booth. I should be looking to my seat now."

Baron Portlorn moved through the crowd and did not look back.

When he was out of shouting distance, Helen puffed up her chest and bugged out her eyes. "Boils!"

They guffawed.

Jack joined in the impersonation. "Boils! I've got to see to the Council's boils. No, wait. Bunions. I meant the Council's bunions. No, not bunions! That's not it at all. Help me out here! Whazit called? I got to go see the Council's bums. No! That's worse. I'm so confused right now!" His impersonation put them over the top. They laughed and howled until their cheeks ached.

"You guys are mean," Brandy said. "He likes you, Helen. At least you could tell him that you don't like him. What you're doing is mean."

"Yeah." Helen could barely hold her breath. "But it's so FUNNY!" Everyone heaved over with another round of laughs.

After they had gathered themselves, Nikolas suggested that they go to the bigling booths before the Festival of Lights show. Brandy said she was done hanging out with murderers of love and didn't want to have love's blood on her hands anymore. She and Tim left to find Malmedy.

Nikolas put his arm out to Helen and said, "Shall we?" She nodded her wrinkled, saggy head.

Jack mirrored the gesture to Caroline who extended her own wart-riddled arm. They made for the bigling booths.

For the next couple of hours, the four of them meandered through the bigling section, which turned out to be fun to watch, but dangerous to join. Most biglings seemed to have only one point of amusement. They were giant, and everyone else was not. Therefore, most of the games consisted of a bigling matched against another creature of Möon. One of the most popular booths was "Out-Teeter a Tuckland Giant." First, a Möon creature would sit on one end of a teeter-totter and the brutish Tuckland Giant would sit on the other. Physics played its part, and the poor creature would be cast off into the night, landing perfectly in the muddy pen of several giant Hollibrum sleeths. They looked like sloths but had long wormy snouts and surprisingly quick hands. The Tuckland giants would howl and guffaw at every flung participant, never considering that a carnival game should have some degree of competitiveness. They didn't even charge money. They just wanted to see the creatures fly howling into the night.

To further the ugly-Helen joke, Nikolas decided to grab her hand to which she cooed in her baritone voice. The booths quickly became a procession of teenagers gawking at the infamous Nikolas Lyons, interlocking fingers and looking longingly into the eyes of the ugliest girl in Huron.

They were still holding hands when the four of them stopped at the booth titled,

Below the title, someone with misguided artistic abilities drew a gargantuate slapping a Satyr so hard, it had Xs for eyes.

While Nikolas studied the sign, he felt Helen's saggy hand slightly move. For a minute it almost felt light, but he barely registered the change. Besides, he was still trying to comprehend the sign, and the long line of eager contestants wrapped all the way around the next booth. Why would anyone in their right mind sign up to get slapped by a nine-hundred-pound giant? He looked back at Helen to say as much, but the words stopped in his mouth.

She wasn't ugly anymore. In fact, she was beautiful. Extremely beautiful.

"Uh . . ." Nikolas said, suddenly aware of her soft hand.

"It's midnight," Helen said. "The elixir wore off at midnight."

"Right," Nikolas said. Her hand felt _very_ soft. He should drop her hand now because it felt so soft.

"Joke's over. I'm not ugly anymore," Helen said, the light in her eyes starting to fade. "Don't have to hold my hand now."

"Yeah," Nikolas said. She was right. Joke is over. He _really_ should drop her hand now, but he couldn't do it.

No. His _hand_ couldn't do it.

Should he wait for Helen to drop her—

"Guys!" Tim yelled.

Nikolas and Helen snapped their hands away. All four of them looked back to Tim.

"Yeah, what?" Nikolas said.

Tim hesitated, his gaze where their hands had been. Something flashed across his face. Nikolas couldn't quite tell what it was.

"You're late," Tim said. "I've been looking everywhere for you. You guys were supposed to meet Malmedy and Dangus a half hour ago. Show starts in ten minutes."

Since neither the Huron City Council nor the Council of Teine had yet decided if Nikolas was the steward of Huron, he was put on provisional stewardship status. While he didn't have any authority, the council had given him a few perks, including a seat in the King's Booth. Actually, Sheriff Silas had insisted Nikolas have it to everyone's surprise.

Malmedy and Dangus giggled on and on about their King's Booth seats. Evidently, there was no better place to see the forthcoming spectacle. Unfortunately, getting to the King's Booth wouldn't be all that easy. They had to navigate down the muddy slope packed with dozens of Dujinnin campers. After running the Dujinnin gauntlet, Nikolas and company were to climb down one thousand steps so steep that they might as well have been ladders, according to Malmedy. All of this with a sickly Xanthus and wheelchair in tow.

The Dujinnin didn't seem interested in helping them pass quickly either. They were constantly dodging Dujinnin cauldrons conveniently placed in the road. Old Dujinnin women attended the cauldrons with large wooden ladles, periodically throwing in handfuls of dried mushrooms, gums-of-cow, and craw seasoning, which Jack explained was the undigested food of a chicken's craw. After the series of gut-turning cauldrons, they had to push through a traffic jam. The Dujinnin had decided to hold grizzly koala fights on the pathway with bets being wagered.

Dangus warned them to watch their steps. A group of teenage Dujinnin felt it was their duty to promote Dujinnin equality by planting thruster mines along the path. They were hexed stones that, when stepped on by anyone but a Dujinnin, flung the unsuspecting pedestrian back a hundred yards. As if this wasn't bad enough, a violent Dujinnin feud was unfolding at the Festival of Lights between the Capricians and the Molleander families. When Harynne guards weren't looking, the feuding families blasted their hexed cannons overhead. Any innocent bystander in the path of a hex cannon found themselves in the jynn'geon's infirmary covered head to toe in a curse of travelling boils or mush-o'-bones.

While they made their way through, the Dujinnin would regard Nikolas's fancy clothes and dandy hat. Others would mutter on about their own repressive, impoverished conditions when even the most common folk could afford a seat in Creachling Theater like this tow-haired boy. One old woman cackled under her breath, "Off to the theater, are ya? Enjoy the show. Oh, you'll get what's coming to ya. All you hoity toitys. You'll get what's coming to ya."

Nikolas would have ignored the old woman, except at that instant Huron spoke. _A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!_

"Cakk! Cakk!" Xanthus hacked and coughed, doubling over in his wheelchair.

"I still think it unwise for you to come, Master Xanthus," Yeri said pushing his wheelchair.

"There's no _way_ I'm missing the birth of the dryads," Xanthus said. "Every self-respecting nerd would shun me for the rest of my days if I missed the birth of the dryads."

"There won't be a nerd for thousands of years," Nikolas said.

"Oh, but they'll know. They always know." Xanthus shook his head.

Nikolas smiled.

From the darkness leapt an old Dujinnin man holding some creature that appeared to be a stomach, at least that is what it seemed like to Nikolas. The man laughed as two hounds and an ogre-looking Dujinnin man chased after him, yelling something about "My skainsmate, you old dog!"

"Now, don' you be lying to me." Malmedy wagged her finger at Dangus. "Why you keep missing my suppers? And don' say swagherding. You knows we got a swagherder for that. O'Goyle's been keeping them swaggers for centuries now."

"I've got my commitments." Dangus tried for firmness. "No business of yours how I spend my leisure. If I want to spend the evenings betting on beatrix fights—"

"Beatrix fights!" Malmedy said. "Ooh, you'se better not be, Dangus."

"I ain't saying that's what I've been up to," Dangus sighed. "I'm just saying that I can spend my leisure any way I see fit. You ain't my mum!"

"No I ain'," Malmedy said. "I'll tell you what I am. I's—"

Dangus changed into a large crab.

"Don't think changing into a crab's gonna get you out of it!" Malmedy said.

Dangus pointed his big crab pinchers to the place where two ears should have been and shrugged with the motion, "Sorry. I cannot hear you. I'm a crab."

Malmedy bent over, wagging her finger at crab-Dangus. "I know's you can hear me, you fool. Now change back or I'm gonna slap that jynn'us right out of ya!"

Dangus turned up an imaginary ear to Malmedy like he was straining to hear her, but shrugged again as if to say, "Sorry. Still a crab."

Xanthus curled over again. "Ckahhh. Ckahh!! Ckahhh!!!"

"There, there now, Master Xanthus. Where did I put the gallitrot?" Yeri reached into his cloak and pulled out a vial. He handed the tar-like substance to Xanthus who stuck his fingers into it and sucked it off.

"You know—" Xanthus wiped his face with his forearm. "If you're supposed to digest medicine, why make it so you just want to puke it back up?"

"Almost forgot." Yeri pushed the wheelchair forward while rummaging inside a bag stitched to the back. "I've got a spoon for you right—"

"Teeth on tongue!" a Dujinnin cried, grabbing at his shins. He had red hair—rare for a Dujinnin—and a turnip-shaped body.

"Dear me!" Yeri reached out. "Didn't see ya there. The wheelchair's a bit to manage."

"Bet ya didn't." A second Dujinnin held his friend up. He had a flat, pock-rattled face, malevolent eyes, and a tone set to sneering. "You Merrow cohorters wouldn't think to look upon us scum-of-the-Möon Dujinnin, would ya?"

"You're right, Mellandroll," the redheaded Dujinnin said. "He is a cohorter, isn't he?"

"Merrow cohorter?" Nikolas said. "What are you talking about?"

"Your gaunt little friend there." The redheaded Dujinnin pointed a crooked finger at Xanthus. "Look at that earring. Waving it about, just to remind us we'll never be more than slaves to those rotten fish faces!"

Xanthus lightly touched his mother's earring. Caroline had suggested he not wear it tonight because of what Grimmelwald had said about the Dujinnin enslavement to the Merrows a long time ago. Xanthus told her it was his mother's, and he wouldn't part with it for the world.

"You don't know anything about him," Nikolas said.

"That wretched jewelry tells me everything." The redheaded Dujinnin's finger stayed pointed. "My grandfather's entire family was traded for an earring just like that one, wasn't he? Won't find a Merrow without one. Their lot wear 'em in their ears or around their neck. Tells me he's a Merrow sympathizer, that does."

"City be swarming with our old slave masters," snorted the pock-marked Dujinnin. "Festival of Lights smelling of rotten sardines, no thanks to all them fish people. Think those Merrows can win Huron over by throwing their trinkets at the city and putting on their little carnival sideshow here?

But it worked, didn't it? Huron don't care two licks about us being stuck up here like barn animals, seeing the whole show from the muck and ice while even the poorest citizens are given proper stone seats. And now this boy flaunts their jewelry about like it's some bloody fashion statement? The whole lot of Merrows should be canned and shipped Earthside, I'd say."

"Chill out, _I'd say_ ," Nikolas said. He took a decided stance between Xanthus and the Dujinnin.

"Do you?" The redheaded Dujinnin said, inspecting Nikolas. He seemed to be noting his hair, his clothes. Recognition spread across his face. He bowed dramatically. "Oh Steward, is it? I expect you've been given front row seats? Then it'll be quite the show for you. Well, don't let me keep you now."

The pock-riddled Dujinnin took off his hat and bowed with his friend. "Yes, please _Steward_ , do enjoy your front row seats."
Chapter 7

  veryone found their seats while Japa the Bear lumbered to center stage. He rose to his feet, greeted the audience, and stepped aside as Lir, the Merrow and Duke of Eynclaene, walked up, aided by his automalegs.

Huron whispered. _A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath._

Torchlight reflected off Lir's Merrow scales, dressing the Creachling Theater in muted rainbows. The merman relayed the pleasantries adults usually passed to each other. "Thank you to those. . . . We're honored to have them. . . ."

Nikolas tried to listen to the speech, but he was distracted by the pendant on Lir's necklace. Grimmelwald and the two Dujinnin were right. It looked almost identical to Xanthus's earring.

_The creature attacked Xanthus and Mr. Waters._ Nikolas thought. _They had matching pendants. What's Xanthus doing with a Merrow's earring? Was the monster going after the Merrows' pendants? Was it going to attack Lir next?_

Nikolas shook his head and glanced at Helen to remind himself tonight was for fun and nothing else.

Lir raised both hands. "And without further adieu, welcome citizens of Huron to the one thousand, two hundred and twenty-fourth Festival of Lights!"

The crowd exploded in cheers, snarls and growls. Nikolas joined in.

"The city council has given us the honor of financing the Festival of Lights. Our families can now truly call Huron their new home because you've welcomed us with hearts of sulmare. Please take this presentation as a humble expression of our gratitude."

A white light flared across the theater, blinding the audience for a moment. Out of the flash of light appeared a line of mermaids in automaton spider legs. They rubbed their fingers together and flung sulmare into the theater seats. The people stretched their hands out, reaching for the money while it fell. A few fights started to break out, but the Harynne guards put a stop to them. Nikolas tried not to think about the Dujinnin sitting in their muddy seats and out of reach of the Merrows' sulmare.

"And now, the light of the dryads!" Lir shouted.

"What you make of that, Malmedy?" Dangus said. "No seeing bottles or nothing. How's one to see the dryad birthing from down here?"

Without any formal introduction, two squatty creatures walked to center stage. They looked like loaves of bread, with button eyes two fingers apart, and lips that wrapped halfway around their heads. Both were dressed in brown pelt robes lined in peacock feathers.

"Oh! That's Master Lozarno Squirsby," Jack said. "I'm his apprentice. With him there is his brother, Millarno. They're Bumgardners. Brilliant elixirists. Top of the line, really."

Lozarno held a white stone while Millarno waddled toward a tank that resembled a five hundred gallon coffee press. Set over a fire, the glass tank had a lid attached to a catch and brimmed and bubbled over with yellow liquid.

"Oh, I get ya. Brilliant," Jack whispered. "That stone there, Nikolas, it's a piece of Creachling Theater. Wait 'til you see this."

Lozarno dropped the stone into the glass tank. It sizzled and drifted down slowly until it rested on the catch. Millarno grabbed the tank's large iron crank and pulled it down a foot, lifting the catch and stone.

Creachling Theater shook.

Millarno pulled the crank again.

Suddenly, Nikolas's stone seat shot up. The entire theater trembled again, and people's seats jumped a foot into the air.

"What's going on?" Nikolas said.

"They're geniuses, yeah?" Jack gripped his seat. "Like I said, that stone is a piece of Creachling Theater. As long as it rests in the elixir-of-levitation, the Bumgardners are able to lift us up by the seat of our pants, quite literally."

"Lift us up?" Daniel tried to hold on to both cane and seat. "What do you mean lift us u—?"

Nikolas's seat kicked up another ten feet, and he could feel the wind thread around his ankles. Very carefully, he looked under the stone seat. They must have been individually carved, allowing them to separate from Creachling Theater.

"They've hexed the seats," Jack giggled. "We're going up into the sky to see the dryads give bi—"

The lights went out.

Violin music, thin and sweet, mixed with the crowd's murmurs. Between the stage and the seats, Satyrs played on pan flutes while being corkscrewed into the air on round stone platforms. With another flash of light, twenty elfling women appeared on the stage, singing a mysterious melody. Soon the night sky was filled with thousands of excited—and a few wary—passengers drifting skyward on their stone seats, like so many snowflakes caught in an updraft.

Lir's voice called from below, "Please thank our Bumgardners for enchanting all eighty-thousand stone seats, so we may witness a greater display of the dryad birthing!"

Caroline reached out for Tim and Daniel, creating a daisy chain of floating seats. Nikolas grabbed Xanthus's hand and Malmedy grabbed Nikolas's. He didn't know why, but her clammy grip made him laugh.

"Simply brilliant," an old wizard cried. "The Merrows have outdone themselves!"

"Well worth the price of admission and a break from me hole," a badger chattered. He held onto his wife's hand while their two children sniffed the night air.

"It's so beautiful," Helen yelled.

Nikolas's gaze returned to their nightly journey. The crowd rose to the height of the Byra Mountains.

Xanthus leaned his stone towards Nikolas. "Do you know what's about to happen?"

"No," Nikolas said. "Is this from your bestiary?"

"The dryad birthing? Yeah." Xanthus let go of Nikolas's hand to suppress another fit of coughs before continuing. "It's beautiful . . . at least the way they describe it."

"Right you are, Master Xanthus." Dangus clicked his tongue. "But I must confess, never seen it quite like this. Them Merrows are something else."

"What's happening?" Helen pointed to the valleys.

"That's what I mean," Dangus said.

Huron Valley had been a black sheet under the night sky, but now green lights flickered deep within the trees. After a few minutes, hundreds of thousands of lights rained upward.

"Those are the dryads," Xanthus said. "They live in the forest, but the mother dryads come out once a year to give birth to their children."

"Now there's a mystical folk." Dangus smiled, his orange-white hair flickering in the breeze. "Dryads used to live at the roots of the Byra Mountains, didn't they? Tended to them, made them grow. All of them were flung from the mountains' bellies by the jynn'us star that made Huron Valley epochs ago. They're one of the ancients. The first creatures of the valley, I daresay. They look after our trees now—singing oak, pine and such. . . . Blast it to Bobshire, my jynn'us!" Dangus had unwillingly morphed into a sea troll and nearly collided with a Harynne guard. "Sorry that!"

Emerald lights began zinging and zanging between the stone seats.

"Where are they going?" Nikolas asked.

"They can't give birth out in the cold," Xanthus said. "It'll kill the newborns."

"Going to them volcanoes now," Dangus added. He had gotten a grip on his jynn'us and was floating back to the group.

"Volcanoes?" Nikolas said.

"Byra Mountains—see them mountains hugging Huron Valley?" Dangus smiled. "All dormant volcanoes, but the dryads drill down, down, down. Have to lay their eggs deep, deep down in the lava. Only way for a baby dryad to be born—" Dangus blew up into a wildebeest and began spinning around again. "For pity's sake!"

Xanthus tightened the swagger afghan around him and carried on Dangus's explanation. "The dryads have a connection with the mountain's heart. Many Huronite doctors have written papers and held long debates on their relationship with the mountains. Some think the dryads are actually a part of the mountain, that's why they never wander too far from their first home. But the cool part—why they call it the Festival of Lights—is that when the egg touches the lava, it—"

Suddenly, a light zipped into Xanthus's afghan. He carefully unfolded the blanket and found a mother dryad there. She was no bigger than a sparrow. Nikolas still struggled to remember all the different lings, but her pointy ears and size told him it was a faerling. She had a translucent body and the wings of a dragonfly. In her arms were hundreds of small eggs that lit with a brilliant green. The eggs must have been what made the dryads glow.

Xanthus scooped the mother dryad up, its light reflecting off his pallid face and large unblinking eyes. "They lay their eggs in the magma. It takes the extreme heat of the mountain's lava to hatch them." With a smile, he lifted her into the air and let the dryad continue on. "There you go, mother dryad. There you go."

Nikolas caught Daniel staring at his brother with a worried expression.

"Hey," Nikolas said to Daniel. "Seems like he's having fun."

Daniel's gaze returned to the dryads, but he didn't acknowledge Nikolas.

Soon the dryads had created a ring of green light above the Byra Mountains. They began descending into the mountaintops.

"Oh my!" Malmedy adjusted herself in the seat. "This is gonna be summin' else!"

The last dryad disappeared into the mountain, leaving the valley in darkness again. The crowd quieted.

BOOM!

The top of the northwestern mountain range showered light. The crowd responded in cheers.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Fissures of light sprayed the cloud's underbelly, and the mountains roared as only a mountain can.

BOOM!

The valley exploded with millions of dryad newborns spinning and swirling through the night sky. Xanthus's hands were in the air, and Dangus whistled.

"There it is," Xanthus said. "The birth of the dryads."

"This is awesome!" Nikolas shouted. He stood to his feet and whistled at the show. Helen and Jack joined him. For the next hour, they watched the sky swirl and swim with the baby dryads. They wandered aimlessly, confused about where to go. But with the direction of their mothers and a little instinct, they finally drifted toward the forests to begin their new life as tree-tenders.

Voices praised and applauded the Merrows all the way down to Creachling Theater. "A fine show, a fine show indeed . . . splendid . . . Merrows are the best thing to come to Huron in a long time!"

Even with the laughter, Nikolas couldn't help but wonder about all the Dujinnin stuck on the ground in the mud and ice _. Were they jealous?_ He looked down and saw his answer.

The Dujinnin were marching out in droves.

Thousands made for the exits, leaving food and tents and fire pits behind.

"Bummer," Nikolas said under his breath.

"Glad I stayed for the lights this year," Malmedy said, as the stone seats wedged into their places again. "Those were summin' else! Now, Dangus, take me home."

"You're going home?" Nikolas said. "We just started."

"Aw, no." Malmedy shook her head. "I'm way too old to be messing around at some festival in the middle a' winter. Ain't nobody got time for that! Sides, I got's to start preparing for the Ferret Festival. It's in four days. Dangus, let's get on home."

Dangus looked at the cheering crowd longingly. "Probably best if I stay behind—look after the young'ins. I could get you a cab?"

"You can get me a cab," Malmedy said, "and you can get in it. Got too much cooking before the Ferret Festival. Come on now. Let's get on home." Malmedy readjusted her shawl and bonnet and began trudging up the steep stairs with Dangus in tow.

"Now what?" Nikolas said to Jack.

"Oh, the night's not nearly over," he said. "First the show, then the carnival, dancing, music and—Gragillas!" Jack suddenly wilted into his coat-of-elixirs with his stovepipe hat as a shield.

"What?" Nikolas said. "Gragillas are next?"

"No, gragillas," Jack hissed. "Father's bodyguards. He's forbidden me from keeping company with you." He wilted even further as several large muscular creatures knuckled their way past King's Booth. They looked like hairless gorillas and about twice the height of a man.

The creatures walked past without noticing them, followed by Sheriff Silas and his son, Beronn.

Nikolas thought they were out of the clear when Polythana, Silas's sickly maidservant, stopped dead in her tracks. Her head turned like it was on a swivel and her shoulders followed.

She whispered, "Hello, Steward."
Chapter 8

  hile people continued to cut around Polythana, she walked toward Nikolas. Her sallow, melancholic expression stayed on him. She tilted her head to the left and then to the right, as if she didn't understand who Nikolas was. She slowly grabbed his wrists, her entire torso now hanging over the stone banister. Her hands burned coldly.

"You're supposed to save us, Steward?" Polythana asked, moving her fingers to his cheeks. Her tone held a mix of curiosity and interest. "Can you? Darkness comes for us all. Does that matter to you? Do you hear her? Or have you given up? So greedy, the darkness. So greedy. How long will you fold your hands in fear? Will you let the darkness take it all away? Take. Take. Take. Tick. Tock. Take. Tick. Tock. Take."

The first time Silas's servant gawked at him at the city council meeting, she had given Nikolas the creeps. This time, she was down right bat-crazy.

"Polythana? Polythana!" Beronn yelled. "Keep up, you . . . Jack?" Beronn grabbed him by the collar. "You insolent brat!" Beronn's lug-shaped face and scraggly beard were inches from Jack.

"What is the meaning of this, son?" Silas said, stepping around Beronn. The sheriff was covered head to toe in a rubber lining. Nikolas could see vein-threaded eyes through his goggles and the decay of skin where the suit opened to his lips.

"Just catching the show with my friends, Father." Jack pointed to the stage with a trembling hand. Beronn threw him to the seats.

"I have forbidden you to keep company with the House of Lyons," Silas said, studying Jack's boots. He unrolled his velvet glove letting his jynn'us gray-blue mist pour to their feet. Jack curled his boots back just as a shoot of grass turned bleach white.

"They carry the grim and disease of Huron on them."

"Traitor," Beronn sneered. "Have you no fidelity?"

"Fidelity?" Jack glared. "Sorry, I'm not Daddy's lapdog."

_Crack!_ Silas slapped Jack so hard his face smashed into Nikolas's shoulder. Slowly, he rolled back into his own seat, but didn't look back up.

Nikolas rose to his feet. He was about to do a very stupid thing, but he couldn't stay seated one second longer. "Back off."

Silas looked slowly to Nikolas with his goggled eyes. "Or what, boy?"

"I'll call the Harynne. You can't abuse Jack like that."

"Will you call the Harynne? How?" The sheriff took off his hat, revealing a velvet cowl. "They are under my orders not to assist you in any way. They will not come. Now, you could call your grandfather. Where might he be? Gone off on an adventure, I suppose? Will one of your mealy-mouthed brats come to your aid? I doubt it very much. You will call no one, boy, because no believes you. No one trusts the voices in your head. You are powerless to save anyone, especially after tonight. You will lose _everything_."

Nikolas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Every response seemed stupid and childish.

"I warned you, Nikolas Lyons. Huron will take it all away, leaving you destitute and alone. She is greedy, greedy as the Celizic Wells are deep."

Beronn looked behind him just as burgundy curtains rose from the stage floor. He raised a pocket watch to Silas. "Father?"

"Yes. Do look at the time." Then Silas repeated the Dujinnin's words, "Enjoy your front row seats, Steward."

They continued their walk. Polythana gave Nikolas one more glance.

The curtains retracted, revealing a seventy-foot water tank. It was an underwater set filled with Merrow actors and actresses.

On seeing the tank, Huron cried. _A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!_

Everyone applauded, but Nikolas dropped to the seat and grabbed his knees.

A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!

Lir returned to center stage. "And now my wife, Nia, is quite the playwright. She has written a beautiful play called _The Daughter of Ixthus_. We hope you enjoy."

A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!

Applause filled the stadium again.

Nikolas pounded his leg and clenched his teeth. Cheers swept through the seats. He tried not to scream Huron's words.

A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!

He tasted something? Blood? He wiped his upper lip.

"What's wrong?" Helen grabbed Nikolas's hand, her gaze fixed on his bloody nose.

"It's—it's her . . ." Nikolas looked to Helen. She returned an expression of concern mixed with . . . doubt.

Like Nikolas was an insane person. The sheriff was right. No one would believe him. It was best to keep his mouth shut. Don't ruin all the fun.

A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath!

Nikolas grabbed his waist.

"Seriously, Nikolas. What's wrong?" Helen whispered.

"Nothing," Nikolas smiled painfully.

Helen kept her eyes on Nikolas for another moment and settled back in her seat.

Between Huron's words and the acid rising in his stomach, Nikolas couldn't follow the first act of the play inside the Merrows' stage tank. All he knew was a mermaid had been raised by an elderly couple in a small village on the Cliffs of Somber. They had raised the mermaid as one of their own, slipping morphiseleus into her tea every night. Evidently, morphiseleus let her retain human form.

Nikolas regained some focus about the time the maiden opened her mother's diary, and, raising her hand dramatically to her mouth, threw the book down. The maiden had just discovered she was the long lost daughter of a wealthy Merrow.

At the moment that Nikolas was about to sit up, the shadowy outline of a creature passed behind the glass tank.

Suddenly Huron screamed. _A DARKNESS BORN BENEATH! THE BREATH TO END ALL BREATH!_

The shadow drifted slowly across while the outline of a four-fingered hand rubbed the glass.

Merrow actors halted. Notes were missed by the Satyr quartet. The Harynne guards shifted their stance.

A DARKNESS BORN BENEATH! THE BREATH TO END ALL BREATH!

The shadowy hand pulled away, then slammed down: _CRACK!_

"Guards!" Nikolas yelled.

CRACK!

River-like fractures ran down the tank.

CRACK!

The sound of breaking glass reverberated throughout the theater.

CRACK!

A dozen Harynne vaulted to the platform.

A DARKNESS BORN BENEATH! THE BREATH TO END ALL BREATH!

The shadow-hand raised one last time and slammed down on the Merrow's glass tank. _CR-RACK!!_

Glass exploded, and water swept the stage. Harynne were thrown into the front row ahead of the Merrows. Everyone jumped from the front row seats just as salt water engulfed King's Booth.

Xanthus yelled in his raspy voice, "That's the monster, Nikolas! That's the gorgon!"

Behind the carnage stood a malformed beast, breathing fast and watching as the Merrows smacked their tails like wet fans. Hind legs held up a frame that looked like a green-skinned body ravished by tumors. Its lips curled back, revealing piranha teeth set below tiny coal eyes. But there were no snakes on the gorgon's head, just a misshapen cranium.

The gorgon walked slowly toward a mermaid desperately crawling through the bloody glass. That's when the snakes appeared. Hundreds of tiny slits on its head opened, releasing a mass of red-eyed serpents. They spun freely at first, but when they found the mermaid, the snakes gathered up into one slithery motion and moved toward her. She tried to twist away, only to be pinned down by two of the larger snakes. All of the others reared their heads together, unhinged their jaws, and breathed out a black mist. Nikolas realized the mermaid was about to turn to stone.

He stood to his feet.

The mermaid's cries went to an audience running the other way. Terrified citizens were clawing over each other, stampeding up to the theater exits. A strong impulse rang through every muscle in Nikolas's body. He had to help the mermaid.

A sensible voice warned him otherwise. _What about the Council of Teine? They're going to drag your friends away to the nearest orphanage if you get involved._ He pushed the voice away, saying, "The council will just have to get over themselves."

Months of confusion suddenly washed away. Nikolas knew what needed to be done. He tightened his bowler hat and leapt onto the stage.

The steward of Huron must face the crazy.

  eihh!" screamed the mermaid. She beat the gorgon's chest but couldn't push away from the black breath.

Nikolas climbed to the stage and stopped. Now what was he supposed to do? His plan to save the mermaid from the gorgon hadn't developed beyond leaping heroically onto the stage.

"All right. I need a good idea," Nikolas said. Then he saw it. One of the most basic weapons in combat. Fire.

Nikolas grabbed a torch out of its post and charged forward, leaving a trail of smoky cinder. He repositioned the torch like a knife and shoved it into the monster's spine.

"Ungghaaahhh!" the gorgon screamed, its snakes spitting back at Nikolas. It leapt across the stage and away from the fire.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" Nikolas said to the mermaid.

She nodded quickly. Tears ran down her cheeks, but her skin remained unchanged. It seemed the gorgon hadn't finished what it started.

"Watch out." The mermaid pointed a bloody hand.

The gorgon held a ceramic bowl prop filled with water. Nikolas crouched, preparing to jump out of the way. The gorgon raised the bowl over its head and the next thing Nikolas knew, he was drenched head-to-toe. More importantly, the torch sizzled into a puff of smoke.

"OK. Didn't see that coming."

Before he could scramble for another torch, the gorgon backhanded him, and the world turned into a Ferris wheel. Torchlights and stadium, torchlights and stadium, torchlights and—

Blackness.

A sliver of glass cut the edge of his mouth. Nikolas grabbed his head and stood, moaning. He was right where he'd started, between King's Booth and the stage. Except this time, several Harynne were circling the gorgon, blocking Nikolas's view. He heard one of the elven guard's cry, "For the city of Huron!"

Then came the sound of boots charging. Sword sliced air. Metal armor scraped wood. A grunt. A terrible cry followed by the snapping of a bone. Three Harynne stepped aside in time for another Harynne to sail across the theater. He landed at the edge of the stage, wide-eyed. Nikolas extended a hand to help the Harynne up, but he didn't move, not even a blink. There was something wrong with his neck. It bulged in the wrong place.

_I'm looking at a dead person,_ Nikolas realized and pulled back his hand _._ The gorgon had snapped the Harynne's neck.

He'd never seen a dead person before.

Captain Shaw cried, "Elect'n elek mei!"

All the Harynne responded, "Elect'n elek mei!" In one motion, thirty guards charged one gorgon.

The next few minutes were a bloodbath for the Harynne. Some stabbed at the gorgon, only to be swiped away. Others dared too close and were smashed to the ground like rag dolls. At one point, the gorgon grabbed an iron bar from the Merrow tank and swept the stage. Harynne flew into the seats. Soon Nikolas was surrounded by the cries of the injured and dying.

Again, Nikolas leapt on stage. Again, he stood alone. The gorgon saw him, and with a roar, swung the iron beam. Nikolas rolled, letting the metal swing across the stage and bang into the Bumgardners' tank. Elixir-of-levitation sloshed into its fire, sending up billows of purple smoke.

"Nikolas!" Captain Shaw yelled.

"Captain Shaw." Nikolas looked to the Harynne captain who was clenching a maimed hand.

"The tank, lad! Keep the gorgon away from the elixir-of-levitation. The theater seats are still hexed. If the creature knocks over the elixir, the seats will fly into the air and cast the citizens to their death."

Nikolas looked back to the theater. Thousands of Huronites were still scrambling over the stone seats.

"No!" Nikolas held his hand out to the gorgon, realizing what Captain Shaw was saying.

The gorgon lifted the iron beam and swung again. Nikolas ducked, and the beam smashed into the tank. Dozens of theater stones ejected, throwing the fleeing Huronites into the night sky. Metal scraped stone near Nikolas's feet. He looked down and saw a katana sliding toward him.

"Use it, lad," Captain Shaw ordered.

"Thanks," Nikolas said. "But metal doesn't stop it. Fire worked for me."

"Noted," Captain Shaw said.

Nikolas grabbed the katana's hilt, unsheathed it, and lifted it unsteadily. It weighed much more than he expected and was sticky with the mix of gorgon and Harynne blood. He looked up just in time to see the iron beam swing at him. More for defense than anything, he raised the katana. Sword met iron, cutting through the beam like water. The gorgon stumbled with only half of its beam left.

"Wow." Nikolas looked to Captain Shaw. "It's really sharp."

"Yes," Captain Shaw said. "It's been powerfully hexed."

"Rauggh!" the gorgon yelled and leapt toward him.

Nikolas rolled, scrambled to his feet, and ran to the center of the stage. Surprised not to have Nikolas in its clutches, the gorgon twisted around and prepared to leap again.

Suddenly seven points of fire flared around Nikolas and spun into a closing circle. He was trapped inside a ring of fire.

"That's not good," Nikolas raised his katana and started to back away. Before he could duck, the points of fire slammed onto the katana and lit it into a fiery torch. He looked to the stadium seats and found Helen holding her flute. Nikolas nodded "thanks" and charged the gorgon. He swept the flaming katana across the monster's chest, leaving a line of fire.

"Reigghh!" the gorgon screamed at its burning chest. The snakes turned on the flames, hissing and biting at them.

The fire swelled.

Nikolas raised his arm, protecting himself from the searing heat. The monster reeked of burning garbage. The flames collapsed into smoky plumes, and the gorgon rolled to the ground.

Nikolas smiled at Helen and raised his fiery sword. "Figured out those notes?"

"Rain of Fire," Helen said. "Just sort of came to me. But I could only play the notes that fixes fire to weapons."

"Seriously, thanks," Nikolas said. He gave a short breath and let the katana tip to the ground. After a moment, he looked at the stadium. The rows were emptying quickly, except for a turtle-riding sloth. The sloth was whipping the turtle with a small reed and screaming, "For the hills, Leonard! For the hills!"

"Nikolas," Tim hissed. "The council. Remember?"

"What are you guys doing here?" Nikolas said, realizing Helen wasn't alone. "Get Xanthus away from all this. Are you crazy?"

"We tried," Tim said. "It was a stampede, and seats started popcorning away with people still on them."

"Nikolas," Caroline called. "It's time to go home."

"Go back to Manor Minor without me," Nikolas said. "I have to make sure the Harynne are all right. There could be more of those things."

"Come on, Nikolas," Tim said. "What are you going to do with that big sword? The council doesn't want us involved, remember? They're going to send everyone to a work camp if they see you up here."

"I'm the steward, right? Huron told me something bad was going to happen tonight. Look around. I'm sorry, but—" Then Nikolas saw them. "Uh, guys . . ."

"What?" Tim said.

"There's more," Nikolas whispered.

Yeri turned and gasped, "Oh my."

Hundreds of gorgons were slinking over the seats.

"Yeah. There's definitely more." Nikolas held out a hand. "Climb up, now!"

Everyone grabbed the edge of the stage and pulled themselves up.

"I thought there was just one?" Helen said.

Nikolas raised the fiery katana. "Evidently not."

Something odd appeared just behind the gorgons. It looked like a sheet of paper drifting in the night until the golden tassels came into view.

"Rug!" Nikolas said. "Awesome."

Rug flew in front of them. Yeri picked up Xanthus while everyone else tried to scramble on. In one great surge, the gorgons leapt into the air and landed in a wave. Rug reared back, throwing off his passengers.

They were now completely surrounded by nearly one hundred hissing gorgons, baring their scissor-like teeth.

CREAAAAK.

"What's that sound?" Helen said.

Before Nikolas could respond, a beam kicked up, knocking him off balance.

"Uh oh," Nikolas said. "This stage wasn't made for battles."

The stage cried out in agreement. Wood beams whined and flicked skyward, throwing up glass and dead bodies. A cacophony of snaps followed.

The ground fell away.

The descent was so long that Nikolas and company had enough time to ponder how far the hole went down before they met their unavoidable death.

  hahh!" Nikolas yelled more out of surprise than pain. Instead of falling on stone, they had landed on some kind of soft, flaky substance. He tried to scramble out of the way of a teetering small beam but slipped over the flaky substance. The beam banged against his rib.

"Ow!" Nikolas said. He rolled the beam off.

"What is this?" Daniel said. He tried to wipe the flakes from his neck and sleeves.

"You guys OK?" Nikolas called out. Groans and whimpers told him that no bones were broken.

Nikolas took his first deep breath and almost retched. "That smell. It's awful. What is that?"

"It's their breath," Xanthus said, scrambling to his feet. "The breath of the gorgon."

"Yeah," Nikolas said. "But this is pretty bad. Even for them."

"Where are we?" Tim said.

"Underneath Creachling Theater." Yeri's voice echoed off the cavern walls. "Must be Catacombia, an underground network of tombs that runs through the greater part of Huron. Father would take me down here when I was a wee lad on holiday, to mother's dismay. But it was never this grubby."

The Earthlight cast a blue haze around them. What had been a stage now lay in wood splinters and theater props mixed with the flaky substance. Nikolas squinted into the darkness to make sure the gorgons hadn't followed them. He made out an underground cave twice the size of Creachling Theater with thousands of lights twinkling back at them. He squinted harder, imagining the twinkles to be the reflection of cave rocks from the Earthlight. _But shouldn't the twinkles be white?_ He thought. These twinkles were red.

And they were moving.

"Guys," Nikolas said as he kept his eyes on the red twinkles while bending down to pick up Captain Shaw's katana. "The gorgons? I was wrong again. There aren't hundreds of them—"

Something like static came from the other end of the cave. It was the sound of countless hissing snakes.

"There are thousands."

"Oh, no," Tim said.

"This is a nest," Daniel said, rubbing the flaky material in his hands. "We've been above a gorgon nest the entire evening. This flaky substance, it must be their molted skin, like a lizard or snake."

The red eyes rolled forward, and the first line of gorgons stepped into the light.

Nikolas's heart pounded. He unsheathed the katana, but the fire had been put out. "We need fire—like now!"

"I have bubble fire," Jack offered. "But it requires a stiff breeze, preferably away from the operator."

Without warning, flames cascaded down, creating a fiery veil between them and the gorgons.

Nikolas started to congratulate Helen on her flute playing, but then saw her empty hands.

"What's going o—?" Nikolas's words stopped in his throat. The fire had turned around and . . . nodded? It was Captain Shaw, alongside a couple dozen Harynne. They were completely engulfed in flames, yet unburned.

"That's so cool," Nikolas said.

The captain's lips parted, revealing the hollow of a white-hot mouth. "Run, Steward. Run!"

Nikolas looked over his shoulder. Firelight danced across a small passageway with a sign hanging above it.

They all ran toward the passageway.

Nikolas turned back one last time. The Harynne moved into formation and Captain Shaw commanded, "Protect the Steward with heart and life."

The battalion of fiery Harynne charged into the red-eyed horde.

"Come on, Nick!" Tim yelled. "Run!"

Shallow breaths and the battering of Daniel's cane on the stone tunnel floor echoed through Catacombia's passageway. They had run so long that Nikolas's lungs wheezed asthmatically. His body wanted to give up, yet he couldn't. Darkness stayed on their heels and with it, the possibility that a gorgon had slipped through the Harynne's firewall.

Jack's vial of bubble fire came in handy after all; it served as a source of light through the dark tombs. The vial's jaundice glow pitched back and forth, revealing various tombs and their names with skull and crossbones tomb markers. No one bothered to stop and read them.

Nikolas slowed down and looked back to see how Xanthus and Rug were doing. The magic carpet seemed to be keeping up pretty well. Sometimes he'd get winded after a long run, but it would take more than a ten minute sprint to slow Rug down, especially when he only had Xanthus to carry. Nikolas thought to tell everyone to jump on Rug since he could outfly any gorgon, but Xanthus had passed out and Nikolas didn't want to disturb him.

Just when Nikolas looked forward again, Rug lurched.

"Help!" Xanthus cried.

"Xanthus!" Nikolas yelled.

Xanthus was being dragged into the darkness. Nikolas could hear his nails grabbing at wet stone. Hundreds of red snake eyes appeared and Xanthus cried, "No!" With katana drawn, Nikolas charged. Red eyes shot out, whipped around his thigh, and flung him to the wall. Dazed, Nikolas stood up again to charge, but a hand grabbed him by the collar.

"Stop!" Helen commanded. She took a deep breath and played a short melody. Behind the gorgon, light glowed on the bend in the tunnel, shifting between yellow and orange. The tunnel flared red, and something roared. Hearing the sound, the gorgon stopped the attack to look over its shoulder. A fireball in the shape of a bull swept around the corner and exploded, causing the gorgon to fling Xanthus aside. Xanthus grabbed onto Rug's tassels, and they launched into the air. The firebull had missed the gorgon, and it now stood on its hind feet.

"Run!" Nikolas yelled.

They bolted, but the gorgon was frighteningly fast. Its toenails chipped the stone, every step closing the distance by half. The snakes shot out, testing their reach. Nikolas knew there was no way they could make it out alive. Helen repeated the melody line several times, each line producing the roar of a new firebull. On the fourth roar, the tunnel blew up, and four firebulls slammed into the gorgon.

Helen stopped to look back with a satisfactory grin at the writhing gorgon. "I'm getting the hang of thi—" The tunnel flared six more times. Her smile disappeared.

"How many did you call?" Nikolas said slowly. "Helen. How—"

Roars of a half dozen firebulls filled the tunnel.

"I don't know," Helen said, her brow rising. "I just kept calling them."

"OK," Nikolas said as they all broke into a sprint. "You can let them know we're good now!"

The tunnel seared white. Light from the firebulls was so bright that the tombstones lost their shadows. There were no alternate passageways to duck down, only a blind corner ahead.

"Helen!" Nikolas said. "Too many. That's too many! Turn them off!"

"Do you see an off-switch on this thing?!" Helen screamed, waving the flute. "Flutes don't have off-switches. They have holes, Lyons. Holes!"

"Come on!" Nikolas yelled. "Use one of those magical spells or something!"

They careened around the blind corner. Fifteen yards ahead of them, Nikolas could make out an opening to some kind of chamber. His legs felt like jelly, but he willed himself forward. The six firebulls swept around the corner seconds after and smashed together, merging into one great firebull and filling the tunnel with a choking heat. Now not only did Nikolas's legs feel like they were going to seize up, he couldn't breathe.

The firebull doubled its speed and the tip of Nikolas's frock coat began to smoke.

"Aiggh!" Nikolas screamed at his burning coat tail. "Abracadabra! Abracadabra! Abraca-down-boy! Abraca-sit-doggy! Heel. Heel. ABRACA-HEEL! ABRACA-HEEL!"

Everyone dove through the opening.

The firebull charged into the chamber but couldn't change direction. Fire exploded on the opposite wall, sending a wave of flames and heat across the walls. The firebull snuffed out.

Even after the last smoky wisp diffused into the air, everyone stayed on the ground, panting. Rug had curled around Xanthus in a protective cocoon and Daniel lay flat on his back, his hand squeezing the neck of his cane.

"Abraca-heel?" Helen laughed at Nikolas. "Did you seriously say abraca-heel? Was that your attempt at a magical spell?"

"I don't know," Nikolas said, looking around for his bowler hat. "Didn't hurt to try."

"I'm quite certain abraca-heel isn't a word," Daniel said.

"It should be," Nikolas said.

He tried to find his hat, but the room was dark. A few thin shafts of light revealed a small brick chamber. Nikolas could make out five passageways reaching away from one another like outstretched fingers. Each passageway had a brass-plated sign above it.

"King's Highway." Jack crumpled to his knees, rattling his coat-of-potions. "That's our road. If we can make our way there, then it'll take us back to the city gates."

"Before we go anywhere," Brandy said. "Can someone _please_ explain to me what just happened up there? What's going on?"

"I think Father laid a trap for the city," Jack said.

"Clearly," Nikolas said. "Silas rounded us all up and sent those gorgons after us. Tried to turn everyone to stone."

"Not us," Jack said. "We were merely collateral damage. Father was after the Merrows."

"Why?" Brandy said.

"Because he's a Dujinnin," Jack said.

"Really?" Nikolas said.

" _Really?"_ Helen said.

"Yeah," Jack said. "Our family. We're Dujinnin."

"Wait a second," Nikolas said. "The Sheriff of Huron, a _Dujinnin,_ gave sanctuary to Merrows? Why would he do that?"

"Aren't they like sworn enemies?" Helen said.

"Yes," Jack said.

"Weren't you their slaves?" Nikolas said.

"I'm afraid so," Jack said. "The Merrows were our slave masters. For thousands of years we served their every whim. Their great enterprises and conquests were executed on the backs of my people, the Dujinnin. Even now they treat us like one of their slaves."

"Grimmelwald is a Dujinnin," Nikolas explained to the others. "That's why Mr. Waters treated him so badly on the Mottle Craw. Like he was nothing."

"Yes," Jack said. "Once a Dujinnin slave, always a Dujinnin slave, in the eyes of the Merrow anyway. That's also why those Dujinnin men were so upset with Xanthus's Merrow earring. It symbolizes our subjugation. Those pendants are of tremendous worth to the Merrows and were used in the buying and selling of Dujinnin. In fact, Dujinnin were valued by the pendants. Most Dujinnin were worth a quarter-of-a-pendant, others were half-a-pendant, and very few a whole pendant."

"So why did he give them sanctuary in Huron?" Nikolas said. "The sheriff claimed he loved the Merrows at the Huron City Council. Wanted to help them. I heard him say it."

"What better trap than the Festival of Lights?" Jack said. "Nearly every Merrow was there. What he said at the city council was a lie. Father never wanted to protect them; he hates them. His every breathe is spent on his anger toward the Merrows. It was one of the reasons I ran away last year and have never returned to Ironvale Estates. I knew he was going to do something evil toward the Merrows, and I didn't want to be a part of it."

"Yeah. Guess that makes sense," Nikolas said. "This has all been one big trap."

"Could be no other," Jack said.

"It wasn't the first time the Dujinnin meant to trap the Merrows," Yeri said.

"What?" Nikolas said. "You know something about all of this?"

"When I led Lir and his wife, Nia, to the safety of their fortress, they were also attacked by Dujinnin off the coast of Eynclaene," Yeri said. "Nesses and ships were bearing down on the Merrow fortresses to trap them inside. It's why they sought help from the City of Huron, to take refuge here."

"But why does the voice of Huron keep calling the Merrows evil?" Nikolas said. "Sounds like they need help more than anyone else."

"It—" Yeri was about to say something, but he clutched his stomach. "Forgive me. I have such a weak stomach. All this running has left me quite ill."

"It is a mystery," Jack said, guessing Yeri's words. "Maybe the voice of Huron has become evil. It would not be the first time a city's voice turned to darkness."

"Just leave me alone," Xanthus groaned.

"Xanthus?" Yeri said. "Is it that voice again? What is it saying?"

"It's telling the gorgons to find me . . . to add me to . . . the others."

Nikolas flipped opened the nuncio. Red lights flashed through the chamber, every flash representing a Harynne report of a gorgon attack.

"They're all over Creachborough," Nikolas sighed.

Tim opened the tongue-of-gallitrot and scraped the edges with a spoon until he had scooped out the very last dollop. "Here you go, Xanthus."

Xanthus let his mouth drop, and Tim shoved in the spoon.

"Do you have anymore, Yeri?" Tim said. "He's getting worse. We're going through a bottle a day, now."

"Yes, sir. Six more." Yeri handed a fresh vial to Tim and padded Xanthus on the shoulder. "There, there now, Master Kobayashi. We'll get you home soon enough."

Tim plunged the silver spoon into the new vial. "All right. King's Highway, Nikolas."

Nikolas's back was to King's Highway. Now that the sheriff had played his true hand, how could Nikolas just retreat, go home? Running away seemed like the wrong thing to do.

"Hey," Tim said. "Brain Dead. King's Highway? Home?"

Nikolas could feel the phantom weight of a katana in his open palm. He'd lifted a sword, taken on the enemy. For months, he had been too weak to fight back. All he'd been able to do was watch his best friend turn to stone. But now . . . now he felt strong. Nikolas could save Xanthus, Huron even.

"Nick," Tim said. "Time to go home."

"We're not going home," Nikolas said.

Tim stopped in mid-scoop. "What did you say?"

Nikolas shook his head slowly. "We're not going home."

"OK. Excuse me, but what?" Tim said. "Are you nuts? We _have_ to go home. Those monsters are everywhere."

Nikolas kept his gaze on the other passageways. "We've got to find a cure. Xanthus needs us . . . Huron needs us."

" _Nick_ ," Tim said as if he were instructing a child. "There is nothing we can do. We need to get out of the city and away from those gorgons."

"How are we supposed to find a cure locked up in Manor Minor?" Nikolas said.

"We aren't supposed to find a cure. We're supposed to wait for the Council of Teine like we were told. They have the situation under control."

Nikolas flipped open the nuncio and lifted it to Tim. The Harynne's police report showed a sketch of a gorgon picking a merman up by his hair. "Tell me, _Tim_. Does it look like they have the situation _under control_?"

Mortification filled Yeri's face. "Dear me."

With the nuncio still facing Tim, Nikolas flipped another page.

A family desperately whipped their falcon-drawn stagecoach as two gorgons held them down by its wheels.

Another page.

A gorgon smashed a wheeled water tank, letting three merminors wash to the ground.

Another page.

A gorgon's snake choked an elderly merman's neck.

"First, Mr. Waters," Nikolas said. "Then Prime Minister Shale, then Xanthus, then Yeri, and now, every second, someone, somewhere, is turning to stone. The city has gone wheels off, and the council can't do anything about it. We need to find a cure, now. Not next week, not next month, now! I don't know how long Yeri has, but Xanthus only has three days left, at the most."

Jack's gaze stayed on the flashing nuncio. "I, for one, could care less about the council's opinion. You're the steward. I'm with you. I've always been with you, mate."

Nikolas's voice softened with a hand outstretched to Xanthus. "He's your best friend, your brother. Don't you guys care at all?"

"Duh! Of course we care," Brandy said, clenching her palms. "We're not blind, you know! We get it. The gallitrot isn't working, and Dr. Mendesmuss can't find a cure. Xanthus is going to die." Her voice cracked as months of tears poured out. "I feel terrible. Xanthus is dying."

Without warning, Brandy flung herself into Nikolas's chest. With snotty tears, she sobbed. "I can't sleep or nothing. I keep going to all those parties 'cause I feel horrible every time I see Xanthus. I have to get out of the house, go some place where I can forget about everything. I don't have to think about how ugly I am out there, in high society. That's terrible of me! How could I do that! Xanthus is dying, and I'm such a bad friend, Nikolas. I'm such a bad friend. I know you hate me, you hate all of us. You should. We gave up on Xanthus 'cause we're scared. We're not brave like you."

Her sobbing became the only sound in the chamber for a few minutes.

"I—I don't hate you," Nikolas said slowly as he patted Brandy's back. "It's the opposite."

"We care," Tim said. "But at what cost? It's stupid to risk everyone's life because you've got some great idea. Your track record's pretty bad, Nick. Or do you need reminding?" Tim lifted up his fingers and started counting down. "You burned down a neighbor's greenhouse. Blew a hole in the shed and almost all of us with it, heat-fried a poor goldfish, lit Hiker's canyon on fire, destroyed who knows how many nannybots, convinced everyone to come to this nightmare moonland of yours, crash-landed a space shuttle with ALL of us in it that then blew up with Xanthus's bestiary. And to top it ALL off, you got us abducted by a secret council who threatened everyone with child labor for the next ten years. Sorry if we don't just blindly follow another one of your plans of fire and death."

"So, save your own skin and let Xanthus die," Nikolas said. "Is that it? Take the wussy way out."

"Don't you get it, Nick?" Tim jumped around Rug. "You destroy _everything_ you touch. I just want us to be _safe_!"

"SO DO I!" Nikolas yelled.

Misty breath was Tim's only response.

Nikolas lowered his tone. "I want everyone to be safe too. That's why we can't sit around, pretending evil will get bored and move on. It won't. . . . he won't. You know Sheriff Silas is behind all of this. Jack thinks so, even Grand thought so. He will destroy Huron if _we_ don't stop him. Look, I know I make mistakes, and bad things happen sometimes, but Grand put this on me. He trusts me. Can't you guys, just a little bit?"

Xanthus took a deep, hard breath and rasped, "There's only three days left until the Ferret Festival. I don't want to die, guys. I really don't want to die."

"You won't," Tim said. "Just be patient, Xanthus. Dr. Mendesmuss—"

"Shut up, Tim," Xanthus said. "Dude, you _just_ don't know what you're talking about. I swear every time you open your mouth, I get a little more stupid. Dr. Mendesmuss isn't going to do anything, _ever_. He's an adult, and he doesn't care what happens to us. He's got all of his Council of Teine business to worry about. You're wrong, and I'm with Nikolas now. I'm not going to wait around, dying, while you run off to one of your little parties. Do you even understand what it's like to feel like this everyday? Wonder if I'll go to sleep and never awake up again? Turn to stone in the middle of the night. You know what it's like to finally have my dream—to discover a magical world—but know I'll die before I ever enjoy it? Here's the deal, Tim. You're selfish. That's fine. But I'm gonna be selfish too. I'm going to live."

Xanthus took a breath and continued. "Sorry, guys. I really don't want the Council of Teine to send us off to an orphanage, but if I have a chance to live, I'll take it. I'm with you, Nikolas."

The chamber fell silent.

"Nikolas is right," Daniel finally said. "We can't go back if we wanted to. If Sheriff Silas really is trying to take over the city, then he'll go after the councils and probably the Harynne too. We would be an easy target if we returned to Manor Minor. What's to stop him from beating the door down and throwing all of us in a dungeon? Or worse?"

"Right," Nikolas said. "The last place he'd think to find us would be right under his nose—in Huron."

"We have about a week's worth of gallitrot," Yeri said.

"Then we stay," Nikolas said. "At least for three days, until the Ferret Festival?"

Everyone nodded, except Tim.

"Alright," Nikolas said. "Let's go find a cure for Xanthus."

"And a bed." Caroline put a hand on Xanthus's blanket. "We need some place to rest."

Nikolas nodded. "Besides, we can't stay in the open with those gorgons everywhere."

"I might have beds for you in Humborough." Jack slipped leather gloves on as he spoke. "They let me stay whenever my other options become unavailable to me. A bit of work would be required of us in exchange for room and board, but that is all. Though, I'm not too sure how fond you'll be of it."

"Where?" Helen chuckled. "An orphanage?"

Jack's expression remained unchanged.

"You're kidding?" Helen said.

"Afraid not."

Helen and Daniel shared a nervous expression. They'd spent most of their time trying to get out of refugee camps and orphanages. Voluntarily staying at one didn't seem like a good idea.

"Fine." Helen sighed. "If we have to. But only two nights and then we move on, _Nikolas_."

Nikolas nodded to Jack. "All right. Where's this orphanage of yours?"

"Well . . ." Jack looked at the different passageways. "That's another matter. The catacombs are notorious for being wrongly marked. Only the down-dwellers know their way about. I need to be street level to guide us."

"Can't," Nikolas said. "Creachborough is overrun with gorgons."

"Rug knows his way around," Caroline offered. "He could get us through Catacombia."

Rug lifted his right front tassel, signaling he was "ready for duty."

"Only the main streets since they were his old stagecoach routes back when he was a thousand pegasi," Daniel corrected, "and even then he gets lost. Rug doesn't have the capacity to navigate through Catacombia."

Rug crumpled.

"Sorry, Rug." Caroline patted the magic carpet. "Nothing personal."

Nikolas looked at Jack. "Can't you give us a transporting elixir or something?"

"Transport us? Yes." Jack nodded. "Transport us without leaving important bits behind? Not so much. Afraid I overcooked the parsnips."

"That's a problem." Nikolas turned to the five street signs again: _Acacia Way, Primrose Avenue,_ _Frumen Boulevard, Novanglian Avenue,_ and _King's Highway._

Something grabbed Nikolas's line of sight and pointed him to the Frumen Boulevard passageway. He closed his eyes and, in his mind's eye, was boosted through the Catacombia passageways to a bluff overlooking Humborough. "Where do you need to go again?" Nikolas kept his eyes closed.

"Corner of Chop and Glotts would do."

Nikolas zoomed to the Chop Street and Glotts Road intersection.

"I can get us there." Nikolas opened his eyes.

"How?" Jack said puzzled.

"Huron." Nikolas closed his eyes again. "She's showing me the way."

"That is something else," Jack said.

"But we need to stay underground for awhile until we get out of Creachborough," Nikolas said. "It's Gorgon territory."

"So basically," sneered Tim, "the Nick spell's been recast?"

They all grabbed a tassel and jumped onto Rug. Nikolas steered the flying carpet into the Frumen Boulevard's passageway.

"I'll take that as a yes," Tim mumbled.

  ikolas followed Huron's visual directions for the next hour. Catacombia became icy as they passed by Loch Huron Harbor. Jack expected to meet up with the harbingers, a creepy race that specialized both in the foretelling of a person's impending death and the selling of a Catacombia burial plot to that person at a reasonable rate. Many questioned the harbingers' involvement of said person's "impending death." However, the only other creature they encountered was a Rickaboo. At the moment, it was peddling off family heirlooms stolen from Huronite citizens while they slept. Jack asked the Rickaboo about the Catacombia. It groused, complaining, "Them snake heads overran the tunnels, didn't they? Forced most of us out, the buggers."

Eventually, Catacombia ended at a bluff and rusted iron gate. With a stiff heel from Helen, it banged open. Before them lay a small valley of chimneys and lamplights.

"Humborough." Jack smiled. "Ah. And there it is. Chop and Glotts. Good job, Nikolas."

While everyone edged around the bluff's outcropping, Nikolas looked over his city. Fog rambled between tree stump-shaped houses, and towers rose above rooftops like sinister periscopes. He could hear the dull typewriting sounds of horse-drawn carriages and smell the soured scent of humlings crammed into small spaces.

Humborough looked alien to Nikolas. He really didn't know her; so many parts of Huron were hidden to him. What had Grand said? Möon was the cradle of all magical civilization and Huron the melting pot of that magical civilization. What goblin-like creatures lurked behind those shadowed alleys?

Jack led them through a maze of streets until they found Glotts Road, which turned into a cul-de-sac.

"There's our orphanage." Jack pointed to a four-story stone house. No lights were on, but the chimneys chugged black smoke.

Two signs hung over the door.

"New management?" Jack said slowly.

"They know you, right?" Helen said to Jack as they weaved between crates covered with large rats chitting on about "the quality of Mrs. Peterson's rubbish over Mrs. Grunn's."

"I doubt it. A shame, too," Jack said. "Mr. Tweeling wasn't your most cheerful mate, but Mr. Hocgager was awfully generous with the arbuck rolls."

Jack told them to stay behind a line of prickly shrubs while he made sure the cul-de-sac was devoid of bloodthirsty gorgons. He tipped and toed and pranced like a ten-ounce gazelle . . . strapped down with a coat full of glass vials. The twelve-inch hat didn't help Jack either.

Eventually, he made it to the orphanage's large black door, but not before neighbors' lights flickered and suspecting heads pushed through the windows, mumbling some indistinguishable profanity. Jack signaled that the coast was clear. Once they were all gathered at the door, he tapped the iron knocker.

Silence.

Jack tapped it a second time. Silence again. Then came the sound of unlocking that was so loud and took so long, one would've thought the door a siege gate.

"Hello there," said a woman in an ivory-colored dress the shape of a lamp. Her lips were painted bright red, her blush a perfect circle, and she had triangular black lines for eyebrows. More so, her joints didn't seem quite human. They looked . . . marionette?

"Sorry. Wrong door." Helen twisted on her heels.

"Don't be ridiculous!" A man appeared beside the woman. He also looked like a human-sized marionette with his bib, candy cane suspenders, and handlebar mustache. "Come in, youth. Come in. My sister and I are delighted to open up our home to the lost and wandering."

Helen didn't move an inch, her droopy-eyed suspicion fixed on the siblings. The siblings locked their wide plastic smiles on her. The more her eyes drooped, the more their smiles widened.

Helen groaned.

She stiffened her forearm and flicked her wrist. The glass flute shot out from some hidden contraption in her sleeve. "One false move, Lyons—" She leaned into Nikolas. "And I'm gonna light the place up."

They followed the strange brother and sister inside the orphanage. One step into the orphanage, and it was obvious Helen didn't have anything to worry about. The house seemed fine, a little creepy in a Dutch grandmother kind of way, but fine. The front room was tooth-white and smelled like wood and cinnamon. Austere furniture had been placed in perfect geometric positions. Hundreds of marionettes hanging on the wall gave it the creepy, Dutch grandmother feeling. The dolls hung with their mouths open and arms outstretched, as if they were going to jump down and put all of them into a sleeper hold.

"Oh, it has been so long since children have come for a visit. Where are my manners? I am Girtrude, and this is my brother, Jürgen." Girtrude held out a bony palm for a handshake.

Helen's hands remained locked. "We're not childr—"

"Toys!" Yeri cried, his eyes fixed on all the marionettes. "So many toys!" Even his green pockmarked skin couldn't hide the twinkle in his eyes.

"The children love playing with them." Jürgen took a gangly step past Helen. He grabbed a blond-haired marionette girl, held it out by its control bars, and pointed it towards her.

Helen picked up the control bars. With upper lip curled, she moved the control left, then right. The strings lifted and the arms and legs responded accordingly. "We're a little too old for toys," she said, locking her gaze on Nikolas, "and orphanages."

"Oh, allow me, Helen." Yeri snatched the marionette happily.

With Helen's gaze still locked on Nikolas, she whispered, "Where are the _other_ orphans?"

"I don't know." Nikolas looked around. "Sleeping maybe?"

"Something doesn't add up," Helen said.

Jürgen squeezed his white-gloved hands together. "If marionettes aren't to your liking, child, we've a whole other collection of the finest toys Huron has to offer."

"Do you?" Yeri squealed, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I'll have to take a look. Oh, this is something else. I used to own an entire village of ghoul marionettes. Unfortunately, Mother overheard me call one of the ghouls 'Nilred' and made me burn the entire lot of them."

"Nilred?" said Nikolas. "Bad word?"

"In a manner of speaking. That is my mother's name."

"You don't look so well." Girtrude inspected Yeri's face and then Xanthus's. "Neither does that young boy there. How about we bring up some swagherder's pie and nutmeg milk to your rooms? Let you rest up a bit."

No one objected to food and bed. They were quickly escorted to their rooms, one for the girls and the other for the boys. Within minutes, swagherder's pie and steaming nutmeg milk sat at their doors on tin plates. The boys gulped down their milk while Xanthus lay curled up on his bed, chewing his swagherder's pie slowly and softly.

Nikolas looked around the room. It had to have been the nicest orphanage ever. By the way Mrs. Parcels had threatened them with orphanages, he thought they were dank, evil places where nameless children spent their days working the mines and sleeping on dirt floors with the rats. This orphanage was filled with large pristine beds, brand new clothes in the closet (for which everyone was grateful, since they were still dressed in their evening wear), and a floor so clean one could eat off it. Nikolas did see Helen's point though; the beds were all empty. A four-story orphanage should be filled with orphans, right?

But Nikolas didn't really care. He was beyond exhausted. Without attempting to crawl under the sheets, he flung himself across the bed.

An hour had passed, and Nikolas still couldn't sleep, in part because he was being stared down by dozens of freaky marionettes hanging on the bedroom wall in the dark. But really, his brain just refused to shut off. Now that they were in the thick of it, he really wondered if this was a good idea. He couldn't lose Xanthus, but was staying in Huron the right thing to do?

Instinctively, he patted his frock coat for the nuncio. Maybe he missed a clue somewhere? Maybe a Harynne guard had come across a cure to counteract the gorgon breath? He slipped out the Harynne's book. It strobe-lighted red even before he even opened it.

_The citizens must been turning into stone by the second,_ Nikolas thought.

He opened the book and immediately sat up. It had been flashing red, but now it flashed blue because someone was erasing the reports. The thousands of pages of Harynne reports that had detailed gorgon attacks were now flashing into non-existence. The sheriff must've figured out how to erase them all.

He caught a page just before it disappeared.

The report flashed red, and the page went blank.

Nikolas sighed. He put the book away and closed his eyes, hoping for just a minute of shuteye.

"Nikolas!" Helen yelled.

"Wha—?" Nikolas jumped out of bed. He didn't remember falling asleep.

"Nikolas!" The Wendell sisters called out in unison.

The boys fumbled from bed and charged the girls' door. Brandy and Caroline were huddled on a canopy bed behind Helen's outstretched arms.

Seven monkeys hung from the chandelier and canopy beds. They were dressed like the wizards of Huron with their white wigs, satin clothes, and black-buckled boots. Their fur seemed strange, as if woven from yarn, and their eyes appeared to be made of little marbles. These weren't your average monkeys.

"They're toys," Nikolas said.

"No kidding," Helen answered. "Freaky monkey toys."

"Reeihhh! Reeiihh!" cried a monkey dressed in a woman's petticoat and bonnet. With one hand, it pulled open a drawer and clawed at the contents. Girls' clothes spit out everywhere. In its other hand was a lip-paint stick. Having emptied the drawer, the she-monkey hopped to the vanity mirror. It wiped the lip-paint across its brow, on its cheek, all over its petticoat, and finally on the mirror.

"Get off, you miscreant!" yelled the vanity mirror. "Ugly, ugly, little—monkey beast!"

It returned the mirror's insult. "Ooohh, ooh, wreeigghh! Wreigghh!"

The she-monkey saw Nikolas's reflection in the mirror, turned, and called to him, "Oohhhh, ehhh, ehhh." It did a somersault, bounced off Tim's head, swung around the canopy bedpost—causing the girls to scream again—and landed in Nikolas's arms.

Glass she-monkey eyes stared back at Nikolas.

"Awww," Caroline said. "She likes you."

After an awkward moment, it pointed the lip-paint stick to the ceiling. At first, Nikolas couldn't see anything, but something that looked like writing in lip-paint began to appear.

"My lip-paint!!" Brandy yelled to the ceiling. "That cost a sulmarepence, ape-turd!"

The she-monkey rolled her head over Nikolas's shoulder and bared its cotton teeth at Brandy. "EEIGHHHHH!"

Brandy retreated to the huddle, but her expression stayed defiant.

"Lamps," Nikolas said, his eyes remaining on the ceiling.

Soon the smell of kerosene lamps filled the room, and they could make out the words:

"Ludwig found us," Nikolas said. He turned the toy monkey upside down. It shrilled at the carpet. On the bottom of its foot was a stitched "L". "Yep. It's a Ludwig. He sent us another clue."

"What's with all the clues," Helen said. "Why doesn't he just give us a cure for Xanthus already?"

"Not sure why," Jack said. "But I'll tell you one thing. They sure can't spell."

"They can spell." Daniel limped to the middle of the room with eyes on the ceiling. He had left his cane behind in the rush. "The backward and misspelled letters—it's a code. A variant of Huronite coding system. Late third epoch by the look of it."

Nikolas looked at Daniel. "Seriously? When did you find time to learn about Huronite coding systems?"

"He only sleeps four to five hours a night," Helen said.

Daniel nodded. "I require little sleep. It is my intention to test out of second semester remedial and end the government's Huronite construct. I spend most nights in the library catching up on our magical city."

"Still believe we're trapped in the matrix?" Nikolas snickered.

"Wait, Daniel," Caroline said. "Was that really you in the library last night? I wasn't dreaming?"

"Yes, Caroline," Daniel nodded. "You are quite the sleepwalker. By the way, I forgot to thank you for the milk and cookies."

"And the—" Caroline swallowed.

"Yes. _That_ too. But I assure you, it meant nothing—to me at least."

Caroline tightened her shawl. Nikolas and Jack exchanged a smirk.

"It was a hug, you silly boys." Caroline punched Jack in the chest. "Get your minds out of the gutter."

"All right," Nikolas said. "A piece of paper and a pencil. We need to write out those lett—"

"Ic. Treeb. Raghouse," Daniel cut Nikolas off.

"What?" Nikolas said.

"The letters spell Ic Treeb Raghouse," Daniel said. "Now, what it means? I don't know."

"Smart monkeys," Jack said. "It's not Ic Treeb Raghouse, Daniel. It's Ictree Brag House."

"The beauty house!" Brandy jumped, clapping her hands. "Ohmygosh. Ohmygosh. Ohmygosh! It's, like, _only_ the most premiere spa for the social elite. Puh-lease tell me we're going. Puh-lease!"

"It's in Old Huron," Jack warned. "The Dujinnin live there, making it the most dangerous part of the city. But wizard wives swear by the ancient practices of the Ictree, which cannot be moved or transplanted, so it stands."

"Then we go," Nikolas said. "First thing in the morning."

"Sounds like a plan," Jack said.

They took a few more minutes to plan out the day. Caroline said she would stay behind and help Yeri look after Xanthus. Tim told her where he kept the stash of tongue-of-gallitrot.

Nikolas went happily to bed. Xanthus and Yeri would be cured by this time tomorrow. He was going to beat the crazy.

  he cold stole Nikolas's breath as Rug flew between Dujinnin overhangs and rooftops. In spite of the wintry conditions, Dujinnin filled the streets, cutting a black vein of mud and cobblestone through the snow.

Their houses were shoehorned into city blocks, all leaning onto one another for support. Rooftops, peppered with chimney ash, sent up a spoiled smell. According to Jack, Dujinnin burned dead moss bugs because they couldn't afford real firewood. Nikolas wondered why you'd even bother with a fire when your walls were nothing more than patches of tin sheets and pressed wood, letting snow drift freely in and out. The only solid pieces of structure were the wheels.

Every building had been equipped with large iron wheels.

On closer inspection, Nikolas spotted a few more solid structures. The houses were rigged with mechanized wings and gyroscopes; an assortment of cannons outfitted the roofs. Not only did the Dujinnin houses look mobile, they looked war-ready.

Rug rounded a corner, and Nikolas saw a Dujinnin woman beating a red carpet with one good arm, while the other sleeve hung empty. The woman stopped to watch them glide through her alley. Her coal black eyes told him everything.

They weren't welcome here.

Nikolas was glad they had left Xanthus behind. He wasn't sure what a Dujinnin in Old Huron would do if they spotted his Merrow earring. Then again, was it a good idea for any of them to be flying across Old Huron in broad daylight? What would keep a Dujinnin from informing Sheriff Silas of their activity? But time was of the essence, and Rug was ten times faster than walking on foot through the snow.

Rug slowed as they approached Ictree Brag House. It was a two-story plaster house with a clay roof. One could almost feel the house puffing out its chest with pride. It stood set apart from the dilapidated neighbors, a flower in the icy squalors of Old Huron.

A large burlap sign hung under the awning.

Another sign hung just below the first one.

Nikolas didn't understand all the Merrow/Dujinnin drama, but he was pretty sure this was not the sign to hang dead smack in the middle of Dujinnin quarters.

Rug refused to be left at the door with all the ruffians and scalawags lurking about, so he flew up a few stories and onto an overhanging portico.

They pushed through the wooden doors, and Brandy let out a gleeful whimper. Ictree Brag House was a hall of mirrors. The walls were mirrors, the ceilings were mirrors, the chandeliers were mirrors, and even the flowerpots were mirrors. If one struggled with self-image issues, this wasn't the place to be.

Nikolas's gaze turned to a female concierge standing at a small mirrored podium. She wore black, round sunglasses and an olive green dress with buttons so tight that if one popped off, it'd kill a man where he stood. Her skin seemed unusually smooth, almost as if stretched over a bowl. And her mouth looked a little too full and a little too round. When they got closer, she bared a row of sharp, incisor teeth. Down and to her right, one could see a snack bowl. Instead of the familiar peanuts or candies, the bowl was filled with raw meat. At any moment now, Nikolas expected to see the woman flick out her forked tongue.

"He-lloo," Brandy called out gleefully to the reptilian-faced woman.

The woman inspected all points of her visual map: North, South, East and West. If they felt unwelcomed by the one-armed Dujinnin woman, then complete disgust best described the concierge.

"This is no place for r-r-rogues and r-r-rascals," said the concierge, her r's sounding like a reptilian growl-hiss. "Go terrorize the Dujinnin. Only if Madame Tingley would move us to a pr-roper-r home, I might have a moment of peace."

"We're not rabble, lady," Nikolas snapped. "We just want to check out the place."

"Check _out_ the place?" The concierge sneered. "Check out the place? You suppose you can have your-r-r way about Ictr-r-ree Br-r-rag House, checking ou—"

"Excuse me, ma'am." Brandy leapt to the front of the group. "I am Brandy Wendell. Um, you may have heard of me among Huron's higher echelon? I'm bringing pink back."

Brandy paused, waiting for an affirmative from the concierge. The woman said nothing.

"Anywho. Your spa is a- _mazing_. We all would be ever so grateful, as, you know, grateful as the stars are high in the heavens or something, to tour the Ictree Brag House."

She sniffed at Brandy and stepped around the podium. "You're dressed like a street ur-r-rchin. Your hair-r-r looks like a resor-r-rt for-r-r the whole of the Hur-r-ronite lice population, and you'r-r-re infected with one of the lar-r-rgest squatters I have seen in my thr-r-ree-hundr-r-red year car-r-reer as a beautician. On principle alone, I would r-r-rather be hung by my thumb joints than—"

"Triolet. What is the commotion?" a voice called down the stairwell.

"Madame Tingley," Triolet said.

A woman stood at the top of the stairs. Her hair was arranged like an unnatural orange croissant, and her skin was similar to Triolet's, although not quite as reptilian. She appeared young, but her feeble steps proved otherwise. Strangely, her black dress seemed a stark contrast to her vanity.

"Forgive me, Madame Tingley," Triolet said. "Just escor-r-ting some ur-r-rchins from the pr-r-remises."

"Is it too much trouble to remove the Dujinnin miscreants without disturbing all the customers?" Madame Tingley growled. "Master Vargas wouldn't stand for such ineptitude."

"Very sor-r-ry," Triolet said. "I will call the Har-r-rynne immediately."

"Have you listened to anything I've said, or is your brain filled with bark, woman? No Harynne. Escort them out _quietly_." Madame Tingley rotated slowly and started her ascent back up the stairs.

"Madame Tingley!" Nikolas tried to yell around Triolet's escorting arm.

"Hush now, boy, or-r-r I _will_ call the Har-r-rynne," Triolet hissed.

"He's the Steward of Huron!" Brandy yelled.

Madame Tingley stopped.

"I said hush," Triolet's voice rose as she pushed them to the door. "She tur-r-rned away the Stewar-r-rd of Coth a week ago due to an unexplainable growth on his knee. Madame Tingley isn't taken by kings and stew—"

"Steward? Of what city again?" Madame Tingley said.

Nikolas took off his hat. "Huron. Our city."

" _You're_ the grandson of Nikolas Lyons the 11th?" Madame Tingley's expression remained walled, but her eyes shifted to Nikolas's hair.

She resumed her steps up the stairs. "They have full access to the house. Leave them be."

"Thank you so much, Madame Tingley," Brandy said. "Your house is . . . exquisite. I will like totally be returning as a customer and long-time patroness!"

"I know not what wizar-r-rdry you're about." Triolet bared her teeth. "But Madame Tingley never-r-r goes back on her word, so I suggest you be on your-r-r best behavior. Stewar-r-rd or not, this is the Ictr-r-ree Br-r-rag House!"

The beauty house was split into an east and west wing; they chose the west wing. Nikolas found a hallway filled with Dujinnin servant children dressed in togas, speeding in and out of doorways. Just as they turned the second corner, a boy rushed past with a pail of slugs into a room. In the middle of the room was a green soupy bath chock full of mermen, their tails sticking out of the tub. The room next to it held a half dozen men and a pair of Satyrs laid out on beds. Servant children were smacking their backs with Ictree branches. They followed the hallway, which led them around the house to the east wing. It was filled with more of the same.

Nikolas did notice something peculiar about the clientele. They too had reptilian-like faces. Some more than others, but the features were still there. Brandy informed them that "everyone who was anyone" knew this was beauty in its purest form. If you wanted to be the most beautiful woman in Huron Valley, this is what you had to do.

After two hours, Nikolas and company had checked every room, but they weren't any closer to figuring out the clue. Finally, Nikolas suggested they find the infamous Ictree. They exited at the end of the east wing and entered a garden surrounded by a high brick wall. The wall looked to be stemming the tide of its Dujinnin neighbors.

At the far end of the lawn stood the Ictree. With a very short trunk, its branches reached high and outward. Nuts dragged down its limbs, creating a canopy of sorts. Surrounding the Ictree were dozens of signs with the cautionary message:

Gnomes were scattered across the lawn. They were clothed head to toe in silk overalls, leaving no part of their skin exposed except for their round, orange eyes. They held wooden pails while wandering the frosty lawn directly under the Ictree. Sounds of _plunk, plink, plunk_ came from nuts being dropped into their pails. Other gnomes stood on long ladders, grabbing the slugs that clung to the bottom of the leaves and nuts.

After navigating around a gated alligator pool, they spotted several benches at the edge of Ictree's branches. With a couple of kicks and swipes at the snow, they cleared a bench.

"This place is awesome." Brandy plopped down, her squatter flower bouncing with her. "I would _so_ love to have Triolet's job."

"You're kidding me, right?" Helen said. "If I never come back here, I'd be OK."

"Whatever." Brandy jutted out her bottom lip and blew the squatter, which by now had grown two new leaves.

_Plink_. A nut bounced off Tim's head. "Oww!"

"Yeah," Helen said. "Pretty sure I'd commit a crime punishable by death if I had to work here."

Tim picked up the nut and inspected it. It had a soft green shell. He peeled the shell open. Instead of a kernel, it was filled with blackish goo.

"Probably shouldn't mess with that," Nikolas said to Tim.

"Really?" Tim said. "You're one to talk."

The black goo spilled out of the nut and onto a patch of grass. Tim moved his finger toward the black goo. Before his fingertip could make contact, the black goo reached out from the grass stem and latched onto his finger.

"You guys need to expand your social horizons," Brandy said. "I mean, we can't all be a bunch of social misfits and expect to get anywhere. Ugh, stupid squatter." She blew on it again.

"Gross!" Tim wiped his fingers on his pants.

Suddenly, green blades of grass sprung from his fingertips.

"Umm, guys . . ." Tim rubbed his fingers harder, but that didn't help. The green blades crept past his wrists, making their way to his elbow. "Guys, what is happening right now!?"

"What?" Brandy stood up. "What did you do, Tim?"

"I don't know!" Tim looked around desperately. The grass had now spread past his elbow and to his shoulder.

"Help!" Brandy yelled to the Ictree House.

Because everyone was focused on Tim, they hadn't noticed a gnome marching across the grass. It unbuttoned its onesie mask, revealing a ragged cone cap atop brownish-red hair. He whipped out a small stick and grabbed Tim's grassy arm.

"Release the foolish boy from foolhardy hands and faint eyes!" The gnome whacked Tim's hand with the stick. The grassy skin dried up and fell away, revealing pink skin again.

Tim flexed his fingers. "What just happ—"

"Read the sign, boy." The gnome pointed to the lawn.

"Um," Tim said. "Climb the tree, pick the nuts, and touch the slugs at your own peril."

"The tree, the slugs, and the nuts all contain morphiseleus. Do not touch!" The gnome wagged his finger. He turned back to his work with a "harumph."

"What just happened?" Helen said.

"The Ictree secretes a form of morphiseleus," Jack said. "The nuts contain the morphiseleus, and the slugs ingest it."

"Wait, what's morphiseleus again?" Nikolas said.

"It's a substance of imitation," Daniel said. "Drop a dab of morphiseleus onto a blade of grass, touch that dab of morphiseleus, and you'll turn to grass. Whatever the morphiseleus comes in contact with, so will be the fate of its victim."

"Wait," Tim said. "I would've become a—"

"Spring lawn," Daniel finished Tim's sentence.

"That's right," Helen said. "You used morphiseleus in that elixir, Jack? For the Festival of Lights?"

"Right," Jack said. "It's how we changed your features, made you and Caroline ugly. The morphiseleus was mixed with skin of horned toad, then applied to your own skin. That elixir had a counter-agent that negated the morphiseleus after six hours. It is also the source of Madame Tingley's power of rejuvenation."

"So like," Brandy said, "Madame Tingley mixes the morphiseleus with something else to make her clientele's skin as smooth as . . . alligator belly hide!" Brandy jumped to her feet. "The alligator pool? She _actually_ mixes it with alligator. That's why everyone looks all snaky. I am literally grossed out right now."

"Still want to work for Madame Tingley, Brandy?" Helen said.

"Uh, yuck! Kidding me? Basically turn into an alligator?" Brandy said, gawking at the alligator pool. "That's why that concierge lady looked all lizard-creepy. Ew."

"She must dilute the alligator hide," Daniel conjectured. "A diluted mixture of alligator and morphiseleus would give the desired traits. She'd have to. Morphiseleus in its concentrated form _would_ turn them into an alligat—"

Daniel and Jack looked at each other, exclaiming in unison, "Morphiseleus!"

"The clue! It's morphiseleus!" Jack laughed, flinging his stovepipe hat into the air

"'I reveal the living. Conceal the dying,'" Daniel stood to his feet, quoting the toy monkey's clue. "It reveals the living by making everyone look young. And conceals the dying by covering their true age. What about the rest of the clue? 'I am the tree, but I am the slug, but I am the power behind it all. Morphiseleus is the power behind it all' . . ."

Everyone waited for Daniel to finish his thought.

"Don't you see?" Daniel said. "I am the tree, but I am the nut, but I am the slug. The tree excretes the morphiseleus. It's delivered through the nut. The slugs also ingest it."

"OK," Nikolas said. "What does that mean? The gorgons turn people into stone by mixing morphiseleus and rock together and blows it out on them? How does that even work?"

"No, no," Daniel said. "Ludwig wants us to know we're going down the wrong path. Certain kinds of creatures can also secrete morphiseleus. Some secrete the substance, others spit it, a few even breath it out in aerated form like the gorgon. The clue must be telling us that the gorgon has been breathing morphiseleus on its victims. The gorgon doesn't turn people to stone. They turn them into . . ." Daniel stood to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. "That cannot be right."

"Wait," Nikolas said. "Doesn't make sense. If the gorgon breathed its own morphiseleus on Xanthus, then he'd be turning into a gorgon, not stone."

"You're correct, Nikolas," Daniel said. "That is exactly what I'm saying."

"Huh?" Brandy sat up.

Daniel's face sunk. Something near emotion came over him. He stood up on his cane. "Xanthus isn't turning into stone; he's turning into a gorgon."

"Wait, what?" Nikolas said. "But the statues? The gorgon breathed on all of them, and they turned to stone."

Daniel shook his head. " _Did_ they turn to stone? Have we ever observed the full transmutation? Think about it. The Merrows take away the body before anyone ever observes the process. A day later, a statue suddenly appears, but no one has seen the entire process. Check your nuncio, Nikolas. I bet you won't find one victim actually _turn_ to stone."

"I can't," Nikolas said. "The nuncio went blank last night. But you're right. I never saw anyone actually turn to stone. The Merrows would just suddenly show up, claiming the bodies needed to be taken away for proper stratification. Then the stone bodies would show up.

"You're right, Daniel! Even on the Mottle Craw, I didn't see Mr. Waters turn to stone. I only saw—what was it? Grimmelwald said it looked like his innards had been sucked out?"

"His innards weren't sucked out," Daniel said. "It was his skin left behind. We fell through the stadium onto that gorgon's nest. What broke our fall? That soft stuff. The flaky substan—"

"Gorgons sloughing off their old skin," Jack said. "Like a snake."

"Kind of," Daniel said. "But a snake is simply growing, molting—shedding its old skin. These victims are going through metamorphosis."

"Just like those bugs at home," Brandy said. "Remember, Helen? All those bugs crawled out of that old pond. They were gross, weird-looking, six-legged things. The next morning, I found a ton of those dragonflies on top of them. I totally freaked out. Thought the dragonflies had sucked out their guts. But that's not what happened at all. The dragonflies _were_ those bugs. They were shedding their old skin."

"That is right," Daniel said. "When the Merrows showed up, they didn't take away the bodies; they took away the shed skin."

Nikolas stood to his feet. "We figured it out. Guys, we figured out the clue. We're doing it. Xanthus has—"

"I'm an idiot!" Daniel smacked the ground with his cane. Everyone jumped to their feet. He smacked it again. Then he started swinging wildly, clipping off shrubbery and spraying snow powder through the air.

"Daniel." Nikolas grabbed his arm.

"I'm so stupid," Daniel said, breathing fast. "Just a dumb, stupid boy! I premised my understanding of gorgons on Greek mythology, expecting that to be our source material. Had it all backwards. _This_ world is the source material. By the time that Greeks developed their gorgon mythology, it had been changed, warped."

"We figured out the clue," Nikolas said. "We can fix Xanthus."

"No, we can't!" Daniel countered. "We've accomplished nothing. So we know he's turning into a gorgon instead of stone, but that doesn't change anything. We still don't have a cure. And now we're probably too late. I'm just a stupid, idiot boy who couldn't see the obvious. Why his skin was falling off, why the Merrows would take away the bodies, claiming they needed proper stratification. I should've seen it all along. Now, my broth—" Daniel's eyes were puffy red. "Xanthus has less than a day before he'll turn into one of those horrible monsters. WE NEED REAL ANSWERS!" He yelled to the Ictree.

No one knew what to say. They just watched the back of Daniel's scalp.

After a minute, he sat down on the bench but didn't turn around.

"Okay," Nikolas nodded slowly. "All right then. The obvious thing to do is to go see the guy who keeps leaving all the clues. Let's go meet the toymaker, Ludwig."

Daniel said nothing for a moment, slightly turned his head, and spoke, "That actually makes sense."

"So where is Ludwig?" Nikolas said.

"You'll find him at his toy factory most days," Jack answered. "Western side of Midgborough with the rest of the midglings. He's a dwarf."

"Of course he is," Helen said. "A dwarf who runs a toy factory. Almost writes itself."

"Right." Nikolas said, half-grinning. "We'll go talk to that Ludwig guy, face-to-face. No more stupid clues. We'll just ask him directly." Nikolas launched to his feet and sprinted to the house , waving both hands in the air. "See, guys. We got this!"

  ug launched out of Old Huron and toward Ludwig's Toy Factory. With little time left for Xanthus, Nikolas decided to take the quicker route and tugged Rug above Huron's cityline, before angling back down to dwarfquarters, on the western edge of Midgborough.

A wall of fire surrounded Creachborough, just like the nuncio had reported last night. The flames belched smoke, leaving Huron's sky a metallic gray. Behind the smoke, Nikolas could see that the Harynne guards were still battling the gorgons. The elven guards were flying on the back of Westchester dragons, sweeping in and out of the streets. Dragons were the only creatures who dared to navigate fire, and Westchesters were the only breed of dragon that would allow a rider on them without extreme duress.

A little part of Nikolas felt guilty. Shouldn't he be over there helping the elves protect Huron and fighting off the gorgons? He thought to check the nuncio, to see how the Harynne were doing, but remembered it was blank. Besides, it had been feeding him misinformation about the Merrows turning into stone for months. Nikolas decided Huron would have to hold on a little longer. They had to find a cure for Xanthus before it was too late.

The closer they got to Ludwig's Toy Factory, the more nervous everyone grew. The factory happened to be set three blocks away from Creachborough's fiery wall and the advancing gorgons. Nikolas knew that he risked flying too high or too close, but he didn't have another choice. They were running out of time.

They dropped down to dwarfquarters and its main plaza. Several gyropeds and a two-waltzing cycle lay abandoned on the icy streets. Dwarf-shaped automatons wandered aimlessly through the road, as if they had been given instructions to perform a certain task and left to their own fate. At the center of an intersection were three copper-plated trolleys smashed into each other. With Creachborough bordering most of dwarfquarters, the inhabitants must have been the first to evacuate.

Rug zipped down the main plaza and through a small grove of cedar trees. A cobblestone path, cleaned of snow, wound at least half a mile up to a brass gate. An ornate brass "L" was hewn on the gates. It was open and unguarded.

"Looks to be abandoned," Jack said. "Those are Harynne guard stations."

"The Harynne were probably called to defend Creachborough," Nikolas said.

They flew over the brass gates. The toy factory was an array of buildings bunched together. The buildings were all different, but all related, like a family of freaks on picture day. The largest building stood in the middle. Its roof swirled to a point, reminding Nikolas of a czar's palace. Two brick towers buttressed the main building. The short one stood to the left and the tall to the right. The tallest building sent out shoots of orange smoke and seemed attended by several blacksmiths. Behind the main building stood an aviary. It was high enough for Nikolas to see shadowy bird figures flying up and down. To the left of the factory were about a dozen large iron spheres hoisted by metal rods. The spheres looked like old submersible tanks and laid in a grid pattern. Colorful lights burst through the spheres' thick glass windows.

Rug swept down to the brick steps of the main building, which led to an entrance. They quickly jumped off. Instead of a door, a large tin-plated box blocked their way. It read, "Ludwig's Arcadius Extraordinarius,"

The Arcadius Extraordinarius had various knobs and levers with pipes sticking out of unexpected places. It seemed to be made of tin. A cone like the steward's horn hung out of its right side. In the center of the machine was a round dim glass.

Nikolas looked behind Arcadius to see if he could find a handle. With no luck, he finally looked into the machine's glass screen and said, "Hello? Anyone there?"

Gears clicked from inside the Arcadius; there was a release of air, and an eye in a metal cylinder shot out from the side. It stopped at Nikolas's face.

"Uh, hi?" Nikolas said.

The cylinder looked like one of those old-timey stoplights back on Earth. Nikolas leaned into the cylinder's eye. It was real, and it floated in a broth-like liquid. He wasn't sure from which creature the eye originated. Fish, maybe? With the help of a mechanical arm covered in a rubber sheath, the eye moved from Nikolas to every other person. After creeping everyone out, it returned to him. A green light appeared inside of the glass screen. A hollow, dull voice spoke from the horn, and words, written in black woodblock letters, filled the screen.

"Would you like to play a game? Where've I heard that before?" Helen said. "Isn't that like a quote from some American play or something?"

"No, I don't want to play," Nikolas answered. "I need to talk with Ludwig. It's important."

"I seriously don't have time for this," Nikolas said. He looked around Arcadius again and finally found a doorknob. "Hey. There's the door. I'll just grab that—aaaagh!" Electricity sped through Nikolas, and he found himself looking up at the sky, moaning. Everything felt tingly and sharp.

He moved his head up to Arcadius.

Daniel hobbled to Nikolas and bent over. "Logic would dictate you cannot enter until you've played a game, Nikolas."

"Yeah. Think I got that now," Nikolas growled, standing back up. He dusted off his bowler hat, squeezed it on, and rolled up his sleeves. "Fine. Let's play."

Nikolas said "Riddles" while everyone else yelled, "Strength!"

Everyone groaned the word, "Nikolas."

"What?" Nikolas looked back at them. "Riddles? Mind puzzles? How hard is that? I can totally do riddles."

Daniel shook his head. "This will take a while."

"Thanks for the support," Nikolas said.

"Bring it," Nikolas smiled.

The woodblock letters on the screen disappeared and were replaced with more wooden letters.

"What gets wetter as it dries . . ." Nikolas said. "Wetter as it dries? Uh, the snow? The snow. That's my answer."

"The snow??" Daniel smacked his own face. "What—?"

"Yeah, well. Just warming up," Nikolas nodded to himself.

"This will not end well," Daniel said.

"You want to help?" Nikolas said.

"Yes, actually," Daniel answered.

"Good. Then—then help," Nikolas said, turning back around. A new riddle appeared.

Nikolas looked back to Daniel who was conferring with Jack.

"Yeah, seems to be," Jack said.

"Sawdust," Daniel said.

"Sawdust?" Nikolas said.

Jack nodded, "Yeah, mate. Sawdust."

"OK," Nikolas turned back to Arcadius. "Sawdust."

"Well done," Jack said, patting Daniel on the back.

But instead of opening the door, the eye juked left and stopped at Jack. It looked up and down. It moved to Daniel. Again, it looked up and down. A small electrified prod flicked out of the brass eye case.

_Cra-zzap._ A burst of electricity zapped Daniel. He went down, face first.

_Cra-zzap._ Jack followed.

"Sod off!" Jack yelled back at Arcadius.

"Ooh," Nikolas put his hands up. "Sorry, guys. Didn't know it would do that. Um, can someone help Daniel? He's drooling."

"Uh, yeah." Nikolas bobbed up and down on his heels. "Never so cursed as when set free. When set free. Ah, a bir—bird. Parakeet. Let's go with parakeet."

Everyone exploded with laughter, except for Nikolas. He was feeling stupider by the moment.

Nikolas blew his cheeks out. "I don't know. Um . . . Wait! I got it. A mask. You know, like a superhero mask or something."

Gears cranked and clanked from inside Arcadius. It fell silent for a minute. Then it spoke:

"Riddle!" Nikolas said. "You're kidding me. Riddle? That is _lame_. The answer to a riddle can't be _a riddle!_ Who does that?"

The eye disappeared into the machine, and Arcadius shut down.

"Riddle?" Nikolas said. "You have got to be kidding me."

"That last one actually seemed a bit insulting," Jack said.

"Mask. It really felt like the right answer." Nikolas scratched his head.

"Maybe Arcadius will allow someone else to try," Daniel said.

"Forget that!" Helen marched up to Arcadius. "We don't have time for any more stupid clues. Do you hear me, you dumb pinball machine? We don't have time for this! We need to get in. Look. We get it. Nikolas is of average intelligence at best—"

"Seriously, guys." Nikolas raised his hands. "That hurts me deep down inside."

"But you can't hold that against him," Helen yelled. "We need to save Xanthus! Let. Us. In." She kicked the machine with every word. "I'm. So. Over. Lud. Wig. And. All. His. Stu. Pid. Clues!!"

Arcadius's automaton arm came back out, but the porpoise eye had been replaced with a red boxing glove. The glove squared with Helen's nose.

She stiffened her arms. "Don't you da—"

The glove punched her in the face.

Everyone let out a gasp. Helen teetered for a second; her hair whipped around her face.

"Oh no, you didn't!" Helen yanked out the flute from her sleeve and played one long note.

Ground erupted. The maw of a giant worm with jagged teeth engulfed the game machine and dragged it down. Before they knew it, Arcadius and the front door were gone, leaving a big gaping hole in front of Ludwig's Toy Factory.

Helen walked up to the monster's hole and raised her flute in the air. "Punch that!"

"What in the world?" Nikolas said.

"It was a shishang-po," Daniel said the name in a thick, Japanese accent. "Female by the coloring."

Tim leaned over the hole. "Helen. If I ever make you angry, please forgive me."

"Forget that," Nikolas laughed. "Marry me! You're awesome."

Helen gave Nikolas a strange look and turned back to the large pit the shishang-po had left behind. "Now, to Ludwig. And I swear if I have to put up with one more of his stupid clue—"

"You'll call a shishang-po to swallow me where I stand," said a voice with a slight German accent. Nikolas looked up to see a small dwarf approaching them slowly.

"Ludwig?" Nikolas said.

"I'm afraid to answer that question," Ludwig said, glancing down the hole.

The toymaker had a well-tended beard, pointy and sharp. Rose-colored spectacles lay on a receding hairline, and he wore a multicolored robe. He lowered his arm which was greasy to the elbow. In his hand was an iron box with a horn attached.

Leaning over the hole, Ludwig sighed, "Fräulein. You need to learn how to play more."

"Play more!" Helen yelled. "I'll show you play more, you hobbit! We—"

Nikolas put out a steadying arm. "Helen doesn't mean it. Look, I'm Nikolas, Steward of—"

"Huron." Ludwig finished his sentence. "Of course. How else would a Lyons enter a building?" He lifted the small horn-box. Automaton crabs with iron clamps creeped around Ludwig. "Stand down." He spoke into the horn. The automacrab's pinchers moved to their side, but they kept their guard next to the toymaker. "I'm afraid my toy factory is guarded by an extensive lethal defense system. Eating doors is not taken lightly."

"No offense," Nikolas said, "but what's with all the crazy games just to get inside? Does opening a door to a toy factory need to be such a big deal? They're only toys."

Ludwig breathed deeply. "This factory holds technological wonders and engineering secrets beyond anything Huron has seen or will ever see. If my secrets fell into the wrong hands, the blood and death between the brother planets would be incalculable.

"I have found one of the greatest tragedies of adults is their propensity to turn toys into weapons of terror. If you are bent on destruction, then I do not want you near the secrets of my toys. To get inside my factory you must be willing to play. I do not trust those who are unwilling to play."

Vulnerability flashed across Ludwig's face. "I have lost too much to those who do not know how to play."

The toymaker returned his gaze to Nikolas. "Still, you are a Lyons. Your family is like a cub that bites too hard. The cub may hurt you, but it does not mean to." He waved them in. "You may enter."

They edged their way around the hole and through the opening. The toy factory was alive with activity. Chains and leather belts turned numerous wheels. Some belts were hooked with buckets carrying material up and down. A myriad of looms, staffed by Dujinnin and dwarves, were busily weaving. On their left, dozens of women with white aprons stood at high tables.

"Should you not evacuate?" Daniel said. "The gorgons are advancing on Midgborough's walls."

"We'll evacuate soon enough. You'll find this toy factory to be far more mobile than upon first glance," Ludwig said with a slight twinkle in his eyes.

"This is cool and all," Nikolas stopped Ludwig, "but we actually came for something else. All of the clues you've been leaving about Xanthus. We're running out of time. Can't you just give us a cure for the gorgon infection?"

"Excuse me?" Ludwig said frowning.

"The clues?" Nikolas said. "Come on. We know you've been sending us those toys. The toys—they're Ludwigs. You know, they walk and talk. The pirate, Captain Bluecheeks? The clue led us to the Hall of Keepings with all those creepy rats? Told us it was a gorgon that had attacked Xanthus. Then you sent the wizard monkeys? Led us to Ictree Brag House? Found out Xanthus was turning into a gorgon. You know . . ." None of the examples seemed to stir any recognition on Ludwig's face, only frustrating Nikolas.

"My apologies." Ludwig shook his head. "But I have no Möonly idea what you're talking about. I have sent no such clues."

"Come on," Nikolas laughed. "All the toys have an 'L' on the bottom."

"My toys are quite popular," Ludwig said. "Chances are you'll find it difficult to find a toy in Huron not made by me."

"But do they come prepackaged with a riddle?" Nikolas said. "I mean, we just went through a barricade of riddles to get into your little toy factory here. That's all you do. Who else would beat around the bush, sending cryptic puzzles instead of just telling us what's going on? Look, I get it." Nikolas whispered. "You don't want to get into trouble with Sheriff Silas, so it's all hush, hush. But we can't wait around for another clue. Xanthus is going to change into a monster tomorrow."

Nikolas hoped his revelation about Xanthus would convince Ludwig to give up his charade.

"While I do like my puzzles and clues . . ." Ludwig touched his beard. "I assure you that I have never sent you such a clue. I did send one for your grandfather to return to Huron per the request of the city council. I left that in future Machu Picchu, I believe. Your being here tells me that he found it. Other than that, I have left no such clue."

"Stop it," Nikolas's voice rose. "Quit playing stupid. We're going to lose Xanthus if you don't do something!"

A couple of children stopped playing with their toys and looked at them.

Ludwig moved his wizened eyes to Nikolas and held them steady. "Son," he said. "I have lost a loved one in a way you can never imagine. She was _torn_ from this reality and taken to a place I cannot follow. She haunts me, even now. If you were to lose a loved one to a disease and I had the cure, I wouldn't dare risk their life on riddles."

"I think he's telling the truth," Helen said. "He doesn't have the cure."

Nikolas stared at Ludwig, struggling to accept that he couldn't help them. He sat down on a bench. "What are we going to do, guys? The Ferret Festival is tomorrow. Xanthus turns into a monster _tomorrow_." He buried his hands in his hair.

Jack looked at the workers while Daniel bunched his shoulders up, ready to speak, but nothing came out. Nikolas watched the smithies work their kilns. Sooty Dwarves carried scrapes of iron and large hammers. Pounding metal rang, and Dwarf words were thrown between workers and foremen like tides of molten metal.

"What do we do now?" Nikolas said.

"I may still be able to help," Ludwig said. "I _am_ good at puzzles. What has happened so far?"

They exchanged glances. Daniel nodded. "To begin, Nikolas heard voices in his head."

"Sounds terrible when you put it that way," Nikolas said.

"Back on future Earth," Daniel continued, "he heard a voice warning him of the Merrows. They—"

"But the voice called them Rones?" Jack said. "As I heard the tale at least."

"Yes," Daniel said.

"Then there were these freaky trackers that chased all of us out of Colorado City," Helen said in a more hurried tone. "Grand showed us the magic moonland here with his stardust. Told Nikolas that he was the steward of Huron and the Merrows needed his help. Remember, Nikolas didn't know then that the Rones and Merrows were the same. Nikolas said he'd go. Thought this life would be less crazy than future apocalyptic Earth. Grand said we could all come along too. We said yes."

"We used one of your chronostones you left for Grand to travel through time, Ludwig," Nikolas said. "Dumped us on past-Earth. From there we had to take an aero, um, The Mottle Craw, back to Möon, and then Huron. . . . Oh, right, right. That's when the creature breathed on Xanthus. On the aero, that is. Grand took us to the city council to report on the creature attack. We met creepy Sheriff Silas there. No offense, Jack. Also, Yeri showed up at the council. Had a message for me from the Merrows, but he didn't know they were bad at the time. I never read the message 'cause Huron wouldn't let me. Xanthus got sick, like, really sick. Dr. Mendesmuss came and examined him but didn't know what he had. He did say that Xanthus had until the Ferret Festival. After that, the sheriff kicked us out of Manor Major. We went to Manor Minor. Grand left us that night. Got the first clue about Xanthus's illness the next morning from Captain Bluecheeks. Went to school." At this point, Nikolas was pacing back and forth. "Tried to figure out the clue. Found out at the pack rats' Hall of Keepings that Xanthus had been attacked by a gorgon. Figured he was turning to stone. Council of Teine abducted us. Told us to stop following the clues. We came back. Yeri was also sick."

"Yeri?" Ludwig said. "The stagecoach driver?"

"Yeah," Nikolas said. "I guess he felt bad and wanted to help Xanthus, so he's been hanging out with us. Anyway, he was sick. We waited until winter before we did anything; actually we waited until the gorgons attacked the city at the Festival of Lights. Stayed in Huron at the orphanage. Got the second clue last night, leading us to Ictree Brag House. Learned that Xanthus wasn't turning to stone, but into a gorgon. We freaked out 'cause Xanthus has less than a day, so we came here, to you.

"Hmm," Ludwig nodded. He reached inside his robe, pulled out a golden yo-yo, and flicked it out of his stubby fingers. He rolled the yo-yo to the ground without looking down. It spun back to his hand, and he rolled it out again. They watched him repeat the move several more times. Finally, he missed, and the yo-yo clunked to a stop.

"Yeri," Ludwig said. "I do believe he knows something."

Daniel pivoted and looked to Nikolas. "To be honest, I've considered that too, Nikolas. He was the Merrows' stagecoach driver and their messenger. They sent him here to deliver a message to you."

"Which I never read," Nikolas nodded. "That's right. Huron wouldn't let me read it."

"What was in that message?" Daniel said. "Maybe Yeri read it."

"That could help." Nikolas got to his feet. "We need to talk to Yeri."

Four brass horns rang through the toy factory. Ludwig leaned over the catwalk and found a half dozen automacrabs circling three gragillas. He lifted his voice box and pulled off the speaker mesh to reveal a viewer. The gragillas looked back at him from the viewer through the eyes of the automacrabs. Beronn elbowed the gragilla out of the way.

"May I help you?" Ludwig said.

"I am Beronn Gorringe," Beronn snarled. "Deputy Sheriff to Silas Gorringe. Where is my brother, Jack? By authority of Sheriff Silas, we are here to arrest the little criminal. He is a traitor, and his father demands he be returned this instant."

"Father?" Jack said. "What does he want with me?"

Beronn shuffled to the left, and Silas's face filled the screen. "I know my son is there. We have reports. He has access to sensitive government information. Bring him out, or we'll tear this place down."

"Do you have a back door?" Nikolas said to Ludwig. "We have a magic rug. We can sneak out that way."

Ludwig covered the screen with his chest and pointed to the other end of the catwalk. "This'll take you outside to a small bridge. It leads to the kiln tower."

"What about you?" Nikolas said.

Ludwig smirked. "It is not me you should worry about." He lifted the box. "You have sixty seconds to leave the premises before I introduce you to my latest creation, Sheriff. Automaphants."

"I am the law!" Sheriff Silas screamed into the screen. He lifted his gloved hands and shot out his sterilizing jynn'us at the automacrabs. They sparked and keeled over, dysfunctional. "I dare you to send one of your clock toys."

Rug sped away from the toy factory. The last Nikolas saw of Ludwig's toy factory were Silas, Beronn, and three gragillas trying to outrun a herd of bellowing automaphants.

  eri!" Nikolas yelled, flinging the door open. He meant to charge up the stairs but stopped. The orphanage lay dark. All the lamps had been snuffed out, and a pile of shimmering coals were the only sign of a once lit fireplace.

Nikolas opened his mouth and a foggy column of air escaped. "Girtrude? Jürgen? X—Xanthus?"

"Where is everyone?" Helen said. "And why is it like negative a hundred degrees in here?"

"It may be too late," Daniel said.

Nikolas turned toward the kitchen. Jack slowly unscrewed his vial of bubble fire.

"Can you _not_ do that?" Helen said, frowning at Jack's vial. "Death by fire bubbles, I can see it now." Helen walked quickly to the stairwell. "Quit messing around. Xanthus? Xanthus!?"

"Where are you, Xanthus?" Nikolas whispered. "Are you here?"

" _Yes_."

"Aaaah!" They leapt, screamed, and spun around, all in one movement.

Xanthus had been standing in the door's shadow.

"Are you crazy?" Nikolas yelled. "Don't freak us out like that."

"How come it's so cold?" Daniel said.

"The fire. The lamps. Dangerous. Could have burned the house down, could have burned me," Xanthus said. He walked out of the shadow and into the wintry light.

"Xanthus?" Nikolas said, taking a step back.

Xanthus's face was withery green, and his eyes were completely black, enlarged and unblinking. Patches of hair were gone, exposing a scalp covered in red-eyed bumps. The snakes were pushing their way through.

"It's true," Daniel said.

"What's true?" Xanthus said.

"You and Yeri—you're not turning to stone," Nikolas said. "You're turning into a gorgon."

Nikolas expected tears or confusion, but Xanthus's expression remained unchanged. He lumbered to a large table filled with marionettes, crawled on top of them, and laid down.

Daniel sighed, "I'm so sorry, brother."

"Yeri," Nikolas said under his breath. "We need to talk to him _now._ "

Daniel and Nikolas marched to the boy's room. They found Caroline being a nurse to Yeri.

"He passed out a couple hours after you left," Caroline said. "Been in and out ever since. He's gotten worse."

Yeri wrung the fringe of his covers and shook his head back and forth. He opened his eyes to acknowledge Nikolas and put out a shaking hand. The stagecoach driver's fingers were covered in a flaky, green substance. "Did you find the cure, Steward?"

Nikolas shook his head. "No, Yeri. Sorry."

"Oh." Yeri closed his eyes. "That's a shame. That's a shame."

Nikolas opened his mouth, preparing for his interrogation, but Caroline stopped him with a quick glance.

"He's passed out again, Nikolas," Caroline said. "You couldn't ask him a question if you wanted to."

Tim had to use nearly half the bottle of tongue-of-gallitrot before Xanthus returned to normal. He tried to give some of it to Yeri, but the stagecoach driver was still passed out. Tim reminded Nikolas that they had to get home soon if he was going to make more of the elixir. Nikolas quietly hoped they would have a cure by then.

Eventually, Jürgen and Girtrude returned to the orphanage holding bags brimming over with food. Within an hour, the house smelled of fresh bread and spiced meat, drawing hungry stomachs to the dining room table. After the awkward introductions all adults require of teenagers, Girtrude laid out sausages and fried herring topped with pickles. In a giggling voice, she told them to eat up. Brandy looked absolutely mortified by the animal violence in front of her, but everyone else dove in. After they cleared their plates, platters of meatballs, schnitzel, and thick cuts of bacon appeared. On the side were mash potatoes mixed with onions and carrots and toasty buns smothered in cinnamon sugar. Just when Nikolas was sure he was starting to sweat schnitzel, Girtrude brought out bowls and bowls of strawberry jam-filled oliebollens. They reminded Nikolas of thick, crusty donuts. Later, Girtrude offered cake and coffee, after which they waved the brother and sister off, saying they needed to check on Xanthus and Yeri. Jürgen excused them and said he would send Girtrude up with harchoco a bit later.

They all sat on the boys' bedroom floor holding their mugs of harchoco while Yeri slept in a bed at the far end of the room. A dull silence hung in the air. They had spent all day fighting ice-cold winds, psycho arcade machines, and Ictree goo, all for nothing. The Ferret Festival was tomorrow, and they still hadn't found a cure. Xanthus had hours left, if that, before the tongue-of-gallitrot stopped working and the gorgon infection took over.

"If he turns into one of those creatures, can we change him back?" Caroline said.

Daniel shook his head.

"Why not?" Nikolas said.

"The magic used to turn him," Daniel said. "It is dirty magic. Good magic will not reverse it. Only dirty magic can, but at a price. That is the way of it. Dirty magic always requires something of you, a payment of some sort, and even then it deceives you. Your soul will be forever stained."

"So, if he turns into that monster, that's that?" Caroline said.

"Yes," Daniel said quietly. "For all intent and purposes, it is irreversible."

Nikolas wanted to tell them everything would be OK, but for the first time ever he wasn't sure. Even if there was a way to reverse the gorgon's breath, how could they find it in time?

Helen reached into her sleeve and pulled out Portlorn's glass flute and a song sheet. She unfolded the sheet and held its edges down until they stayed flat. The sheet was titled, "Call of the Lionsbran." It was the song Grand had given her before he left. She took a deep breath, and a strong sound followed. Its notes were warm like curling up to a fireplace after a long day in the snow. Caroline's eyes began to droop, and Nikolas leaned back onto the bed.

After a half hour of practicing the same song, Helen's shoulders sagged, and she let the flute slide to her lap.

"Is that the song Grand gave you?" Tim said.

Helen nodded. "'Call of the Lionsbran.' It's pretty tough. I've never seen notes like these, and the melody is insane."

"What happens if you get it right?" Nikolas said.

"Then the lionsbran comes, I guess," Helen said.

"Is that a good thing?" Tim said.

"I don't know," Helen said. "I don't even know what a lionsbran is." She turned her head to Xanthus, who was sprawled on the bed behind her. "Hey, dork. What's a lionsbran?"

"Only the coolest, most fantastic creature of all," Xanthus said in his broken voice. "Lions are pretty sweet, right? Well, imagine one with wings that breathes blue fire, jynn'us fire."

"That is cool," Nikolas said. "Sounds like a dragon?"

"It's got some dragon in it," Xanthus said.

"Can you ride it?" Nikolas said.

"Do you want to?" Tim said.

"Ride on the back of a flying lion?" Nikolas said. "That would _actually_ be awesome. Are you kidding me?"

"No one's tried," Jack said. "Forgive me. No one has tried in quite some time. A lionsbran doesn't take to being sat upon."

"Yeah," Nikolas said. "Maybe if you raised it from a cu—"

_Tap. Tap. Tap._ A knock came from the door.

"Probably Girtrude," Caroline said, launching to her feet. She opened the door, expecting the cherry smile of their orphan keeper. Instead, she was met by a very odd creature. It resembled a boy made entirely of small, multi-colored building blocks. It raised a scroll to her.

"A clue!" Caroline cheered.

They all leapt to their feet with a shout.

"Thank you so much," Caroline said. She snatched the scroll from Building Block Boy, pulling off one of its wooden pinkies in the process. "Oh, dear! I'm so sorry!" Caroline grabbed the pinky and handed it back to the toy. "Are you one of Ludwig's messengers?"

"Couldn't be," Nikolas said. "Ludwig hasn't been sending us clues."

Building Block Boy stared at Caroline with its green wooden eyes. It said nothing. In fact, it did nothing but stand there.

"Ooh-kay," Caroline said, closing the door.

"They just get creepier and creepier," Helen said.

Caroline handed the clue to Nikolas. They gathered around him as he started unrolling the scroll.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Caroline's brow rose. She opened the door for a second time. Building Block Boy looked around Caroline and down to her right. She followed its gaze to the cups of harchoco.

"Do you want some harchoco?" Caroline said amused.

"That's silly. He can't drink it," Helen said.

Caroline took Building Block Boy's hand and led it to Xanthus's untouched harchoco. They all watched expectantly.

Building Block Boy took the mug, raised it up, and guzzled. Brown liquid spit out between blocks and dribbled onto the floor.

"He's making a mess," Helen said, scooching from the path of the harchoco.

Building Block Boy flung the empty cup to the floor and walked to the middle of the room, dribbles of brown liquid marking its path. The odd creature plopped down cross-legged, looked at his right leg, and took it off. The pieces scattered to the floor. He gathered the free blocks and started to build what looked like a tower. He proceeded to add little wooden drawbridges, turrets, and a moat. This went on for several minutes until only his upper-body was left. After more dismembering, the Building Block Boy was gone, and, in his place, a wooden castle outfitted with small soldiers on horses and catapults. Blocks began launching from the castle wall to the other side of the moat.

Daniel looked back at the scroll. "What does the clue say?"

"Right." Nikolas unwrapped the scroll.

"The clue is leading us to the Merrow statues along King's Highway," Daniel said matter-of-factly.

"Right," Nikolas said. "You know. I feel like having you around is kind of cheating."

"I do not cheat," Daniel said, taken aback. "Anyway, they have to be the Merrow statues along King's Highway."

Without warning, Yeri cried out in pain, and Caroline rushed to him.

"King's Highway runs nearly thirty miles from Faerborough to Old Huron," Jack said. "And there are thousands of Merrow statues along its way. We could do with a better clue."

"The Building Block Boy must have dropped something," Nikolas said hopefully. He opened the door and peered down the hallway.

Nothing.

"This is it then," Daniel said. "This is all we have."

"It's all we need," Nikolas spoke up. "We'll go to King's Highway in the morning, split up, and check every statue if we have to. This clue _will_ lead us to the cure. I'm feeling really good about this, guys."

Their expressions didn't match Nikolas's enthusiasm, but what could they say? This was the best chance they had.

While everyone else drifted off to sleep, Nikolas forced himself awake. He held the nuncio open, hoping the Harynne would send a report. If the nuncio didn't work, maybe their mysterious secret agent would give them another clue to Xanthus's cure. But neither clue nor report came.

After an hour, Nikolas felt hope seep away. A thought he'd been holding back for months finally let itself go. He spoke to the dark room, "I can't do this without you anymore, Grand. Where are you?"

"He had to leave."

"What?" Nikolas said, surprised that someone else was awake.

Xanthus cleared his throat. "The wise old wizard always leaves so that the hero can stand up on his own two feet. Textbook fantasy."

"You think he'll return?"

"I don't know."

"Wait. Grand's not a wizard."

"Close enough," Xanthus said. "Old. Bearded. Single. Gives advice that's useful only in hindsight."

"Yeah. True."

"Do you wish it was all make-believe sometimes?" Xanthus said.

"Yeah," Nikolas confessed. "I do."

"Can't believe it, but I wish Daniel was right, you know. I wish this was all some sort of virtual construct."

Nikolas had no response. Deep breathing from the other boys filled the quiet.

"Nikolas?"

"Yeah, Xanthus?"

"I'm only thirteen—" Xanthus paused. His tone returned more constricted. "I never thought I could die. I don't want to die."

"You're not going to die," Nikolas said. "You'll just—change."

"Into a monster? I know. But that's worse. I could really be gone," Xanthus's voice trembled. "I mean, if I really have until the Ferret Festival, like Dr. Mendesmuss said. That's tomorrow, Nikolas. I—I don't know if I want to be here anymore. I don't know if I want this anymore." He heard sheets shuffling and the faint tears of a boy who didn't want anyone to know how scared he was.

"We'll figure this out, Xanthus. You don't have to be scared. We'll find a cure." Nikolas brushed his own wet cheek. "I promise."

Quieter this time, Nikolas whispered to the ceiling, "Where _are_ you, Grand?"

_Wake up!_ Huron commanded.

Nikolas opened his eyes to a dark room. It took a minute for him to see, but the earthlight revealed a small wooden cross hanging above him. Had it been there before? Wanting a better view, he tried to wipe the hair out of his eyes, but his hand stopped short, and the cross banged against the ceiling. He reached up and felt a thick spider web that led to the cross. He realized it wasn't a cross but a marionette's control bar. Somehow his hands and feet had been webbed to the bar. His eyes had finally adjusted to the room, and he could see wooden controllers above everyone else. Daniel's controller was being pushed around by a black shadow. He wasn't sure, but the shadow seemed to be a large, four-legged spider with the head of . . . Girtrude?

"Get off him!" Nikolas yelled.

Girtrude turned her head like an owl. "Sleep, my little toy. Sleep."

"Get away!" Nikolas said.

"No," Jack groaned from the darkness. "They're marionids!"

"Lie still. I haven't even begun," Girtrude commanded. "Need to get you all tied up, inject my venom, and you'll all be my little toys. And I can play with you and eat you, and play with you and eat you."

Everyone else began to stir. Realizing their hands were tied, they tried to shake their webbing free. Nikolas raised his webbed arm and pulled. The control bar crashed down from the ceiling, snapping the marionid webs from his hands.

"Stop it!" Girtrude cried. "Those aren't easy to make!"

Nikolas made his way around to the other controllers. He started ripping them from the ceiling by their webbings. Girtrude seethed curses, flipped from the ceiling, and landed on her four marionid feet.

"How rude!" she screamed. "Those are my toys. Mine. Mine. Mine." With every "mine," a stinger unrolled from her backside.

The glass windows blew in, and three large figures crashed through. Nikolas half expected to see Captain Shaw and the Harynne there just in time to save the day. Then he heard the primate grunts.

"Gragillas!" Nikolas said.

Two gragillas stood to their feet, their roars filling the house. "Jack Gorringe," One cried. "Where is Jack Gorringe!"

Jürgen crawled on the ceiling and through the doorway. He gasped, "No! They don't belong to you!"

"They're taking our toys, brother. Don't let them!" Girtrude and Jürgen leapt onto the closest gragilla.

All the boys knew that they had just been given the chance for escape and were not going to waste it. They grabbed Yeri and Xanthus and bolted from the room. Nikolas nearly collided with Helen. She gave him the "told you so" look.

"I know," Nikolas said. "Now run!"

Everyone flew down the stairs and away from the growls and screeches. Nikolas rammed the front door open. He was met by a skittish Rug.

"Yeah. You and me both, Rug."

All nine piled onto Rug, who sagged for a moment, stumbled, then jumped into the snowy night sky.

  veryone huddled close together to keep off the chill.

"My father is after me," Jack said to Nikolas, trying to talk through chattering teeth. "Those were his gragillas."

"No kidding," Nikolas said. "Thinks you're feeding us information about him."

"The marionettes on the wall," Helen said, "they were orphans. Those crazy whatever those things are—"

"Marionids," Jack helped.

"Whatever. They turned all those kids into little marionette toys."

"Can they be changed back?" Nikolas asked.

"Yes," Jack said. "One would need to cut the strings, and they will be normal within the hour."

"We should tell the Harynne," Helen said.

Nikolas looked over to Xanthus. He shook uncontrollably, his skin nearly the color of a gorgon.

"Sorry, but kid marionettes aren't what I'm worried about," Nikolas said. "The gallitrot is barely making a dent on Xanthus. Today is the Ferret Festival. He could change at any minute. Not to mention the last thing the nuncio said was the gorgons were overrunning Huron."

"I have to keep upping his dosage," Tim said. "We need to take him home."

Nikolas nodded. "Yeah. Drop me off at King's Highway first, and the rest of you go back to Manor Minor. I'll stay and try to figure out the clue. Make sure you send Rug back to pick me up."

"I'll stay with you," Daniel said.

"No," Nikolas said. "I'm quicker by myself. Can't protect everyone while running all over the city."

Daniel said, "No offense, Nikolas—"

"Why do I feel like I'm about to be offended?" Nikolas said.

"—you're just not intelligent enough to figure out these clues on your own," Daniel said.

"And there it is," Nikolas smirked. "Whatever, dude. But what if something happens to your brother?"

Daniel glanced quickly at Xanthus and then Tim. "Do not let him go under, Tim. Put him in the trope and slow down the transmutation if need be. Understand? Don't lose him."

"Yeah," Tim said. "Got it."

"I'll accompany you too, Nikolas," Jack said. "If you're to scour the streets of Huron, my metropolitan expertise would be in order."

"Don't forget," Nikolas said to Tim. "Send Rug back. He's our only ride home."

Rug hovered nervously next to Nikolas. King's Highway was eerily quiet. News of the gorgon attack had spread, keeping the citizens off the main streets and thoroughfares. Between the fog and snow, the view was nearly a whiteout, adding to the creepiness.

They checked every single stone Merrow. Each one wore the necklace or earring of a mermaid, just like Xanthus's, but what did it mean? And how did it relate to stony ears and stony necks?

They walked until Nikolas's feet ached, and then they walked some more. The ache became a twinge. Still, they walked. By the time they crossed Peabilly Way, Nikolas could feel blistered skin peeling from his feet. They took their third break of that day near several stone Merrows.

"What I don't get about the clue," Nikolas said, "is that these are all fakes, right?"

"It would seem so," Daniel said. "Though I'm not sure why."

"Maybe Merrows are too proud. Don't want to be associated with the monsters," Jack said.

"Maybe," Daniel said.

Nikolas walked up to a merman clad in medieval armor and a triton spear. There was an engraving.

"War of Thistles," Jack said. "That's ancient Huronite history, isn't it. It was one of the great wars between the Merrows and gorgons."

"Of course," Daniel said. "Nearly forgot. Merrows and gorgons had several clashes in the fourth epoch. This isn't their first." He paused. "The merman seems disturbed. Guilty."

"Yes," Nikolas said. "Looks like it." The king's eyes looked downcast, as if he were submitting to some unknown judgment.

"How about five thousand years of Dujinnin enslavement?" Jack said.

"I've seen that look before," Daniel said.

"Where," Nikolas said.

"My father," Daniel said.

Nikolas turned to the boy genius. His face was unemotional. Not as if he was hiding something, but as if he'd never learned how to feel. Nikolas didn't know what to say. Daniel had always been private. He couldn't expect him to talk now.

They stood for a few more minutes while Daniel continued to gaze at the statue.

He stepped closer and finally spoke. "It is how my father looked just before he abandoned us to the refugee camp. It is the look of a guilty man, unwilling to make any other choice. Father never explained why he had to cast us away, but it was obvious. Mother died of the Geneva virus on my sixth birthday. They say he went nearly insane, locking himself away in his laboratory for a year like some hermit. Then he met Xanthus's mother, Shantza Pearl. She was the complete opposite of mine. A steampunk rock star. Famous, rich, exotic. They were married within the month and had Xanthus a year later. She died of the Geneva virus on Xanthus's sixth birthday, just like mine. Back then, no one understood how the virus operated. Many had their theories, some scientific, others superstitious. In spite of Father being the leading scientist in genome research, he chose superstition, and we became the objects of his superstitions. For all his advances in science, he still clung to the old medieval delusions of curses and magic."

Daniel paused and breathed deeply. "He believed we were a curse on the family. So in the dead of night, he took us to Colorado City's refugee camp, opened the hovercar door, and without a word, pointed to the gate. Thought at least he'd say goodbye, but he just flew away. I was fourteen; Xanthus was eight."

"Couldn't you find him?" Nikolas said. "Make him take you back? That's child abandonment."

"Why?" Daniel faced Nikolas. "Why would I ever try to find that pitiful excuse for a father? He abandoned us like some unwanted pets. He was a weak man, taken by his emotions. I swore I would never look at him again. It would be Xanthus and I. Of course, Xanthus has a bit of father's emotional weakness, his superstitions. That's why he refuses to part with that silly earrin—"

Suddenly, Daniel stopped himself. He turned back to the stone Merrow king.

"The Merrows refuse to part with their pendants," Daniel said. "Why? You're right, Nikolas! This clue is leading us to the cure."

"What's that?" Jack said.

Daniel laughed, limping from stone Merrow to stone Merrow and calling out, "Earring. . . . Earring . . . Necklace . . . Necklace . . . Earring . . . Necklace . . . Earring. Stony ears and stony necks. Do you not understand? Either earring or necklace, every one of them has a pendant in the shape of a mermaid—just like Xanthus's. They NEVER part with them."

Nikolas looked at the statue of King Mendell again. In his left earlobe hung a mermaid's earring. Daniel was right. It was an exact stone replica of the one Xanthus wore—besides the fact that Xanthus's mermaid had a worn-away fin. But Nikolas already knew that. So did Daniel. "Right," Nikolas said. "I don't get your point."

"Yes," said Jack, in a quizzical nod. "The Dujinnin thought Xanthus was a Merrow cavorter because he had one of their earrings. We were all there."

"They all wear the same jewelry," Daniel said. "Either necklace or earring, every Merrow has one."

"OK," Nikolas said. "Again, we knew that."

"What do we know about the relationship between the gorgons and the Merrows?"

"Well," Jack said. "The gorgons have been turning the Merrows into gorgons."

"Oh yeah," Nikolas said. "I noticed that too. The gorgons only attack Merrows, no one else."

"Why?" Jack asked, scratching the bit of hair exposed at the bottom of his hat.

"I do not know why," Daniel said. "Some vendetta perhaps. But what I do know is that if your race was the exclusive victim of one monster, and that monster had the ability to infect you, seemingly be bent on infecting you, then you would always carry some form of protection."

Jack and Nikolas blinked at the same time. They weren't making the connection.

"Really guys? Think about it," said Daniel. "The gorgons attack the Merrows exclusively, correct? If you were a Merrow with a gorgon target on your chest, what would you do, Nikolas?" Daniel pointed to King Mendell's earring.

"Well," Nikolas said. "I would keep a cure on me at all times just in—" His mouth dropped. He looked at King Mendell's earring again. "Oh! The Merrows refuse to part with their pendants because the cure is inside of them, isn't it?"

Daniel nodded gleefully—well, as gleefully as Daniel could manage.

"Xanthus has had the cure on him the whole time!" Nikolas laughed. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Makes sense," Jack nodded. "It is common to hide valuables, treasures, hexes, and such in one's pendants and lockets."

"Xanthus is human," Daniel said quietly. "Strange. What are the odds that his mother gave him a Merrow's earring with the cure?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," Nikolas said. "Right now we've—" He stopped mid-sentence. Three snouts and gragilla knuckles emerged from the fog.

"For all the trouble left in your wake, Nikolas, it is quite difficult to track you." Beronn said as he stepped into the clearing, flanked by two cut and bloodied gragillas. The marionids must have really put up a fight.

"Brother?" Jack said.

"Beronn," Nikolas said, stepping in front of Daniel and Jack. "What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Beronn said. "What I _want_ is for you to step aside. By order of Sheriff Silas, Jack Gorringe is to return to Ironvale Fortress. You have been strictly forbidden to mingle with such company and have pressed the sheriff's grace beyond reason."

"You can inform _Father,_ " Jack said, "that if I am so inclined as to keep company with the true steward of Huron, then he'll have to muddle up a bit more grace."

"Father will not have you sharing his information with the enemy," Beronn said. "You are to come home now. If you resist us, I have been given allowance of the greatest measure." He pulled out a red crystal knob framed in an iron band.

"I see," Jack said with a crooked smile. "It is your delusion that by capturing your little brother, you would win the respect that you so crave from Father."

"You sniveling urchin!" Beronn squeezed the crystal knob. "As if prancing about like a toddler all over Huron will fool me. I know you, _brother_. I see through the hat and silly coat-of-elixirs. You're a betrayer, Jack. That's all you are, and that's all you'll ever be! Father cares not one lick about your existence other than to shut your disloyal mouth up."

"Shut up!" Jack yelled. "I'm not disloyal. I would never betray."

"You already have," Beronn said. "Every moment you spend with this boy steward is a moment you betray Father."

Nikolas felt several cold things slip into his hands. He looked down. Daniel had slipped him ten garden variety beans. Nikolas looked at Daniel, confused.

"Trust me," Daniel whispered. "Throw them."

"What?" Nikolas said.

"Throw them!" Daniel ordered.

Beronn locked eyes with Nikolas and moved the crystal knob toward him, but it was too late. Nikolas threw the beans. They bounced off Beronn and the gragillas. Nothing happened, except Beronn's expression turning smug. Then everyone's ears popped. Before Nikolas could blink, Beronn and the gragillas were gone.

"Where did you get those beans?" Nikolas said.

"Well, I have my sourc—" Daniel started to say but reconsidered his words. "They're called transbeans. I ordered them from the Wildlands of Rugandoon."

"So where did you send them?" Nikolas said.

"The Wildlands of Rugandoon," Daniel repeated, bending down to scoop up the transbeans. "Been collecting them for possible military tools and weaponry. The beans will return you to their original planting. Right now Beronn should be standing on a transbean patch mixed with thousands of acres of thorny bushes twenty miles outside of Huron. They won't be returning anytime soon."

"You're awesome, Daniel!" Nikolas said, grabbing his shoulder.

"Well, I had beans from the black pits of the amaiamon beast, but I left those at home," Daniel explained apologetically.

"Um, no. You did just fine," Nikolas said.

"I've found Möon's beans to be quite extraordinary," Daniel studied the beans in his hand. "There are dozens of various magical beans, you know. There's even a particular bean that can grow so high it reaches the clouds. Did you know that?"

"Yeah," Nikolas smirked and hopped onto Rug. "I've heard stories. Let's get back to Xanthus. I'll tell you all about magical beans on the way home."

"I am not disloyal," Jack said to himself, staring into the foggy road.

"What?" Nikolas said. "Um, right. You've been a huge help, Jack. Now, let's get going. Xanthu—"

"You must save Huron, but I cannot help you anymore." Jack flipped off his stovepipe hat.

"Wait. Where are you going?" said Nikolas. "Don't let Beronn get to you."

Jack grabbed the rim of his hat, stretched it three times its diameter, and placed it on the ground. He looked into the dark space of the hat for a moment and then back to Nikolas.

"Go, cure Xanthus. Save Huron," Jack said. "Please don't think ill of me, Nikolas, but if I stay with you, I am disloyal to Father. And if I stay with Father, I am disloyal to you." On that, he stepped into the hat and disappeared. The hat collapsed into a black wisp of smoke.

  hey heard him before they saw him. Xanthus's gorgon scream, "RREEEIIGHHH!!!"

Nikolas and Daniel flew into Manor Minor. Everyone was huddled behind Dangus and Helen, who were swinging torches at a transmutating Xanthus. He was now twice his height with a stooped back. Piranha teeth were cutting through his cheeks, and his hair was almost gone. Rug flew in after Nikolas. Xanthus grabbed Rug and used him as a shield from the fire.

"Greehhhh-et the fire away from me!" Xanthus yelled as his snakes spat at them.

Dangus jabbed the torch. A flick of fire caught Rug's tassels, and he burst into flames. The magic carpet thrashed all the way through the door and into the wintry night.

"He's almost a gorgon, Nikolas!" Malmedy yelled, pointing to Dr. Mendesmuss at the corner of the room wrapping a bloodied arm. "Dr. Mendesmuss done tried to medicate him, and Xanthus just about ripped off his arm. Lawdy, Nikolas. We're losing him!"

Xanthus picked up a small end table and threw it. Dangus side-stepped, but it grazed his elbow.

"Dragon's teeth!" Dangus cursed. "There's no use keeping him here. We've lost him."

"No! We figured out the last clue," Nikolas said, moving closer. He could see the mermaid earring flash in Xanthus's ear. We found the cure. We just need that earring."

"What?" Dangus said. "And how would you suggest doing that, sir? Impossible. Not even your grandfather could pluck the earring from that creature. How would we even hold him down? Fire's the only weapon we have against him."

"Grand!" Nikolas said. "Helen. Remember Grand's song, 'Call of the Lionsbran'?"

"Yeah," Helen said slowly.

"Call it! Call the lionsbran."

"I can't do it," Helen said. "Not right now. This is all too much."

"Yes, you can." Nikolas unfolded her arms and led her outside by the hand. The night sky hid any sign that a storm had just moved in. The only proof was a cold wind burning the tips of their ears and cheeks.

"Come on, Helen. You did it before," Nikolas said.

"I'm amped up," Helen said.

"You were amped up at The Festival of Lights," Nikolas said.

"I know," Helen said. "But this is different. I was worried for . . . you. I thought I was going to lose you."

"You can do this, Helen," Nikolas said.

Doubt played across her face. Nikolas squeezed her hand. "For me. Do it for me."

Helen's eyes fell on their interlocked hands. Her mouth parted slightly, but instead of saying something, she reached for her flute. Nikolas took a step back to give her space. She pursed her lips and raised the flute.

Soon music drowned out the wind. Helen squeezed her eyes shut, as if she was willing it to work. Slowly, the lines at the corner of her cheeks softened. The "Call of The Lionsbran" warmed Nikolas to the core, but it did something else.

It incited.

As if all the air were suddenly sucked out of Helen's lungs, she gasped and dropped the flute.

"It's coming," said Helen, covering her tears. "The lionsbra—"

A billow of blue fire exploded from the wintry clouds.

"Get out of the doorway!" Nikolas yelled.

A blur of golden fur and teeth blew into the doorway. There stood a lionsbran poised, holding up a muzzle brimming over with jynn'us fire. A wall of muscles started from his chin, ran down his chest, and ended at claws drilled into the wooden floor. The lionsbran's mane swept from its black eyes to the tip of its outstretched wings. The mane covered the back of the wings like a winter coat, exposing a dragon-like underwing.

"Hold Xanthus down," Nikolas pointed.

_ROOOOUUUUWWRR!_ The lionsbran rattled the snow from the door's overhang, tucked in its wings, and leapt squarely onto Xanthus's chest.

"Don't kill him!" Nikolas yelled. "He's our friend."

Snakes hissed and spat at the winged lion. His tail wagged defiantly, and he gave Nikolas a satisfactory blink. Nikolas reached for the earring, his hand running a gauntlet of writhing snakes and the lionsbran's fiery drool.

_HIIISSSSS!_ Nikolas's hand was sprayed with snake spit.

_Grrrrrrr._ The lionsbran growled a warning. The snakes retreated.

Nikolas quickly removed the earring and shook it. Something rattled inside.

"We might have to break it open," Daniel said.

Nikolas studied the mermaid earring, a thin seam encircled her waist. Most would have assumed that the seam came from the jewelry maker's cast, but he had a hunch. Nikolas held the mermaid's fin in one hand and the head in the other, and twisted. It didn't give. He twisted even harder. Sure that the head would break off, he almost gave up, but then the mermaid's waist finally twisted away from its tail. After a few more turns, a vial of purple liquid and a small slip of paper fell into his cupped hands. Nikolas let out a holler and read it out loud.

"Tim, we need salsouse marrow!"

"OK!" Tim said as he ran to Malmedy's elixir pantry.

Nikolas sped to the kitchen and sat at the end of the table while he called out, "Twelve o'clock petal of a squatter."

Helen grabbed Brandy by the shoulder and plucked a squatter petal.

"Ow!" Brandy said. "That actually hurt."

"And one teaspoon of crushed oregano."

Malmedy trotted away and returned with a spoonful of oregano.

"OK, OK." Nikolas stood to his feet. "Tim! You need to put this elixir together. You know what you're doing."

Tim took the paper and sat at the kitchen table.

"We did it!" Nikolas hugged Caroline. "We did it."

"There's more," Tim said. He flipped the piece of paper over. "'Beware elixir master . . .'" Tim stopped reading.

"What's the deal?" Nikolas said.

Tim shook his head, continuing to read the paper. "'This elixir is effective only on Merrows. It will slay any other kind that would drink it.' This'll kill Xanthus."

Nikolas grabbed the piece of paper. "No! There's something wrong. We're missing something. I know we are, Tim. Maybe there's like a human additive or something."

"Oh, Xanthus . . ." Caroline whispered as she moved back to the living room.

A swath of skin now hung from Xanthus's face, and his jaw line had changed into a reptilian mandible. His eyes searched the room until he found his brother and reached out an arm. All Daniel could do was drop to the ground and pound small dents into the floor with his cane. The tears came.

"Nikolas," Xanthus looked to him. "Pleassse help me. Pleassse!"

"Can't we do something?" Caroline asked, grabbing the edge of the couch. "Nikolas? Think of something!"

Helen slipped an arm around Caroline, who grabbed at it and burst into tears. Nikolas kept flexing and unflexing his hands. After months of trying to find a cure for Xanthus, it had all been for nothing.

They had failed.

After a moment, Nikolas heard feeble steps on the stairwell. Yeri peered slowly over the rail; his face had become fibrous and coarse, nearly unrecognizable.

"I have deceived you, my dear friends." Yeri kept his gaze on Xanthus as he slid down the wall.

"Yeri?" Nikolas said.

"What do you mean?" Daniel said.

"There is a secret that I bear, Nikolas," the stagecoach driver moaned. "A dark secret of the Merrows that I cannot tell at the peril of myself. You are right, Nikolas. You've always been right. The Merrows will destroy us all." Yeri took a deep breath. "The Merrows have brought an evil to our city. . . . Hunggg!!!" Yeri bent over, but continued talking between gasps. "Hoped you would make the connection. I left so many clues. Prayed I could tell you the truth without it killing me—unngghhh!!" Nikolas could actually hear Yeri's skin stretching.

"Wait. It was you!" Daniel stood to his feet. "You've been leaving the clues everywhere. All the toys that came to life? All those notes. It wasn't Ludwig at all. My brother is turning into a monster, and you're playing treasure hunt?!"

"You don't—under—stand! I swore an oath—tried to tell you the truth, but it is killing me." Yeri held out green, arthritic hands. "I was never infected by the gorgon. I was bound by the pearl-of-devotion to protect the Merrows' secret. If I betray the Merrows, the pearl will turn me into seaweed from the inside out.

"I began this quest on Lir's bidding, and he made me swear by the pearl-of-devotion to never share the secret of the Merrows. But how could I keep my promise to the Merrows when poor Xanthus was in such a state. Thought if I left the truth for you to solve, then I wouldn't betray the Merrows, but the pearl-of-devotion knows. With every clue answered, I worsened. I tried to tell you that the Merrows have been cur—AAgggh!!" He clawed at his face.

"What are you talking about?" Nikolas said.

"Lir!" Yeri yelled, and his eyes rolled shut. He collapsed at the foot of the stairs.

"Lir?" Nikolas said. "The merman. What does he know? What about Lir? Dangus!"

Dangus had already flung the door open with his cloak in tow.

Nikolas and his friends could do nothing but wait. Meanwhile, the lionsbran climbed off Xanthus's chest but kept a guarded muzzle toward him. Caroline put a blanket over an unconscious Yeri. Malmedy brewed some lingra tea and passed it around the room. Dr. Mendesmuss thanked her, raised it to his lips, sipped, and leaned back on the couch.

Finally, Nikolas heard Huron's ever so familiar voice.

A darkness born beneath. A breath to end all breath.

Nikolas moved his gaze to the door. "They're here."

A Merrow's velle clicked to a stop on the front step. Dangus flung open the door, and Lir glided quietly into the living room. When his eyes fell on Xanthus, he raised a handkerchief to his face.

"Hiiissssss." The snakes flicked their tongues at Lir. They were calm, even pleased with the merman's presence.

Lir's velle wheels pivoted him around the room until he found Yeri. He commanded, "Stand him up."

Nikolas and Tim raised Yeri to his knees. The velle brought Lir into reach of Yeri while he pulled a black pearl from his cloak. He shoved it into Yeri's mouth and told them to take him outside for the purging.

Yeri's boots tilled the white powder as the boys dragged him through the snow. Yeri coughed and coughed again. On his third cough, he vomited frothy seaweed and the white pearl-of-devotion, which by now had grown tendrils.

They returned to find Daniel leaning over his cane at Lir. "What have you done to my brother?!"

Lir remained quiet.

"Are you deaf?" Nikolas said. "Did you hear him?"

"Xanthus has minutes left before it takes full effect," Lir said. "Is there a room where we might be able to brew the elixir without fear of breathing in the curse?"

They led him to the kitchen table where they had abandoned the elixir nearly an hour ago.

"You found the cure, I see," Lir said, looking at the opened earring next to the ingredients. "I hope we might have a decent elixir master among us? Dr. Mendesmuss is quite incapacitated with his broken arm."

"I started the elixir." Tim raised his hand. "We used the instructions in the earring, but he's not a Merrow. It'll kill him."

"He isn't a Merrow? Are you so sure?" Lir said. "Take a seat."

Tim resumed his place at the head of the table. Lir started throwing out commands. "Grind the squatter petal with the butt of the knife. . . . Now cast the salsouse marrow above the squatter pedal with a small flick of the wrist. Not too hard now. . . . Do not use the silver spoon, only copper will do. . . ." Tim did his best to keep up.

"Most do not know this, but before the Merrows were inundated with wealth, we were quite the elixir masters. Lost the heart for it along the way, I suppose."

Tim produced a purple pasty concoction.

Lir peered into Tim's elixir. "Very good, Tim. Consider this for your future vocation. Now quickly, take it to Xanthus."

Tim ran to the living room but hesitated when he saw the monster that was supposed to be Xanthus.

"Do not delay," Lir said through the handkerchief. "You'll need to give it to him. The snakes will need to ingest it too, son."

Tim gave Lir a helpless expression.

"Hold the bowl to the snakes," Lir tried to encourage him. "They can't resist it."

Tim's expression was anything but brave. His bottom lip trembled as he pushed the bowl at the spitting snakes. The lionsbran shoved Xanthus down with its paw.

"Thanks," Tim said to the lionsbran. It purred in response.

"Closer, son," Lir said.

"Mmmm," Tim whimpered. He had his eyes closed by this point. Using the sound of the snakes as his only reference, he stretched out his whole body. Surprisingly, the snakes started pecking at the bowl.

"They need to ingest all of the cure," Lir said. "The entire bowl, or it's no good."

Something cool and smooth brushed Nikolas's leg. He looked down and saw a black cord slithering toward Xanthus. The cord had a tongue, and it flicked.

"Woah," Nikolas jumped back. "P—Python!"

Lir looked to Nikolas's feet. "Python? . . . Medusa! Close the door!"

The python wrapped around Xanthus's wrists and constricted. He was jerked towards the door. They all leapt at Xanthus, but the snake had secured its grip. It dragged Xanthus over the threshold and into the darkness.

Nikolas ran outside. The frenzied snowflakes made it hard to see, but he recognized the familiar contorted body of a gorgon. Only this one was winged with two extra pythons hanging from the back of its head.

"Hello, Nikolas," spoke the winged-gorgon. "You have something of mine, and I mean to collect." The python curled Xanthus into a swaddle, and the shadow looked down at him. "I've been calling you and calling you, my child. Why would you not listen?"

"Medusa!" Lir yelled out of the doorway. "Leave him be. He belongs here."

"He belongs with me," Medusa said. "All my children belong with me, Lir Palus Anwell."

Leathery wings arched into a crescent, and with a surge, Medusa lifted from the ground.

Nikolas ran back into the house, yelling, "Rug! Where's Rug?"

"Xanthus," Malmedy said. "That po' boy."

"Nikolas," Tim said. "That thing has Xanthus!"

"Yeah, I got that. Where's Rug?"

"He's gone," Malmedy said. "Got burned in the attack."

"What are we supposed to do?" Tim's voice faltered.

Nikolas looked at the lionsbran.

"What are you thinking?" Tim said.

"I have an idea," Nikolas said.

"Idea? What do you mean _idea_?"

"I'm gonna fly him."

"Him? Who? What are you talking about?" Tim looked at the lionsbran. "Are you crazy? You can't fly that thing! That's nine kinds of insane, Nikolas! You're going to get yourself killed."

Nikolas already had a snatch of fur.

"I wouldn't advise that," said Dr. Mendesmuss, as Nikolas slipped over the lionsbran. "No one can fly a lionsbran without losing a limb."

"Ha!" Nikolas heeled the winged-lion, and it roared a blue flame. The ceiling reappeared, blackened and smoky. The lionsbran's back muscles swelled taut. Claws reached for wood floor, the snow, and finally the night sky. It leapt into the air and flapped awkwardly, confused by a human on its back. But when Medusa came into view, his muscles tensed, and he flew straight.

Medusa no longer carried Xanthus in her python swaddle, rather she dangled him below. With a few beats of the wing, Nikolas had Xanthus's heel. His heel yanked away, and Xanthus looked back. He didn't recognize Nikolas.

"Xanthus?" Nikolas said apprehensively.

"Nikola-sss?" Xanthus's voice wavered. "Please. I don't want this."

"I'm going to save you," Nikolas said. "Give him back!"

"No," Medusa said. "He is mine."

"He's not anyone's."

Medusa faced Nikolas. "It is too late, boy. Xanthus hears only the voice of his Medusa."

"No, he doesn't. You can't have him!" Nikolas said.

"Do not be naïve. In the end, flesh consumes flesh. We take what we will—it is the way of things."

The free python hanging from Medusa's left ear sprung out and around the lionsbran's wing. The lionsbran pulled back, trying to break the grip.

"I've learned to embrace it."

The python squeezed, and the lionsbran's wing cracked like eggshells.

"Rouurrr!" cried the lionsbran.

Nikolas and the lionsbran tumbled through the air. The night whirled into a mix of white and grayish blue.

"Gotcha!" Yeri said. A charred Rug caught them, but barely.

"There now, sir. There now." Yeri patted Nikolas's arm.

Nikolas looked into the sky, unable to understand what was happening. He'd had Xanthus's heel, and then he was gone. It must have been a nightmare. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go.

With little energy, Rug fumbled to the ground, throwing everyone into a snowdrift.

Nikolas got to his knees. He looked past the lionsbran's panting chest and saw two masses fading into the midnight sky. Articles of clothing began to fall, first a frock coat, a belt, and finally boots.

"No!" Nikolas felt the tears escaping. "We have to get him, Yeri. We have to get up there!"

"Afraid we can't," Yeri shook his head slowly, his face filled with pain. "Rug can manage neither such speed nor height in his condition."

"I want to fly!" Nikolas jumped off Rug, shouting. "Do you hear me, Möon? I want my jynn'us now. I want to fly!"

He waited, half-expecting a surge of jynn'us to rip through him. There was no way Möon would do nothing. She wouldn't just let his friend turn into a monster, would she?

A gray object drifted through the night sky. It looked like the very last leaf of fall, withered and ghostly. Nikolas ran toward the object, hoping it wasn't what he thought it was. He climbed two snow banks before he found it.

On the tip of a rose bush hung Xanthus's shed skin.

"No, Xanthus. No!" Nikolas yelled.

"I'm so sorry, Master Nikolas," Yeri said. "I am so sorry."

"I can't believe it," Nikolas said. "No. Please, no!"

Expecting faces met Nikolas. Dr. Mendesmuss, Lir, Helen, Brandy, Caroline, Tim, Dangus, Malmedy and Daniel. All expressions looked for hope, for good news.

Nikolas breathed. "I'm sorry."

Crakk!

Pain flashed across Nikolas's left cheek. He was on the ground.

"Daniel!" Caroline yelled.

He turned slowly to find Daniel with a curled fist, and Tim holding him back.

"I believed you!" Daniel screamed. "You told me you 'got this.' I believed you! You killed my brother! You killed him!"

His eyes were a mix of rage and confusion, and then they clouded over. He moved from Tim's grasp toward the kitchen.

"I—" Daniel began weeping. "I—I am sorry. I shouldn't have struck you. It wasn't your fault. I couldn't get him out. The—the construct won. I couldn't get him out. . . ."

That was the last thing Nikolas wanted to hear from Daniel. He wanted to hear how stupid it was to drag them to Möon, how the refugee camp would have been a better place than this, how his big ideas and plans always ended up badly, how Tim was right.

He destroyed everything he touched.

Nikolas stayed on the wood floor, letting the sadness collect. Then the tears came.

"Can we change him back?!" Helen cried.

"I'm afraid not," Daniel said. "He is, and forever will be, that monster."

"That's not right," Helen said. "That can't be right."

"He's gone. He's gone. He's gone," Nikolas wept.

Caroline's warm hand pressed around his neck, her tears wetting his arm. Then came Brandy, Tim, Helen, and finally, Daniel. All pressed together, crying.

All Nikolas could think was,

Xanthus is gone.

Xanthus is gone.

Xanthus is gone.

  'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Nikolas cried. "I couldn't reach him. I'm sorry."

Caroline sniffed saying, "It's not your fault, Nikolas. It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault."

A voice came from outside their circle. "That is not entirely true."

Nikolas looked up to Yeri. He could feel the tears track down his face.

Yeri's eyes were set on Lir. "It is the fault of the Merrows."

Lir straightened his shoulders. "I do not think this is the time, nor the place to—"

"It's the perfect time, you coward!" Yeri cut Lir off. "Look around you. Look at the evil your people have wrought. They've lost their best friend, forever."

"What is this, Lir?" Dr. Mendesmuss said.

Lir glided his fingers across both cufflinks while his fin rolled nervously. With pressed lips, he finally spoke, "Forgive me, dear boy. You were right. You've always been right. I knew it the day you spoke to the Council of Teine. I just couldn't allow myself to accept it." Lir found Nikolas. His guilty expression mirrored King Mendell's statue. "Our shame has become Huron's destruction. We have brought an evil upon her that will destroy you all.

"But you must believe me! We had no choice. The Dujinnin discovered our dark secret and meant to expose us. They attacked us and unleashed gorgons on our port cities. We called for Huron to save us, to give us a safe passageway and sanctuary behind your city gates. I had confessed our secret, our true relationship with the gorgons to Yeri, who was to deliver it to the steward of Huron, but it never reached him. That is, it never reached you, Nikolas. When you told the council of Teine that the voice of Huron wanted to keep us out of the city, Yeri was forced to be silent and bear our secret alone on pain of death."

"Forgive me, Nikolas." Yeri buried his head in his hands. "When I saw Xanthus's drawing of the creature, I sought desperately to tell you, but my words were bound by the pearl-of-devotion.

"Yeri couldn't have been infected by a gorgon, anyway," Lir said. "He is no Merrow."

"What do you mean, 'He's no Merrow?'" Daniel said, his voice on the edge of rage. "Of course, he's no Merrow."

Lir breathed deeply and spoke, "The gorgon is a shadow of the Merrow. We are one and the same."

"Why the fake stone Merrows?" Daniel said. "And why would they come after my brother, if gorgons only attack Merrows?"

Lir kept his eyes fixed on his fin, its many spinal bones scratching at the edge of the rug.

"He's talking to you!" A vein crept around Nikolas's left eye, and his head shook, violently.

"Talk Lir," Daniel said, pounding his cane, "or so help me, I'll make you talk."

Lir breathed deeply and spoke, "There is so much to tell you, too much. The gorgon is us in our most terrible form. No other can take their form, for they are our transfiguration, our greed, our sin. And there is nothing we can do to stop them.

"Dear Steward, the city of Huron will fall. Over one hundred thousand Merrows are trapped in Creachborough, and Medusa will be sure to infect every last one of them to build her army and take Huron. Not only are your troubles far from over, my boy, they've increased one thousand fold."

"You're avoiding the question!" Nikolas yelled. "Xanthus isn't a Merrow. How could he have turned into one of those monsters? Why did they go after him? Tell us what's going on."

"Oh, forgive me, my kin." Lir nodded slowly. "But after thousands of years, the truth must be set free." He raised his chin. "Allow me a little more time, Steward. I must tell you a story first. It all began with the lady of the Malvasia tree."

