 
### Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

 Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

About The Author

Books by Rebecca Shelley
Real

Dragons

Rebecca Shelley

Wonder Realms Books

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission. All characters, places, and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2017 Rebecca Shelley

Cover art © 2017 Emily Shelley

Interior art © Fernando CortÃ©s | Dreamstime.com

Scene break art © Irina Shishkina | Dreamstime.com

Originally titled Black Dragon © 2011 Rebecca Shelley

(The title was changed to avoid confusion with Dragonbound VIII: Black Dragon by the same author)

Published by Wonder Realms Books

The roar of traffic echoed along the city street, bouncing from one brownstone building to the next, rattling between the streetlights, and thundering like a waterfall on the heads of the four children on the narrow sidewalk. One of the four, a twelve-year-old boy named Weldon, sat on the stoop with his English homework and a pencil in his hand. He coughed in the cloud of exhaust from the cars and watched the three younger girls playing jump rope.

Phillis, the boy's sister, stood in the center of the twirling rope, her short black braids bouncing with each jump she took. A spiderweb of cracks spread across the sidewalk beneath her feet. Into these cracks, the waterfall of traffic noise tumbled and dripped onto the realm below.

One drop, the rumble and hiss of a city bus, splashed through the seventeenth crack and splintered the air above a field of grass so small that only a scientist's best microscope could see it clearly, though no scientist would ever admit to such a discovery.

The sound of the bus rumbled like the thunder of an approaching storm over the grass, bending the delicate stalks. Barthelme stood at the foot of a long slender blade of grass, resting his hand against the silver side of the blade while the green side whipped about over his head. He paid no mind to the ever-present waterfall of noise from above. He knew no other air than that thick with particles of exhaust, which were sometimes as big as him, but more often floated around him like downy flies. His world smelled of green grass, asphalt, earth, and smog.

He lifted his face to the rays of sunshine that shimmered down on him from the crack overhead. His wings buzzed with excitement as he thought about his plan. A plan he'd considered for the last two years and come every day to this spot, fully intent on carrying it out.

The crack fell into shadow for a moment, and then the sun returned.

Barthelme's wings buzzed so frightfully that they dislodged a shower of sparkling dust from his shoulder. The little flakes fell until they mixed with the bubbles of exhaust in the air and floated back up around Barthelme's head. He swatted them away. The satchel of supplies he'd secured around his waist for the journey thumped against his legs as his wings beat faster.

"Today," he muttered. "Today." His wings lifted him almost to the top of the grass blade. Then they slowed, and he sank back down. "But why today?" he thought. "What makes today any different from yesterday or tomorrow or last year?"

It seemed to him his ascension should have great importance and meaning and should happen on an important day. But days in the Realm Below stretched on in an endless march of light and darkness with nothing to mark one from another besides all the best holidays such as the Celebration of the Deluge and the annual observance of The Great Awakening: that moment in time when all life in the Realm Below first sprang into being.

Barthelme thought that Awakening Day would be the perfect day for his ascension, but that day was so filled with singing, dancing, meeting with friends, and feasting that he never could tear himself away long enough to make the flight.

Barthelme gritted his teeth. Now or never. He rose a fraction from the ground, but his friend Haley zipped through a tuft of grass and landed beside him. The sunlight glimmered across Haley's black velvet face, catching on his radiant smile. His midnight wings sent showers of silver sparkles into the air around him.

"Barthelme, Barthelme, come quick. The dragons are hatching. You don't want to miss it."

Barthelme's heart fluttered. The dragons. He'd been waiting for this day. He took one last glance at the crack of sunshine overhead and then flew with Haley in and out of the blades of grass to the lake that lay like molten silver in the middle of their world. A sheen of rainbow colors rippled across the lake as Barthelme and Haley landed on the gritty black beach.

Already a crowd had gathered around the small lump in the ground where the clutch of eggs had been buried by its mother. The lump of sand shifted every few heartbeats, like something below longed to break out into the light. Some said it would be the old dragoness's last brood, she being older even than those who were born during the Great Awakening, though she'd flown into the Realm Below several decades after.

A crooning sound echoed across the lake, and the dragoness came. Her body hung in the air over the lake, glowing a pearly black. Her tiny tail and torso undulated with each flap of her wings. In her claws she carried a pair of red mites--their mandibles twitching in agitation.

Barthelme stepped back with the other spectators to give the dragoness room. His wings buzzed along with the other fairies' wings, filling the air with a symphony of harmonious noise.

The dragoness hissed at the spectators and snapped at the ends of their noses.

The fairies fell back behind Barthelme, trying to protect their noses with their arms from the angry dragoness.

"There now," Barthelme murmured to the dragoness. He lifted his hand palm-up in greeting to her. "Do not fear. We have come to protect your babies, not to harm them."

The dragoness crooned and settled onto his hand. The mites, still clutched in her talons, tickled Barthelme's fingers.

"Yes, the babies will be hungry, won't they?" Barthelme stroked her pearly black scales. "And where is your mate? Bringing more I hope. I'd hate for the babies to bite off my toes."

The dragoness rolled on her back, flapping her wings across her stomach in laughter. The mites thrashed about but could not free themselves from her clutches.

After her laughter died out, the dragoness lifted from Barthelme's hand and settled onto her clutch, twining her tail around herself so she looked like a perfect black pearl against the moving sand.

Her mate, the ruby dragon, sparkled with an inner red fire as he zipped across the water and landed beside her. In his talons he carried a maggot almost as big as himself. The crowd clapped and cheered as he wrestled to keep the maggot in his grasp.

His movements kicked up the sand and burst the already breaking egg sac. Soon hundreds of baby dragons--so small that a strong puff of Barthelme's breath could have sent them spinning across the lake--squirmed out of the egg sac and inundated the maggot with their translucent bodies. The two mites vanished quickly to the infants' huge appetites. The biggest babies getting the most food, growing bigger. The smallest barely getting a nibble before being pushed aside and forgotten. As the bigger hatchlings ate, they grew and took on color until the black sand was spread with an array of sparkling, moving jewels.

The dragoness and her mate chirped loudly, and the little jewel dragons rose into the air, a swarm of flashing beauty. Some two dozen of the hatching had survived and zipped around their parents in a whirl of color and noise. The fairies, except Barthelme, scattered. The little dragons were still plenty hungry and liable to bite everything around them, just to see if it might be food.

Barthelme pulled a loaf of mold from his satchel and hurled it as far as he could down the beach. Smelling the rich aroma, the baby dragons zipped after it. The dragoness gave him a grateful coo and followed her young while her mate settled onto a blade of grass and trumpeted in pride.

Barthelme knelt next to the broken egg sac, still partially buried in the sand. Tiny translucent bodies littered the ground. Out of hundreds, only dozens had gotten enough food to survive. It was the way of dragons. But Barthelme had been watching the clutch for a long time, thinking and planning. With intense care, he stuck his finger down into the pile of bodies on the sand. There appeared to be no movement, no life. He moved his finger carefully, bit by bit passing it through the minute bodies. A prick of pain stabbed his finger. Then another. Gritting his teeth, he held his hand in place.

A third prick, sharper than the first two, caught him off guard, and he jerked his hand away. His finger continued to prick and burn. He looked down and found three tiny translucent dragonets devouring his flesh.

"That's it, my hearty fellows," Barthelme whispered through gritted teeth. "You're not so much smaller than your brothers and sisters feasting over there. You can still make it."

He eased his finger down into the satchel where another loaf of mold waited to entice the three hungry dragons off of his finger. He closed the satchel flap and tied it down then took swift flight away from the dragoness and her brood.

He went straight to his house, for he knew that the little dragons needed flight as well as food to grow strong and survive. His house was a frame of sticks, lashed together and then covered with dried grass. It was a grand house, which had started small and grown as he'd added to it over the years. He was especially proud of the great hall at the center of his home. He'd made it big enough so that he and his friends could play dodge-the-mosquito without running into each other or the walls. Glowing dewdrops glimmered in basins attached around the walls for light.

Barthelme carried the satchel into the great hall and released the flap. Three little dragons, now grown to tear-drop size, gazed up at him. He grabbed what was left of the loaf of mold and shook it, forcing the creatures into the air.

The biggest of the three, a sparkling sapphire blue, flapped her wings and snapped at his nose. He blew her away from his face with a puff of breath. The second largest, a ruby like his father, zipped high into the air, trumpeting and somersaulting. The third and smallest clung tooth and talon to the mold. Her body remained translucent, her wings plastered to her back.

"Keep eating," he whispered to her. She raised a feeble head to look into his eyes.

"You did it." Haley flew into the hall and landed beside Barthelme, startling him. "Two beautiful dragons." He watched the pair fluttering around the room. "Do you think you can tame them?"

"Hope so," Barthelme said. "Though I don't suppose tame is the right word. I still think the dragons are probably a good deal smarter than we are. I'd say befriend them instead."

Haley rolled his eyes. "Dragons aren't intelligent. They can't even talk. All they do is chirp, fly, and eat. Though I am grateful for that, mind you. The refuse would sure build up around here if they didn't." Haley laughed.

Barthelme turned his back to his friend and looked once more down at the smallest dragon. She'd given up eating and lay with her head against the loaf, her eyes closed.

"That your English take-home test?" Phillis grabbed the paper from Weldon's hand and stared at the picture of fairies and dragons that covered it.

Weldon snatched it back. His heart rattled in his chest. If he didn't do something quickly, the last baby dragon would die.

Phillis put her hands on her hips. Her round chocolate eyes flashed. "Mama gonna kill you. She told you to stop drawing on your schoolwork."

"Well I don't got no other paper right now, do I?" Weldon said. He jumped to his feet and sprinted toward the far intersection where the broken traffic light flashed always red.

"Weldon!" Phillis's shrill cry chased him. "You supposed to watch me. I'm a gonna get kidnapped!"

Weldon dodged around the corner and slammed into Alice, the quiet old widow who lived above the shoe store. He knocked her flat over on her rump and dropped his pencil in shock and dismay.

"Weldon," Alice huffed.

"Sorry Ma'am. So, so sorry." He tried to help her up, but when he clutched her outstretched arm, the paper in his hand crumpled with a dreadful rattle.

He let out a cry of despair, grabbed his pencil from the rough cement and abandoned the stricken old woman. "Sorry. I got to go," he yelled over his shoulder. "It's a matter of life and death."

In his mad rush, he tripped and fell over a jagged fragment of broken cement. He hugged the precious paper to him and landed on his knees, tearing his jeans and the skin beneath. With a cry of pain he jumped back to his feet and dodged behind a rusty dumpster. The smell of curdled milk and used cat litter hung over him as he squatted amid the overflowing trash and pressed the pencil to paper once more.

Barthelme stroked the little dragon, taking care not to smash her fragile body. "Come on, little one. Wake up." Behind him Haley took to the air and began zipping around the room encouraging the larger two babies to fly, much like the dragoness had with her other hatchlings. Of course Haley was far bigger than the dragoness and a lot more clumsy.

The little translucent dragon blinked, but did not raise her head. A pang of worry shot across Barthelme's chest. The little one seemed to him the most beautiful dragon he'd ever seen: a shimmering diamond worth more than all the others.

"Don't die," he cried as he fumbled with his free hand to unclasp the brooch that held his traveling cloak. The clasp came free, and the cloak fluttered to the ground at his feet.

Barthelme jabbed the point of the clasp into his finger. A prick of blood welled up. He moved his finger to the dragon's head. The liquid touched the dragon's thin mouth. She sniffed, blinked at Barthelme in surprise, and then opened her jaws, eagerly lapping up the blood. Barthelme hoped that Haley was too busy playing to see the dragon feed. He might not approve.

The little diamond dragon drank Barthelme's blood and grew stronger. He wiped more blood on the mold loaf, and she began feasting. Her body swelled to the size of her siblings and her wings unfurled, but she remained colorless, a glittering diamond.

Barthelme shook the mold loaf to urge her into the air. Still she clung to it. Wings flapping. Her talons locked into the mold.

"Come on now," Barthelme said. "Flying is fun." His own wings buzzed so they lifted him off the ground.

Haley zipped over to hover next to him. "She's beautiful. Imagine, three dragons of your very own." He spun in the air, did a flip, and landed on the floor. "I can't wait to tell the others." He flew out of the hall.

"Never mind him," Barthelme told the diamond dragon. "He has the attention span of a flea. But come now. You must fly." He shook the loaf again. Still the diamond dragon clung to it.

The movement caught the eye of the other two dragons, and they returned to the loaf, picking at it with dainty bites, keeping their eyes on Barthelme the whole time.

"Hello. My name is Barthelme," he said, nodding to the dragons. "This is my home, and yours too if you wish to stay in it. There is plenty to eat here. I have a mold garden out back and mites are always crawling up my walls and trying to squeeze inside. Here there is lots to eat and lots of space to fly."

The three dragons stared at him. They seemed to understand what he said and were thinking it over. Haley and the other fairies insisted that the dragons weren't intelligent, just because they did not talk or write, grow crops or build, or create art and music. But Barthelme had been the first to meet the dragoness and her mate when they entered the Realm Below. He felt that she had always understood when he spoke to her, though she seldom cared to listen or respond to any of his questions.

Now her children stared at him and blinked their glowing eyes.

"It's a lovely home, and I'm happy to share it with you."

The little ruby let out a shrill cry and zipped to the edge of the hall where bark shutters closed over a window. Barthelme flew over to the window where the ruby tore at the bark and chittered in a frenzy.

"So that's the way of it," Barthelme said. "I had hoped we could be friends, but I see you want your freedom." He lifted the brass catch and pulled the shutters aside. A light wind gusted in and blew around the hall. The ruby dragon trumpeted and zipped outside. He somersaulted in the air and glided back to the windowsill as if to say he'd be happy to stay as long as Barthelme wouldn't keep him a prisoner.

The sapphire dragon cooed, walked across the mold loaf, and stroked Barthelme's hand with her wing.

"I like you too," Barthelme said.

The sapphire chirped, flapped her wings, and zipped out the window followed by her brother.

"What about you?" Barthelme said to the diamond dragon.

She flapped her wings, but kept a firm hold on the loaf.

"Will you not fly?"

She chirped, folded her wings against her back, slithered over to Barthelme's hand, and curled up against it. He might have taken her for nothing but a still silent stone, except for the rhythmic swell of her body against his hand as she breathed.

weldon drew the final facet on the little diamond dragon and let out a deep breath. "I think you'll live, for now," he whispered. He folded the paper and shoved it in his back pocket along with his pencil. "But I might not if Phillis and Alice get talking to Mama before I come home."

He edged from behind the dumpster, shoved his hands in his pockets, and slouched down the sidewalk toward home. He hunched his shoulders as he walked past the shoe store, but saw no sign of Alice. Rounding the corner, he found Phillis and her friends playing just as he'd left them.

"One, two, three-four-five," Phillis shouted as she jumped. "Wel-don be gonna die. Six, seven, eight-nine-ten when he fails his test again!"

Weldon balled his hands into fists as a wave of hot anger rolled from his feet to his face. He imagined taking the jump rope and tying his sister up so she could never move again. "Shut up!" he yelled. "Just shut up. You ain't so smart neither."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and all three girls giggled.

"Tell you what, I'll PAY a kidnapper to come get you!"

"Weldon." His father's firm hand clapped down hard on his shoulder. "Don't you be talking like that. Never. Never. Hear me?"

Weldon's knees buckled, and his father let go of him. His father worked at the grocery store on 7th and Lincoln. He wore his green collar shirt with the store logo on it. Streaks of gray dotted his frizzy hair. He looked as old as Santa Claus, maybe older, except he kept his beard just a single layer of fuzz on his chin.

"Ain't you supposed to work until six today?" Weldon said, straightening.

"And ain't you supposed to be watching out for your sister stead of thinking of getting rid of her?" His father's eyes flashed with anger, but the corners of his lips twitched as if he were trying not to smile.

"She a brat," Weldon said.

His father's face tightened in real anger for a second and then relaxed. "Well . . . girls be like that." He shrugged and headed for the door into their apartment building.

"Come on, Phillis," Weldon called, starting after his father. "It time to start dinner before Mama gets home." He waited for her at the door, but she seemed dead-set on jumping for the rest of eternity. Lucky for him, her friends' mother popped open a window on the third floor and called down.

"Jessie, Angelina, get on up here now. You got work to do."

That ended the tap-tap of the jump rope. Phillis marched past Weldon, braids bouncing. He followed her up the stairs, all five flights, to their own apartment, 5D.

It wasn't a bad apartment. Weldon knew some of his friends had worse. His parents both made good money, his father as a manager at the grocery store and his mother as a pharmacist for a big drug company. It was a two bedroom apartment--one bedroom for his parents and one for Phillis "'cause she a girl," according to his father.

Weldon slept on a pull-out couch bed in the living room, a spot he enjoyed because it meant he could reach the refrigerator in ten steps at night without waking anyone.

Phillis pattered across the hardwood floor and drew herself up on a stool by the kitchen counter. Weldon's father had already stretched himself out on the couch with his feet up on one armrest and his head on the other. He held the TV remote in his hand and clicked through the channels without looking. He fixed his eyes on Weldon instead. "The store ran a special on pork chops yesterday. I put some in the fridge."

"Right." Weldon measured rice into the cooker, added water and plugged it in. He retrieved a can of black beans from the narrow cupboard opened it and drained the juice. "Want the chops fried or grilled?"

"Don't care. Bring me a soda."

Weldon got out the meat and then took a can of soda to his father. Water condensed on the cool can, making it slippery as he handed it off. It went right through his father's fingers and thumped onto the floor. Weldon snatched it back up and inspected the now-dented bottom. "Too bad. I guess I'll have to drink it," he said.

"Gimme that," his father grabbed the can out of his hands and popped open the top. The shaken can sent a spray of soda across the couch and floor. Weldon dodged the sticky mess and turned back to the kitchen in time to see Phillis standing on tiptoe on the counter and reaching to the top of the open cupboard. She snagged a box of Twinkies and scrambled back to the stool.

"Phillis, no," Weldon grabbed the box away. "I'm making dinner."

"But I'm hungry now!" Phillis grabbed the box and tried to free it from Weldon's grasp. "Papa!" she screeched.

"Oh, leave her have one." His father wiped the soda off the couch with his hand, shook the drops from his fingers onto the floor, and settled back with his drink.

"She should have an apple," Weldon said. "Mama wants us to eat healthy."

"Apples cost more than Twinkies. Give her one." His father went back to clicking through the channels.

Weldon ignored him and turned the oven on one-handed while clinging to the Twinkie box with the other. The apartment door opened just as the cardboard tore and Twinkies cascaded onto the kitchen counter.

"What is going on?" Mama stepped in, unbuttoning her white pharmacist coat.

"Weldon be stealing a Twinkie, and I tried to stop him," Phillis said, sitting up primly on the stool and folding her hands in her lap.

"Weldon, you know better." Mama laid her coat and purse on the table by the front door and advanced into the living room where she slipped on the soda.

"Weldon dropped the can," his father said before his mother could ask.

Weldon let out a sharp breath, unwrapped the pork chops, slapped them on the griller pan, and shoved them into the oven.

"Weldon." His mother locked her sharp eyes on him.

"Sorry, Mama," he said.

She frowned and went to her room to kick off her shoes. As soon as she turned her back, Phillis tore open a Twinkie and shoved it in her mouth.

Weldon grabbed the rest of the Twinkies and put them back in the cupboard. Then he wet a washcloth and mopped up the mess of soda on the floor.

"You a good boy," his father whispered as Weldon wiped his father's sticky fingers.

"Mama don't think so." Weldon returned to the kitchen and threw the cloth into the sink.

"Mama doesn't think what?" She'd returned from the bedroom and now marched into the kitchen to take over dinner preparation.

"I can't do nothing right for you," Weldon said.

"You can't do anything right for me," his mother corrected his grammar.

"He don't even try," Phillis chimed in. "Ask him how hard he worked on his take-home English test."

"Still struggling with predicate nominatives?" his mother asked. "Why don't you go get your test, and we'll work over it together?" His Mama knew everything about every subject and had all kinds of college degrees.

"Can't," Phillis said.

"I lost it," Weldon jumped in before Phillis could finish.

"No he didn't. It's right here." Phillis grabbed the paper out of his back pocket and shook it open for his mother to see his most recent art work.

Mama's strong fingers lifted the paper out of Phillis's hand. She looked it over back and front. The longer she looked the thinner her lips got. Her eyes flashed in anger.

"I," his Mama pressed the paper down on the counter, "gave up everything to get an education. Nothing is more important than school, Weldon. Nothing." Her voice was deep and clipped. "You have to get good grades so you can get a good job. Do you want to end up some drunken bum on the street somewhere? Do you suppose your foolish dragon pictures will buy food for your family? No they won't. This simply must stop."

"Oh, leave him be. The boy got talent," his father muttered.

"What?" Mama's hands balled into fists and she squared her shoulders to face his father.

"Nothin." His father turned to the TV and took a long swig of his soda.

She turned back on Weldon. "I forbid you to draw anymore. Not one picture, young man, or I'll arrange the strongest possible consequences for you. Summer school probably, and extra homework weekends and evenings. No television. No console games. No time with your friends. I better never see another one of your drawings in this house. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mama." Weldon's face burned. Blood throbbed in his hands, making them ache to hold a pencil. Her new rule took his breath away, and he grew dizzy before he remembered to breathe again.

Mama held out her hand. "Give me your pencil. You'll do your homework with me every night from now on."

Weldon fished the pencil out of his pocket and handed it over. When his mama took it, he felt like he'd been holding tight to a cliff face, and when he let go of it he fell down, down to his death.

"I'll have words with Mrs. Harper tomorrow about this test." Mama carried his defaced test paper across the living room and shoved it in her purse. "I'll make sure she lets you retake it."

Weldon leaned against the counter feeling sick to his stomach as his artwork vanished. The pork chops sizzled in the oven, filling the apartment with their smell. His stomach churned.

He took a step toward the bathroom.

"Take out the garbage before you go sulking off somewhere," Mama told him.

Weldon gritted his teeth and relieved the trash bin of its load. He trudged down the stairs. With each step his mind filled with images: the fairies of the realm below gathering, their wings buzzing with anger. The silver grass of their home thrashed back and forth in a torturous wind.

He got to the bottom of the stairs and thrust his way outside. He carried the bag to the big plastic garbage can, opened the lid and tried to stuff it down inside, but the can was already full. A cold-cereal box tumbled out at his feet. He picked it up and smashed it so it would fit in the trash can, but hesitated before putting it in. Tearing down one side of the box, he opened it out flat. The inside of the box was an empty gray slate.

He reached for the pencil in his back pocket, but remembered half way there it was gone. He sunk to the cement, still clutching the cardboard, and leaned his head back against the building. His fingers twitched. He noticed a stack of cigarette butts on the ground beside him. Gingerly he picked one up and rubbed the burned end on the cardboard. It made a black and gray streak. Perhaps he'd be able to draw after all.

Barthelme stood still as a statue as the other fairies gathered in a circle around him, their wings filling the air with an angry buzz. The noise frightened diamond, and she twined herself around Barthelme's wrist and refused to let go. Ruby and Sapphire stood on his shoulders, wings out-stretched, hissing.

A ripple of silver light washed over the fairies, and Her Majesty, the Queen of the Fairies, descended from her castle atop a pile of glittering granite chunks.

Barthelme stared up into her terribly-beautiful face. Gold dust glimmered in her long flowing hair. Her sparkly wings spread out behind her, twice as big as any other fairies'. She landed in front of Barthelme and addressed the assembled fairies.

"What is going on here?"

"Barthelme has made friends with these dragons," Hawthorne shouted. Hawthorne was Barthelme's nearest neighbor, the one who liked to play his harp too loud at all hours of the day and night. "These dragons swarm outside his house. They've torn up my garden three times and even attacked me when I tried to shoo them away."

Barthelme winced as angry voices rose up to join Hawthorne's.

"They're a nuisance."

"Make him get rid of them."

"They've bit me twice and torn up my curtains."

The Queen waved her hand for silence, and the crowd quieted. Barthelme stroked diamond and bit his lip. His dragons didn't really cause any more trouble than the wild ones did. "They're just babies," he said. "They'll behave better when they're grown."

"Barthelme." The Queen's silver eyes cut into him like the bite of frost. "How did you tame these dragons?"

"They're not tame," Hawthorne shouted. "They're monsters. They should be killed."

The Queen ignored Hawthorne and waited for Barthelme's answer.

"I-I just fed them when they hatched." Barthelme's throat tightened, and he whispered to Ruby and Sapphire, trying to calm them.

"Fed them with his own flesh and blood." Hawthorne's pronouncement fell on the fairies and rippled outward in shock. "That's why they're so savage. They've got a taste for fairy now, and won't stop until they dine on all of us."

The Queen whirled on Hawthorne. "How do you know this?"

Hawthorn crossed his arms over his chest and flapped his wings. "Haley told me. He was there when Barthelme did it."

Barthelme's heart sank. His best friend had betrayed him.

"No." Haley stepped forward. "I didn't mean that. I mean, it wasn't like that." He gave Barthelme an apologetic look and fell silent, his black wings fluttering in agitation.

The Queen frowned at Barthelme. "Did you, or did you not feed your blood to these dragons?"

Barthelme swallowed. His finger throbbed where he'd pricked it with his brooch. "Yes."

"A very unwise thing to do," the Queen said. She looked at the dragons on Barthelme's shoulders for a moment longer and then made her pronouncement. "They will have to be killed. I'm sorry, Barthelme."

Barthelme stumbled backwards. His wings beat in dismay. "You can't. They're babies."

"Hand them over," the Queen said. Already magic crackled from her fingers.

"No." Barthelme took to the air. He flew as fast as he could, straight up toward the crack of light that had already started to dim for the night. He'd always meant to go, but not like this. Not without a traveling cloak and provisions. No turning back now though. The other fairies buzzed behind him, anxious to catch him and bring him back to the Queen's judgment.

All three babies clung to him as he rose higher than he'd ever flown before.

Hawthorn caught hold of his foot and tried to drag him back, but Barthelme kicked him off. The crack loomed overhead, wider up close than it had looked from the ground.

With a shout of triumph, Barthelme zipped through the crack into the Realm Above.

A garbage truck lumbered to a clanking halt in front of Weldon's apartment. Weldon jumped to his feet as the garbage man reached for the garbage can. In a rush of guilt, Weldon shoved the cardboard into the can and headed upstairs.

The garbage man carried the can to the truck and dumped it in, ignoring the flattened piece of cardboard that tumbled to the ground and blew away down the street.

weldon stayed after school to take his English test. Mrs. Harper kept a close watch on him, and every time his pencil twitched away from the questions to the edge of the sheet, she slapped a ruler down on his desk, making him jump.

"Stay focused. No drawing," she said.

No drawing at home, and Weldon's Mama had talked with Mrs. Harper that morning about his test and about not letting him draw at school. But the more he tried to stop thinking about the pictures in his head, the more they took over his mind. He saw shimmers of gold dust in the ray of sunlight that came through the window. He heard fairy wings buzzing around the room, though he could not see them. And ever in his mind the sleek dragons flew, glimmering jewels, delicate wings, undulating bodies.

The words on the test paper blurred and became meaningless to him. He let his pencil clatter to the desktop and put his head in his hands.

"Are you sick, Weldon?" Mrs. Harper asked.

"Very," Weldon croaked. "I think I'm gonna die."

Mrs. Harper _tsked_. "You don't look that sick. Finish your test, and I'll write a note to your mother suggesting she take you to a doctor."

_What good would that do_? Weldon thought. He picked up his pencil and scribbled his answers on the test, making up whatever wild thing came into his mind.

He handed the test in to his teacher and accepted the neat envelope she gave him with his mother's name on it. He figured it would be too much to hope that it would say, "For Weldon's health and sanity, please let him draw." No definitely not. He stuffed the envelope in the garbage on his way out.

He walked to the front of the school to find Phillis waiting for him beside the flagpole.

"What took so long?" Phillis said.

"Test, stupid." He headed for home, ignoring the dragon he imagined entwined around each light pole. _Barthelme, I wish you were here_ , he thought to himself. He'd drawn the picture, calling his friend up from the seventeenth crack in the sidewalk.

He shook his head. Maybe his mama was right. Maybe he shouldn't draw anymore. The worlds of his pictures felt so much more real to him than this world. But this world was too drab and boring for him to stay in all the time. Dirty streets. Cracked sidewalks. Cars and more cars. Brownstone buildings that looked all the same and towered over him, making him feel very much like Barthelme staring up at a crack, wishing to see the sun, dreaming about touching the blue sky.

If he could fly like a fairy or a dragon, Weldon would leave everything below and fly up there, free in the clean air and sunlight.

Still dreaming of dragons and flight, he barely felt Phillis's tug on his arm.

"Weldon." Her sharp voice cut through his foggy mind. He realized she'd stopped walking, her eyes wide with fear. She stared ahead at the ground in front of the shoe shop window and pointed.

A skinny white boy lay on the ground, his shirt torn. Bruises ran along his sides and swelled his face. A mop of brown hair covered his head.

Weldon swore and ran forward. "You come to the wrong street," Weldon said. "What'd you have, a hundred bucks in your pocket or something?

The boy's eyes fluttered open and stared blearily at Weldon.

"Where your parents?" Weldon asked. "You got a cell phone to call them?"

"What? Cell phone?" The boy had a funny accent like he came from out west or something. Weldon noticed blood soaking the boy's right arm.

"Phillis. Go upstairs and get Alice. Tell her some white boy done got hisself beat up. Maybe she should call an ambulance. Don't know what he's doing here."

"Maybe he up and runned away from home," Phillis said without moving. "Could've gotten tired of lots of money and designer clothes and parties and eating sausage and eggs for breakfast every day."

Weldon tore off a scrap of the boy's tattered shirt and pressed it against the boy's wrist where the blood came from. He felt something hard beneath the makeshift bandage.

"Go get Alice now!"

"Fine." Phillis put her hands on her hips and stamped over to the stairs that led to the apartment above the shoe shop.

Weldon eased the cloth back and wiped away the swelling blood. A dragon bracelet wrapped around the boy's wrist, shimmering with diamonds.

Weldon gasped.

"They tried to take it," the boy croaked. "But it wouldn't come off." He rubbed a swelling lump on the side of his head. "That's when they beat me. But I can't take it off. I don't know how."

Weldon pressed the cloth back over the wristband. The muggers had tried to tear it from his wrist, but only succeeded in tearing his skin.

"What's your name?" Weldon asked. His heart hammered, and a taste of fear came into his mouth. This couldn't be Barthelme, the fairy from the Realm Below with Diamond, the baby dragon, still wrapped around his wrist. Barthelme was just an imaginary friend. A drawing. Weldon couldn't possibly have brought him to life with a few cigarette butts on the back of a cereal box.

The boy moaned and rubbed his head. "I don't know. My head hurts too much. I can't remember."

A door slammed, and Alice hurried over. She pulled out her cell phone. "I better call an ambulance. Looks like he got a concussion."

"No, wait." Weldon grabbed her arm. If they took Barthelme away, Weldon would likely never see him again.

Alice glared at him. "You help beat this boy up?"

"No, ma'am." Weldon shook his head.

"Then you got nothing to worry about." She punched the emergency number into the phone and started talking to someone on the other end.

Weldon knelt next to the boy and whispered. "What happened to the other two dragons?"

The boy sucked in a sharp breath. "Dragons?"

"Just tell me. Did the guys who hurt you take them?"

The boy nodded.

"What did the people who beat you up look like?" So, there had been two more dragons. Weldon's heart skipped a beat. It couldn't be Barthelme, but what other explanation did he have?

"Their skin was dark."

Weldon choked. "You gotta be more specific."

"One was really big. He had short hair with a design shaved into it. The other two were smaller. One had a gold ear ring. I don't know anything else. They were hitting me and kicking me."

"Did you hear any names?"

"No. None."

Sirens interrupted their whispered conversation, and an ambulance pulled onto the street.

"They gonna bring you to the hospital," Weldon said. "The doctors will take care of you. I'll stay here and look for Sapphire and Ruby."

"Who?" the boy said.

A Paramedic nudged Weldon away from the stricken boy.

"Get on home," Alice said. "Both of you. I'll go along to the hospital and make sure they get hold of his parents."

"What if he don't got no parents?" Weldon said. His mouth was dry, and he had to shove his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking.

"Of course he got parents," Alice snapped. "Now go home."

Despite Alice's urging, Weldon stayed and watched while the paramedics loaded the boy into the ambulance.

"This is stupid," Phillis said. "I'm going home." She marched off. Reluctantly, Weldon followed her.

He paced around the house for a while, thinking of all the guys in the neighborhood that might have attacked Barthelme. His descriptions had been vague, but Weldon couldn't think of anyone he knew that would have done it.

He just had to think things through. If he had found some dragon figurines made with real rubies or sapphires, what would he do with them? We'll, he'd keep them. Nothing would be more beautiful than seeing them on his windowsill with the sun shining through the twinkling bodies. But most people wouldn't. If the jewels were real, they'd have to be pretty valuable. Maybe worth as much as a whole year's worth of paychecks. Maybe. But if someone stole them, they couldn't just take them anywhere to trade them for money. Would they take them to a pawn shop like a stolen TV or toaster?

It couldn't hurt to look. But he couldn't go off and leave Phillis alone. Who knew what kind of trouble she'd get into?

"Hey, Phillis. Want to go to the store with me?" Weldon said.

Phillis looked up from her annoying PBS Kids TV show. "Why? You gonna buy me something?"

"Maybe. A candy bar." He still had a little bit of money left from his birthday.

"I want bubble gum."

"Fine." He retrieved his $5 bill from its hiding place under the couch. "Let's go."

Phillis switched off the TV, and they went out together. He led Phillis down the street toward the grocery store, knowing that Jim's Pawn Shop was on the ground floor of a couple of buildings before it.

While he walked, Weldon kept an eye on the street, searching the faces of people he knew and ones he didn't. It was a warm day, so lots of people were out, hanging around the stoops, chatting with their neighbors. A group of young boys played soccer in the alley between two of the larger buildings. Half of the older boys and men he saw either had shaved heads or gold earrings. Some were big, some skinnier. He was at a loss to identify any of them as Barthelme's assailants.

The usual smells of garbage and sweat and car pollution hung over the streets, mixing with the sounds of voices and motors and children laughing. All of it so thick that Weldon felt he was wading along a sludgy river that ran at the bottom of a towering canyon of buildings.

They came to the pawn shop, and Weldon steered Phillis inside. "Let's check it out."

"Whatever," she responded.

A brass bell rattled on the door as they entered the shop. A tall man behind the counter at the back looked up. "What you want?"

"Just looking," Weldon said. He wondered if there might be some stray art set for cheap enough he could buy it--like those ones advertised on TV that had the markers, crayons, colored pencils, and paints all in one case. Brand new, those sets were a lot more than five dollars. He'd have to hide it from Mama of course, but doubted he could.

A case full of porcelain dolls caught Phillis's eyes, and she went over to investigate while Weldon made his way past a row of televisions and DVD players. The shop smelled of old grease and cigarette smoke. The entertainment section gave way to some dusty old guitars and a trombone. Weldon abandoned them and went to the back counter.

"I want to get my mama something real pretty for her birthday. You got anything?" Weldon asked.

The shop owner spread his big hands out on the countertop and leaned toward Weldon. "What kind of money you wanting to spend?"

Weldon choked. If he said five bucks, there'd be no chance the owner would show him anything as valuable as jewel dragons. Weldon drew himself up and laughed. "What if I am a rich millionaire?"

"Not likely," the shop owner said. "Go look in that case." He pointed to a case hung with a shabby assortment of necklaces and earrings.

Weldon pretended to look at the jewelry for a moment then said, "Mama really likes dragons."

"Does she now? Well, look at this shelf here." The shop owner led Weldon to a small shelf that held statues of dragons wrapped around fake crystals. A large silver dragon curled around a three-tier fountain with its belly nestled in a treasure hoard.

"Wow," Weldon said, reaching out to stroke the dragon.

The shop owner slapped his hand away. "The price tag's hanging on it. You pay before you touch. And don't think about stealing none of them. You try and it will set off an alarm from here to the police station."

Weldon made a show of looking at the prices while he searched the shelf for any sign of a sapphire or ruby dragon. There were solid blues and reds, clutching fake jewels or wrapped around crystals. None of them looked like the dragons Weldon had drawn.

"Well?" the shop owner said.

"They're beautiful," Weldon said. "But I got to save up a little bit more money."

"I'm sure you do." The shop owner laughed, but kept a close eye on Weldon and Phillis until they'd left the building.

"Not very friendly, was he?" Phillis said. Her mouth was turned down in a frown, and she kicked a rock out into the street. "You really getting Mama a birthday present? It's not 'til next month, you know."

"I need to start looking now so's I can find something good." He didn't feel a bit guilty about telling Phillis that. He did need to find Mama a birthday present. He realized that even if the owner had the stolen dragons, there was no way he would show them to a kid. He'd probably sell them for thousands of dollars on ebay. Maybe if Weldon went to the library he could check on the internet and see if they were listed. Probably wouldn't be up there yet. They'd just barely been stolen that afternoon.

Weldon started for home.

"What about my bubble gum?" Phillis said.

He pivoted around and marched the rest of the way to the grocery store without talking. Finding the missing dragons was far more important than bubble gum, but he couldn't tell Phillis that. He couldn't tell anyone.

weldon drew dragons with his fork in the gravy on his plate during dinner. Whenever his mama looked over, he scooted his mashed potatoes overtop, destroying the picture. He ate little and thought a lot. Mostly about Barthelme. Part of him said that the boy the ambulance had taken away couldn't be a fairy. He was human-sized, and he didn't have wings.

"Hey, Phillis," Weldon said after Mama told him and Phillis to clean up the dishes and his father had settled onto the couch to watch TV. "You ever hear of a fairy without wings?"

Phillis snorted. "All fairies can take off their wings and put them back on. Everyone knows that."

Surprised, he almost dropped the butter dish into the sink full of soapy water. "Since when can fairies take off their wings?"

"Since forever. How else do you think they get their shirts on?" Phillis dumped a load of dishes into the sink and headed for her bedroom.

"Wait. You supposed to help wash them," Weldon said. Her door thump closed behind her.

"Take off their wings and put them back on," he muttered as he grabbed the damp sponge and started scrubbing the plates. "That just stupid. They don't take their wings off to dress. They wear clothes with slits down the back for their wings to fit out."

He froze, sponge in one hand and plate in the other. The hurt boy's shirt had a slit straight down the back. Weldon had thought the muggers had cut it or torn it that way when they'd attacked. The shirt had torn easily enough when Weldon had ripped a scrap free to stop the bleeding.

He set the plate back down in the suds. _Everyone knows fairies can take off their wings_. That was just crazy. But what if the muggers had torn off Barthelme's wings and taken those too, thinking they were fake fairy wings like the ones sold at the department store right next to the little girlie princess dresses?

Mama came out of the bedroom. "Do you have homework tonight, Weldon?"

"Yes, Mama, a little. You said to wait and do it with you." _You took my pencil, remember_ , he thought bitterly.

"Finish up the dishes and let's get going on it."

"Phillis is supposed to be helping me," Weldon said.

"For heaven's sake, she's just a little girl," Mama said.

"She old enough. I did dishes when I was her age." Weldon scrubbed the plate clean, put it in the rinse water, and started on the next one. His mother made no further comment about Phillis doing the dishes.

Weldon finished washing, drying, and putting the dishes into the cupboard with no help from his sister while his mother grabbed his backpack from where he'd dropped it by the front door.

She got out his math book and each one of his papers, checking both sides to see if he'd drawn anything. Weldon's dinner tumbled in his stomach as he watched her. He'd never get any artwork past her at this rate.

The phone rang.

Mama picked it up and listened for a moment. "It's Alice," she said, handing the phone to his father. Papa was best friends with Alice's husband before he passed away.

Weldon sat down at the table and opened to his math assignment. He didn't really have trouble in school. It was just so boring. He started in converting fractions to percentages as soon as his mother handed him the pencil. She hovered over him while he worked, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

His father mumbled into the telephone. Finally he turned it off and rose to his feet. "I got to go over and help Alice move some things around. She got a new foster kid."

Mama frowned. "I thought she decided she was too old for that a few years back."

Father shrugged. "She asked me to bring Weldon too."

"Why? Weldon's busy."

"He got all night for homework. What a few minutes over to Alice's gonna hurt?" His father walked to the door and motioned for Weldon to come with him.

Weldon bolted from the table and made it outside onto the stairway before his mother could protest further. He waited on the third floor landing for his father to catch up. "Thanks Papa," he said. "It's stuffy in there."

His father grimaced. "Well, someone stuffy anyway."

"Did Alice really ask for me to come over?" Weldon had never been up to Alice's apartment.

"She thought you might feel better knowing that kid you found weren't hurt too bad. She got custody of him 'till they find his parents."

"They couldn't find his family?" Weldon itched to go faster down the stairs, but had to keep back with his father's slow firm steps.

"He don't remember nothin. Not his parents. Not his house. Not his own name. Alice is hoping you'll make friends with him. He gonna be kind of out of place around here." His father reached the ground floor and opened the door out into the street. "But you better be more careful. Alice says you knocked her over yesterday. You could of broken her hip or something."

"It was an accident." Weldon still felt bad about that. He hoped Alice would forgive him. "Hey, how do you know about the mugging?"

"Alice told me. Said you found the kid. I didn't think your mama needed to know about it. She worries too much already."

Weldon was grateful for his father's silence when it came to Mama. They rounded the corner to the shoe shop. Alice's husband had owned the shop. Someone else ran it now, but Alice still lived upstairs. Weldon's father opened the door and started up the narrow staircase to her apartment. "Don't touch nothin in her house unless she tell you to, Weldon. Some of her stuff be delicate and valuable."

"Sure." Weldon ran his hand along the crumbling plaster wall as he climbed the stairs. The stairwell smelled like mildew. The rumble of traffic from the street echoed to the top of the stairwell and back down.

They reached the thin landing for her apartment, and his father knocked. Alice answered. She had even more gray hair than Weldon's father. Her hair was straightened, long, and feathery around her face. Gentle wrinkles curved around her mouth as if she'd spent her life with an easy smile on her face. Just the opposite of Weldon's mama who usually wore a tight frown.

"Hello, Alice." His father hugged the old woman and stepped inside.

"Come in, Robert," she said. "You too Weldon. But don't touch anything."

Weldon held up his hands where she could see them. "Not a thing you don't tell me to." Inside the apartment smelled funny like paint and turpentine. The smell was so strong Weldon felt like running straight back outside for a breath of fresh air.

The apartment looked much like the one where Weldon lived except it was cluttered with big rectangular objects covered over with tarps. There was barely a walkway from the door to the kitchen at the far side.

"Wow, are you remodeling?" Weldon said. He wondered if Barthelme lay buried away beneath one of the tarps.

Alice laughed. "No. It always like this. I work here. But I'm afraid I've stacked up a bunch of stuff in the second bedroom. I'll need some help moving it."

A toilet flushed, and the kid stepped out. He had a tight bandage around his ribs, and his face was still swollen. Both eyes were black. He rubbed his bandaged wrist. Weldon wondered if the diamond dragon was still wrapped around his wrist under the bandage.

"Hi," the kid said.

"Hey," Weldon echoed. He shuffled his feet and wondered what he should say. "I'm Weldon." _I drew you into existence_.

"I'm . . . " The boy's face screwed up into a frown.

Alice put her arm around the boy's shoulder. "I'm calling him Tom for now. Don't worry dear. I'm sure you gonna remember who you is after a good night's sleep."

"I'll get started on this here bedroom," Weldon's father said. "Where you want me to put stuff?"

"Oh, just over in the corner there." Alice waved toward an edge of the room that looked like it might be able to fit a little bit more stuff.

Tom shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a worried look around the room. "So, I guess you're the kid that saved me?" he said without looking straight at Weldon.

"I didn't do much," Weldon said. "Just found you, more like. Alice here called the ambulance."

"That's Mrs. Walker to you, young man," Alice said. "Why don't you go help your father a minute while I cook something for Tom to eat?" She led Tom over to the small square table and sat him down.

Weldon retreated to the bedroom, piled with dusty old spiral bound books. His father passed with an armload of them. "I guess books ain't too valuable or breakable," Weldon said, grabbing a stack from the middle of an old bed that sagged beside the wall.

He got them out of the room and halfway to the indicated corner in the living room when his foot snagged on a heavy box, and he toppled forward, spreading the books across the floor.

"Sorry. Really, really sorry," Weldon said. He started picking the books up, but stopped and stared at one that had flipped open. The inside of the book had no words, only paper covered in a drawing of a young girl. Someone had sketched the girl over and over again, from the front, the side, the back. The girl jumping. The girl sitting with her hands folded on her lap. Weldon turned the page and found a sketch of some mountains, and on the next page what looked like a city street.

Alice lifted the book out of his hand.

"Those are amazing," Weldon said. "Who . . . who drew all that?"

"I did of course." Alice gathered up the rest of the fallen books. "They my sketchbooks."

"Y-you draw?" Weldon felt like someone had taken an eraser to his insides. Somehow he'd thought he was the only one in the whole world who cared about filling up white space with images. His father brought out two more stacks of sketchbooks.

"Of course I draw, and paint. How else you think I gonna pay the bills?"

"You--" Weldon stared around the room. The odd rectangles took on the shape of paintings. Paintings hidden away beneath drab gray tarps--"pay the bills by painting?"

"Course. Why shouldn't I?" Alice put her hands on her hips and gave Weldon a challenging glare.

Weldon shuddered. "Mama said I'd end up a drunken bum. She took away my pencil and said I'd never pay the bills with useless pictures."

"Your mama said that?" A frown creased Alice's once peaceful face. "Robert, what this boy of yours talkin about?"

Weldon's father came into the room with the last load of books. "I can't help it, Alice," his father said, putting the books down. "It Rita. She thinks school more important than breathing. She want Weldon to be a doctor. But he keeps scribbling all over his homework."

"Scribbling?" Alice raised her eyebrows.

"I like to draw fairies and dragons," Weldon said. "I'm good at it."

"Fairies and dragons?" Alice said.

Weldon hadn't seen anything at all magical in the brief look he'd gotten of Alice's drawings.

"Dragons and fairies." Alice walked to a pile of boxes by the kitchen cabinet and picked a piece of cardboard up from the top of the stack. "Something like this?"

She turned it around so Weldon could see his own drawing on the back of the cereal box. It wasn't his best. It had been so hard to get the charcoal from the cigarette butts to make the lines like he wanted them. He blushed. "I can do better than that. I didn't have no pencil. I just--"

"No pencil? Charcoal then?"

Weldon shook his head.

"What?" Alice's voice was sharp.

Weldon rubbed his fingers together, remembering the feel of the cigarette butts crunching up in his hand. The smell of the burned end lingering in the air as he worked. He wondered how Alice had gotten the drawing out of the trash.

"Let me see that." His father took the flattened cereal box from Alice and sniffed it. "Cigarettes?"

Weldon shrugged. "Mama said I couldn't draw in the house. You know, like you not supposed to smoke in the house. They seemed to go together."

Alice laughed. "Robert. You can't keep an artist from drawing. It like keeping a fish from water." She took the drawing back from his father and propped it up against a cup on the counter.

"But how did you get that?" Weldon asked. "I put it in the garbage."

"It must have blown out when the garbage man dumped it. I found it under the shoe store window and wondered who made it." Alice emptied a can of tomato soup into a pan and added water.

Weldon swallowed hard. "Under the shoe store window. Right in the same place we found Tom?"

"Yes, come to think of it." Alice put the can on the stove and then leaned over to peer at the cardboard picture of the desperate Barthelme and his dragons flying through the crack into the Realm Above.

Tom had remained with his head resting on the table through this exchange. He looked like he felt terrible. Weldon hoped the doctors had given him some kind of pain medication.

At the mention of his name, Tom looked up.

Weldon coughed. "So Tom, welcome to 7th Street. I'm sorry you got beat up here. Actually most of the kids on the block are pretty nice. Must of been some guys from another street."

Tom managed a weak smile that looked more like a grimace on his swollen face. "Thanks."

"The doctors ain't going to make him go to school like that, are they?" Weldon asked.

"No. Not right away," Alice said. "The police still looking through them files of missing children. I'm sure they'll find his family soon. He won't be here long enough for school."

"Room done," Weldon's father said. "We better be going. Weldon still got homework." He moved toward the front door tugging Weldon along with him.

Weldon resisted. He felt bad leaving Tom, and besides, he wanted to get a look at some of Alice's paintings. "Can I come back tomorrow?" Weldon asked.

"You have to watch Phillis," his father said.

"She can come with Weldon," Alice said.

"You hate little children around your paints," his father countered.

Alice smiled. "I'll give her some watercolors and put her up to the table. Sounds to me like your children need a little bit of artistic education to go along with their academics."

"But Alice." Weldon's father rubbed his fuzzy beard.

"I insist. Now get. I have dinner to make." She got out a spoon to stir the soup.

"Rita gonna kill me," Weldon's father said. But he left the apartment without further argument.

Tom sipped the hot tomato soup. His face and ribs ached despite the pain medicine the doctor had given him. The pills made the whole world seem fuzzy to him, like a dream that would vanish as soon as he woke from his stupor. The doctor said he'd been lucky: No broken ribs, jaw, or nose. Just a ton of bruises and the lacerations on his wrist.

They'd wanted to cut the dragon band off his arm, but he'd fought hard to get them to leave it. The diamond dragon was the only clue he had to his past. In the end the doctor had relented, pushing it up higher on his arm while he cleaned and bandaged Tom's wrist. Tom had urged the doctor to wrap gauze over the band as well to hide it. He didn't want anyone else trying to steal it.

The kind woman who had taken him in propped open a couple of windows and started a ceiling fan. The apartment did smell awful, though she seemed to like the scent of her paints and thinners. When Tom had muttered about the smell making his head hurt worse, she'd responded with a smile and the fan.

"Don't worry bout all this mess," Alice said. "I decided it about time for an exhibit. I called the art studio from the hospital. The studio men a coming in the morning to get the paintings."

Tom tried not to look at the looming tarps that crowded the room. They made him feel closed in and anxious. Dust lingered on everything.

"I got to go shopping tomorrow and get you some clothes." Alice ate her soup while standing at the counter. There was only one chair at the tiny square table, and she'd put Tom in it. "It a long time since I has children staying here." She looked over at the wall where a photograph of a handsome older man hung. "Paul liked to care for foster children since we has none of our own. Only older fosters, of course. The little ones never would leave my paints alone."

Tom nodded, figuring Paul must be Alice's husband. Tom got up and shuffled over to the sink to wash his bowl and spoon.

"Let me do that," Alice said, taking the dishes from him. "You lie down and get some rest. But don't worry. I'm a give you plenty of chores when you feeling better." She waved him away from the sink, but Tom hesitated in front of the cardboard picture Weldon had drawn.

Smudges marred the scene so Tom couldn't make everything out. Weldon had said he'd put it in the garbage. It seemed to be a picture of a large group of people--people with wings--gathered around one poor boy. The people looked angry. They pointed and scowled at the dragons on the boy's shoulders. A third dragon was wrapped around the boy's wrist.

Tom's head pounded, and his vision swam. He pressed his hand against the diamond band around his own wrist and wondered if Weldon had made the picture before or after finding Tom.

"You better lie down," Alice said, wrapping a warm arm around his shoulders.

"But I don't know who I am. I can't remember anything." The more Tom struggled to remember how he'd gotten to this street, the fuzzier his mind became. The only clear thing he had was the dreadful feeling he'd done something horribly wrong before coming there.

"Give it some time," Alice said, leading him into the bedroom. "You had a rough day." She pulled back the covers of the bed and let him sit down. "No pajamas neither, and you'll be needing a toothbrush and comb." She _tsked_. "I'll go to the store first thing in the morning." She patted his shoulder and left, closing the door with a soft click behind her.

Tom lay down, overwhelmed by the throbbing of his head. His eyes wandered around the cramped room. Weldon and his father had cleaned out a good deal of stuff, but piles of cardboard boxes and dusty canvases still loomed against the wall. Tom felt an uncontrollable need to clean and keep cleaning until the whole apartment became open and fresh and airy. No more mysterious boxes, tarps, and eddies of dust.

He tried to get up, but his body refused. I'll do it in the morning, he decided.

Weldon waited at the bottom of the stairs for Phillis so they could walk to school together. His friends didn't seem to have to hang around with their little sisters day and night, but Weldon's mama worried too much and never wanted Phillis to be alone walking to or from school or even alone in the apartment while they waited for their parents to come home from work.

"Come on, Phillis. We'll be late," Weldon shouted up the stairwell. He could hear her slow steps still far above.

"Stop shouting." Mama came down, dressed for work. She'd catch the subway and be gone until dinner.

Weldon opened the door for her and let her out to the street. He was surprised to see Alice all dressed up, with her shiny black purse over her arm, waiting at the bottom of the stoop.

"Good morning, Rita," Alice said.

"Morning, Alice." Mama gave Alice a quick hug and started to walk away. "I've got to run. I'll be late."

Alice took up walking beside her. "Did Robert tell you bout the mugging yesterday."

"Mugging?" Mama stopped dead.

"Yes. A boy. Right outside my Paul's shoe shop. He got beat up pretty bad."

Mama's eyes went wide, and she pressed her hand to her mouth in alarm. "No. He didn't tell me."

Father had said he didn't want Mama to worry. Weldon wondered why Alice was telling her now.

"Don't worry none, dear," Alice said, patting Mama's arm. "I been thinking it over, and I'd like to invite Weldon and Phillis over to my place after school. That way I can keep an eye on them until the police catch whoever it was."

"Oh would you?" Mama sounded like Alice had just given her a big shiny gift on Christmas morning.

"Well . . . just for a little while." Alice's hand tightened on her purse as if she was suddenly nervous about her offer. "I sent the most valuable paintings off to an exhibit for a bit. And I think Phillis and Weldon will probably behave themselves."

"They will," Mama said, firmly. She shot Weldon a warning look. "Won't you Weldon?"

"Yes, Mama."

"And look after Phillis. Make sure she doesn't cause any trouble for Alice." Mama's watch beeped, and she jumped. "I've got to run."

"We'll be good. I promise," Weldon said.

Alice winked at him.

"Excellent," Mama said. "Thank you, Alice. I owe you one." She started off at a jog, anxious not to miss her train.

Phillis pushed open the door and came outside. "Hey, you supposed to hold the door for me," she said to Weldon.

Weldon stuck his tongue out at her and then looked guiltily at Alice. Alice pretended not to notice. "You two better get on to school. I'll see you after."

Weldon grinned. Excitement welled up inside him like a shaken soda can ready to burst. He'd been wondering how he would hide his visits to Alice's apartment. Father had given him permission, but Phillis would surely have tattled on him to Mama. Now Mama expected them to go over. Alice had to be the smartest person in the world.

Alice wrapped Tom's bandaged wrist in plastic and unwound the bandages protecting his bruised ribs so he could take a shower. He let the hot water cascade over him for a long time, until he couldn't stand the hard-water stains on the pink tile any longer. He got out and dressed in the clothes Alice had picked up from the Goodwill for him. They were a bit baggy, but a belt held the pants up, and he didn't mind the extra room in the t-shirt.

His head still ached, but his face felt somewhat better. It didn't look better though. He stared at his disfigured face in the mirror. "I look like a zombie." He poked at his swollen cheek and blinked his black eyes.

"It'll get better," Alice reassured him from outside the door.

Tom shuddered and stepped out of the bathroom. "I'd like to pay you back for letting me stay here. Can I clean the bathroom for you?"

"A boy, asking to clean the bathroom?" Alice squinted at him in disbelief.

Tom shrugged. He didn't want to offend Alice by admitting to the driving need he felt to clean the place up. "It just seems fair, you know. I want to help around here all I can. I'd feel so much better if you'd let me."

"All right. Fine," Alice said. "I have an illustration that needs finishing anyway." She opened the cupboard beneath the sink and showed him an array of cleaning supplies. "Vinegar works the best on hard water stains, but be very sure not to use the vinegar and bleach together. Mixing the two might just kill the both of us."

Alice sat down at a tilted desk in the corner and started work with colored pencils on a large rectangle of paper.

Tom went to work on the bathroom as if scrubbing away the grime would clear the confusion in his head and reveal everything he'd forgotten. Soon the pink shower tiles came clean. He followed that up with the sink and toilet. But when he'd finished with the bathroom, his head hurt worse than ever, and he still couldn't tumble enough thoughts together to come up with his own name. He felt certain it wasn't Tom, though.

The whole time, Alice worked with unbreakable focus on her artwork.

Tom got a clean washcloth and started in on his bedroom. He found that by restacking the boxes, which seemed to be full of knick-knacks and stray grocery receipts, he could fit them all in the small closet in the corner. He washed the window and scrubbed the walls and the floor.

The old blue curtains were covered with dust. He took them down and washed them in the sink and then hung them up in the shower to dry. Alice didn't seem to notice anything he did until his stomach let out the faintest rumble for food. Then she put down her pencils and jumped up.

"My goodness. It hours past lunch time. Why didn't you say something? I forget bout eating when I work." She peeked into the bathroom on her way to the kitchen. "Very impressive. I might have to keep you forever."

Tom stiffened.

"Joking, boy. Do peanut butter sandwiches sound okay to you?" She got out the bread, peanut butter, and jam without waiting for him to answer. "I guess I'd better call the police station and see if they found something useful," she said while she made up the sandwiches. "Your parents must of reported you missing by now."

"Maybe I've been gone a long time, or maybe they don't care," Tom said, slumping against the counter.

"Gimme your hands." Alice put down the butter knife and took his hands in her own, poking and rubbing, and holding them up close to her eyes. "You got soft hands. Never done no hard labor with them or played a musical instrument. Nothing to make no calluses."

She let go of his hands and stepped back to survey the rest of him. Tom shuffled uncomfortably under her gaze. His hands tingled where she'd touched him.

"Them clothes you was wearing when we found you was in nice shape, except where those hoodlums had torn your shirt. Not designer clothes, but they wasn't worn out none neither. Your tennis shoes don't got no holes. Them jeans got no tears or fading. You ain't got no extra fat on you, but you ain't skin and bones neither. All that tells me you ain't been on the street long. If you done run away from home, it be just before you come here."

She closed up the jars and put the knife in the sink. "Your accent ain't from these parts. Maybe you is lost from a tour group. Got off the wrong stop of the subway or something. Your parents are probably worried sick. Eat up now." She handed him a sandwich without a plate and took her own back to the desk.

"What about calling the police?" Tom said, just as she took a bite of her sandwich. She chewed slowly and then got up and went to the phone.

Tom sat at the table and ate his sandwich while she talked quietly into the phone. He couldn't make out the words. The sandwich tasted dry and bland. He had to get himself a glass of water to wash it down with.

The phone clicked as she set it down.

Tom looked up, hoping for some good news. Someone somewhere had to be looking for him.

Alice shook her head. "No one has turned in a missing person complaint that sounds like you since yesterday. The police done compared your picture to the national database of missing children. They ain't come up with no match yet, but sometimes it takes a little while."

She looked worried like she wanted to say something else to reassure him, but nothing came out.

Weldon knocked on Alice's old wooden door. Phillis fidgeted beside him. "I don't know why we got to come here. Ain't no muggers going to hurt us."

"Quiet, Phillis. Be polite, or Mama gonna make you sorry."

Alice opened the door and motioned for them to enter. "Come on in."

Weldon stepped inside and noticed at once that most of the biggest canvases were gone, leaving the room more spacious and open. Smaller canvases, boxes, and stacks of books still rested against the walls. To one side, a blank canvas as tall as Weldon and twice as wide stood held up by two easels. A chair and desk sat close to it with tubes of paint set out in a row next to a whole tub of brushes and a paint-stained palette.

"What you gonna paint there?" Weldon asked. He'd been hoping to see some of the larger paintings before they were taken away.

Alice lifted her chin and rubbed her hands together. "I'm a thinking you might teach me how to make them dragons."

An excited fizz ran through Weldon.

"Weldon's not allowed to draw dragons," Phillis said.

Alice turned on Phillis with a huff. "Your Mama make the rules at your house. I make the rules here, the first rule being you mind your manners, or I'll set you to work scrubbing my cupboards."

Phillis's eyes got wide and teary. Her lower lip quivered. "You-you can't."

"I sure can. And don't be thinking I'm gonna fall for that poor hurt baby-child routine. I knows you eight years old. Plenty old enough to treat other people with respect." Alice picked up several piece of white paper from the counter and spread them on the table.

Phillis bit her lip and stood looking around her, bewildered. Weldon had to choke down a fit of laughter. Phillis had needed a good putting in her place for a very long time.

"But don't you worry none, Phillis dear," Alice said, making her voice a little softer. "You get to paint too. I got brushes and paint all ready for you on the table. You gonna have a good time whiles you here."

Phillis inched over to the table and stared at the set of watercolors that waited there. Gingerly she lifted a brush and dipped it into a glass of water beside them.

"Where's Tom?" Weldon said, looking around. He hadn't seen or heard anything from Tom since he walked in. "Did the police find his parents?"

Alice shook her head and looked worriedly over at Tom's closed bedroom door. "He taking it pretty hard. I gave him some more pain medication, and he lying down. I hope he wakes soon enough for you and him to spend some time together. It might make him feel better."

"What if he don't have no family?" Weldon couldn't help feeling guilty. He should never have made Barthelme fly up into the Realm Above.

"Course he does." Alice handed Weldon a thick sketchbook. "Now, we can't do no painting until we work things out on paper. This be yours, and here be some nice pencils you can use." She gave him a little metal tin of art pencils and led him over to a desk at the edge of the room.

She moved aside a stack of colored pencils and an interesting drawing she'd been doing of a wolf pack. "Sit on down right here and draw away. You don't mind if I watch you? I'm hoping to learn a lot. I never thought of drawing dragons before."

She moved a stack of art books off a little stool and pulled it up close to him then sat down with a sketchbook of her own.

Weldon opened the sketchbook to the first page and lifted a pencil from the tin. He'd never drawn anything with someone watching him before. At least the apartment smelled better than it had the day before. It looked like someone had been tidying and dusting.

"Am I making you nervous?" Alice said.

"A little." Weldon licked his lips and let the pencil tip hover over the page.

"Oh well, carry on by yourself for a minute. I'm gonna go help Phillis. I can always look over your work when it done. You'll have to leave the sketchbook here, I'm afraid. Sounds like your Mama don't want you bringing it home with you."

"She'd kill me," Weldon said.

Alice laughed and went over to Phillis, leaving Weldon alone with fresh paper. He felt giddy. Only yesterday he'd thought he'd never be able to draw again. And now by a great miracle he had a whole book of blank pages and hours to just draw. He knew he should feel a little guilty about the fact that he wouldn't be there if Tom hadn't gotten beat up, but he was too happy to dwell on that. He put the pencil to the paper and started to draw.

Haley sat on the ground in front of Barthelme's house with his head in his hands. Every so often he'd look over at the tall building with its empty windows and quiet rooms. "This is all my fault," he moaned. He never should have told Hawthorne about how Barthelme tamed the dragons. Haley hadn't meant any harm by it though. He'd only wanted to impress Hawthorne with Barthelme's cleverness. But then everything had turned ugly, and Barthelme had flown away. Everyone had been shocked when he'd flown right up through the crack into the Realm Above.

Haley stared at the crack of light, high in the sky. No one went up there, not with such fearsome grumbling, crashing, and clanking sounds that tumbled down along with the light and rain. Haley edged closer to a clump of silver-green grass as if to hide himself from whatever monsters waited above.

A bitter taste lingered in his mouth, and he hunched his shoulders. He should go up and find Barthelme and apologize. He should carry up supplies, food, clothing, everything Barthelme might need to survive away from home. But every time he thought about making the flight, his heart froze in fear.

"What a cowardly friend I am," he muttered. "Barthelme needs me, but I can't. I just can't." He huddled closer to the grass and kicked at a dirt clod. "Nobody goes to the Realm Above."

Only two beings had ever come down from it: the dragoness and her mate. She might know what was up there. She might know how to help Barthelme, but dragons couldn't talk. What use would visiting her be?

An idea struck Haley, and he leaped to his feet. His wings buzzed, and he zipped home to get paper and ink. It took him an hour to write just the right words on the paper. He needed to know Barthelme was all right. He hoped to convince his friend to return to the Realm Below. They had a secret hiding place where they used to play, on an island in the middle of the lake. Barthelme could stay there with his dragons. None of the other fairies would know. Haley could bring him supplies to build a new house and garden for himself. That had to be better than trying to survive in the Realm Above.

With his message all written and rolled up tight, Haley went in search of the black dragoness. He found her in the most likely place. The junk yard. That's what the fairies called the place where they dumped all their left-over food, broken toys, and other things they no longer wanted. Mold grew crazy all over the junk yard, and mites and maggots flourished there.

Sure enough, the dragoness lounged on a discarded chair while her dragonlings crawled amongst the refuse, snapping up mites. Her mate, the ruby dragon, stopped tearing apart a piece of fabric and eyed Haley as he flew up and settled on the ground in front of the dragoness.

The dragoness blinked pearly black eyes at him and tipped her head sideways as if to get a better view.

"Greetings," Haley said. He felt foolish talking to the dragoness, but Barthelme had insisted the dragons could understand his words.

The dragoness blinked again and then started preening herself.

"My name is Haley. I'm Barthelme's friend. You remember Barthelme? He used to come visit you." Haley clutched the letter in his hand, hoping that the dragoness would somehow understand him.

The dragoness appeared to pay no notice.

"You see," Haley said. "The problem is Barthelme helped three of your little babies to survive. But he got in trouble for that, and the other fairies chased him off to the Realm Above." Haley pointed to the crack in the sky.

The dragoness let out a little trill and looked up.

"That's right," Haley said. "Barthelme's gone up there. He ran away to keep your babies safe. They're up there with him, a sapphire, a ruby, and a diamond. Beautiful little dragons. But I'm worried about them. I'm hoping we can get him to come back."

Haley showed the dragoness the paper he had rolled in his hand. "This is a letter for Barthelme. Will you take it to him?"

The dragoness stood on the chair, unfurled her wings, and looked into Haley's eyes. Her pearly orbs seemed to see straight into Haley's mind and sift through all his thoughts and emotions.

Haley shivered and for the first time believed the dragons really were intelligent, just like Barthelme had said, probably even smarter than fairies.

The dragoness nodded her head as if that were the case.

"He's my friend," Haley whispered. "And I hurt him. I didn't mean to, but I did. I have to make it up somehow, but I can't fly that high. Will you please take him my letter?"

The dragoness snapped at Haley's hand, making him drop the paper. But she scooped it up in her talons before it hit the ground. With a grand sweep of her wings she took to the sky, trumpeting goodbye to her mate and children.

"What does the letter say?" Tom's voice next to Weldon's ear made him jump and drop the pencil. He'd been so intent on drawing he hadn't heard Tom come out of the bedroom and walk over to the desk.

"It . . . um." Weldon picked up the pencil and twisted it nervously in his hand.

"Your other picture showed a little man with wings flying away. Now you've got this other guy with wings talking to dragons, and the dragon flying up the same way the first guy went. It seems to be some kind of a story. What's going on?" Tom rubbed his bandaged wrist and waited for Weldon to answer.

Weldon felt all weird inside. Maybe if Tom looked at Weldon's pictures he'd remember how he'd come to the Realm Above. Maybe he'd remember being Barthelme. What if he blamed Weldon for all his troubles?

"Th-they fairies," Weldon said. "The little people with wings, they fairies." He paused to see how Tom would respond to that.

"Fairies," Tom said in a flat voice. "As in make-believe, magic?"

"Yes. Right." Weldon caught his breath. He had to be crazy to think that the world in his pictures was real, that Tom was really a fairy. He let out a little laugh.

"Okay," Tom said with a shrug. "It's your picture. So what's up? What does that letter say?"

Feeling a little silly, Weldon started to explain about the Realm Below and its inhabitants. He told Tom about the two friends, Barthelme and Haley and the baby dragons.

"So you see," Weldon said. "Haley wants his friend to come back down where it safe, only Haley too frightened to go up and find Barthelme. He done sent the dragoness with the message."

Weldon closed the sketchbook and put the pencils back in the tin.

"So what happens next?" Tom asked.

Weldon glanced out the window, half expecting to see the dragoness hovering just beyond the glass, trying to get in and deliver her message. Only sunlight poured in through the window. No dragoness. No message.

"I don't know," Weldon said. "We gonna have to wait and see."

Tom laughed. "You're a good artist," he said when he'd finished chuckling. "But I don't know so much about the storytelling bit. Seems like you should have an outline before you begin."

"What you know about it?" Weldon looked at his watch and realized his mama would show up any minute. He'd rather not have her find out he'd been drawing, even if Alice said he could.

"I don't know." Tom frowned. He really did look awful. A tint of green had joined the black around his eyes. "I wish I could remember."

Weldon wished he would to. It felt like torture not knowing who Tom really was.

A knock rattled the door. Weldon jumped to his feet and shoved his sketchbook on top of a pile of other old sketchbooks. Alice let his Mama into the apartment.

"Mama, Mama, look." Phillis held up a couple of awful pictures of crooked houses and flowers larger than trees with a streak of blue across the top of the paper for the sky.

Weldon flinched. Mama acted delighted and told Phillis what a very smart girl she was. Then a thought seemed to cross her mind and she turned an accusing glare at Weldon.

Weldon held up his empty hands. "I didn't paint nothin. Tom and I been talking."

Weldon finished his homework and slumped on the floor next to the couch to wait for his father to finish watching TV. Weldon's mind spun as images flickered across the TV. Today had been the best day of his life. He could still feel the smooth sheets of paper against his hand and hear the scrape of the pencil while he drew. Old Alice had made his life bearable. He thought about the row of oil paints and the great big canvas waiting for a dragon to come to life on it. He hoped Alice would let him help paint it. He'd paint the dragoness rising from the Realm Below into Weldon's own world.

An image on the television caught Weldon's attention, and he gasped. It showed two dazzling jewel brooches, ruby and sapphire, in a box lined with black velvet. A newscaster was saying that they were part of the famous Bourbon Jewels, which had been kept in an unknown private collection for several decades. The owner of the brooches had just set them up for auction. Experts expected they would sell for several million dollars.

Weldon shivered. The pair of brooches didn't really look like dragons, but neither did the dragoness when she was all curled up. He'd been foolish to think he'd find those at a pawn shop. Maybe he was silly to think they had any connection with Tom at all, but he couldn't help feeling they did.

He spent a restless night with images of the brooches coloring his dreams. He woke up desperate to talk to Tom about them, but knowing he wouldn't get the chance until after school.

He paused overtop of the seventeenth crack in the sidewalk on his way to school. _Where are you_? he asked the dragoness in his mind. Of course the inhabitants of the Realm Below were all microscopic. Even if she had flown up, he wouldn't be able to see her. But somehow he hoped that the dragoness would have grown large like Barthelme had when he turned into Tom. But then how would the city react with a visible dragon flying around it, even if it was one that could fit on the palm of Weldon's hand?

"Come on." Phillis tugged Weldon's arm. When he didn't respond right away, she flicked her braids over her shoulders and stomped off. He let her go a ways and then started after her. Momma would kill him if he didn't make sure she got to school all right. He followed behind, keeping her in sight. After a while she looked back over her shoulder. He waved. She stuck her tongue out at him as she reached the school yard.

He quickened his pace to reach the school before the bell rang but something caught his attention down a side street. Three men stood on the steps of a dirty apartment building. One of them had the design of an eagle shaved into the hair on the side of his head. Two skinny guys stood next to him. They seemed uneasy and looked like they were waiting for someone.

The street filled with a rushing throng of kids walking to school and adults heading off to work.

Weldon pivoted down the side street and headed for the three men. A sense of danger settled over him, making his palms sweaty, but he kept going. He passed the men, shouting a greeting to a couple of boys he knew who were on their way to school. They waved back and then started shoving each other and fighting over whose Mama had packed the worst lunch.

Weldon darted into an alley near the apartment building where the three men stood. He eased his backpack to the ground and flattened himself against the brick, peeking around the edge so he wouldn't be seen. His heart drummed a rap beat in his chest. A sleek silver limousine pulled up to the curb. The chauffeur in a silver uniform and hat got out and walked around the front of the Limousine to talk to the men.

"I hired you to do a job," the chauffeur said, scowling.

"Not our fault," the biggest of the three said. "We would've had to cut off the kid's hand to get that last piece."

"Yeah, we tried," one with a gold earring said. "That stupid brat bit me." He held up a bandaged hand.

"Idiots," the chauffeur hissed. "It has a secret catch. Here." He handed them a crumpled paper with a diagram on it. "I conned the police into telling me that he's staying with some old widow lady in the apartment above the shoe shop where you left him."

"What?" the big man said. "I kicked him in the head so hard, he had to of died."

The chauffeur snorted in disgust. "No. You failed to kill him, and now the police are looking for you. He can identify you in a lineup, and you'll go to prison for a very long time."

The three men fidgeted.

"I'm going to give you one more chance," the chauffeur said. "You go back and finish the job. Bring me that diamond wristband, or I'll hire someone else to take care of you and the boy."

Weldon caught his breath. They'd kill Tom and probably Alice too. He snatched up his backpack and bolted down the alley to the street on the other side. He didn't know how long it would take for those murderers to get to Alice's apartment, but he knew he had to hurry.

As he ran, he wondered if Mrs. Harper would notice when he didn't show up for school and try to call Mama. But he knew it didn't matter. He had to save Tom.

He reached the shoe shop and dashed up the flight of stairs. "Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Walker," he cried, pounding on the door.

Alice opened it in her pink house robe. She rubbed her eyes and squinted at him. "Weldon? Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Mrs. Walker, you got to listen. I saw them men who hurt Tom. They was talking to this rich guy, and he done told them where Tom be and ordered them to come back and finish the job. They want Tom's wristband. It full of diamonds and very valuable, part of the famous Bourbon collection I think. They already got two brooches from him worth millions of dollars. I saw them on the news last night. Please Mrs. Walker, they gonna kill him."

Alice rubbed the side of her face. "You do have an amazing imagination. I see why your mama worries."

"No. It true. Let me in. Let me describe them brooches to Tom. Maybe he'll remember them."

Alice opened the door, and Weldon slipped inside. He couldn't believe it. The apartment was even cleaner than it had been before, and there was Tom on his knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.

Weldon rushed over and squatted down beside him. "Tom, they be coming for you. I heard them. They gonna kill you."

Tom dropped his wash rag and wrapped his hand around his bandaged wrist.

"That's right," Weldon said. "They want the diamond dragon. They already gots them other two brooches."

Tom gave him a confused stare.

"The Bourbon brooches. You must remember them."

Alice walked over. "I done heard about the Bourbon Jewels on the radio last night. The radio announcer said the owner be selling them. He can't have stolen them from Tom. Besides, why would a twelve-year-old boy be carrying around jewelry worth millions of dollars?"

"I don't know," Weldon said. "Ask Tom. Tom, you need to remember. Here, let me draw them for you." Weldon grabbed his sketchbook from the pile he'd stashed it on the night before and started drawing. The brooches were simple to draw, but beautiful, like the two baby dragons curled into little circles. Weldon grabbed some color pencils and shaded in the ruby and sapphire hues.

Tom put a shaking finger on the page and caressed the pictures. "Just like your baby dragons."

"That's it." Alice pulled the sketchbook away from the boys. "I finally understand your mama, Weldon. Your pictures ain't real. You can't draw things into existence. Art be important. It be beautiful, and you can make a career as an artist, but dragons and fairies do not exist."

"I'm not talking about dragons and fairies," Weldon said, shocked by Alice's vehemence. "I'm talking about thieves and murderers."

Alice walked to the front door and pointed outside. "Go to school. We'll talk about this when you get back."

"Mrs. Walker, you got to believe me," Weldon said as he retreated to the door. "Tom, tell her. Don't you remember?"

Tom shook his head with a puzzled look.

"Don't worry, Weldon." Alice patted his shoulder as he went outside. "Everything gonna be all right."

A sick lump turned in Tom's stomach as he watched Weldon leave. Weldon seemed so nice. Tom hated to see him treated like this. He wished he could get another look at the jeweled brooches Weldon had drawn, but Alice slammed the sketchbook closed and carried it off to her bedroom.

No matter, Tom didn't need the pictures to see the brooches clearly in his mind. To feel their cool weight in his hands. Weldon was right. Tom did recognize the brooches. But then Alice must be right too. The only way Tom could have ever held them or had them in his possession was if he had stolen them. Of course Alice hadn't gone so far as to accuse Tom of that, but the horrible guilty feeling that had nagged Tom since he woke up on the sidewalk intensified.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Tom said, rushing to the bathroom.

He came out later, sweaty and shaky and dizzier than before. _What have I done_? he thought. He found Alice working at the art desk, completely focused on the illustration she had to finish.

Tom slumped down at the table and watched her for a while. He wondered if Weldon was right and the men really were coming back for him. Maybe he could just give them the dragon, but it seemed sealed tight around his wrist. They might have to chop off his hand to get it. And Weldon had said the men wanted to kill him. If they came for him here, they'd probably kill Alice too. She'd been so nice, so good to him, taking him in and caring for him like a mother. Tom couldn't let anything happen to her, not because of him.

Still feeling sick and dizzy, Tom went back to washing the kitchen floor. When it looked better than it must have looked in years, Tom tackled the overflowing garbage can. He pulled out the old plastic sack, pushed the garbage down tight in it, and tied it off. He _floofed_ out a new bag and put it in the can. Then hefted the full garbage bag over the shoulder and headed for the door.

Alice looked up when the lock clicked open.

"Be right back," Tom said as he stepped outside.

"The bin's in the alley on the far side of the shoe store," Alice said. "Hurry back."

"Right-o," Tom said. He closed the door behind him and hurried down the stairs. The men were coming to kill him and take the diamond dragon. Tom was sure of it, but even with that knowledge Tom could still not remember who he was or why he might have stolen the jewels in the first place.

He reached the street and headed for the garbage bin in the alley. He knew he had to run, but had no idea where to go or any place he could hide. He had no recollection of the tall brownstone buildings or the streets that ran around their bases. When he strained really hard, all he could see was a silent silver world, the opposite of this place of crowded noise and grime. He liked things clean. He knew that much about himself. Clean and quiet.

He heaved the garbage bag into the bin. A flash of black at the base of the can caught his eye. He looked down to see a black marble had rolled between the can and the brownstone wall. A few feet away, he could just make out a scuffed chalk circle where some kids must have been playing marbles.

Tom lifted the lost black marble from the ground. He didn't need a marble. It couldn't save him from the men sent to kill him, but it seemed a shame to leave it lost and alone in the alley. He slid it into his pocket and started walking. He went to the right. One way was as good as any other. Either way would separate him from Alice and so assure her safety.

He reached a corner where a broken stoplight blinked a continuous red.

"Hey, where you going?" Weldon trotted up beside him.

Tom froze. Terror wrapped around him and held him in place. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?" he forced from his stunned lips. He'd hoped to get away unnoticed, but Weldon must have been waiting for him. Weldon knew Tom had taken the jewels. What if he went to the police?

"I was worried about you," Weldon said. "Alice won't believe me, but them men really be coming for you."

"I believe you," Tom admitted. "I just don't want them to hurt her. I've got to get away, so they'll leave her alone."

"We should go to the police," Weldon said. "They can keep you safe."

Tom shuddered. "They can throw me in prison for the rest of my life."

Weldon crossed his arms and looked hard at Tom. "Why would they do that?"

"Don't you get it?" Tom forced himself to start walking again. He darted forward across the street through a break in the traffic with Weldon right beside him. "Alice is right. Why in the world would a boy like me ever be carrying around jewelry like this?" He peeled the bandage from the diamond dragon and held it up in Weldon's face. "I can't remember anything else, but I remember having those brooches, holding them right here in my hands." He cupped his hands and felt again the press of the jewels against his palms.

"Wrap that back up," Weldon said. He grabbed Tom's arm and dragged him down a crowded street.

Tom put the bandage back over the dragon and let Weldon lead him. "Where are we going?"

"Somewheres safe," Weldon said. "A hideout I go to when I can get away from home, Saturdays and holidays and stuff when Mama's home to watch Phillis. So you think you stole the jewelry?"

Tom felt wretched all over again. "I must have. I mean, you don't really think I'm some fairy from an underground realm that brought my pet jewel dragons up with me?"

"I don't know what to think," Weldon said. He forced Tom through a crosswalk at another busy street and then into an alley between an ancient brick department store and the crumbling library. "But it don't really matter who you is and what you might of done, now do it? Keeping you safe be what matters."

Graffiti covered the alley walls in gross contortions of color and words. It made Tom's head pound until they came to a section of the wall that had been painted to look like a calm silver lake with ripples of rainbow color in the water. In the center of this lake, standing like a rectangular island, was an old wooden door, chained shut and locked with a padlock.

Tom touched the rough brick that had been painted so beautifully. "You painted this?" he asked Weldon.

"Sure," Weldon said. "Everyone makes their mark here." He reached down to a piece of dog poop on the ground in front of the door. Tom nearly threw up again when Weldon grabbed it and lifted it from the ground.

"Oh don't look so sick," Weldon said. "It just plastic." He turned it over, opened a compartment in the bottom and pulled out a key.

Tom swallowed. "I think all of my pain medication has worn off."

Weldon ignored him and unfastened the padlock and chain from the door. Then he pulled it open. The faint light from the alley revealed a shed-like room. Shelves lined the back and side walls, stacked with old library books and periodicals. A couple of beat-up street brooms leaned against the wall next to the door. A junky black swivel chair sat up against the back shelves. An old army cot lingered to the side with a ratty pillow and blanket.

Weldon ushered Tom inside and closed the door, then chained and padlocked it from the inside. For a moment the only light was the splinter of sunlight from the cracks around the edge of the door, then Weldon turned on a battery-powered lantern and set it on the shelf between the swivel chair and the cot.

Tom put his hand to his aching head. He'd thought Alice's place was bad. He must really have done something vile to deserve this punishment. For a moment he considered that being killed by the muggers would be a better fate, but Weldon seemed pleased with himself. He plopped down on the cot and held up a book, _Tom Sawyer_ by Mark Twain. "Tom," he said. "Welcome to your new hideout on Jackson's Island."

Weldon left Tom in the secret hideout and headed for school. He'd be late. Very late. He hoped he could get there before Mrs. Harper did anything about his absence. He'd been this late before on occasion, but then he usually had a note to check in saying he'd been at the dentist or something. He didn't have that now, so he slouched into the front office with only a story.

"Weldon?" The school secretary got out the attendance book to mark him there.

"I felt sick this morning. Mama took my temperature and told me to go back to bed. When I waked up again a bit ago, I felt better. So I figured I'd come on to school. Better that than sitting around the house bored all day."

The secretary gave him a disbelieving look and a slip to get into class.

Weldon went to his classroom and took his seat along-side the other students. He tried to concentrate on his schoolwork, but all he could think about were those three men who'd been sent to kill Tom. As soon as the bell rang at the end of school he rushed from the classroom.

Outside, he kicked a rock around the flagpole until Phillis wandered out along with the rest of the second graders. He grabbed her backpack and dragged her away, anxious to get home, wondering how he could ditch Phillis and take some food out to Tom. But of course he was supposed to stay with Mrs. Walker after school.

_Oh no_ , Weldon thought. Alice would be crazy worried about Tom by now. Had she called the police? What if she'd told them about the three men Weldon had seen? Maybe that would be a good thing, if the police found and arrested them.

They turned onto Alice's street. An ambulance and two police cars sat in front of Alice's apartment, their red and blue lights flashing. Weldon's heart dropped to his toes, and he ran toward them. Before he reached the shoe shop, paramedics carried Alice out of the building on a stretcher and loaded it into the ambulance.

Weldon stopped, and Phillis ran into him. "What wrong with Mrs. Walker?" Phillis cried.

Weldon hadn't been able to tell from that distance. "She not dead," he said. Her face had been uncovered. In the movies they always covered the faces of those who had died.

A crowd started to gather. The police talked to many of them, asking a lot of question. They had blocked off the stairs to Alice's apartment with yellow crime tape.

Weldon swallowed a lump in his throat. Tom had been so sure that if he left, the muggers would leave Alice alone.

"What we gonna do?" Phillis said in a shrill voice. "We can't go to Mrs. Walker's house now."

"We better go home," Weldon said. He took Phillis's arm and led her down the street. The ambulance rolled away. Weldon searched the faces in the crowd for the three men he'd seen talking to the chauffeur that morning. He found no sign of them.

After Weldon got Phillis inside their own apartment and locked the door, Phillis sat on the couch. Tears trickled down her cheeks. "I liked Alice," she said in a small voice.

Weldon sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. "It all right, Phillis. Alice gonna be fine. The doctors will take good care of her."

"Shut up!" Phillis shoved him in the chest and ran to her room, slamming the door behind her.

"Just trying to be nice," Weldon muttered. He emptied his backpack of schoolwork onto the kitchen table and started stuffing the pack with food and bottled water from the cupboards. "Phillis," he called through her closed door. "I'm going down to the store to tell Papa that they took Alice to the hospital. You stay here and keep the door locked. I'll be right back."

Phillis didn't answer. Weldon slung his backpack, heavy with food, over his shoulder and went out, locking the door behind him. The muggers had no reason to come to this house. Phillis should be all right for a little bit.

He ran down the block to the grocery store and found his father at the front, helping one of the checkers. His father looked up and scowled when he saw Weldon.

"You supposed to be watching Phillis?" His father used his key and fixed the register so it would take the advertised price on a roll of paper towels.

"She safe. Home in her room. But there was an ambulance at Mrs. Walker's when we got home from school." Weldon wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I didn't get there in time to see. I just saw them load her into the ambulance. They has her apartment taped off."

His father stepping away from the register and asked what had happened to Tom. Weldon followed is father away from the customers to a place where they could talk.

"He . . . not there," Weldon said.

"How do you know?" His father scratched the beard on his chin.

Weldon stiffened. He couldn't tell his father everything. Or maybe he should. But Alice hadn't believed him. No chance his father would either. "I didn't see Tom. I wonder what happened. I hope he not in trouble."

"I hope so too," Weldon's father said. "You best run straight home and stay with Phillis. You shouldn't of left her."

"I know," Weldon said. "But Mrs. Walker be your friend, and she don't have no one else to look after her, do she? I thought you might need to go down to the hospital and--" Weldon shrugged.

His father looked around the store as if wondering if it could carry on all right without him. "Of course I got to go," he said. "But you could of just called. Get home now and look after your sister."

"Yes, sir." Weldon took off out the door, but he didn't go straight home. Tom had to be starving by now. Weldon couldn't leave him locked up in that little shed without food and water forever.

Weldon sprinted across the road and over to the alley beside the library. He skidded to a stop in front of the brown door and knocked.

No one answered.

"Tom," he called, knocking harder. Still no answer.

Weldon tried the door and found it unlocked. Inside was exactly the way Weldon had left it, but Tom was gone. The _Tom Sawyer_ book lay open on the cot to the page where the boys on Jackson's Island get homesick and want to go home.

Weldon slumped onto the cot and stared at the book, wondering what it meant that Tom had left it open to that page. Had he gone home to Alice's house and been killed by the muggers, or had he remembered his real home and gone there? Weldon felt betrayed. Tom should have waited to say goodbye. He might at least have taken the time to chain the door shut and hide the key.

If Tom left the door open, maybe he intended to come back. Perhaps he'd just gone in search of a bathroom. Weldon always used the one in the library.

"Okay, he gone," Weldon said to himself. He emptied his backpack, setting the food and water up on the shelves. "But I don't have time to go looking for him." If Weldon's father stopped at home before going over to the hospital and Weldon wasn't there, he would be in more trouble than he even wanted to think about.

Weldon left the supplies, closed the door behind him, and ran full speed back home. He made it into the apartment just before his father started up the stairs.

Phillis sat on the couch, watching TV. Weldon dropped his backpack by the front door and sat down beside her. "Papa's going to the hospital to help Mrs. Walker," he said.

Phillis remained silent.

Weldon's father came in a few minutes later. He changed from his work clothes and grabbed a folder from a file cabinet in the bedroom. He set the file on the table and flipped through the contents.

"Shoe shop, mortgage, dental plan, will--please heaven don't let me be needing that--medical insurance." Weldon's father pulled out a couple of pages and returned the file to the cabinet. "You two stay in the apartment," he told Weldon and Phillis.

Weldon waited for him to leave and then switched the channel from PBS to the news channel. Phillis shouted in outrage.

"Shut up," Weldon yelled at her. "Ain't no one here to come to your side."

"I'll tell Mama and she'll ground you. Tomorrow is Saturday, and she won't even let you go out and play." Phillis stamped her foot.

"Fine. I don't care," Weldon said. "Tell Mama anything you like. I'm watching the news."

Phillis yelled at him again and tried to take the remote control. He held it up too high for her to reach. Just to be spiteful she went over and stood in front of the TV, so Weldon couldn't see the picture.

Weldon nearly lost his temper. He wanted to pummel her. He clenched his hands into fists, but instead of hitting her he unplugged the TV. "Well if I can't watch the news, than none of us is gonna watch nothing." He folded his arms and glared at Phillis.

Phillis burst into tears and ran away to her bedroom.

Weldon sighed in relief and plugged the TV back in. He got it working just in time to hear the local weather man tell him what he already knew. The day was muggy and hot.

He sat down and waited through half an hour of unhelpful news. But then they came to a story about how some crazed robbers had used an ax to hack open a poor widow's door and break into her home. According to Mrs. Alice Walker, three men with an ax and handguns had broken into her apartment and threatened her. When she told them she had nothing of value, they pushed her down, breaking her hip, and left without taking anything.

The news reporter finished up the story by telling how Mrs. Walker was a well-known painter and had, until the day before, kept some of her most valuable works stored in her apartment. The art pieces had just been moved to an exhibit hall and appeared to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Weldon shook his head in annoyance. They'd said nothing about Tom. No one mentioned the boy who had been staying with her, or that he had been beaten by the same three men only a couple of days before.

After a few more useless news stories the announcer gave an interesting update on the Bourbon Jewels that had recently been put up for sale. It seemed a wealthy business man named Wallace Stevens claimed that the brooches were his and had been in his possessions for decades until they went missing, along with the diamond wristband that completed the set, a day before they were put up for auction.

Stevens claimed that the jewels had been taken out of a safe in his penthouse, but could produce no proof that the penthouse with its state-of-the-art security systems had been broken into. He had filed no claims with the police department until after seeing the brooches up for sale.

Weldon bit his lip and stared in awe at the picture of the luxurious penthouse decorated all in silver. It had a private elevator, security cameras everywhere, and a thumbprint lock on the door. The penthouse took up three full floors at the top of a skyscraper called the Stevens Tower.

Mr. Stevens showed the news reporters the safe built into a room at the center of the penthouse. "I kept the jewels right here," he said. "I don't know how the thieves could possibly have taken them. I didn't know they were gone until I saw them on the news."

Stevens was a thin man, dressed in a smart gray suit. He had gray hair. Even his eyes were gray.

"Do you have any family who might have removed them without your knowledge or permission?" the reporter asked.

"No," Stevens said. "My wife passed away last summer and my son is off at a boarding school. I know it sounds like I'm making this up, but I assure you I'm not. I have documents to prove the jewels belong to me and have turned those over to the police. I expect the brooches to be back in my possession soon."

"What about the diamond wristband?" the reporter asked.

Mr. Stevens grimaced. "I'm hoping it will surface. It's worth more than both the other two pieces put together."

The reporter wrapped up the interview and turned things back over to the anchor. Weldon shut off the TV and paced the floor. He wondered if he should call Mr. Stevens and tell him where the stolen bracelet was. It seemed like the right thing to do. But that would get Tom in a whole heap of trouble, and Weldon didn't want that. Besides, how would he get such a rich man's number? And who would believe Weldon enough to even let him talk to Mr. Stevens. Stevens probably had secretaries who had secretaries, none of which were likely to listen to the word of a little boy.

Then again, Tom was already in trouble. People wanted to kill him to get the bracelet. He'd be safer with the police than on the streets alone.

Weldon stopped pacing and bit his lip. The chauffeur had told the three thugs that the police had given him the information about where Tom was staying. The police shouldn't be giving out that kind of private information. Especially about someone who had already been assaulted once. Maybe the police were in on the attempted murder. That diamond dragon was worth enough a whole police unit could retire after selling it and live in luxury for the rest of their lives.

Weldon couldn't go to the police. He wondered if Tom had returned to the hideout. He worried that the muggers had found Tom when he'd come out to go to the bathroom. They might have already killed him and taken the bracelet. Weldon felt awful, but he couldn't leave Phillis again. The soonest he'd be able to get away was in the morning, assuming Phillis didn't get him grounded.

"Phillis, you can have the TV," he called on his way over to the kitchen to start dinner.

Tom wandered the library. He kept his eyes open for the muggers, feeling nervous and exposed, but he couldn't stand to spend any more time than necessary in that horrible, dark, dirty room at the side of the building. It looked like it had not been used by the library staff for years.

He kept to the back edges of the library out of sight as much as possible. The librarian at the front desk had stared hard at him when he walked in. He figured he must look horrible with his swollen cheek and black eyes. He kept himself hidden away and hoped nobody else would notice his face.

The sky outside the window was growing dark when the librarian who had watched him come in cornered him back by the foreign language books. "The library's closing," she said in the kind of soft voice required for a library.

"Oh." Tom moved away.

"You got someplace to go?" The librarian asked. She had frizzy hair and silver-rimmed glasses.

"Of course," Tom said.

"You didn't go to school today." The librarian followed him to the front of the building.

Tom shrugged and took refuge in the boy's bathroom. Knowing he didn't have long before they locked the doors, he washed himself up the best he could. He wished for a shower and clean clothes and wondered if he'd ever get such luxuries again.

When he left the bathroom, the librarian was busy helping a line of people check out. He went to the glass doors at the front and scanned the street for the muggers before going outside. Not seeing any sign of them, he pushed through the doors and hurried down the steps. He hated to lock himself back in the shed, but he had nowhere else to go.

He turned on the lamp then closed the door behind him and chained it shut. When he lifted the lamp to put it on the shelf, he saw the food and water waiting for him. Weldon had been there. Tom opened a bottled water and took a swallow of the warm liquid. He felt bad that he'd missed Weldon and hoped Weldon wasn't worried.

He picked up an apple and wiped it off on his shirt, hoping it wasn't covered with any nasty bacteria that would make him sick. It was nice of Weldon to bring him food. He'd been hungry all day, and his ribs were throbbing.

He bit into the apple. It tasted like the sweetest food he'd ever eaten, not that he could remember eating anything except the bland things Alice had given him. He finished off the apple and grabbed a couple of slices from a smashed loaf of wheat bread.

"Some dinner," he thought, but it filled the ache in his stomach. He was grateful for that.

Before lying down on the cot, he shook out the blanket and pillow. Then turned the cot over on its side and beat all the dust out of it, and--he hoped--any crawling critter that had made its home there.

After lying down he stared up at the crumbling plaster on the ceiling. Again, for the hundredth time that day, he poked around in all the corners of his mind looking for answers.

He had to have had parents. There was no way he had just sprung into existence the day before yesterday. And no chance in a million that he was a fairy from the Realm Below. But he could see no faces in his mind. Hear no voices. He found no memory of scent or touch. As before, only an endless silver shroud covered his mind.

Lucky for Weldon, Phillis had forgotten all about the argument over the TV by the time Mama got home. Papa came in late, but he didn't tell Mama anything about the break-in at Alice's apartment. He just ate some food and went to bed, looking old and tired.

Weldon finished all his homework in record time that evening. He wanted nothing to stand in his way of going out in the morning. He had to find Tom and tell him about Mr. Stevens.

He got up early, dressed, and asked his father if he could go out and play. His father was in the middle of eating toast and juice for breakfast before going off to work. Mama wandered into the bathroom to take a shower. Fortunately she didn't have to work on the weekends. It was the only time Weldon had to enjoy himself away from the family.

"I don't know, Weldon," his father said, putting his toast down.

"Oh please," Weldon said. "It Saturday morning. Look out the window. All the kids are playing outside."

His father frowned. "Tom be missing. Alice said he runned away before them thugs broke into the house. She thinks they looking for him."

"Tom gone?" Weldon tried to sound surprised.

"I'm a worried about him," Weldon's father said. "And I'm a worried about you. What if them men find out you knows him?"

"Why should that make a difference?" Weldon's palms broke out in a sweat. He had to get out of the house.

"I don't know. I just wish the police would track them guys down." His father gulped the last of his orange juice and got up to leave. "I think you best stay inside, Weldon. There will be other days to play with your friends."

Weldon waited until his father was all the way down the stairs before getting the pencil out of the protective custody of his Mama's purse and scribbling a note on the back of a flyer from school.

_Gone to play with Quincy. Be back for lunch_.

Mama was still in the shower and hadn't heard his father tell him he couldn't go out. Phillis was still in bed. This was the only chance Weldon might get to escape.

Weldon slipped out the door and eased down the stairs. Making sure his father was nowhere in sight, he headed to the library. He crossed the street and stopped. Two men, a big one with an eagle shaved on the side of his head, and a smaller one with a gold earring, stood on the sidewalk in front of the library. Their eyes locked on Weldon.

Weldon turned around and took a step back the way he'd come, hoping they hadn't found Tom. Weldon couldn't go to the hiding place with the muggers so close.

"Good morning." The third mugger stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Weldon. Weldon tried to go around him, but the man grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back, and dragged him into the alley. "We looking for a kid named Tom. Someone say they seen you with him yesterday morning. Do you know where he at?"

"No." Weldon's arm felt like fire. "I know all the boys on the block and ain't none of them named Tom."

"Word is he in the library yesterday. And someone else told me you got a hangout round here. Where?" The mugger tightened his hold on Weldon's arm, making him yelp.

"I ain't got no hangout, and I don't know no Tom."

The mugger smashed Weldon up against the brick wall. The other two took up position to the entrance of the alley, blocking anyone's view from the street.

"You seen what we did to Tom's face. We gonna do the same to you and worse if you don't start talking now."

Weldon went numb inside. These guys would beat him up and kill him. He knew that. The only chance he might have of getting out of this alive was to show them where Tom was. Only a few yards away, hiding behind the door. Yet the fear and pain drained right out of him, leaving nothing but emptiness.

"Don't matter none what you do to me. I ain't never heard of this kid, Tom. You after money? I got four bucks and fifty cents in my pocket. That all. I had five a bit ago, but I had to buy bubble gum." He wouldn't mention it was for Phillis. Better that they never knew he had a sister.

"Liar." The mugger slammed him against the wall again, cracking his forehead against the brick. Sparks shot across his vision.

A chain rattled down the alley, and the hideout door creaked open. Weldon shook away the spots in front of his eyes and saw Tom step out.

"Let him go," Tom said, his voice low and calm. "He doesn't have what you want. I do." He lifted his arm so the diamond dragon flashed on his wrist. "I'll give it to you without a fight if you let him go."

"Not a chance," the big mugger said, moving down the alley toward Tom. "We taking you both somewheres nice and quiet. Then we'll see about getting that pretty bauble off your wrist."

"You'll have to catch me first." Tom bolted forward. He lowered his head and slammed like a bull into the man holding Weldon. The man took the blow right in the gut and stumbled away from Weldon.

Suddenly free, Weldon grabbed Tom's arm and headed back down the alley away from the muggers.

The big one laughed. "It a dead end boys. No way out."

Weldon ignored them. He knew there was a brick wall ahead. He also knew something else. He and Tom reached the brick wall. "Follow me," Weldon said. He moved to the side of the library and jumped, catching hold of a fire escape that hung down from a window on the library's next floor. He pulled himself up onto the steps. Tom followed.

The muggers yelled and came barreling down the alley.

Weldon pulled up the extended fire escape, so the muggers couldn't reach it. Then he started up the stairs to the higher landing. From there another set of stairs led down on the far side of the wall. In a moment the two of them were beyond the barrier and running again.

Tom couldn't believe Weldon had been willing to let the muggers kill him rather than tell them where Tom was hiding. That was just crazy. Listening behind the door, he'd been shocked and knew he couldn't let Weldon get hurt because of him. He hadn't expected to survive and get away. All he'd planned to do was give Weldon a chance to escape.

Now they both ran out the other end of the alley into the street. Weldon went straight across, right between the cars that were stopped for a traffic light. Tom followed, gasping for breath. Apparently he wasn't used to running so hard, though no memories came to confirm what his body was telling him.

Blood trickled from a cut on Weldon's forehead where the mugger had slammed him against the bricks. _That makes two of us with a big fat headache_ , Tom thought.

He sucked polluted air into his lungs, making them burn, and kept running. He was hard pressed to keep up with Weldon. "Where are we going?" he asked as they turned down another street.

Without answering Weldon led Tom down a flight of stairs into the subway station. He stuffed some money in a machine and got two tickets and a map. Then led Tom through the turnstile. Tom glanced behind them back up the stairs but didn't see their pursuers in the dozens of people moving up or down.

Weldon tapped the map against his palm as they waited on the platform. He glanced around at the gathering crowd. "Train gonna be here soon," he said. "Hey, put the bandage back over that dragon."

Tom had forgotten he'd unwrapped the dragon to get the thugs attention. He tore off a piece of the gauze and handed it to Weldon then wrapped the rest back over the wristband.

Weldon pressed the piece of gauze against his forehead until the bleeding stopped. Tom didn't think the injury looked too bad, but the sight of the blood had churned his stomach. The blowers meant to cool the station did little more than spread the smell of urine and body odor around the crowd that pressed in on him, which only made his nausea worse. He grew nervous in the mass of people.

"I don't think this is such a good idea," he told Weldon.

"We need time to figure out what we gonna do," Weldon said. "They can't kill us so easy right here in front of all these people. If we try hiding in some alley again, they gonna get us for sure."

The buzz of voices swelled around them. Tom shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to take calm even breaths.

The train rattled up and stopped with a faint squeal. The doors opened and more people poured out onto the platform. Weldon grabbed Tom's arm and maneuvered him through the crowd to the front car and dragged him on. They'd been swift enough to get a pair of seats together. The car filled up around them. A chime sounded and the doors closed.

"All right," Weldon said. "We done bought us a few minutes. Even if they saw us come down here, they won't have no way of knowing where we get off."

"They'll wait for you to go back home and me to return to Mrs. Walkers. What else can two boys our age do? We can't stay on the subway forever. Your parents will probably go nuts looking for you." Tom leaned against the back of the seat and tried not to smell the man next to him who reeked of rotting sea food. Across from them a baby on a mother's lap started to cry.

"You be right. We can't go back. We need to go downtown. I saw someone on the news that we got to find and talk to." Weldon unfolded the map and stared at it, biting his lip. "There a man named Mr. Stevens who claims the brooches and the diamond dragon were stolen from him."

"No." Tom's splitting headache doubled. "We can't go to him. They'll arrest me."

"We don't tell him you ever had them brooches. We tell him you found the diamond dragon and thought it just had fake diamonds until you saw him on TV. That wristband worth millions of dollars. He gonna be happy you returned it to him. As long as we with Mr. Stevens, we be safe. Them low-life thugs won't be able to get close to him." Weldon traced his finger along the map, planning a route that would take them into the wealthy part of the city.

"What makes you think we'll be able to get anywhere near him?" Weldon's plan terrified Tom.

"You got a better plan?" Weldon said.

Tom shook his head. He couldn't even remember his own name, how could he come up with a plan. The subway rushed on, carrying them into a whole different part of the city and way of life.

Weldon stared at the subway map on his lap. The blank edges of the paper taunted him. If only he had a pencil. He looked around the car. The fishy-smelling man slumped in his seat doing a crossword puzzle. The baby on the woman's lap continued to cry. Every seat was full, a trainload of people hurtling through an underground labyrinth.

Weldon considered asking to borrow the fish guy's pencil, then he noticed the inner core of a broken pen on the floor next to the seat. He reached down and grabbed it, careful not to touch the sticky slick of spilled soda beside it.

While Tom stared out the window at the subway walls flashing past, Weldon touched the tip of the pen to the paper. The dragoness had come up through the crack into his world and then vanished. How could he draw her here? What good would a microscopic dragon do? Barthelme could not return to his friend, Haley, as long as Tom sat on the seat beside Weldon.

For the first time in his life Weldon found himself unable to draw. The pictures were lost. The story confused. Tom was right, he should have had an outline, but how could he have predicted being attacked and almost killed? How could he have known old Alice would be hurt? How could he have imagined some rich man named Wallace Stevens?

Desperately he sketched out Haley sitting alone by the silver lake, his chin in his hands. Haley sighed and looked up at the crack from time to time. His wings fluttered then sagged. Silver dust settled to the ground beneath them. The grass, the lake, the whole Realm Below faded away, leaving Haley a lone figure at the edge of the subway map.

The subway stopped at the place Weldon knew he had to get off. He almost didn't have the courage to do it. He lurched to his feet at the last second and dragged Tom off with him. They climbed the steps, looking around in hopes that the three muggers hadn't followed them. A swarm of men and women in expensive suits filled the street. Sunlight flashed from the windows of skyscrapers. Heavy traffic flowed past. Fancy cars. Fancy clothes. Fancy people.

"I don't know about this," Tom said, rubbing his hands on his jeans. "What if this Stevens guy doesn't believe I found the dragon wristband?"

Weldon pushed his way through the crowd toward the tall silver building that peeked its head out above the other skyscrapers. "There no way some kid could of broken into his penthouse and gotten them jewels out of that safe. I don't know how you got them, but he can't possibly blame you for steeling them. It'd take a whole team of cat burglars to pull that heist. They didn't even set off no alarms or leave no trace they been there. Stevens didn't even know them jewels was gone until they showed up for sale."

Tom stopped. He gripped his wrist over the diamond dragon with his opposite hand and stared around at the buildings. "How are we supposed to find this Stevens guy?"

Weldon pointed to the silver skyscraper. It was exactly as he'd seen it on the news. "Stevens lives on the top three floors."

Tom frowned and stared up at the building. His eyes glazed over for a moment. Then he shook himself. "How are we going to get up there?"

"Don't know," Weldon answered. "But we gonna try." He didn't dare tell Tom how scared he was. He continued up the street. The salty taste of fear lingered in his mouth. He felt out of place there. The fancy people around him made him hyper-aware of his shabby jeans with strings dangling from the frayed bottoms, the tomato soup stain on his tight gray t-shirt, the dirt under his fingernails, things he'd never thought much of before.

To make things worse, he had a goose egg growing on his forehead, which had thankfully stopped bleeding. There was no hiding that, or Tom's battered face. People looked at the two of them, did a double take, then put their heads down and hurried on. No questions asked about the strange pair of boys. No one wanted to know.

They reached an intersection and crossed the street with a crowd of people. The Stevens Tower filled half of the next block. A sleek silver limousine pulled up to the curb in front of the main doors.

Weldon's heart jumped into his throat, and he froze, unsure where to run.

"What's wrong?" Tom said.

Weldon pressed his finger against his lips and edged away from the building, trying to hide himself in the throng of people. But he was too close to really be out of sight.

The chauffeur got out and went around to open the door. Weldon's arms went numb and his fingers tingled like they were pricked with needles. It was the same man, the chauffeur who had ordered the muggers to kill Tom.

Mr. Stevens stepped out of the limo and swept into the building.

Weldon's vision swam.

Tom thumped him on the back. "Breathe man."

Weldon took a gulp of air, turned around and headed away from the building. Tom followed, demanding an explanation. Weldon didn't speak until they'd crossed the street and put plenty of distance between themselves and the silver building. He pulled Tom around so they faced away from the street as the silver limo glided past in the flow of traffic.

When it had gone, Weldon took another deep breath and spoke. His voice came out hoarse and frightened. "That chauffeur, he the one that ordered them thugs to kill you. But I don't understand. Looks like he working for Mr. Stevens. Why would Stevens want you dead?"

"Maybe he knows I took the jewels." Tom's face went whiter than its usual white. "He doesn't want the police involved for some reason. Figures he'll get revenge himself."

"But the police be involved," Weldon said. "They done told the chauffeur where to find you at Alice's." Weldon's head throbbed. He felt like he held a handful of puzzle pieces, but none of them fit together.

"Well, we can't go to Mr. Stevens. Now what?" Tom asked.

"We can't go home," Weldon said. "They gonna be waiting for us there." Weldon shook out his hands, trying to get the blood flowing back through them. "Maybe we could run past the building and toss the wristband to the doorman?"

"But I can't take it off. Believe me, I've tried," Tom said.

"Right. Forgot about that." Weldon bit his lip. He didn't have enough money to get back on the subway. He didn't know this part of the city and had no idea where they could hide. He moved away from the street up against a black skyscraper with gold lettering on the front, listing some fancy-sounding attorneys at law. In contrast to the neat building, an old homeless man with scraggly gray hair and whiskers sat in the building's shadow. Weldon almost stepped on him before seeing him and had to swivel away at the last second.

The man looked up from playing a slow tune on a harmonica in hopes that someone would drop some money into the dented paper cup that sat out in front of him. When he saw Weldon and Tom he stopped playing. "Ain't you two a sight?" he said in a gruff voice.

Weldon fingered the bump on his forehead and thought about walking away, but Tom squatted down beside the old man. "I like your music. I don't have anything to give you but this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out something smooth and black.

Weldon grabbed it away from Tom and found himself holding a black marble that shimmered like a pearl. "Where you get this?" he said, shocked. "You know what it be? It a pearl. The pearl dragoness, don't you see?" Shivers crept up and down his spine.

"It's not a dragon," Tom said, snatching the pearl away from Weldon. "It's just a marble. I found it in the alley by the shoe shop." He dropped it into the old man's cup. "It's not worth anything, but it's all we have."

The old man set the harmonica down on his ragged pants and fished the black pearl out of the cup with calloused dirt-streaked fingers. "A pearl," he said, twisting it around to catch the sun. "A blessed pearl. Thank you."

Weldon swallowed his anger at Tom for giving away the pearl. But he couldn't help feeling a sense of horrible loss. The dragoness would never return to the Realm Below. Her mate and her children would never see her again.

"It's really just a marble," Tom said to the old man. "Weldon has this imagination thing going on. He should probably see a therapist, but I doubt we'll live long enough for that to happen."

"Shut up." Weldon punched Tom in the shoulder.

The old man glanced with watery eyes back and forth between the two boys. "You kids in some kind of trouble?"

"Naw. We ain't in no trouble at all," Weldon said. He grabbed Tom and tried to pull him away. But the old man got to his feet and shuffled along beside them.

"There's a youth shelter down four blocks that way." The old man pointed away from the spectral silver building toward a grubbier part of town. "You'll be safe there for a bit. No need to keep getting beat up. A friend of mine named Jonas works there. Buys me coffee every morning. Just tell Jonas Old Baxter sent you. Thanks for the pearl. I'm going to keep it with my most precious things."

Baxter halted and let Weldon and Tom move away. Weldon couldn't stop shivering. The dragoness had come up into this world after all. She'd been in Tom's pocket for who knew how long. She'd come to help, but now she was trapped in Baxter's wrinkled hands.

"Lucky we had that dragon of yours," Tom said, heading in the direction Baxter had pointed. "At least she helped us find somewhere safe to go. You know, like her note to Barthelme to come back and hide in a safe place. She just saved us."

"Shut up. You don't even believe it is the pearl dragoness." Weldon balled his hands into fists and moved away from Tom. Of course, Weldon knew it was just a marble Tom had given Baxter. It couldn't really be anything else. But it had appeared in the alley after Weldon had drawn the black dragoness flying into the Realm Above.

"I wish I could shrink myself and go down into the Real Below," Weldon muttered.

Tom didn't say anything in return. He just kept on walking through the streets teeming with people.

Tom's head throbbed. Every bruise on his battered body ached. The hot city streets couldn't keep the cold fear at bay. He glanced over his shoulder at the silent silver tower, the source of his fear. It felt familiar to him, like a nightmare from his deepest and most constant dreams. But he couldn't put a name to his fear. He could find no coherent memory of ever being there except the blanket of silver that covered his aching mind.

His glance lasted less than a second before he accidentally slammed into a man's briefcase, knocking it to the ground.

"Watch where you're going," the man shouted.

"Sorry," Tom said, reaching to pick up the fallen briefcase. But Weldon grabbed his arm and dragged him away, moving as quickly as they could through the mass of people.

The thunderous footsteps and rumble of cars on the street made Tom dizzy. He doubled over. "I don't think I can make it four blocks."

"Course you can," Weldon said. "We already come half way. It just a bit farther." He tugged on Tom's arm. Tom straightened and stumbled along behind Weldon.

Four blocks down they found no sign of a youth shelter.

Tom leaned against a building and closed his eyes while Weldon went inside a café and asked directions. The smell of the hot city sidewalk made breathing difficult. On the inside of his closed eyelids Tom saw silver--a flat sheet of silver that twisted and curled into the muzzle of a gun, pointed right between his eyes. He caught his breath and froze. Cold terror gripped him. A man spoke to him, low and menacing. Tom couldn't make out the words.

"This way." Weldon's voice shattered the nightmare.

Tom's eyes flashed open, and the city reappeared around him. "Weldon?"

"You don't look so good," Weldon said.

Tom brushed sweat from his face and wiped it on his sweat-soaked shirt. "I-I almost remembered something."

"What?" Weldon scratched his frizzy hair and waited while Tom choked out an answer.

"A gun. Pointed at me."

Weldon glanced back and forth across the crowded city street as if expecting the gunman to appear at any moment. "We should go. Can you make it just a bit farther? The phone book says it two streets south of here."

Tom nodded, and then wished he hadn't moved his aching head so quickly.

"I hope this place is safe," Weldon said. "Old Baxter don't seem too reliable. He was right about it being four blocks this way, but he didn't say nothing about going two streets over."

"You didn't exactly give him a chance," Tom said. "You weren't very friendly to him."

Weldon shrugged. "Sorry. I was surprised to see the pearl."

They didn't talk again until they stood in front of a two-story red brick building with white trim. A small sign in the lower front window by the door said it was the Safe Home Youth Shelter. They both hesitated outside, staring at the forbidding black door.

"What you think?" Weldon said.

"At least it's not silver." Tom scanned the street for any sign of the muggers or the chauffeur that hunted them.

"If we go in there, they'll probably want to contact our parents," Weldon said.

"Good," Tom said. "Your dad seems like a nice guy, and your Mom's probably worried crazy by now."

Weldon grimaced. "I gonna be in the all-time-biggest trouble of my life."

"They can come get you and take you home safe."

"I ain't never gonna be safe again," Weldon said. "Look what them guys did to Alice. If they see where I live, they might attack my family too? What if they hurt Phillis?"

Tom swallowed the nausea that welled up in his throat. The edges of his vision grew fuzzy. "I can't go any further, Weldon. I'm sorry." He staggered toward the door. Weldon got there first and opened it for him.

Weldon helped Tom slump onto a wooden bench in the entry hall. The shelter smelled like hot bread just out of the oven, making Weldon think of home. The low sound of soft conversation wafted to them. "Stay here," Weldon said.

He walked down the short hall and found it emptied into a living room with soft blue carpet, a stone fireplace, and a mismatched collection of a comfortable-looking couch and chairs. Two black girls sat on the couch chatting, and a white kid hunched in a chair by the fireplace, listening to an MP3 player and rocking back and forth.

The girls stopped talking and looked up at Weldon when he entered.

Weldon shoved his hands in his pockets. "Jonas around?"

"In the kitchen." One of the girls, who wore a pink shirt and cute braids, pointed to a doorway across the room.

"Thanks." Weldon flushed as he walked past her. She was probably three years older than him, and he couldn't help liking her.

He stepped onto the tile floor of the kitchen and blinked in surprise. Someone had painted the kitchen walls orange and mauve, and they contrasted brightly with the yellow cupboards, black stove, and white fridge. A man with short, spiky, blond hair pulled two loaves of bread out of the oven and set them on top of the stove next to a big pot of vegetable soup. He wore a striped white-collar shirt with the front half unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up.

He set the oven mitts down on the counter, wiped his hands on his jeans and turned to look at Weldon. He half smiled, making him seem like a nice guy, but his eyes were serious and looked straight through Weldon to see everything about him.

Weldon took a step back. "B-Baxter said come here. My friend, he sick." He pointed over his shoulder. "We need some . . . somewheres safe."

Jonas blinked and said nothing.

"These . . . these guys is trying to kill us." Weldon felt compelled by Jonas's silence to try to explain. "The police too. They done told them where Tom was staying so they could attack Tom's foster mother. They already almost killed Tom. They know he can identify them. They be coming back to finish the job. Please, don't call the police. Don't call my parents. My sister. They gonna hurt my sister. She a brat but--" Weldon fell silent.

Jonas's face remained calm and friendly. His eyes softened. "What's your name?"

"Weldon."

"Where's your friend?"

"Bench." Weldon pointed back toward the front of the building. "He not doing so well. Already been to the hospital. Doctors patched him up. But he don't remember nothing, and he didn't bring no pain pills when he ran."

Jonas switched the oven off and led the way back to the bench. Tom looked awful with his head leaning against the wall. Black circled his closed eyes, and his right cheek was purple and swollen, contrasting with the waxy paleness of the rest of his face. He still had the bandage around his wrist, and from the bulge beneath his t-shirt around his ribs as well.

"Hi, Tom. My name's Jonas. Welcome to Safe Home," Jonas said in a soft voice.

Tom opened his eyes and looked up at Jonas without speaking.

"So, can we stay?" Weldon asked. If Jonas turned them away Tom wouldn't survive long out on the street.

Jonas frowned. "No parents? No police?"

Weldon nodded. "I could call my parents. Tell them I be alive and safe. But I can't go home."

"Ever?" Jonas's eyes turned spooky again, like living lie detectors. He said the one word and then waited for Weldon's answer with that insistent wait that had made Weldon blurt out so much before.

Tom's hand tightened around the bandage on his wrist. Weldon shuddered. He wanted to trust Jonas with the whole story, but he didn't know Jonas yet, couldn't tell how he would respond. And Tom obviously wanted Weldon to keep his mouth shut. Weldon wondered how long Tom would spend in prison if convicted of stealing the Bourbon Jewels.

Weldon shrugged. He'd said too much already.

Jonas waited another moment and then spoke. "What about you, Tom? You willing to call your parents?"

Moisture glinted at the edges of Tom's eyes, and he closed them to hide what Weldon thought had to be tears. He made no attempt to answer.

"He got kicked in the head," Weldon spoke for him. "Concussion, the doctors said he don't remember nothing. Not even his own name. The police couldn't find him on no missing persons list, or runaways, or kidnapped. He got no record to say who he is. They put him in foster care, but then they let out where he was staying and the killers done come for him."

"Killers?" Jonas asked.

"Yes killers," Weldon said. "I heard them talking. They want him dead. I warned him and he hid, but they figured out I knew and they caught me--" Weldon fell silent. He was talking again and couldn't figure out how Jonas managed to make him do it. Next thing he knew he'd blurt out about the jewels, and Tom would go to jail. Weldon snapped his mouth shut, gritted his teeth, and retreated out the front door to the street. He hated to abandon Tom, but he'd do Tom more damage if he stayed.

Tom opened his eyes when he heard the door slam. He sat up and realized Weldon was gone. He couldn't quite figure out why. His head had throbbed too much, distracting him while Weldon spoke to that Jonas guy who was in charge. Tom got to his feet and reached for the door.

"I think you should stay," Jonas said softly. "I can give you some aspirin and a place to lie down."

"Why'd he leave?" The world swayed around Tom, and he pressed his hand against his forehead. Jonas looked like a really nice guy.

"My guess is that you're in some kind of trouble with the police, and your friend took off before he said something that would make someone want to turn you in."

Tom wavered and caught himself with one hand against the wall. He hadn't felt this bad at Alice's house, but then he'd had pain killers and hadn't run all over the city. "I-I've got to go out and talk to Weldon. He hasn't done anything wrong except try to help me."

Jonas opened the door. "Tell him I won't ask any more questions for now. And I'm not going to call the police no matter what he says. I've heard it all before. This home is a safe place, no matter what kind of trouble you're in."

"Thanks," Tom said. "I'll tell him if he hasn't run off too far, and I can still find him." Tom took a step outside and then hesitated. "Have you got a pencil and paper?"

"Sure. Why?"

"He'll come in for that, I think, no matter how scary you are."

"Me, scary?" Jonas sniffed the air. "I think my soup's going to boil over. Go get Weldon. Lunch is ready." He strode back toward the kitchen.

Tom shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun and looked up and down the street. Weldon appeared at the far edge of the building as soon as the door clicked shut. Tom got his legs working and walked over to him. "You didn't have to leave."

"I don't want to get you in trouble," Weldon said. "That Jonas, he gets me talking. I don't know how."

"He says he won't ask any more questions, and he won't call the police. I think he just wants to help." Tom motioned for Weldon to come with him back inside.

Weldon shook his head. "You go in. I'll just find an alley somewhere. I don't trust him."

"You have to trust someone."

Weldon grimaced.

"He has a pencil and paper you can use." Tom stepped back toward the door.

"I can't draw. I done tried on the subway." Weldon pulled the subway map out of his pocket and showed Tom the sketch of Haley sitting alone. "I've lost the story and can't find no way to go on."

"Here." Tom took the map and flipped it to the opposite side. "Give me the pen."

Weldon fished the broken pen from his pocket. Tom took it and sketched two little stick men with wings walking into a square house with a window and door. Then he drew a couple of swirls perched on the roof. "There, you see?"

"What . . . in the world?" Weldon said.

Tom huffed and pointed at the stick figures in the picture. "These are Barthelme and Haley." He pointed to the swirls on the roof. "This is the dragoness. She's led Barthelme back to Haley, and Haley has taken Barthelme to the safe house. Now come inside before I pass out."

Weldon glanced up to the top of the Safe Home building as if he were looking for the dragoness perched there. "But the dragoness be trapped by Old Baxter in his precious things collection."

"Then come inside and find a way to free her." Tom's head pounded.

A girl in a pink shirt poked her head out the front door. "Hey you two, get your booties in here. It time for lunch."

Weldon hunched his shoulders and shuffled toward the door.

The dragoness's pearly black scales glittered in the sunlight as she sat on the old man's palm with her tail twined around his fingers. Her dainty head swayed back and forth to the music of his harmonica.

She stretched her wings and sniffed as a woman tossed a half-eaten hamburger into a garbage can several yards away. With a chirp she took to the air and went after the food, diving into the can and tearing the paper away from the burger with sharp talons. The feast was more than a dragon her size could want, and she glutted herself until she heard the old man stop playing.

She zipped back to his hand. He rubbed her neck with his finger, and she crooned beneath his affectionate touch.

"My little pearl," Baxter said. "Where have you been? It's been years since I lost you. Fancy you turning up here. Trouble must be on the way."

The dragoness chirped at him and pecked his hand.

"Yes, we always did have such grand adventures. Come on then." The dragoness curled to a ball in his palm and let him put her into his pocket.

He pulled her out later, under the shade of an overpass. She fluttered around his head and settled onto a torn sleeping bag next to Baxter. Baxter gave her a whiskery smile and worked a loose chunk of cement up from the ground. From the hole beneath, he pulled out a muddy sandwich bag and dumped the contents out next to the dragoness.

She let out a happy chirp and settled herself onto a shiny watch. Baxter brushed aside a coil of fishing line with a hook and picked up a Vietnam veteran service ring. The dragoness stuck her head up through the ring and chirped.

"Yes, I still have it," Baxter said. "Now wasn't that a time? You and me, my lucky pearl. Wouldn't have gotten out of there alive without you."

The dragoness let out a plaintive cry and pulled her head back out. She flapped her wings and jumped up and down on the watch.

"All right. All right," Baxter said. "So you've been off helping other people. Those boys looked like they were in a good deal of trouble."

The dragoness took to the air, flew a few feet and then came back.

Baxter sighed. "I suppose you have to go and help them then."

The dragoness cooed, wrapped her talons around the watch and tried to fly, but flap as hard as she might, she couldn't lift it from the ground.

"You really good," Sonia said.

Weldon jumped and instinctively covered the picture he'd been drawing. Sonia was the cute girl with the braids who'd called them in to lunch. The other girl was named Taneshia.

During lunch Weldon had found out that they'd both been at Safe Home for a week after the friend they'd been staying with had been kicked out of his apartment. They were attending a nearby High School and both planned on graduating. Jonas had helped Sonia get a job at a local clothing store. As soon as Taneshia found work, they planned on sharing an apartment as roommates.

Sonia's compliment about Weldon's drawing warmed him. He felt better after having put pencil to paper, like somehow he and Tom might find a way out of the mess they'd fallen into. Of course having a full stomach and safe walls around him probably helped too.

Tom hadn't eaten much. Jonas gave him some pain medication. Tom now lay on the couch in the living room watching the History Channel on TV.

The other boy, Victor, had eaten in silence and retreated back to his music.

"Is Victor all right?" Weldon asked Sonia.

Sonia looked through the doorway to where Victor sat with his eyes closed swaying back and forth to the silent music.

"He's trying to come clean off some heavy stuff. Feels pretty rotten right now. Never has talked much, but he's harmless." Sonia picked up Weldon's empty soup bowl and headed for the sink. He'd gone straight to drawing after eating and hadn't cleaned up yet.

Weldon jumped up. "I can do that." He tried to take the bowl from Sonia, but she dodged him. "Of course you can. Don't worry. If you stay, we'll make sure you get your share of clean up duty."

Weldon slumped back in his chair and fingered the pencil.

"Speaking of not talking, you pretty quiet yourself. You want to tell me how you two got beat up?" Sonia asked.

Weldon shook his head. "Can't."

"Gang?'

"No."

"You got family somewhere?"

Weldon gritted his teeth. Sonia's attention made him feel good. No girl ever seemed to notice him before, but he knew better than to tell her about Barthelme and the dragons. She'd think he was crazy.

"Weldon," Tom called from the other room just in time to rescue him from Sonia.

He went to the living room and found Tom sitting up straight, pointing at the television. It seemed the story of the Bourbon Jewels in the news had caused the History Channel to dig up an old documentary about them.

Weldon watched in disbelief as the show unfolded the history of the jewels. According to the documentary, the Bourbon Jewels were made for a French nobleman, Louis Adalhard de Bourbon, in 1789. But Bourbon refused to pay the artisan who set them in the broaches and wristband and had him hung as a thief instead.

Just before the artisan went to the gallows, he put a curse on the jewels, saying that anyone who owned them would die a bloody death. Bourbon was later executed by Napoleon Bonaparte on false charges.

Since that time everyone who owned the Bourbon Jewels had met an untimely end. The last known owner was trampled to death in a theater fire twenty years before. After that the Bourbon Jewels were sold at auction to an unnamed buyer and vanished from public view.

"Until now." Tom clenched the bandage around his wrist.

"That gotta be why Mr. Stevens never made it public that he the one what bought them," Weldon said. A lump grew in his throat. Cursed. Bloody death.

The man on the TV turned his attention to the most valuable piece of the set, the diamond wristband. He showed a picture of it opened and then one with it closed. "Bourbon," he explained, "was worried that the diamond piece might be stolen from his wrist, so he had the artisan create a hidden catch. Once closed on the wrist, the diamond wristband could only be opened by pressing a certain point with something long and thin like a hairpin."

Tom leaned forward and mouthed, "where?" But the man on the documentary said that the secret of the hidden catch had most likely died with its last known owner.

Weldon let a swear word drop from his lips. Then noticed Jonas staring at him and Tom from a bedroom doorway.

Tom turned off the TV with the remote and leaned back against the couch. Weldon reached into his pocket and pulled out the core of the broken pen.

"Got the beds made for you in here," Jonas said. "Tom, why don't you come in and lie down? You can have the bunk bed on the end there."

Tom got up and headed for the room. Weldon pressed the thin pen into his hand as he brushed past.

"You ready to call your parents now?" Jonas asked Weldon.

"Um . . . okay," Weldon said. "I ain't got no cell phone though."

"There's a phone on the counter in the kitchen."

"Uh, I didn't see it. Can you show me?" Weldon had to get Jonas away from Tom for a while, so Tom could try to find the catch. Weldon hoped the broken pen would be skinny enough to go down in between the diamonds like a hairpin.

Jonas walked into the kitchen, picked up a phone and handed it to Weldon. Then he sat down at the table and waited.

Weldon took a deep breath and dialed his home number. He didn't know what to say, but he didn't want his parents to think he'd been abducted or killed.

The phone rang and continued to ring until a recorded voice came on and said the party he was trying to reach was unavailable. Weldon hung up and bit his lip. "No one be home. Well, maybe my sister, but she not allowed to answer the phone."

"Your parents may be out looking for you," Jonas said. "Do they have a cell phone?"

"Mama does, but I don't have the number memorized. She always say not to call her at work unless the house on fire or someone bleeding to death." Weldon set the phone down, disappointed. As afraid as he was of getting in trouble, he kind of wanted to hear the reassuring sound of his father's voice.

"Do you have any other family you can call?" Jonas said. "Aunts, uncles, grandparents? If your parents are looking for you, they may have given other family members your mother's cell phone number."

Weldon knew he had a couple of aunts somewhere. His mama never talked to them much. Weldon had met them once at his grandmother's funeral. Weldon shook his head. "No one, sir."

Jonas scratched his bare chest where the shirt hung open. "Do I look like a sir to you?"

Weldon blinked, but could think of nothing to say in response.

"Don't call me sir," Jonas said. "I'm far too young for that. At least I like to think I am. You can try calling your parents again in a little while."

Weldon stared at the phone. An idea came to him. "Do you have a phonebook?" His father had told him the name of the hospital they'd taken Alice to. Maybe now she'd believe him about the jewels and the men out to kill Tom.

Jonas opened a drawer below the phone and pulled out a fat phonebook. Weldon flipped through the pages until he found the hospital's phone number.

"Who are you calling?" Jonas asked. He still sat slouched on the chair with his feet up on the table. Casual. Unthreatening, but the thoughtful look in his eyes still gave Weldon the creeps.

"Alice," Weldon said when he realized Jonas wouldn't stop looking at him until he answered. "Tom's foster care lady. A friend of my father. She's in the hospital now. Hurt when they came after Tom."

Jonas nodded, then got up and went to the fridge. Relieved to have Jonas not looking at him anymore, Weldon dialed the number and asked the hospital desk to transfer him to Alice Walker's room.

"Hello." Alice's voice sounded strained and feeble over the phone.

"Alice. I mean Mrs. Walker, it's Weldon." Weldon's hands grew sweaty.

"Weldon, Honey, where you at? Your mama worried sick."

"I'm with Tom. We's safe. Are you all right? I tried to warn you--"

"Yes dear, I know. You told me, and I didn't believe you. They want that diamond wristband." Alice stopped talking, and Weldon could hear her breathing heavily on the other end of the line as if talking was a strain.

"I hope you ain't hurt too bad," he said.

"A couple of broken bones and a few bruises. The doctors tell me I'm gonna recover. Fortunately them thugs didn't touch my hands. I can still draw and paint. I'm supposed to go home tomorrow, but . . ."

"I don't think they gonna bother you again as long as Tom stays away. Me too. I can't go home. They know my face, and if they see me and find out where I live . . . I don't want nobody touching my family." Weldon didn't need to look up to feel Jonas's eyes back on him.

"Weldon, you need to go to the police," Alice said. "Let them help you."

"Can't. Got to go. Just tell my parents I'm safe, at a safe house. It be guarded by fifty ninjas and--"

"And a half dozen dragons," Alice finished his sentence and laughed.

"May I talk to her?" Jonas said. He'd come over to stand beside Weldon with his hand out, waiting for the phone.

Reluctantly Weldon handed it over. He wanted to hit the end button, but Jonas had him in his gaze. Weldon bit his lip as Jonas took the phone and started talking.

"Hi Alice, my name is Jonas, George Jonas, and I run a youth shelter downtown. I got food and beds for Tom and Weldon and doors that stay locked at night. The boys are a little beat up and a lot scared, but they're safe here. Do you have a cell phone number for Weldon's mother?"

Weldon moved to the table and paper and pencil waiting there for him.

"No? Okay, if she contacts you, will you let her know that Weldon is trying to reach her? I'll have him call again around six. If his parents could be home then, that would be great." Jonas paused, listening, then glanced over at Weldon. "Yes. He's been drawing. . . . Yes, he is good. I'll let him have all the paper he wants." Another pause. "No. Tom hasn't been cleaning, but we keep this place pretty neat. Not much for him to do but rest and recover."

Weldon lifted a clean sheet of white paper to the top of the pile, covering his picture of Baxter and the dragoness.

Jonas hung up the phone and walked over.

"You didn't tell her where we are," Weldon said. He felt relieved and a little sad. If his father showed up at the Safe Home door right then, he would be glad to run and give him a big hug. When Weldon thought about his family, he felt scared and empty. Homesick.

"Did you think I would?" Jonas sat down at the table. "I know trusting someone isn't easy. There are certain laws I have to follow, but I promise I'll tell you when I have to do something that you don't want."

Weldon sketched a set of fairy wings on the paper and wondered if Tom had figured out how to open the wristband yet, or if he needed more time. "I ain't never been away from home before."

Jonas nodded. "Kind of hurts, doesn't it?"

"Yep."

"You should know that I gave Alice my name. This house is listed with the social services along with my name. If Alice calls them, they can tell her where you are."

Weldon grimaced. "That's sneaky."

"I think you want to go home. We just need to find a way to get you there safely." Jonas ran his hand through his spiky hair.

"What about Tom?" Weldon added Haley to the wings and a shimmer of silver fairy dust around him.

"I have a friend, a psychologist who may be able to help him get his memories back. I can make an appointment tomorrow if Tom wants to go."

"Couldn't I just talk to you?" Tom stepped into the kitchen. He had his hands jammed in his pockets.

"If you'd like," Jonas said, "but I'm just a councilor, not a psychologist."

Tom shrugged.

Weldon drew a dark crack at the top of the paper, and Haley looking up at it. All the baby dragons swarmed around him. The dragoness's mate sat on his shoulder. Haley's wings buzzed, and he took to the air, flying higher than he'd ever dreamed of going before, followed by all the dragons. The dragoness had not returned. Somewhere in the Realm Above, Barthelme needed their help.

Tom came up beside Weldon. Beneath the table, he shoved something hard and round in Weldon's pocket. Weldon reached in and felt rough diamonds under his fingers.

"Haley has found his courage at last, I see," Tom said.

"Yep." Weldon fingered the diamond dragon in his pocket. "Now what?" he asked Tom. Jonas still sat at the table, but appeared not to have noticed the secretive exchange of the wristband. Now Weldon had it, he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Somehow they had to get it back to Mr. Stevens without getting caught.

Tom traced Haley's path up to the crack in the paper. "I liked your plan. It's time for Haley to fly."

Weldon figured he meant run past and throw the wristband to the doorman. The doorman would have to turn it over to Mr. Stevens or be caught as a thief. Weldon set the pencil down and got to his feet. "I need some fresh air."

Tom moved to go with him. Weldon shoved him down into the seat. "You stay and talk to Jonas like you wanted. I ain't abandoning you, just stepping outside for a bit."

Weldon walked out before Tom could protest. He didn't want to have the cursed diamonds in his pocket any longer than necessary. He just hoped that giving it back to Mr. Stevens would clear Tom from the curse. If Stevens had it, maybe he'd call of his hired thugs.

Tom's heart still beat hard from the time he'd spent in the bedroom, jabbing the core of the pen down in between the diamonds on the wristband, twitching every second in fear that someone would come in and catch him with the stolen jewels. It felt like eternity before he found the place that released the catch.

The moment it clicked open and the wristband fell away from his arm, he felt a great weight lifted off him. The fear, dread, and hopelessness he'd felt since he woke up on the sidewalk in front of the shoe shop eased.

Now as he watched Weldon leave the house, carrying the cursed diamonds, some of the fear came back to him. If the muggers caught Weldon, they'd kill him. If the police nabbed him, Weldon would go to jail for stealing the jewels. Tom winced and rubbed the picture of Haley, brave Haley, trying to help his friend. Tom felt he should have gone with Weldon, but Weldon was right to make him stay. Tom couldn't run fast enough or blend in with his face all beat up.

"Weldon's a good artist," Jonas said. "Can I see?"

Tom handed Jonas the paper. "He has imaginary friends. Except sometimes he thinks they're real. He believes what he draws really happens. Tom looked down at the picture of Old Baxter and the dragoness trying to lift a watch.

"Is that Baxter?" Jonas slid the pile of papers over and leafed through them.

Tom watched the story drawings tell the tale of the dragoness with Baxter and his treasures.

Jonas's brow furrowed in a deep frown. His sharp eyes looked straight at Tom. "How does Weldon know about Baxter's ring? He doesn't wear it anymore. Weldon couldn't have seen it, but it's here . . . in exact detail, including the Vietnam Memorial depicted on the side."

Tom shrugged. "It's like magic. I don't know how he does it. His mom thinks he's crazy and won't let him draw anymore. Even Alice started thinking he was nuts, and she's an artist."

Jonas smoothed the papers on the table and set them aside. "Maybe Baxter was wearing it. Maybe." Jonas continued to frown for a moment then his face softened. He pushed his rolled shirt sleeves up higher and lifted his feet onto the table, tipping his chair back on two legs. "You wanted to talk?"

Tom shook his head. "I don't have anything to say. I can't remember who I am. I just flat can't remember."

"Nothing? Or nothing you want to talk about?" Jonas's face stayed neutral, and he looked over at Tom's hands as if aware that his gaze could be disconcerting.

Tom swallowed. He'd said he wanted to talk to Jonas, he'd said he wanted to find out about his past. He felt like he should want to find out. Of course he should. Who wouldn't want to know their own name? But it was like standing on the outside of a door in his mind, reaching for the handle, terrified, sweating, his ears ringing, knowing a horrible monster waited on the other side to devour him.

"Tom, look at me," Jonas said.

Tom met Jonas's gaze and found his eyes gentle and kind. "Take a deep breath then let it out slowly."

Tom did as he was told, mentally backing away from the door. As long as he looked at Jonas, he wouldn't have to look into the past.

"Good." Jonas ran his hand through his spiky hair and took a deep breath himself. "Now, it's clear something terrible has happened to you. But you don't have to deal with that right now. Think of your life as a DVD. You don't need to watch the movie in order. You can go to the menu and find the scene you want. Not the scene that scares you, but one that feels good and happy. Okay?"

Tom tried to find a good memory in his mind. All he saw was silver and the barrel of a gun. He wrung his hands. "There isn't anything else. Just . . . silver and a gun. And I feel like I've done something very wrong. Weldon and I walked by the Stevens Tower, and it scared me. Bad. It felt like I'd been there before, but not in a good way. In a bad way, like a prison or something."

"The tower scares you?" Jonas asked in a soft voice.

"Yes."

"It is silver."

Tom shivered. "I guess so."

"All right. Let's move to a different scene. I'll help. You are fair-skinned with blue eyes and brown hair. You've got a mid-western accent. Educated middle-class grammar. Which means you probably didn't grow up around here. Your parents might have recently moved to the city, or you ran away and came here on your own. So let's leave the tower behind. Leave this city behind. See if you can picture somewhere else. Suburb perhaps. Nice houses? Neat green lawns? A park with grass and a play area?"

Tom closed his eyes and tried to picture a park with green grass. It came to him--a big lawn, a mound with green Astroturf on it, stands holding bouquets of flowers. He turned away from the flowers and saw a silver coffin, suspended over an open grave.

He gasped.

A man's voice spoke to him. "You can't stay here forever. Come on. I haven't got all day." The man grabbed his arm. Tom pulled away hurt and angry.

The sudden jerk flung him out of his chair and landed him on the floor of the Safe Home. Jonas jumped to his feet. "Tom, are you all right?"

Tom got up and brushed himself off, wishing he had an MP3 player like Victor and could tune out the whole world, retreat into the music and never come back. He wrapped his arms around himself and sat back down on the chair.

"You remembered something. Do you want to tell me?" Jonas asked, coming to stand beside Tom.

Tom shook his head. "No more. I don't want to remember."

Weldon walked the city streets back toward the silver tower. Even at a distance it sparkled above other buildings. But Weldon forced his gaze down from the tower so he could keep a wary eye on people in the streets around him. He felt jumpy, like a secret agent afraid of being followed. Afraid of being seen. On a mission with dangerous men after him. He watched for the three muggers, the limousine, the chauffeur. He kept his hand in his pocket, wrapped around the diamond wristband and thought about Barthelme and the little diamond dragon that refused to fly. She'd wrapped herself around Barthelme's wrist and wouldn't let go.

Weldon wondered what would happen to her after he got the wristband back to Wallace Stevens. She would miss Barthelme and be confused by having a new owner. The other two baby dragons were probably desperately lonely locked up in whatever safe they'd been put in. Maybe Stevens had them back already, imprisoned in that safe up on the top floors. Poor little babies. They wouldn't understand why the Realm Above had to be so different than the Realm Below.

Weldon stopped before crossing the last street to the tower. The day had slipped past, and the sun hung in the west, reflecting in firelight-yellow from the building's silver windows. The street smelled like sweat, hot car tires, and busy people. He could taste the urgency of the evening rush on his tongue and hear it in the honking horns and crunch of footsteps.

He held the diamond wristband so tight it pricked him like the clasp that had drawn Barthelme's blood and given the diamond dragon life.

As Weldon waited for the light, he noticed a man with an eagle shaved into the hair on the side of his head, lurking not far from the Tower entrance. Weldon looked away, hoping not to be noticed. His heart did a back flip. They'd guessed he would come here and were waiting. The mugger with the golden earring leaned against the building on the other side of the entrance, giving the pair the look of gargoyles. The one with the earring looked up, locked eyes with Weldon, and started forward.

Weldon turned and ran, watching in front of him for the third attacker. They'd trapped him that way before. He couldn't let them do it again. He saw no sign of the other man. Perhaps he'd stayed back at Weldon's neighborhood in case the boys went home.

Weldon ran, breathing hard. The muggers had to get across the street. That gave him a slim head start. But what to do with it? He couldn't run straight back to Safe Home and endanger Tom. He dare not try to hide in an alley. They might catch him and no one would see them kill him.

He could drop the wristband for them and hope it would be enough to make them leave him alone. But he doubted it would be. The chauffeur had been insistent that they kill anyone who could identify them.

_They gonna kill me_ , Weldon thought. He dodged between pedestrians, running flat out, never stopping, pushing his way through where people blocked his path, looking at the buildings, searching for some safe place.

_A bloody death_.

He had the cursed wristband. Cursed. If Barthelme hadn't used his blood to tame the dragons, he'd be home right now in his own house, dreaming about going to the Realm Above but never really doing it. The Bloody Jewels.

Weldon dodged into an apartment store, hoping his pursuers hadn't seen him. He didn't dare waste time looking behind him to see how close they were. He made for the men's clothing department and pushed into the middle of a round rack of suit pants. Then ducked down.

He heard the sharp tap of footsteps rush past, pause for a moment and then double back. He remained frozen in place, his heart beating so loud he was sure the muggers could hear it. An urge to peek out between the pants to see where they'd gone came over him. He refused to move. Not a muscle. Not a rustle of clothing. No sign. No trace.

Another heavy set of footsteps joined the first. No sales lady's feet those.

"I don't see him."

"I'm sure he came in here."

"Probably doubled back out the door behind us. Let's go."

The footsteps moved away. Weldon stayed put. The diamond wristband made a hard lump in his pocket.

Tom sat at the table and watched Jonas make stir fry for dinner. The vegetables sizzled in the pan, and Jonas whistled to himself as he stirred them. A big pot of rice simmered in the rice cooker on the counter. The comforting smells of cooking helped ease Tom's shock at seeing that coffin.

The harder Tom tried not to think about it though, the more his mind stayed centered on the scene in the graveyard. "It was my mother," he blurted out finally.

Jonas turned away from the stove to look at him, his wooden spoon gone still. He didn't say anything, just waited for Tom to explain.

"I saw my mother in a coffin. She's dead. Cancer I think." He knew it was true, but the rest of his memories refused to come back to him. Or maybe he wouldn't let them. "She loved stir fry."

"Ah," Jonas said, accepting Tom's revelation. He went back to stirring.

Tom watched him, grateful that Jonas hadn't gone all mushy and said how sorry he was. Jonas's stoicism allowed Tom to maintain his composure. "What about you?" Tom asked. "What are you doing here? With a face like yours you could be an actor or something."

Jonas's back was too Tom as he stirred the vegetables a little more vigorously than before. "I could. I've been in two Broadway shows, actually. Bit parts. But . . . ."

He set the wooden spoon down and checked the rice then continued talking in a steady but softer voice. "My parents kicked me out of the house when I was fourteen. I'd been doing drugs and had stolen a lot of money from them. I survived the streets alone for almost a year before the authorities caught up with me and put me in foster care."

Tom blinked in surprise and leaned his elbows on the table. Jonas's calm grown-up face showed no signs of his messed-up childhood, except maybe his eyes.

"I danced around foster care for years. Never stayed anywhere for long. Ran away more times than I can count." Jonas started stirring again, faster and faster. "Found myself in a youth shelter one day when I was seventeen. Rock bottom. Given up on life. There I met Mr. and Mrs. Arnold." The stirring slowed into firm methodical strokes of the spoon, turning the vegetables while they simmered in the pan.

"They treated me like a man instead of a child. Helped me get on my feet. Found me a job. Helped me into an apartment. Convinced me to go back to school. I worked hard then, because I wanted to make them proud of me. Graduated. Went on to college. Got a BA and planned to go through medical school when Mr. Arnold died."

Jonas took a deep breath. Tom watched him, waiting for the rest of the story. Sonia wandered into the kitchen and stole a chunk of beef out of the stir fry, narrowly escaping a whap on the hand from Jonas's spoon.

She laughed, grabbed another for good measure and scampered out. Jonas scowled after her for half a second then shrugged, turned the pan off, and started pulling plates out of the cupboard.

Tom still waited for the rest of the story. Jonas didn't seem inclined to go on, so Tom said, "What happened then?"

"What? Oh." Jonas leaned against the counter and took a breath. "I came back here to help Mrs. Arnold. But she was in poor health and had to go live with her daughter. Safe Home would have closed then. No one else stepped in to keep it open except me. I'd wanted to go to medical school to become a psychologist but . . . ." He faced Tom, his eyes at their most piercing. "This place is home to me. I couldn't bear to let it go. There were still too many kids just like me out on the streets with nowhere safe except this house."

Jonas lifted a stack of plates and handed them to Tom. "Set the table, why don't you?"

Tom distributed the plates around the table. The heavy plates clacked against the wooden surface one at a time. "Weldon's been gone a long time," he said. The realization scared him. Weldon should have been back already. Something must have gone wrong.

"Where'd he go?" Jonas asked while setting out the glasses. "Looking for drugs?"

"No," Tom said, backing away from the table. "Nothing like that."

"Come on, Tom. Don't freak out on me. I already told you where I come from. I know how life is. Whatever's going on, you can trust me. I've been there." He dumped the rice from the cooker into a bowl, added a pad of butter to the top and set it on the table.

Tom picked up Weldon's pictures and set them on the counter out of the way. He imagined Weldon captured by the muggers, beat up in the very least if not already dead. "I took something. He went to return it. It's a ways from here, but not too far. He should be back by now."

"You think whoever is after you found him?" Jonas frowned and rubbed his hands on his jeans. "Maybe we should call the police."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Tom said.

Jonas grimaced. "I know it's easy to think that the police are the bad guys. But most of the time they can help."

A loud knock on the front door stalled Tom's response. Jonas swept out of the kitchen.

Tom slumped down at the table. He heard the door open and Jonas say, "Baxter?"

"Hi Jonas," came Baxter's rough voice.

"I told you before you can't stay here," Jonas said in his soft, kind voice. "Only people under twenty-one. Tell you what. I'll buy you a full breakfast in the morning if you meet me at our regular café."

"It ain't like that Jonas. That's not why I come here just now. You see I remembered something. Something important I got to tell you." Heavy footsteps made their way across the living room, and Old Baxter appeared at the kitchen door with Jonas right behind.

"All right. You can have dinner with us. But then you need to go," Jonas said.

Baxter sniffed the air and stared at the waiting food on the table. "It smells good, but it ain't why I come." He took a step into the kitchen and stared so hard at Tom it made his skin itch.

"He's why I come. I remembered something, like I said."

"What did you remember," Jonas said, taking another plate out of the cupboard and setting it on the table.

"Well, I didn't remember anything at first," Baxter said, sliding onto a chair. "Nothing at all until I took my old pearl back to my camp. Then I was looking at this and it all come back to me."

A cold shiver went up Tom's spine. Baxter wore a ring just like Weldon had drawn. The old man pulled a handful of things out of his pocket and set them on the table. There was the black marble, a bit of fishing line with a hook, and a sparkling watch. Baxter lifted the watch up to show Jonas.

"Take a look at this. It's a Rolex."

"Fake." Jonas said, getting out silverware and a glass to add to Baxter's place.

Tom stared at the watch, and the cold fear he'd felt at the Stevens Tower came back to him. His chest tightened, and he struggled to breathe.

"No. I looked it up on the computer at the library," Baxter said, fingering the watch and staring at it in admiration. "It's a Rolex Oyster made from 18 karat white gold, worth twenty-five thousand dollars."

"No it's not." Jonas snatched the watch from Baxter's hands. He took a close look at it, rubbing the face with his fingers. He swore. "It is real. It can't be. How did you get it, Baxter?"

"Now, that's what I come for," Baxter said, nodding so his scraggly gray beard brushed his plate. He pointed at Tom. "That boy there gave it to me."

Tom froze. His hands went cold.

"I didn't recognize him at first, because he's . . . well not looking so good now. But his eyes I remember."

_Stop_ , Tom wanted to say. _Stop, stop_. More memories, and Baxter had his hand on the door ready to pull it open and let the monster out.

"About two weeks ago," Baxter kept talking, "he come stomping down the street. Looked steaming mad. Then he sees me. I figured I was in for trouble. When people get mad, they always take it out on old Baxter." Baxter glanced over at Tom for a second.

Tom shook his head, but Baxter went on talking. "But this boy is different I guess. He came right over, squatted down in front of me, and looked me straight in the eye. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the Stevens Tower for a moment and then back to me. 'I wish _you_ were my father,' he said. Then he dumped that watch in my cup and took off. That's how it happened. Just like that."

Baxter scooped a mountain of rice on his plate and reached for the stir fry.

Tom shook his head again. He clutched the edges of his chair in a white-knuckle grip and squeezed his eyes closed. He refused to look at the monster behind the door.

"Anyway," Baxter said, his voice muffled with food. "I figured I'd better return it. The boy looks like he got in plenty too much trouble for giving away such an expensive gift."

"Gift?" Jonas asked.

Tom shuddered.

"Look on the back," Baxter said.

"To Donald Stevens from Dad," Jonas read.

Tom jumped up, knocking his chair over. "It's Don. Don, I tell you. Never call me Donald!" He was sweating and shaking, his mind swirling with images and names, memories in a hopeless tangle all tied up in a knot with his hurt and anger.

"Don," Jonas said, setting the watch down on the table. "Did your father do that to you?" He pointed to Don's battered face.

Don shook his head. "No. He never, wouldn't, couldn't possibly care enough about me to hit me."

"Maybe I better give your dad a call." Jonas reached for the phone. "That okay with you?"

Don backed against the wall. He wanted Jonas to call him Tom again. He wanted to be a nobody. Nameless. Lost on the street. Anyone but Donald Stevens.

Baxter took the last bite and stood up. "Thanks for dinner," he said to Jonas. "You got your watch back now, boy. Hope things get better for you."

"I don't want it," Don said. "I won't take it. You keep it." Don grabbed the watch and threw it at Baxter.

Baxter caught it in his gnarled hands. "I can't just take this without giving you something in return. I'll give you these." He pushed the fishing line and black marble across the table toward Don.

"That lucky marble saved my life in Vietnam more than once. It's the best thing to have around when bullets start flying. Boy, the stories I could tell you." He looked at Jonas and shrugged. "It'll be dark soon, and I'm not really allowed here for the safety of you kids and all. Rules and regulations. I'll have to tell you about 'Nam some other time." Baxter shuffled out of the kitchen to the front door.

"Thank you," Jonas called. "You did the right thing coming here to let me know."

Don set his chair upright and sank into it. He fingered the black marble.

Jonas lifted a piece of drawing paper off the counter and turned the picture for Don to see. It was the one of the dragoness trying to lift Baxter's watch. "How in the world?" Jonas said.

Don swallowed the taste of cold silver in his mouth. "He believes his drawings make things happen. Maybe Baxter never even had the watch until Weldon drew it into being."

Jonas chuckled. "Baxter said he's had it for two weeks."

Don sighed and put the pearl dragoness in his pocket.

Jonas flipped through the phonebook. "You didn't answer about me calling your father."

"You better do it," Don said, his words edged with bitterness. "If he finds out I was here and you didn't tell him, he's sure to make trouble. Believe me, he's good at that. Could probably get this whole place shut down."

"I was kind of thinking the same thing. You wouldn't happen to remember his phone number, would you?" Jonas ran his finger down the phone book page.

"No, and I don't want to. I'm trying very hard not to remember anything at all since my mother died, and I had to go live with him." Don rubbed his aching head.

Sonia and Taneshia came into the kitchen. "Hey, you started without us." They dished up their plates.

"Can you take that in the living room?" Jonas said. "I need to make a phone call. Take a plate for Victor too, please."

The girls fell silent, took their food and left.

Jonas dialed the phone. He had to argue with three successive secretaries before he got Wallace Stevens on the line. Mr. Stevens, not dad. Don refused to think of him as dad.

"I think this is him," Jonas said. "I'm putting it on speaker phone." He got it onto speaker just as a deep voice said hello.

"Mr. Stevens," Jonas said. "I'm George Jonas. I run a local youth shelter--"

"No. I'm not promising any kind of donation," Stevens interrupted.

Don rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

"This isn't about a donation, sir," Jonas said. "Like I told your secretaries, your son is here."

"My son," Stevens's voice turned even frostier than it had been before, "is at the George Washington School for Boys in Michigan."

Don shuddered. Endless arguments with Stevens rang in his ears. Don hadn't wanted to go.

"I assure you, Mr. Stevens, that Don is right here with me. I've got the phone on speaker if you want to talk to him."

"Hold on. I'm going to conference call this," Stevens said. A few moments later he had a school secretary on the line. How he managed it on a Saturday evening, Don could only guess. "This is Wallace Stevens," he thundered into the phone. "I'm just calling to see how my son, Donald, is adjusting to school."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stevens," the secretary said in a timid voice. "What do you mean?"

"My son, Donald, how is he?"

"M-Mr. Stevens," the secretary stuttered. "He's not here. One of your people called and said you'd changed your mind, and Donald wouldn't be coming."

"One of MY people? Which one?" Stevens hollered into the phone.

"I-I-I don't know sir. This note just says, 'Secretary called. Donald not coming.'"

Don felt sorry for the poor school secretary.

"Donald!" Stevens bellowed.

"It wasn't me," Don yelled back.

"Where are you? Tell me this instant." The phone clicked as Stevens hung up on the secretary.

Don looked to Jonas for help.

"He's at the Safe Home Youth Shelter." Jonas rattled off the address.

"Stay right there, Donald. I'm coming to get you." He made Don's name sound like a swear word. Don winced.

The line went dead.

Jonas let out a deep breath and turned off the phone. He leaned against the counter and looked at Don with worried eyes. "You sure he's not the one that beat you? If he was, I can keep you out of his hands."

"It wasn't him," Don said. His head pounded, and the kitchen walls seemed to sway. He wanted to crawl into the bunk bed Jonas had given him and sleep forever. "It was the muggers. They wanted the Bourbon Jewels. They took the two brooches but couldn't get the diamond wristband off my arm."

Don unwrapped the bandages from his wrist and showed Jonas the crusty cuts in his flesh where the muggers had tried to pull it off him.

Jonas whistled. "You took the Bourbon Jewels from your father's safe?"

"Yep," Don rewound the bandages over his wrist. "He cares far more about money than he does about me. I figured if I took them to school with me, then at least he might notice I was gone. He'd probably even have to come see me to get them."

"But you didn't go to school?"

Don's headache intensified, like a thunderstorm with flashes of silver and a gun pointed at his face. "I-I can't remember what happened. It hurts . . . my head hurts too much."

Jonas's eyes went suddenly bright. "Weldon? Does he have the diamond wristband?"

"Yes."

Jonas swore. "Worth millions of dollars. Weldon on the street with it."

"He was just going to take it to the tower and come back." Don's stomach squirmed. Weldon had not come back. He was in big trouble.

Jonas swore again. "I'm calling the police."

"No." Don jumped up and grabbed the phone before Jonas could get his hands on it. "They'll think he stole it. I don't want him to go to jail because of me."

Jonas held his hand out, demanding the phone. "He won't go to jail for trying to return it. Believe me, the police are a lot more reasonable than you think they are. But whatever criminals are after the wristband, the ones that beat you, they are not reasonable at all. This could be a matter of life and death. If it makes you feel better, I won't tell the police about the wristband for now. I'll just let them know that Weldon is in danger and ask them to keep a look out for him."

Don knew for sure it was a matter of life and death. He relinquished the phone to Jonas.

Weldon waited as long as he could stand. He hadn't heard any sign of the muggers for quite a while when he peeked out of his hiding place. He saw nothing but a few random customers. Grateful to be away from the suffocating smell of starched suit pants, he slipped out of hiding and headed for the front door.

His tennis shoes squealed against the polished linoleum. He kept his right hand over the pocket that hid the wristband.

Through the glass of the front door, he saw Mr. Eaglehead waiting on the sidewalk. Weldon dodged behind a display of women's shoes. He didn't think the mugger had seen him, but he couldn't go out the front door. If there was a back door, Mr. Earring would probably be guarding it as well.

Sweat chilled Weldon's palms, and he shivered in the cold from the store's air conditioning. The whirring of an escalator caught his attention. He backed away from the shoes and made a run for it. If he went up a few floors, he might be able to find a fire escape.

He raced up the escalator, letting his own momentum add to that of the rising steps to double his speed. He came out in the housewares department and headed to the side of the store in search of an emergency exit. He found one just beyond a shelf, loaded with toasters.

A sign on the wooden door warned that an alarm would sound if the door opened. So much for sneaking out. Maybe a window, he thought.

He found a big bay window at the front of the store that looked out onto the street. It wasn't the kind that could open, and had no fire escape beneath it. Weldon kept out of view and stared down at the man who waited for him below. Mr. Eaglehead had a hunting knife strapped to his belt and a suspicious-looking bulge beneath his shirt, which had to be a gun. He kept his attention divided between the street and the front door.

After a time, Mr. Eaglehead kind of jerked in surprise and pulled out a cell phone. Answered it. Listened for a moment. Then shoved it back in his pocket and hurried away down the street.

Weldon tensed, wondering what that was about.

A moment later a silver limousine glided down the street in the direction the mugger had taken. Both were headed along the route that led to the shelter. Weldon bit his lip.

Mr. Earring came from the side of the building and joined his partner.

Weldon's heart hammered. Somehow they'd found out where Tom was and were going for him. Weldon went back downstairs. He had to head off the muggers. If he showed them the wristband, they'd stop going after Tom and come after Weldon instead. Weldon figured he'd make a run for the subway then, lead the brutes on a chase around the whole city. That might give Tom a chance to escape.

Weldon pushed out the front doors of the apartment store and started down the street after the muggers. He got the wristband out of his pocket and held it ready in his hand.

The muggers stopped in front of a bar. They talked for a moment while Weldon came toward them. Then they went inside without looking back up the street, as if the chauffeur had called them off the search for Weldon.

_A trick_ , Weldon thought, _to lure me closer_.

He kept going anyway. Every muscle strained, ready to run. He reached the bar and saw no sign of the muggers. The door was closed. A beer sign flashed red and blue from a dirty window.

Weldon hurried past. They might have gone out the back door and planned an ambush for him somewhere further up the street. He jumped when a woman brushed past him. A city bus rumbled by, spewing a cloud of brown smog into the air. Weldon licked his lips and shoved the wristband back in his pocket. His palm had become too slippery from sweat, and he feared he might drop it.

He scanned the crowd as he walked, looking for any sign of the men who planned to kill him. Nothing. Nothing. Every footstep. Every heartbeat. He moved closer to the youth shelter. Still nothing.

Don waited in the living room with Jonas. An evening breeze blew in through the open window. Sonia and Taneshia, learning of the imminent arrival of Don's father, retreated to the kitchen with a couple of bottles of fingernail polish and some silver glitter.

The scent of the fingernail polish filled the house, reminding Don of the smell of Alice's paints. He hadn't spent very long with her, but he knew he would miss her. And Weldon. He hoped the police would find Weldon and save him from the muggers, and that Weldon's mother would change her mind and let him draw whenever he wanted.

That horrible boarding school waited for Don. Or someplace worse now that he'd run off. His father had no time to be bothered with having a kid around. That's why Don and his mother had moved to a condo in Des Moines, Iowa just after Don was born. Don wished he could go back there, but knew it wouldn't be the same without his mother. His whole life had died with her and fallen into that silent silver grave.

He heard the rumble of the limousine as it pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

Jonas went to the door and opened it for Mr. Stevens who brushed inside with a haughty glare. Stevens took one look at Don, and his eyes widened in shock. "What the . . . what in the world happened to you?"

Don rubbed his battered face. "Not that you care."

"Of course I care," his father said in a near-shout.

Don looked down at the floor and bit his lip. It was no use trying to talk to Stevens.

"Get outside right now," Stevens jabbed his finger toward the door. "I'm taking you straight to the hospital."

Don got up. "I've already been to the hospital."

"Don't talk back to me." Stevens took his arm and dragged him to the door.

Don looked to Jonas for help, even knowing there wasn't anything Jonas could do. No one who stood in Stevens way lasted for long. Despite that, Jonas stepped in front of the door, blocking their exit. "Mr. Stevens. I think you and Don should get some counseling to work out your differences. He's welcome to stay here while we talk things over."

"There's nothing to talk about. If he's having some anxiety about his mother's death, he can see the councilor at school."

Jonas went rigid and his eyes flashed ready for a fight.

"It's all right, Jonas," Don said. "I'll talk to the school councilor. Just . . . tell Weldon I'm sorry." Don hoped Weldon was okay. He hated the fact that he'd gotten Weldon into so much trouble.

"All right," Jonas said, opening the door. "Just remember, you're always welcome here."

Stevens glared at Jonas and ushered Don outside.

Weldon turned the final block and saw the shelter up ahead on the far side of the street. A silver limousine idled at the curb. Tom and Wallace Stevens stepped out of the shelter and went over to it. The chauffeur opened the door for them, waited while they climbed in, then sealed them inside.

"No!" Weldon shouted, breaking into a run. He dashed into the street waving the diamond wristband. "No. You've got the wrong person!"

The limousine pulled away from the curb and slid off down the street. Tom looked out at Weldon through the back window. He waved at Weldon, but the limo kept going down to the end of the street and disappeared around the corner.

A car honked, and Weldon moved to the side of the road. Jonas stood at the Safe Home door, waiting for him. Weldon shoved the wristband back into his pocket and hurried over. "You got to stop them. They gonna kill him. Call the police. They gonna kill Tom!"

"Come inside with that," Jonas said. "I'm sure Mr. Stevens will send someone to get it if he ever stops talking long enough to let Don tell him about it."

"No. You don't understand. Mr. Stevens sent people to kill Tom. I heard his chauffeur order them to do it. They nearly caught me again just now. But he called them off. He must think Tom still has the wristband." Weldon gasped to catch his breath.

Jonas gave Weldon his penetrating look. "It's obvious that you heard something that must have sounded suspicious. I don't doubt someone has been after you to get that wristband. No one can dispute that Don was beat up by them."

"Don? He remembered his name? You did it? You got his memories back?" Surprise subdued Weldon's panic at seeing Tom in the hands of murderers.

"Baxter did, actually." Jonas motioned to the door, and Weldon slunk inside.

Jonas closed the door. "Tom's name is Donald Stevens. Don. Don't call him Donald. Wallace Stevens is his father. He doesn't need to kill Don to get his jewels back. All he has to do is claim them."

Weldon shook his head. That made no sense. He'd seen the chauffeur tell the muggers to go back and kill Tom . . . Don.

"I need to call the police and tell them you've come back and are safe." Jonas hurried to the kitchen.

Weldon followed. Victor as always sat in his chair with the MP3 player. The smell of fingernail polish hit Weldon as he stepped into the kitchen. He found Sonia and Taneshia with their feet up on the table, applying silver glitter to wet fingernail polish on their toes.

Jonas got on the phone to the police.

Weldon bit his lip and shoved his hands in his pockets. The wristband scrapped against his fingers. A curl of fish line on the table caught his eye. He lifted it into the air, letting the hook swing back and forth.

"Baxter was here? He brought the watch?"

Taneshia looked up at him. "That crazy friend of yours gave Baxter a twenty-five thousand dollar Rolex."

Weldon put the fish line and hook into his pocket and leaned against the counter, a sick feeling twisting his gut.

Sonia gave him a pitying look. "Your friend's gone home with daddy."

"I saw."

Taneshia snorted. "That man is a complete b--"

Jonas flashed her a hard look.

"Jerk," Taneshia finished. "If I had his papa, I'd run away too."

"Well, you ain't got no papa at all," Sonia said.

"And I don't need one." Taneshia finished putting a layer of clear polish over the glitter and pulled out her cell phone. "I got me a boyfriend." She started texting.

Jonas hung up from talking to the police. "We already had dinner," he said to Weldon. "There's some leftovers for you in the fridge."

"I ain't hungry," Weldon said.

"Come on and I'll show you your bed." Jonas led him into a bedroom that had three sets of bunk beds down one side. Chests of drawers stood against the walls between them. "Victor sleeps here." Jonas pointed to the top of the first bunks. "A couple of other boys will be in later when they get off work. This is their bunk." He pointed to the second set of beds. "Don't let them scare you, they're kind of tough-looking, but they're really nice guys."

Jonas moved to the last bunk. "Don was sleeping on this bottom one. You get the top. The two rooms on the other side of the kitchen belong to the girls. Rules of the house, no boys on the girls' side, no girls on the boys' side. You understand?"

Weldon nodded. His friend had driven off with killers, he couldn't care less where the girls slept.

"Dinner's all cleaned up, so I'm going upstairs to my own apartment. The stairs are at the end of the hall. If you need anything, don't hesitate to come knock on my door. Doesn't matter what time it is." Jonas rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his spiky hair. "Oh yeah, you were supposed to call home. Better do it now."

"Yes sir." Weldon stomped off before Jonas could complain about being called sir. None of the adults would ever believe him about the killers. In his heart he feared he would never see Don again.

He dialed home and his father answered. "Hi Papa," he said. He wanted to scream for his father to come save him, but knew it was still too dangerous.

"Weldon, you all right?" His father's voice sounded strained.

"Listen, I know you told me not to go out, and I did, and I got chased by them muggers, but I found Tom and we got safe to this shelter, and you gonna be glad to know that Tom has remembered who he really is and has done gone home with his papa, and I'm all right. Really I am." _At least until the killers figure out I've got the wristband instead of Don_ , he thought.

"Weldon, Honey." Mama must have gotten the phone away from his father. "I've got the address of the shelter from social services. Your father's going to take the subway up and come get you."

"No!" How long would it take Mr. Stevens to figure out Don didn't have the wristband? How long until they came back to Safe Home to get Weldon? And if he wasn't here, they'd find out where he lived and go after his family.

"What do you mean, no?" Mama said.

"Oh Mama," Weldon said, trying to sound tired. "It's already so late. I got a bed here. There ain't no reason to come downtown tonight. Papa don't got to work tomorrow. He can come then."

"And let you sleep under some strange roof?" His mother sounded alarmed.

"It's a safe youth shelter, Mama. The guy who runs it lives right upstairs. If I got to be grounded for the rest of my life, let me at least have one good night's sleep first." Weldon's hand shook on the phone.

"Darn right, you're grounded," Mama said. "You run off like that. Scare us to death. I don't know what to do with you anymore."

"Just leave me alone," Weldon said. His voice shook. His hands shook. Sweat dampened his forehead. He couldn't let his father come for him. Not now.

"Fine. You get one night." His mother sounded hurt. "But both of us will be there first thing in the morning to bring you home, and--"

"I love you, Mama." Weldon hung up the phone. He hoped Sonia wasn't listening to him sound so babyish, but if the killers got to him, he might never see his mama again. He had to at least tell her he loved her.

Weldon set the phone down and looked around. The girls acted like they hadn't heard anything.

Weldon wished he knew what to do to save Don. He noticed his pictures shuffled into a pile on the counter with the one of Baxter and the watch on top. It had seemed like such a good idea when he drew it. He'd thought if Don got his memories back, he and Don would be able to sort everything out. Wrong. He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the garbage can.

The next paper in the stack was brave Haley, heading to the Realm Above with the rest of the jewel dragons. Silver fairy dust glinted in his wake.

Shocked, Weldon looked up and focused on the cylinder of silver glitter sitting on the table beside the bottles of fingernail polish.

"Hey." Still holding the picture, Weldon slid into the chair opposite the girls. "I like that glitter. Can I buy it from you?"

"Sure," Taneshia said. "Except I think you don't got no money to buy nothing." She laughed, but Sonia didn't laugh with her.

She made sure the lid was tight on the glitter and slid it over to him. "I'll sell it to you for that picture you have. I ain't seen nothing like that drawn by a kid your age before."

Weldon handed over the picture of Haley and stuffed the glitter into his pocket next to the fishing line.

The phone rang, making them all jump.

Taneshia answered it and held it out to Weldon. "It Don."

_Here it comes_ , Weldon thought. _They've found out at last_. At least Don was still alive for the moment.

"Don," Weldon said into the phone.

"D-do you still have it?" Don's teeth chattered.

"Yeah, I got it. Where you at?"

Before Don could answer a man's voice came over the phone--a cold voice, sharp like a knife. "You have the wristband?"

"Yes." Weldon whispered.

"Good. Now listen carefully, the life of your friend and his useless father depends on your following my directions exactly. Understand?"

"Yes."

The man gave Weldon an address, which Weldon scribbled onto the back of one of his drawing. "Bring it before midnight tonight. Come alone. Don't tell anyone. Don't call the police. Do not try to run. I have people watching the house. They will know if you try anything funny. If you do--" A gunshot cracked over the phone.

Weldon jumped and nearly dropped it.

"That's your only warning. The next one goes straight between your friend's eyes."

Weldon stared at the address. It would be a long walk through the streets after dark. _What you afraid of, being mugged_? he asked himself then laughed. He had no doubt the muggers would kill him and Don as soon as they got the wristband. Don's father too, from the sound of it. So, Jonas had been right. Mr. Stevens wasn't behind it all. Just the chauffeur.

That knowledge didn't calm Weldon's nerves. He glanced out the kitchen window, afraid he'd see one of the muggers in the dark outside. The only thing there was the brick wall of the adjacent building.

He tried to calculate in his mind how long it would take to get there. When he would have to leave. How he would get out without anyone noticing.

"What did Don say?" Sonia interrupted his thoughts.

Weldon stared at her. She'd been so nice to him, but he couldn't tell her. "He accidentally left something here. Just wanted to make sure I'm keeping it safe for him."

"Something valuable?" Taneshia gave Weldon a wicked smile. "I wouldn't mind having one of them expensive watches. Sure would get us into a nice apartment."

Weldon shook his head. The diamond wristband worth millions felt hot in his pocket. He backed out of the kitchen. "I'm going to bed now. G'night."

He went to the bedroom and climbed onto the top bunk but couldn't close his eyes. Images of the chauffeur and the three muggers had imprinted themselves on his mind and wouldn't leave him alone. He heard the girls talking for a while, and then they went off to their rooms.

Sometime later the bedroom door slammed open and the light switched on. Weldon jerked up, his heart racing, sure the muggers had decided to come in and get him instead of waiting.

Two older boys tromped into the room. They had spiked, leather jackets and baggy pants.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in." One of them circled Weldon's bunk and poked Weldon in the shoulder. Weldon could tell the boy was trying to scare him, but he felt no fear at all. These two clowns couldn't hurt him worse than what waited for him later.

"Ugh," Weldon said. "Turn out the light." He lay back down and flung his arm over his face.

The other guy turned off the light. "Sorry, kid, didn't know you were in here. You got a name?"

"Weldon."

"Whatcha doing here, little pipsqueak?" the bully boy asked.

"How bout you leave me alone?" Weldon said taking his arm away from his face and glaring at the boy. "I'm gonna be dead in a few hours and would love to spend my last moments on earth in peace."

"What you talking about?" the nicer boy changed into pajamas and stretched out on top of the next bunk over. "Ain't no one dies under Jonas's care."

The other boy slouched off to the shower.

"Ain't talking bout nothing," Weldon said.

"Talking about dying isn't nothing. You considering suicide?"

Weldon could see the other boy staring at him in the dark from the opposite bunk. "I don't need to kill myself. I got plenty of other people to do that for me."

"Did you tell Jonas?" the older boy sounded concerned.

"Course I told him. He don't believe me. Says everything okay."

"It's not?"

"No. It ain't. Leave me alone." Weldon rolled over and pretended to go to sleep.

The other boy came back from the shower. In a little while the room was filled with their snores. Weldon slid down from the bunk and sneaked out of the room. He went to the kitchen and in the light from the stove checked the address one more time, committing it to memory.

On the way out of the kitchen he noticed Taneshia's cell phone sitting on the table. He stared at it wistfully. If he took the phone, he might be able to call for help after giving up the wristband. Of course that depended on how the chauffeur planned to kill them.

_It's not really stealing_ , he thought. _I'm gonna bring it back before morning . . . unless I die, but then it won't matter_?

He picked up the cell phone and crept into the living room, headed for the front door.

A body loomed out of the darkness and grabbed him.

Weldon let out a quiet yelp then relaxed. It was just Victor, though he seemed a lot bigger up close than from across the room.

"It's too late to go out. Not safe," Victor said in a firm voice. "How old are you anyway, twelve tops? You should be in bed."

Weldon squirmed from his grasp, wishing Victor hadn't suddenly decided to come out of his shell. Weldon had forgotten about Victor, sitting quietly in his chair.

"I'm just going for a little walk," Weldon whispered.

"Oh no you're not?" Victor moved his bulky body into Weldon's path. "Hey, is that Taneshia's cell phone? You think you can come in here, steal stuff, and run off?"

Weldon backed away from the angry look Victor gave him. "I'm just borrowing it."

"We'll see what Jonas has to say about that." Victor tried to grab hold of him again, but Weldon dodged and almost made it to the door. Victor slammed into him, pushing him away. Then Victor leaned his back against the door and folded his arms across his chest. "You aren't going anywhere."

Weldon imagined the bullet that would tear through Don's brains if Weldon didn't show up. "Victor, please," he said. "Don in trouble. They gonna kill him if I don't bring them what they want. I got to go. They'll shoot him if I don't. They said to come alone. Not tell no one. I just thought if I had the phone I might be able to call for help if things go bad."

"You are the biggest liar I have ever heard," Victor said in disgust.

"I'm not." Weldon threw the phone onto the bench. "There, I'll leave it. It don't matter nohow. Just let me go."

"What else have you got?"

"Nothing." A horrible desperation filled Weldon.

"Turn out your pockets," Victor said.

Weldon edged back into the living room. Victor would freak out if he saw the wristband in Weldon's pocket.

A breeze no longer blew through the living room window. Someone had closed it for the night. That didn't stop Weldon. He raced across the room, flicked the latch, and pushed the window up. He got out before Victor could grab him.

Victor swore at him, calling him a lair and a thief. Weldon pelted away down the dark sidewalk.

Weldon hurried down the dark street. Ancient yellow streetlights made vacant puddles on the cement. The hot day had cooled. Monster buildings glared down at him. Now and then a car rushed past, spraying the dark streets with light for a few moments then returning them to emptiness.

He thought he heard footsteps behind him, but when he turned he saw nothing. Despite that, he was sure whoever the chauffeur had left to watch the house was following.

He left a row of apartment buildings behind and came out onto a strip of nightclubs, restaurants and theaters. The silent night fell away to bright lights and crowds of people. The jumble of movement and noise gave Weldon a semblance of comfort. If they murdered him here in front of all these people, at least his parents would know what happened to him. The smell of pizza and flame-broiled stakes made his stomach grumble, reminding him he hadn't eaten dinner.

He crossed the street away from the food to a park where couples strolled along the sidewalk or sat on benches and watched the neon lights from the buildings reflect off a pond. Weldon imagined his dead body might be floating there come morning.

Laughter and snatches of conversation followed him as he hurried on. His course took him down another street, this one more silent and dead than all the others. Boards covered the building windows. Half the street lights were broken and dark. A drunk lay moaning on stairs that led up to a door with bars across it.

Weldon bit his lip and tasted blood on his tongue. The smell of vomit and alcohol swirled around him. He stumbled over a crack and fell to his knees. Before rising again he peered into the jagged narrow hole in the sidewalk.

He imagined this was how Haley must be feeling right now. He'd come into the Realm Above, a horrifying place. He tried to flap his wings, but they were gone.

Weldon staggered to his feet. "Haley, I don't know how you gonna save him," Weldon muttered. "The Realm Above be too big. Too dangerous." Weldon started walking again, scanning the front of the crumbling buildings for the number he'd been given. "It's not really your fault anyway," he said to Haley. "Barthelme brought this on himself by feeding them dragons his blood. Not your fault you boasted of that to the wrong person. Not your fault them baby dragons caused so much trouble."

He stopped in front of an old theater building. A sign, advertising a movie that hadn't been shown in theaters in Weldon's lifetime, dangled from the front, held up by a single wire.

Another sign, no less weathered, pointed down a set of stairs at the side of the building to a dance hall.

Weldon shivered. He'd reached the place at last. He had to go down there. He couldn't just fly away. Still he hesitated. The chauffeur would kill them all as soon as he got the wristband. Weldon had no way of protecting himself, no weapon except his own imagination.

He pulled out the cylinder of silver fairy dust and twisted off the lid. Then he started down the stairs, heart thumping with every footstep. With his other hand, he got out the fish line. Didn't know yet what he'd do with it, but he wanted to feel prepared instead of helpless. The line wouldn't have shown up in his picture of Baxter, and Baxter wouldn't have left it at Safe Home if it didn't have some purpose in Weldon's story.

Weldon found the old wooden door slightly ajar. He pushed past it into a dark building. After a few steps forward he noticed a single yellow light bulb glowing on the far side of the dance hall. An old silver disco ball hung from the ceiling surrounded by an array of colored lights, all off at the moment.

In the faint light from across the room, Weldon saw the chauffeur, still in his silver uniform and ugly chauffeur hat. He held a gray handgun pointed at two people tied to chairs: Don and Mr. Stevens.

"Come on in, Weldon," the Chauffeur called. "You took your time getting here."

Weldon stepped forward and stopped at the DJ's booth. "Sorry. I had to walk. My chauffeur wouldn't pick me up." While he talked he reached into the booth and wrapped the end of the fishing line around a lever, securing it with the hook.

Footsteps thumped down the stairs behind him, and the three muggers stepped into the dance hall, blocking Weldon's escape.

One of them pushed him. "Move it."

Weldon walked forward, letting the invisible line trail out on the floor behind him. What these men didn't know was that Haley had not come to the Realm Above alone.

His shoes made a hollow sound as he crossed the wooden floor. "Hey, Don," he said. Don's bruised face and black eyes looked ghastly in the dim light.

"Weldon." Don licked his lips and turned his attention back to the gun pointed at him. Weldon kept walking, trying to get as close as possible to the chauffeur.

"That's far enough," the chauffeur said.

Weldon stopped.

"You have the wristband?" the chauffeur's hand hovered over the trigger. His three thugs moved out where Weldon could see them. Two of them carried knives and the other a black club. They stayed close enough they could cut Weldon down if he tried to run.

"In my pocket."

"Get it out, slowly."

Keeping hold of the fish line, Weldon eased the diamond wristband out of his pocket. He turned it so the jewels flashed in the light. _It time for you to fly at last, my dear little one_ , he thought.

"Hand it over." The chauffeur held out his left hand.

Weldon sucked in a quiet breath. That gun was no figment of his imagination. Its bullets would kill.

Mr. Eaglehead twisted his knife as if anxious to cut into Weldon's flesh. Mr. Earring slapped his palm with the club. The third mugger sneered at Weldon. Outside, a lost truck rumbled down the street.

The diamonds sparkled. Light glinted off the barrel of the gun.

"Hand it over now."

Weldon threw the wristband straight at the chauffeur. His sudden movement pulled the fish line at the same time. The colored lights came on and the disco ball turned, sending flashes of color zipping around the room. In sync with tossing the wristband, Weldon moved his left hand as well, spraying the fairy dust into the muggers' eyes.

While the chauffeur tried to catch the wristband, Weldon lunged forward and grabbed the gun out of his hand. The gun went off, and Weldon felt something hot cut across his side.

He kept his hands on the weapon even as his momentum threw him to the floor.

He rolled and came up on his knees with the gun pointed at the chauffeur and the muggers who were shouting and trying to rub the glitter out of their eyes.

The chauffeur yelled and started for Weldon.

"Don't move." The gun felt heavy and hot in Weldon's hands. The taste of gunpowder lingered on his tongue. Sticky liquid trickled down his side onto his leg. Weldon put his finger over the trigger and pointed the gun at the chauffeur's chest. This close, he couldn't miss if he fired.

The chauffeur stopped moving. "You're just a kid. You won't shoot me," he said, but his voice cracked, betraying his fear.

Sirens wailed in the street outside.

The muggers swore and took off in separate directions. Weldon kept the gun on the chauffeur and let them go. He couldn't shoot all of them at once, and he wanted to take down the chauffeur most of all.

The chauffeur moved his hand toward the gun.

"Don't do it," Weldon said. Sweat trickled into his eyes. His hands shook.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. "Freeze!" a voice shouted. "Put down the gun."

Out of the corner of his eye Weldon saw a policeman point his gun through the door. Weldon kept his gun on the chauffeur.

"Better do what the police say," Mr. Stevens said from the chair behind Weldon.

Weldon lowered the gun and set it on the floor.

The chauffeur lunged for it and came up shooting. Weldon threw himself forward and tackled the chauffeur around the legs, knocking him to the ground. Gunshots cracked over his head. He felt the gun pressed against his temple and twisted away. The shot barely missed him. His ears rang from the sound of the shot, and the skin on the side of his face burned.

He got his hands wrapped around the chauffeur's gun hand and tried to pry the gun away.

Then the policemen were there with a gun in Weldon's face and another aimed at the chauffeur. "Drop it!" a policeman yelled. "Drop it now."

The chauffeur let the gun clatter to the floor. Weldon let go of him and raised his hands to show the policeman he was unarmed.

"Don't shoot." Jonas's voice rang out across the hall. "He's just a kid."

Weldon's heart exploded with relief.

One of the policemen hauled him to his feet. Jonas raced over and wrapped a strong arm around him. "You're bleeding."

Weldon looked down at his side where the first bullet had grazed him. It was just a scratch. He'd had worse falling off his bicycle. "Could be worse."

"Yeah. You could be dead." Jonas gave him a stern look. "You should have told me."

Jonas got a first aid kit from a policeman and cleaned Weldon's wound with a sterile wipe. Policemen swarmed the room--handcuffing the chauffeur and the muggers which they'd caught.

Someone untied Mr. Stevens and Don.

"I couldn't tell you," Weldon said. "They threatened to kill Don if I did. But how did you know where I was?"

"Victor. He says he was sorry for waiting so long." Jonas ruffled Weldon's hair. "He thought you were lying until he saw the address written on the paper by the phone and heard on the radio that Mr. Stevens was missing. And one of the other boys told him you'd been talking about dying tonight. Then Victor got thinking maybe you weren't lying. He woke me up, and I called the police."

"Weldon." Don walked over, rubbing his wrists where he'd been tied. "I can't believe you got the gun away from that guy. Talk about insane. Talk about brave. You came here all by yourself to save me?"

"Not by myself." Weldon pointed at the colored lights that swirled around the room. "I brought the dragons with me." He scooped up a handful of glitter from the floor. "And Haley's fairy dust. And--" he pointed to the diamond wristband now in a policeman's hand, "Barthelme's littlest dragon friend. Did you see her fly? She never would before. But tonight she did, to save Barthelme." Weldon couldn't help grinning. "I done told you I didn't need no outline."

"You are insane," Don said. "Absolutely and totally insane, but I'll buy into your insanity. Why not? It saved me. You brought the other dragons and I have this." He pulled the dragoness out of his pocket. "Baxter said she was good luck and the best thing to have if bullets start flying." Don looked around. "All those shots and no one got killed."

Weldon winced as Jonas pressed a bandage to his side.

Mr. Stevens strode over to stand next to Don. His face was white, and he clenched his hands together. "Thank you, young man. You saved us both, and the diamond wristband. If there is anything I can do for you . . . ."

Weldon swelled with pride, but he noticed Don didn't look too happy standing there by his father. "Well, sir. Maybe you could let Don come over and hang out with me sometimes. You know, we good friends now, and I'd hate to never see him again."

Mr. Stevens frowned and red came into his face. "Donald is supposed to be at a private boarding school right now."

Weldon's heart sank.

"But they don't think so," Don said, hotly. "They'd been told I wasn't coming after all, remember?"

Stevens's frown deepened. "This isn't the best time to discuss it."

Don left his father's side and came to stand next to Weldon. "It's never a good time to talk to you," he said to his father. "You're always too busy. You care more about those stupid jewels than you care about me. That's why I took them from the safe, because I wanted you to have to come find me to get them back. Except then your chauffeur saw the wristband on me. He took me over to Weldon's part of the city and forced me out of the limousine at gunpoint. Then sent his thugs to get the jewels from me. But you didn't even notice I was gone. You don't care at all."

Mr. Stevens face went even redder. "Of course I care about you! I want you to have a good life. Go to the best schools. Have all the possible advantages."

"But that's not what I want!" Don shouted.

Mr. Stevens opened his mouth to yell back. Before he could, Weldon stepped between Don and his father. He'd never even dared stand up to his own parents, but the same courage he'd found in coming to Don's rescue still lingered with him. "Why don't you be quiet just for a minute, sir, and listen to what Don wants? It couldn't hurt none just to see what he has to say."

Mr. Stevens snapped his jaw closed.

"Go ahead," Weldon told Don.

Don shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at his father. "I just want to be a family. I want to live with you like a normal father and son. I want you to care about me and spend time with me. That's all. "

"But--" Mr. Stevens rubbed his face, covering his eyes for a moment. When he took his hands away, Weldon could swear he was trying not to cry. "I don't know how to be a father. I never got the chance. Your mother and I separated while you were still a baby. All I know is business." He looked pained to make that admission. "I can't take your mother's place. I'm just not like her."

Weldon felt bad for him and sorry for Don. At that moment Weldon realized how much his own parents meant to him. Yes, his mother didn't understand about his drawing, but she cared about him and took time to help him with his homework. His father had always been there to pick him up when he got hurt. Strange as it was, after all Weldon had been through, he even missed Phillis.

"You don't have to take Mom's place," Don said. "Just let me be a part of your life."

Mr. Stevens dropped his gaze to the floor and stood quiet for a moment. "I guess I could try."

Don let out a whoop that made Weldon jump. Mr. Stevens took a stiff step forward and hugged his son.

Barthelme stood on the edge of the seventeenth crack. Beside him, Haley's wings fluttered, making patterns of dark and light across the sidewalk and sprinkling the air with silver dust. The dragoness sat on his shoulder, a glimmering black pearl nestled against his neck. Her mate trumpeted and circled with the swarm of baby dragons, creating a cascade of colored lights.

The diamond dragon had taken her accustomed place around Barthelme's wrist. Her cool scales pressed into his skin, and she crooned as he rubbed her head with one finger. Barthelme's other two dragons landed on his head and twined themselves around locks of his brown hair.

A garbage truck rumbled past, belching smoke. The swarm of dragons scattered for a moment, letting the smoke settle down into the crack and drip into the Realm Below.

"You think we should really go back?" Barthelme said. He edged his toes over the crack and thought of his house and the great hall and playing dodge-the-mosquito with his friends. But thoughts of his home were crowded out by the memory of the angry crowd that had turned against him and the Fairy Queen's insistence on killing his dragons.

Haley's wings slowed. He frowned at the crack. "We-we could live on the island, you and me and the dragons. They might leave us alone there."

"Maybe." Barthelme licked the fear from his lips. "I don't want to stay in this world." The Realm Above had been nothing like he'd imagined it. The tall buildings hunched over him like angry giants, and the cars that streamed endlessly along the road growled with the fury of hungry monsters. The dirt and noise and bustle made him long for the silence of the silver lake and the sway of grass in the wind.

"Shall we go down?" he asked the dragoness.

She uncurled from Haley's shoulder and lifted in the air to hover in front of Barthelme's face. She stared at him, looked through him into his soul, then let out a low croon, twisted in the air, and dove into the crack.

"You're right," Barthelme responded. "We've faced the dangers of the Realm Above, why should we fear our own people?"

Haley nodded. "We will face them. No hiding. We will fight for the lives of your dragons if we have to, just like they fought for us."

Barthelme set his wings in motion, lifted from the ground, and dove after the dragoness. Wind rushed past his face and through his hair. He descended down, down, so far down. The silver lake spread out below him. Rainbows rippled across its water. The grass bent, showing its green underside as he flew down and raced across its silver tips.

He headed for his house, but a thunderous noise stopped him. A crowd of fairies stood on the beach, shouting and waving.

Barthelme stopped mid-flight and hovered uncertainly. The fairies' cries sent knives of fear through his heart. Haley came up beside him. "We might as well get this over right now," Haley said.

Barthelme bit his lip and rubbed the diamond dragon on his wrist. "Don't worry," he whispered. "I won't let them hurt you."

"Barthelme!"

He looked up, surprised to see the Fairy Queen rise above the other fairies on the beach, her gold dust making a bright halo around her. It was she who had called him.

He glanced at Haley. Haley nodded. Together with the swarm of dragons they winged over to the beach. The crowd quieted as they flew up, so that Barthelme could hear the silver water lap against the black sand.

"Barthelme," the Fairy Queen said. Her voice came out silky soft, and she reached both hands out in greeting.

Barthelme hovered just out of her reach. "I will not let you kill my dragons."

"Weldon, your folks are here." Jonas's voice startled Weldon, and he dropped his pencil.

He looked up from his picture to see his father and mother step into the kitchen. A shock went through him. He hadn't even heard the bell ring or the front door open. He rose slowly from his chair at the table and covered his drawing with one hand. He'd hoped that his parents would take longer to get there. He needed more time to finish his drawings. He couldn't go back. Not yet. Not to a house without paper and pencils.

His father stood a step behind Mama, rubbing his frazzled beard.

"Weldon." Mama reached her arms out to him.

Weldon swallowed a lump in his throat and lifted his hand from the paper. His Mama couldn't hurt him any worse than that crazy chauffeur with is gun.

"I'm not coming home," Weldon said. His voice shook. "I won't let you kill my dragons."

"What?" Mama's eyes flashed. "What in the world are you talking about?"

Weldon's fingers wrapped around his pencil in a death grip. "No one gonna touch my dragons."

Jonas cleared his throat and put a warm hand on Weldon's shoulder. "I think what Weldon is trying to say is that he does not want to come home as long as you won't let him draw."

"What?" Mama's voice rose almost to a screech.

Weldon winced. He was glad Jonas had spoken up for him. Maybe Mama would listen. He did want to go home. He'd missed Mama and Papa and Phillis. But . . .

"Mr. Jonas," Mama said. "Weldon has better things to do with his time than scribble all day. Come on Weldon. Stop being difficult. We have a train to catch."

Weldon refused to let go of the pencil or move away from his pictures on the table. His face grew hot. "I don't got better things to do. My dragons saved Don and Wallace Stevens's lives. You know Wallace Stevens, the multi-millionaire? Well I saved him, with the help of my dragons. Ain't nothing better than that."

Mama blinked at him in surprise. Her mouth opened but no words come out.

Jonas motioned his parents toward the table. "Why don't you have a seat? Would you like some soda? Weldon has a lot to tell you." He went to the fridge and came back with drinks for everyone.

Mama took a reluctant seat. Weldon's father came over to the table and looked at the picture Weldon had been drawing. "He do be a good artist, Rita. Alice say he got talent."

"I don't see what pictures have to do with Mr. Stevens," Mama said.

Jonas kicked back in a chair and explained the happenings during the night. "So you see, your son is a hero," Jonas finished up. "An extremely creative and talented hero. Maybe you should let him draw--"

A thrill of excitement went through Weldon. Jonas made it all sound so good.

"No. School is too important," Mama said.

Papa cleared his throat. "Education isn't everything, Rita. You didn't marry me for my education, cause I ain't educated like you. You married me because we loved each other. Well . . . Weldon loves art. That got to be worth something."

Mama's face softened and she wrapped a hand around Papa's arm. "Do you really think it is so important?"

_Yes_ , Weldon thought. _Tell her yes_.

His father nodded. "Life ain't just about getting a job and making money. It about being happy. I say, if drawing make him happy, we should let him draw."

Weldon tensed. His mama stared at him long and hard before speaking. "--after he finishes his homework and only on drawing paper. No scribbling on schoolwork."

"Of course," his father agreed. "Weldon, you good with that?"

Weldon smiled. "As long as I got me a sketchbook to draw in, I promise no more pictures on my homework."

"All right then," his Mama said.

Weldon dropped the pencil and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. "Thank you, Mama. Thank you." He hugged her for a long time and then got a hug from his father as well.

"Let's go, boy." Papa rubbed the top of his head.

Weldon folded up the pictures and shoved them into his back pocket along with the pencil. Together he and his parents stepped into the living room where Sonia and Taneshia were just heading off to school. They gave him a quick hug goodbye and trooped out the door.

Victor looked up from his chair by the fireplace. He nodded at Weldon, and Weldon nodded back. "Thanks for your help," Weldon said.

Victor looked down at his MP3 player, a hint of a smile on his lips.

"Take care of yourself, Weldon." Jonas clapped him on the back and opened the front door. "Stop by once in a while to say hello when you're on this side of town visiting Don."

"Sure will," Weldon said. Then he was out the door and following his parents down the street toward the subway station. He felt good in a way he never had before. Good to be with his family. Good to be going home. Anxious to pick up his sketchbook from Alice.

"Thank goodness you're back," the Fairy Queen said to Barthelme. "You and the dragons."

Barthelme's wings buzzed with surprise. He looked over at Haley confused. Haley shrugged as if to say he had no explanation for the warm welcome.

Hawthorn lifted up from the crowd and flew over beside the Queen. He frowned and stared down at his feet. "Yes, good thing you came back. The garbage is piling up something fierce around here. No one can stand the stench."

"Hawthorn is right," the Fairy Queen said. The gold dust floated in the air, making Barthelme fight off a sneeze. "None of us realized how important the dragons are. We thought of them only as a nuisance, but without them our world is a lot less pleasant." She lifted her hand and pressed silky fingers against Barthelme's cheek. "Welcome home, Barthelme."

Barthelme's face grew hot, and he stammered out his thanks.

The Queen bowed to the dragoness and her mate. "Welcome back. We are very glad to see you."

The pair trumpeted in response, did a loop-de-loop in the air and then darted away toward the dump with their swarm of children following.

Barthelme's dragons stayed with him as he and Haley flew back to the house. Barthelme stopped at the front door and faced his friend. "Thanks for coming to save me. You are the bravest, the most loyal--"

"The handsomest, the best flyer," Haley interrupted with a wide smile. His black wings fanned the air in pleasure. "And I always win at dodge-the-mosquito." Haley zipped away before Barthelme could argue that he'd beat Haley at the game three times in a row last time they played. Barthelme laughed. Above him a cascade of noise dripped through the crack in the sky. He stared up at it for a moment, then went inside and closed the door behind him.

About The Author

Rebecca Shelley is the author of over 30 published books including the bestselling Smartboys Club series as well as the popular Red Dragon Codex and Brass Dragon Codex (writing as R. D. Henham). She loves writing about dragons and is excited to be writing the Dragonbound series. Her Aos Si trilogy will thrill fans of YA Paranormal Romance. To learn more visit her website at <http://www.rebeccashelley.com/>

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