The Vengekeep Prophecies (10 page)

“So,” Da said, “we've got some time to think about the flying creatures. Let's figure out what to do about the rest of this.”

We spent all day crafting ideas on how to beat the prophecies. We danced around the harder ones, tackling the Easy to Beat column first. Ma, Da, and I tossed ideas around as Nanni wrote down the good ones and stuck her tongue out at the bad ones. Aubrin drew sketches to suggest how we might store water ahead of the drought. By dusk, we'd come up with solutions for about half the predictions. We'd reached a point where we had no choice but to talk about some of the worst prophecies.

Da ran his finger down the Difficult to Beat list until it rested on a single word:
firestorm.
“This one seems pretty nasty. So, think! What do we do in the event of a firestorm?”

And that's when we heard the screams from outside.

Ma and I were the first out the door and into the street. Just as we emerged, the air above us sizzled. Bright orange light lit the dusk and we felt a wave of scalding heat. Looking up, we saw a great fiery ball shoot across the rooftops and plunge into a building across the way, sending a shower of brick and timber in all directions.

Nanni and Da, with Aubrin in his arms, came out next. We watched as more flaming rocks rained down all across the town-state, igniting buildings and punching craters into the roads. People ran everywhere, some falling as flying debris struck. The demonic hiss that announced the arrival of every fireball soon drowned out the screams as more and more flaming rocks fell.

Ma grabbed my shoulder and ushered everyone into the narrow alley that separated our house from our neighbors. The neighbors, an elderly couple, had already taken shelter there. We crouched and watched the destruction, unable to do anything.

It took several moments of silence to realize the fireballs had stopped. We crawled from the alley. I gagged on the smoke that snaked through the streets, my eyes watering at the stench. The screams continued, mixed with the roar of fires. Somewhere, a few blocks over, we heard the alarm bells of the fire brigade. Then we saw a group of men and women in leather aprons running down the cobblestones, each carrying two buckets filled with water.

Ma pointed at Nanni. “Stay with the children,” she ordered. She and Da ran off to follow the brigade, disappearing into the chaos of the streets.

Nanni tried to usher Aubrin and me inside, when a woman I recognized—a baker from down the block—stumbled through the haze, holding her daughter in her arms. The little girl was crying, clutching at her red and blistered hand. I called out to the baker.

“Bring her over here!”

I darted into the kitchen and grabbed a handful of the glass containers where I kept my herbs. Stepping outside, I met the baker and smiled at the teary-eyed girl.

“Oya,” I said, “my name's Jaxter. Can I have a look at your hand?”

She winced but gave me her hand. I paged through the
Formulary
and began mixing bits of different plants, rubbing them in my hands until the oil from my fingers combined to make a gel that I applied to her burn. At first, she cried out, but then she smiled as the soothing effects of the salve set in.

“Thank you,” the baker said.

Before I could say anything, the baker started directing more wounded people to our door. “We're gonna need more supplies, Jinxface,” I said to Aubrin, who ran into the house and raided the herb cupboard. Suddenly, Aubrin, Nanni, and I were running a triage center, helping the injured and comforting those who'd watched their homes burn.

We did that until the moons rose. By then, I'd run out of the plants I needed to make burn salve. Ma and Da returned, blackened with soot from assisting the fire brigade. Ma couldn't stop crying. She looked around at the destruction and kept muttering, “I did this.... I did this....”

Two days later, Vengekeep was still smoldering. A thin pall of smoke hung just over the city walls and nearly everything was covered in a veneer of ash. Some roads were impassable. About a hundred homes had been completely wiped out. Brassbell Promenade was nearly destroyed. Quite a few buildings on the Promenade had burned to the ground. The fire brigade had no water tower to draw water from.

While most praised us for helping burn victims during and after the firestorm, some people had gone back to resenting us. To them, the tapestry's promise of Grimjinx salvation was looking sketchy at best. Now when our family walked down the street, it was back to business as normal: glares and the occasional hiss.

We spent our days devising methods to beat the other prophecies. Each night, we went to bed exhausted and no closer to finding a way to defeat the flying skeletons. One night, after a particularly long planning session, I went for a walk to clear my head.

My tunic clung to my body in the humid evening air. I dragged my feet, but my mind raced. I'd never questioned the life my family lived. But if my parents had been bakers or millers, we'd live normal, quiet lives. I never knew what that was like. Truth be told, normal and quiet sounded
boring.
But boring, right now, seemed far better than what was coming to Vengekeep this year.

I got to the park, went to the tall mokka tree, and sank down against the trunk. As I tried to think of what to do next, I heard a rustling in the silhouetted leaves above.

A figure dropped from the lowest branch and Callie stepped into the moonlight. Her face shone as brightly as her eyes.

“It's true. You came back.”

I sat there quietly, letting her believe that a sense of honor had won out over our cowardice and that we'd returned to take our rightful place as defenders of Vengekeep. She wanted a hero and, for those few moments, I got to play that part. But I knew that wouldn't last. Someone in this town finally liked me. I didn't want her liking me for the wrong reasons.

So I asked her to sit and I told her the whole story. The tapestry, the fateskein, how we weren't able to leave Vengekeep. I even told her about how my clumsiness started the fire that burned the Castellan's house down. I felt a mite sick to my stomach. My aunt Risella was right: “Honesty is a tonic for fools.”

Callie was fascinated by the tapestry switch, frightened by the fateskein, and disappointed that our return wasn't honor driven. But she made no judgments and just listened. It felt good to tell someone all this. Once I'd finished, she stood. “I owe you a tree-climbing lesson. Come on.” She scaled the trunk to the lowest branch and reached down for me.

“Can't I be the kind of hero who doesn't climb trees?” I asked.

“You could. But where's the fun in that?”

I steadied myself and took her hand. Soon I was on the low branch. We didn't stop there. Together, we worked to go higher and higher. She scampered up with ease. I almost fell only twice. Or three times.

Okay, I lost count.

Each time, she grabbed my wrist and wouldn't let go. We disappeared into the thick, shadow-dappled leaves until we could go no farther and our heads popped out of the top of the tree.

“Bangers!” I whispered.

From here, we could see the whole of Vengekeep. The only buildings taller than the tree were the town-state hall to our right, the clock tower straight ahead, and the turret marking the town mage's house behind us. Twinkling candles in the streetlights dotted the empty roads. I could see the far watchtowers that guarded Vengekeep's southern borders, the farthest point of the town-state. And all I could think about were the people who still believed in us, sleeping soundly in the knowledge that the Grimjixes were here to protect them.

I wanted to vomit.

We sat on the highest branch, pushing the leaves out of our way to get the whole view.

“You did it,” I said. “You got me to climb the tree.”

“No,
you
did it,” she said, poking me in the ribs. “If klutzes can climb trees, who says thieves can't be heroes?”

I blushed. “I suppose this means I need to start your thieving lessons. So tell me, Miss Strom, what will you do with your new skills?”

Her eyes sparkled. “I'll tear up all my lady dresses, say good-bye to the widow Bellatin, and become a night bandit. I'll roam the countryside, pillaging wherever I go.”

We laughed and I almost fell. Almost. She grabbed my arm to hold me in place. And she didn't let go.

My eyes rested on the tall turret in the distance. If Lotha was still around, he probably would know a spell to stop this mess. But he was dead and Talian, his replacement, wouldn't be back for a while. So all we had to rely on was—

A lump caught in my throat. I thought about what Nanni had told me the other night about being valuable to the family. Everyone—Ma, Da, Aubrin—had their specialties and I had mine: beating magic with nonmagical means. In all our talk about plans to stop the prophecies, I'd forgotten about that. I
did
still have something to contribute.

“Callie,” I whispered to the darkness, my gaze never leaving the turret, “you ready to learn how to pick a lock?”

“Slashing your own throat and sharing a secret produce the same results.”

—
Lorris Grimjinx, inventor of the rubyeye

“I
f this is my lock-picking lesson, I want my money back.”

Shivering in the cool night air, Callie stood behind me, holding a candle near the lock on Lotha's front door. I knelt on the doorstep, rubbing a fresh batch of my blue paste on the lock.

“My great-aunt Illinda always said, ‘You pay what you get for.'”

Callie scowled. “What does that mean?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Mad as pants, old Aunt Illinda.”

“You're not even picking the lock. You're … spreading goo on it.”

“Patience, apprentice. It's a mage's house,” I explained. “Magically sealed.” I gave the lock a quick touch. The faint vibration had stopped.

Callie crouched at my side as I demonstrated the fine art of lock picking. I slipped my picks through the small hole and showed her how to feel around for the tumblers inside. My fingers twisted, moving the picks up and down, side to side. But each attempt to move the tumblers ended with the picks slipping from my fingers to the ground.

When I was just about to give up, Callie whipped her hair back and said, “I think I get the idea. Here.” She handed me the candle and slipped the picks into the hole. Her thin fingers wiggled and a moment later, the lock gave a soft click and the door popped open. Callie grinned.

“Yes,” I said, with a quick nod, “that was … well, not bad for, you know, your first time. Shall we go in?”

We explored the house. It was all very fancy—polished wood on the walls, everything lined with either copper or silver. Some of the fancier items—sculptures and paintings—bore protective sigils that told me not to bother stealing them. Touched by anyone but the caster of the spell, those sigils could do nasty things.

“So, what are we looking for?” Callie asked. “We can't use magic.”

“Books,” I said. “Journals. Notes. Any information Lotha might have had about fateskein. The more we know, the more likely we can use the
Formulary
to find a nonmagical solution.”

Callie pulled a throw from the back of the sofa and tossed it over her head like a mage's cowl. “I believe Vengekeep is in need of a town-state mage. Pleased to be of service.”

I bowed humbly. “Allow me to show you around, milady.”

We played in the upstairs dining room, sitting at each end of the table, pretending to pass each other snifters of glintflower brandy and speaking of “the simple people.” We took turns rolling on the very soft bed in the master bedroom. Finally, we got to the double doors at the end of the upstairs hall and walked into the room beyond.

The library. Easily the biggest room in the entire house. Bookcases thrice my size lined every wall, each one filled to bursting with ancient tomes. I hadn't expected there to be quite this many.

“It'll take forever to look through all these,” Callie moaned.

“We don't have forever,” I reminded her. “We have until mooncrux.”