The West Passage

22. Kew and Frin See the Stars

22. Kew and Frin See the Stars

Upon the rough hide of the palace we see two boys crawling like insects upon an old cow. The one insect is tall and thin, mantis-like. The other insect is short and round, beetle-like. They are not speaking much as they navigate the cracks and crevices of this ancient skin. We whir closer to investigate.

We can see that they do not know what to make of each other. The tall one does not understand the sociable world of the other, nor his air of quiet good cheer. The short one is in awe of the other, with whom a Lady has meddled. It does not make for easy conversation as they scramble through ruins and half-ruins.

The West Passage is, of course, choked with the wreckage of feasts. Were it not, how much easier would their journey be! For though the corridors and courtyards around Black Tower are clearer than in Grey, there are more rooms to go through: grand, dismal rooms, built for the courtiers of Ladies, long-abandoned. Here is a chamber painted with bird-headed figures surrounding a crowned Lady with three and a half arms. And here is a room walled and floored with amber. And there is a chamber whose ribbed vaulting is carved into stacks of tiny people upholding a rosette in the ceiling center; the rosette is a miracle, for silver liquid wells up in its center, beads, and falls in a constant stream of sour-smelling droplets. The boys know better than to touch it, and give a wide berth to the ebony basin in which the liquid pools.

Now they come to a fork in the corridors. The left fork goes up. The right continues at one level and bends out of sight. At last, the short one speaks.

“One said that if we wanted a quicker way, we’d go by the Alchemists’ Turret. But only if the weather is fine.”

They both look out a nearby window. The weather is fine.

“I don’t know the alchemists,” says the one—Kew, his name is, as we remember.

“There ain’t none anymore,” says the other—Frin, his name is, as we remember. “Not since—oh, I forget. Lily, I guess. Or Thistle. Point is, we won’t meet them. But the place is still named after them.”

We see Kew shrug, rather slowly and lopsidedly. He is curious, perhaps, but afraid to show it: if he expresses an interest in something, Frin will go along with it, and that makes Kew rather afraid of imposing his will upon Frin.

“If it gets us there more quickly,” Kew says. “Why not?”

Frin smiles and nods. Perhaps he thinks Kew is hiding his curiosity because it will get him laughed at. Certainly before now he has seen Kew come at his own wishes slantwise. And so they go left.

We see them now going up a long, long staircase. They are in the outer shell of a great hall. The inside, which they do not see, is full of old furniture moldering in shafts of dusty light. A little greenish creature snores curled up on an ironwood chair. They do not see that either. Much later, at sunset, the creature will wake up, stretch, put on an upside-down funnel for a hat, and go about her work sweeping cobwebs out of one corner of the hall. The rest of the mess is someone else’s duty.

At the top of the staircase, the boys come out into sunlight. They stand on a small square terrace with a mostly intact balustrade. Black Tower is there, quite suddenly and grimly. Banners with the crest of the Willow dynasty fly from its many spires. They ignore it as best they can: it may be that Frin is too used to it to care; it may be that Kew is overcome by visions not his own, and must look somewhere else. At the other end of the terrace, another staircase plunges down. Much farther down.

They are now in the outer shell of another building. This one is an old hall divided into living quarters for the unnamed people who served the guards of Black Tower. The hall no longer serves its original function; neither do the living quarters, the unnamed people, nor the guards. The outer wall of this staircase is very recent, dating perhaps to just before the rise of Willow. We know this because of a certain solidity about the stonework: it is less delicate or flashy than some other eras, hearkening back to the unobtrusive elegance of Apple. It is possible that Kew notices this as well, for he keeps pausing to examine it and must be urged along. The inner wall of this staircase is quite different, and it is probably this that draws Kew’s interest to the outer, for why would they be so mismatched?

The inner wall is lined with niches, each with a statue of a Lady. They are quite weathered, and the names are faded away, at least near the stairs. The stonework there is elaborate and finely detailed, at least as far as we can tell under the veil of age. It might be Lily; it might be Thistle. Both eras are known for the omnipresent ornament of their architecture. It is impossible to say. Our eyes might be compared to the hands of an apothecary running over a quilted comforter, trying to diagnose the broken ankle beneath.

We can at least see that the niches change the farther the boys descend. The statuary becomes more geometric and stylized. The shapes are so clear and strongly marked that even with their great age, it is not hard to see how beautiful they once were. Where the Ladies above are locked in swirling motion, flinging out wings, arms, eyes, and tongues over passersby, the Ladies here are calmer, pensive, folding their limbs in on their varied bodies like dead spiders. The stones of the wall are large and irregular; if they were polished once, they are not now. Likely, this part reminds Kew of Grey, for there are many similarities. He may even think of the room in Grey Tower full of identical veiled figures labeled Yarrow .

We can theorize that this place was a memorial, though certain of its features complicate such an idea. Firstly, though a dynasty might destroy or ignore physical remnants of its predecessors, it would not preserve them like this. Those who rule from Black Tower keep things that serve their purposes, like the Irises’ wheel of seasons, and nothing else. Secondly, the proper place of remembrance for departed Ladies is upon the grounds of Grey Tower. Thirdly, the names seem to occupy roughly the same space on each niche, allowing for stylistic differences across the eras.

At last, on the lowest level, where the staircase smooths out into a long walk between high walls, we see Kew stop. He bends to look in a corner where erosion has left one name alone.

“What is it?” Frin says.

Kew points.

Hawthorn, it says.

Kew’s eyes move sidewise, upwise, downwise. His lips move, shaping what looks like the name—his future name, if he is worthy of taking it. If this place is a memorial, then it memorializes the long, long line of Guardians and the Ladies they served. He might hope that when his name is joined with the Willow Lady’s image, hers will be more impressive than some of these monuments. We feel the weight of history, perilously suspended, bear down upon us.

“Let’s keep moving,” says Kew. His expression is grim.

“Are you all right?” says Frin. “I—I don’t know what that says.” He hurries after a suddenly energetic Kew.

While Kew explains, let us move back a little to take in the rest of their journey. A second staircase rises from this bottom level and climbs to the top of a broken-backed roofline. From there, a walkway meanders between gables and turrets until it reaches a long, level battlement of the West Passage. At the other end of the battlement, makeshift lantern tracks bypass a—but no, let us first look slightly beyond. After the battlement, the way plunges through a series of corridors, loggias, and stairwells until it reaches the territory of Ebony. From there, a clear path is swept to the great jet-toothed gate of Black Tower, guarded by forty Sparrows Minor and watched by many eyes. A lantern is leaving the tower and passing back toward us; let us follow it along the track until it comes to the bypass. Here the Sparrow within changes their whistling to a slower tempo: the tracks are rickety and in poor repair, and require careful handling.

The lantern switches to the newer track, running in a wobbly semicircle under the blank, blackened gaze of scorched pilasters and burst windows. A few moments later, it reaches the safe harbor—the saf er harbor, anyway—of the old track, and the Sparrow picks up the pace. Soon the lantern is whizzing away down the West Passage. Perhaps we shall see it later. For now, we must look at what the Sparrow avoided: the ruins of the Alchemists’ Spire.

If the records are to be believed, this compound right beneath the Great Tower was devoted to the Owls, royal alchemists to the Thistles. In the dormitories lived their acolytes and servants; in the halls they ate; in the storerooms they kept their strange substances and tools; in the workshops they bent to their labor. It seems remarkable that such powerful Ladies as the Thistles would need the assistance of anyone, let alone the alchemists and their dubious achievements, but that toward the end of their era, the Thistles and their miracles were exhausted and fading. The brief flare of wonders before the end was possibly due to the alchemists’ efforts. Regardless, it was only a false renewal, like the last flicker of a dying candle. And the Owls themselves are gone. The only physical remnants left of them are collected upon the burned floor of the Spire’s central chamber, open to the elements for years upon uncounted years. The truth is here, whatever it was. Here, amid the shards of old roofs and walls, Kew and Frin stumble out of a half-choked stairway, their faces and hands grubby with soot, and blink in the dimming sunlight.

“What is this place?” says Frin.

Kew can only guess that it is the Alchemists’ Spire, but when he says so, the pitch of his voice goes up and he rubs the back of his neck. Frin smiles, not quite looking in Kew’s direction.

Against the bluing sky, we see the ruined vaulting of the spire, black and sparse like dry branches. Something erupted out of the north and west walls, leaving only burnt-clean stone, and destabilized the south wall, which has collapsed into rubble. The north wall is largely intact, along with a portion of the tall, sharp roof. A haze of ultramarine still shimmers on the ceiling, and two or three gilded stars still cling to it. Lower down, upon shelves built into the walls themselves, are glittering fragments of instruments and glass vessels. Between the shelves are carved pillars, each an allegorical figure. Some of them we might recognize: there is Sir Lacklady, who signifies uncertainty; there is Madame Frogwit, who signifies eloquence. There are others we do not: a hooded creature with a single curious gauntlet on; a nubile person cupping a naked breast in one hand, the other holding a sword: at its foot, a meager fountain bubbles into a cracked basin. Kew stares for a moment, furrows his brow, and looks away.

Closer to the south wall, the shelves give way to a frieze, which in turn gives way to rubble. It is bordered with leaves and birds and frogs, all quite weathered but retaining a buoyant charm. (Frin traces the age-softened head of a frog with his finger.) Within the frieze are set many tiny, random circles of metal, once gilded. Each of them is labeled, and Frin is about to call Kew over to read them when he sees Kew standing on the very edge of the western wall, a dark shape against the greater darkness of the Great Tower.

Kew’s lips are moving. Listening carefully, we hear a faint whisper. “The Beast rises, and she will ride it to the conquest of Black Tower. She is the cleverest, most glorious of Ladies. The Beast obeys her. It obeys nobody else.” That is news indeed for us to carry.

Frin’s hand grips his arm. Kew shakes his head. “What was I saying?”

“I don’t know,” Frin asks. “But come away from the ledge. Come.” He tugs. “Please,” he adds, for Kew’s feet don’t move. He puts his free hand on Kew’s back. At that, as if it were a signal, Kew turns and comes with Frin back to the floor.

Frin urges Kew to sit down. He wets a kerchief in the fountain to scrub at his hands and face. Meanwhile, Kew sits upon what appears to be a disused furnace and clasps his hands to his knees, which seem to be shaking.

“You missed a spot,” Kew says eventually.

Frin sighs. “Ain’t a mirror to check in.”

“Come here.” Kew’s tone is mildly exasperated. He takes the cloth and scrubs at Frin’s jawline.

“You’re filthy, too,” says Frin. “Here, I’ll—” He rinses out the kerchief and hands it back to Kew.

While Kew washes himself, Frin picks up a piece of stone and plugs the basin as well as possible. It fills. Frin unlaces his cotehardie and slips it off, along with his hood. He takes up handfuls of water and splashes himself, puffing and blowing against the chill. Kew shifts in his seat. Growing up in the robed and wimpled and gowned environs of Grey, he may not be used to someone so casually removing clothing. He scrubs at himself even harder, and—is he?—he is looking at Frin now and then, and looking away, and looking back, as if he has never seen such a sight.

It is a common enough sight, a young man rinsing himself off. Frin is quite average for a beekeeper’s apprentice: short, with a soft body and sinewy hands, dark where the sun has darkened him, somewhat paler where it hasn’t. His black hair is close-cropped but would be curly if it grew out. The short velvety fur of his ears does not continue anywhere else that we can see. If Kew is fascinated, it must be by Frin’s evident comfort with being himself. Certainly we see nothing of interest.

Though there is something odd here. A black spot against Frin’s chest, which one might think was part of him if it wasn’t bobbing around like a pendant. Even then, it could still be part of him. Kew seems to be gathering the courage to ask.

“All yours,” says Frin, turning around and shaking water off his limbs and out of his hair.

At the fountain, Kew hesitates. At last, he removes his long overgown and rolls up his sleeves.

We observe a repetition of this curious staring and not-staring, but from Frin. And again, the Grey apprentice is a common enough sight. Skinny, knobbly, tall, Kew seems whipped together from old twigs; if a bone can stick out, it does. The sun has never touched his skin. He is simple flesh, as far as we can see, and his eyes are the large bright eyes of Grey. To Frin, they must seem miraculous. To Kew, perhaps Frin’s small dark eyes are the miracles.

“What’s that around your neck?” says Kew as he splashes and rinses.

“An old miracle,” says Frin. “One Robin lends it to travelers sometimes, says it’s for luck. Here, look.”

As he leans over, the pendant swings away from his neck, and Kew catches it. Kew’s brow furrows—it must be hard to pick out details in the dimming light, especially on an item this dark—and he draws the pendant closer to his eyes, pulling Frin’s face toward him as well. Kew does not seem to notice. After a moment in which we see Frin’s eyes dart from side to side, the muscles in his shoulders relax as he waits for Kew to finish the examination. His patience is admirable, if patience it is.

What Kew sees: a bulbous vial of onyx about as large as two walnuts. Overlapping triangles are incised all over it, giving it the appearance of thin, tight petals, or perhaps spines. At the narrow neck, they turn into parallel grooves and end in a similarly grooved stopper, also of onyx. At the back of the vial is a projecting horizontal cylinder, through which the slender chain passes. There are signs of wear all over the object: tiny chips on the edges of the cylinder and stopper, a few very slight scratches wrapping around the base, as if the vial has been kept upon a stand and rotated ungently. But overall, it is in excellent condition.

Now Kew looks up from the vial and may realize how close Frin is, for he releases it gently and sits back. Frin straightens up and stretches. It cannot have been easy for Kew with his childhood, never being close to anyone: obviously the only other children nearby were the girls in the house. And Hawthorn, though by all accounts protective and more or less loving toward her apprentice, was by those same accounts not particularly affectionate, nor did she see much point in giving him any time to make friends. And so we might think, as we watch Kew watch Frin stretch, that Kew has never learned what a normal interaction is, and that almost everything a person does is charged with a meaning for Kew that may not necessarily be intended. We cannot know for sure; we may only surmise.

“Look!” Frin says, pointing up. “Stars!”

In the close-packed towering warrens of Grey, Kew would never have seen more than a small rectangle of the night sky. In the broader but heavily planted courts of Black, Frin would not have seen much more. Now their eyes roam the sky, unimpeded by walls as their bodies never shall be.

“Do they have names?” Frin asks.

Kew hesitates. “If they do, I never learned them.” He stands beside Frin.

Far away, the beacon of Red smudges out many of them in smoke and hazy orange light, but nearer, only the filigree of burnt roofbeams stands between them and the stars. There is a long river of sparkling light running across the sky from north to south, blotted here and there with dark patches like rocks, and on either side of it are close-packed stars like the lamplit windows of the palace. The boys do not seem to be breathing. At last Frin remembers to inhale. The sound breaks the silence, and Kew inhales too.

We do not know the names of the stars, either, if names they have. Nobody has ever asked them, and surely not even the Ladies of Black would dare to give a name to a star. But our attention, like the boys’, might be drawn to a particular cluster almost directly overhead where the “river” narrows before broadening again.

Kew points here. There are six of them just on the west side of the narrows, each quite brilliant, and immediately across to the east is a seventh, far brighter, and burning a cold, bitter green. Frin takes a moment to see it. His vision may be less acute than Kew’s.

“I would think if any of them had names, it would be those,” says Kew. He sounds as if he is trying to discover some fact, as if by hinting that the fact exists, he can call it up.

Frin shrugs. He goes to his pack, which he has left by the basin, muttering something about being hungry. Kew remains staring upward until Frin calls him over.

Frin points at the wall. “Can you tell me what that says?”

Though rubble still blocks most of it, we can see that a florid frame is carved into the wall, extending for many feet beneath the debris. Within the frame are little words, lines, and dots, all forming geometric figures. Many of the dots have a few rays. A few dots have many, perhaps indicating brightness. To Frin, it is probably meaningless, but to Kew, who now begins to look from the frame to the sky and back again, it may appear to be what we have already concluded it is: an astronomical map.

We see Kew kneel beside the rubble. His finger moves across a grid, blurred by age and choked with dust.

“Those stars,” he says, pointing to four dots arranged in a square, “are called the Casket. And those,” he gestures to a ring of five with a tail of two, “are the Key.”

We see Frin nod. His eyes are on Kew rather than the sky.

Kew’s finger moves along a swarm of tiny dots running diagonally across the map, corresponding in shape to the river of stars. “Now I’m really curious about the bright ones,” he says. But his finger runs into the pile of fallen stones and crumbling mortar. He sighs.

Frin scampers toward him. “We can clear those in no time,” he says, climbing halfway up the pile and taking up a large piece of fallen molding.

Kew sits back on his heels and watches Frin eagerly shifting stones away. Some of them roll off the edge of this high aerie and plummet into the remains of banquets at the foot of the Great Tower. Most land harmlessly in fruitcake, waterlogged pastry, a haunch of withered meat. One shatters the last blue wineglass from the Hellebore Era. There is a small custodian with a garlic-shaped body and ducklike feet whose job it is to collect unbroken dishes; he sees the wineglass break and shrieks.

Kew, who has joined Frin in the job of clearing, jumps at the sound. This startles Frin, who slips on a loose rock. His body slams into the star map and goes right through.

Kew gasps and darts forward. We and Kew can now see that the map is also a door. One half of it has swung inward, letting Frin, a little shower of rock chips, and sandy mortar into a dark chamber.

“Frin?” says Kew, stepping down. “Frin, are you all right?”

There is a low whistle. Then there is light. It comes from a basin held in a stone hand. The stone hand is attached to a stone arm. The stone arm is attached to a flesh torso. The flesh torso is imprisoned in a carapace of spires, arches, pillars, and walls of black stone. The stone is sprouting from the floor. Atop the flesh torso is a half-stone head. A crown of stone pinnacles wraps around and through it. One eye is blank stone. The other is green and wet. The other arm attached to the torso is flesh, except for the fingertips, which are stone. The fin gertips are attached to long threads of stone, also sprouting from the floor. The legs are invisible within the carapace. All in all, it looks as if this being is in the middle of getting devoured by the palace. At their feet, Frin is sprawled, blinking up with a dazed expression, his body smeared with dust and dirt.

“Who are you?” Kew asks, helping Frin up. Still dazed, Frin staggers. Kew puts an arm around his shoulders to support him.

“Ten Owl. I am an alchemist to Her Ladyship.” He speaks in a voice that seems to come through clouds of dust. A third arm emerges from the carapace and gestures at the walls. “If you had looked around, you would have known for yourself.”

All around the chamber are wooden tables with glass vessels, books, glittering tools. There is surprisingly little dust, aside from what the boys accidentally brought in.

“There aren’t any alchemists,” says Kew. “Not since—”

“Hush, hush,” says Owl, waving his free arm. “Show me your palm. Words take too long.”

After looking at Frin, Kew shrugs and holds out his palm. Owl takes it and brings it closer to his eye. Whenever Owl speaks, the skin of his cheek and lips pulls against the stone. It looks uncomfortable, as if it might tear away, but Owl does not appear to notice.

“Tell me your name,” says Owl. Kew looks at Frin again, but obeys. Owl shuts his eyes. “Yes, yes, I see,” he whispers. “Grey. Orphan. Alone. No name. The Hawthorn dead. The mother dead, too.”

Kew grimaces slightly, as if he resents that his palm should know anything about the women in grey.

“And you on a quest to defeat the Eternal Enemy,” says Owl. “Interfered with, I see. A promise that may or may not bear fruit.” His flesh eye swivels to meet Kew’s. His stone eye turns more slowly, releasing a little shower of sand. “And no alchemists. I had expected it. The others must have died in the experiment.” His thumb presses deeply into the center of Kew’s palm. “Yes, dead for generations. I see. The experiment was a partial success, then.”

“Success?” says Kew. “If they’re dead?”

“ I am still alive. Your turn, boy.”

With a glance at Kew as if for permission, Frin gives the alchemist his name and his hand.

“You are not simple flesh,” says the alchemist, prodding and pressing. “This place is written upon you more strongly. Its future, even. Here. ” He squeezes; Frin winces. “A great thing will fall. Another will end.”

“End?” says Frin. His eyes meet Kew’s. “What will end?”

“A possibility,” says the alchemist. He lets go of Frin and stretches his fingers toward the vial, though he does not touch it. “What is this you carry, boy?”

“We don’t know,” says Kew.

“I do,” says the alchemist. A crafty look comes into his flesh eye. “It will free me. Will you give it to me?”

Frin seems about to, but hesitates. “I don’t know. It ain’t mine to give.”

“I offer information in exchange,” says Owl.

“What information could possibly be worth that?” says Kew. His body language is different from what we are accustomed to. He is acting more sure of himself. We would have last seen this confidence when the Obsidian Lady imparted it to him.

Frin looks at him, alarmed for a moment, then seeming to recognize what is going on, relaxes.

“The Beast rises,” says the alchemist. “It rose in my day as well. I was an apprentice then. I saw the end of the Thistles, but I also saw the end of the Eternal Enemy, and I can tell you how to end it once more.”

Kew frowns. His eyes narrow, then widen. “When the Beast rises, the Obsidian Lady will ride it to victory over the Great Tower,” he says tonelessly.

“Need it come to that?” says the alchemist. “Think you the towers of this palace came into being by the labor of hands? Is the never-drying river the work of the rains alone? For generations, I have been walled up alive like an oblate of Grey, but I know more of this place than you. There is a thing at the Beast’s heart. A wish, a song, a name, many have called it by many words, but there is one truth about it: to the victor it goes, to the vanquisher of the Beast goes this power. What a failure of imagination you show. Victory over the Great Tower? The Great Tower is victory. The Great Tower is a sword. Why be the sword when you can be the wielder?”

“That,” says Kew, and stops, and shakes himself. He looks like someone who is unsure whether his foot is about to cramp. “That’s Ladies’ business. I’m Hawthorn’s apprentice. I can’t— do that.”

Owl blinks his flesh eye. Much more slowly, the stone lid of his stone eye grinds down and back up. “They are the dreamer, we the dreamed. Does the dreamer guide the dream, or the dream the dreamer? Give me the vial so I can free myself, and I will show you what to do.”

“I know what to do,” says Kew. His right hand tightens as if gripping the handle of an invisible blade.

“No doubt you believe that,” says Owl. “But I can see for myself there is some veil laid upon your mind. The Guardian is the first defense against the Beast. Why else are they in Grey? In my time, the Beast rose, and the Guardian failed in her task, and the monster came down the West Passage, devouring and crushing and burning as it went, until it reached the Great Tower. The last Thistle Lady, old and wily, had commanded us to brew such tinctures and philters as we could, and she drank of them and her strength was renewed, and she and her daughters fought the Beast here, in Black itself, and lost their lives one after another. Last of all stood the youngest daughter, and it was she who vanquished the Beast with our help, and her name was Bellflower, and from her rose the new dynasty.”

“And did she imprison you, then?” Kew says, with a skeptical quirk of his brow. “To keep her secrets from the others?”

“By no means,” says Owl. “Those of us who remained were commanded once more to go about our business: pursuing immortality. All the Great Ladies since the beginning of everything have sought to stave off the one thing their tongues cannot command: death itself. For if they do not die, their power does not die. And so we stoked our ovens and set up our alembics and gathered our materials. And we found one material that showed promise. Something of Hellebore’s, very precious. Through refinement and sublimation we concentrated its essence. When it had passed to its purest form, we tested a drop on a cat. The results were promising. We drew lots, and it fell to me to try it upon my own flesh.”

He stops.

“Well?” says Frin. “What happened?”

“I remember a great light. It was in and around me. Then a great darkness and a great noise, and I thought they, too, were in and around me. Maybe they were. Then I awakened. I thought perhaps I was dead. I thought so until you broke through that wall. The silence and darkness and waiting are what some of us thought death was. Others have said death is a river, sweeping us away into oblivion.” He blinks his eyes, one rapidly, one less rapidly. “But enough of that. I know what I need in order to recover. The last and least ingredient, as is always the way. Give me that vial. Please.”

Kew and Frin share a long look. While they do, Owl licks his lips. A trickle of muddy saliva leaks from the corner of his mouth. We stir, but we cannot intervene.

“All right,” says Frin. “But least or not, it is a miracle. I ain’t responsible for what happens when you open it.”

Why does Frin agree, when the item is so precious to the beekeepers? Perhaps even he knows that the alchemists were masters of change and healing. Perhaps he sees in Kew’s face the thing put there by the Obsidian Lady, and hopes the alchemist’s gratitude will extend to removing it. Perhaps he is curious about the thing he carries and thinks, As well the alchemist open it as another. We may never know.

He lifts the chain from around his neck and holds it out to Owl. Kew’s eyes track the motion of his hands. Trembling slightly, Owl’s fingers close around the stopper and strongly (but gently) twist it off.

A fragrance fills the room: all-pervading, heavy, but relieving its weight with its sweetness, and relieving its sweetness with its wild tang. Kew’s eyes, which have been squinting as if in anxiety, open wide, and his pupils become large and black.

“Should it just be given away like that?” Kew asks.

The alchemist’s eyes narrow. “Do not question the great work!”

“What?” says Frin, looking from Owl to Kew and back. “What is it?”

“You don’t know?” says Kew.

“Quiet!” says the alchemist. One of his hands snatches at the vial, but Frin takes a step back.

“Thistle honey,” says Kew. Frin goes very pale. Kew asks, “What does it do?”

“None of your concern,” says the alchemist. He lunges for Frin, but his carapace of stone prevents him. “It shouldn’t be carried by such as you. I know how to use it. Give it to me.”

Frin dodges anyway. “Last? Least? You—you were lying. To get this?”

“Give it to me!” says the alchemist. He lunges again. Some of the stone filigree cracks. At almost the same time, Kew seizes the stopper from Owl’s waving hand and gives it to Frin.

“You lied ?” says Frin. “For Thistle honey ?”

Owl begins to say many things that we need not listen to. We have all heard the ravings of a thwarted alchemist, or if not, we can easily imagine them. What is important, and what Kew’s eyes fix on, is that as Owl flails and lurches against his imprisoning stone, it is starting to crumble.

“Come on!” says Kew, grabbing Frin’s hand and scrambling toward the opening in the wall.

Behind them, the alchemist roars and there is a shuddering grating noise of falling rocks. Just as the boys reach the open floor, the star map bursts from within, sending fragments flying. The turret trembles under the blow, sending the boys sprawling.

A large, roughly triangular piece of the map skids to a halt right beside Kew’s head. It is unclear if he sees it, though it sits exactly where he could . We see it, either way. There are six stars, carved with many more rays than the others: one, across the river, has even more rays than that. Beside the remaining five is a dark deep-bored dot. The brightest star bears the label The Mother . The others are unnamed. Beside the dot is the word beware .

But we are getting distracted. Kew and Frin are up and running, though there is nowhere really to run to. The alchemist has gotten out, or at least some of him has. Long articulated legs of stone haul a pale fleshy body, supported here and there by filigrees and arches. In the midst of the body, dangling like a doll in a careless embrace, are the head, neck, and remaining flesh-arms of the alchemist. Ribbons of soft skin trail behind him into the chamber like the roots of a freshly pulled weed. He is still saying many things, but more importantly, he is blocking the stairs.

Kew looks around. While he does, the alchemist’s hands catch Frin up. Two of them pinion him against a broad thigh of jet molding. Two others creep about his body. Where is the vial they seem to say, feeling for it here and there.

Where is the vial? Even as we think this, Owl shrieks the question into the evening air. A little casement in Black Tower opens, and a sleepy head pokes out to listen.

A Guardian protects. That is their duty. And not only from the Beast. All enemies that threaten the residents of the palace are within the Guardian’s purview. Kew knows this, but what will he do about it?

His eyes lock on something. Hard to tell what. He begins to edge around the wall of the crumbling room. (Owl’s legs are twitching and stamping in fury. The ancient architecture can’t withstand it much longer.) Frin shrieks. Abandoning caution, Kew runs to the now-broken statue with the sword. The sword itself is broken, too, the fresh, sharp edges ironically making it far more suitable as a weapon. It cannot be anything like the sword Kew trained with, but he picks it up easily and brandishes it in warning.

“Let him go,” Kew says.

With a wet tearing noise, the flesh half of Owl’s head turns to look at him. The stone half watches Frin; the arms are still searching him, nails digging into soft skin. Frin shrieks again.

Kew rushes between Owl’s stone legs and drives the sword into the flesh body. Owl gasps and shudders. Dropping Frin, he dances in pain. His body drops, driving the sword farther in, and Owl screams. Black mud spurts from his mouth. In his agony, he stumbles over the edge of the ruined wall and falls. The lantern tracks catch him. His weight bends them. His weight breaks them. He falls again. The thin roots of flesh whip out of the chamber after him, pull taut, and tear. A moment or two later, there is a horrible crash. The little casement in Black Tower shuts.

Silence. We are grateful, Kew and Frin probably more so. They lie on the cracked floor, panting.

“Are you all right?” Kew says at last. He sits up. “Did he hurt you much? I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.”

Frin shakes his head, nods, shrugs. “No worse than a few stings.”

Their packs have been kicked about and the contents scattered. Some of the food is missing. Kew picks up everything he can, repacks it, and hands Frin his shirt.

“I dropped it,” says Frin quietly. He does not meet Kew’s eyes. “The—miracle. I dropped it. I can’t find it.”

Kew reaches into his pocket and takes out the vial. “I caught it.”

Now Frin meets Kew’s eyes. “You caught it?”

“Hawthorn trained me,” says Kew with a shrug. This may not explain anything to Frin, but we understand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know he’d go after you like that.”

“It’s all right,” says Frin. “What are squires for?”

They both chuckle a little. They seem too sleepy to know whether either of them truly found it funny. Kew says they should leave: parts of the floor are creaking ominously. They return to the half-choked stairs and go on their way. They find a little alcove in some building or other and make camp for the night. It is cold. They spread out one blanket, lie back to back, and pull the other over themselves.

We cannot linger. We have other places to be. The eyes of Red Tower see many things, and those things must be reported. We spread our wings and buzz away into the sky. Seven stars twinkle down upon two boys, one tall, one short, both fast asleep within the hide of the palace.