Flight of the King (9 page)

“I told him it was a little extreme,” she said.

“Extreme? That's the best lesson plan I've put into action all year,” Tremelo said, tossing the sack aside to light his pipe. “You deliberately ignored everything I
told you when you returned to school. Running off into the woods with the Dominae just steps away—and asking Gwen to take part in a half-cooked, dangerous plan.”

Bailey smoothed out his sandy hair, which had gotten mussed every which way by Tremelo's clumsy kidnapping attempt. Of course Taleth had left him alone back there—she had sensed
Tremelo being
Tremelo
, and not any immediate danger to Bailey. Unless you counted severe annoyance as danger.

“You could have been killed if anyone else had found you first tonight!” Tremelo continued. “You're lucky the girls brought Gwen to me; she may have just saved your
life!”

“What do you mean?” Bailey asked, looking from Tremelo to Gwen.

“I tried to tell you outside the assembly,” Gwen began. “I watched Viviana during her tour of the school this morning, from across the commons. I saw her send some men into the
forest, all spread out. They've been combing the woods all day.”

Tremelo shook his head, and blew out a puff of smoke.

“You haven't learned a thing since autumn,” he said.

Bailey got to his feet, fighting the urge to mention that it was his idea for Gwen to spy, and that what she'd seen had proved useful. But only useful, he then realized, because he'd
disobeyed Tremelo's orders.

“I'm sorry,” he said instead.

“Come on,” said Tremelo. “Quickly now, we can't be seen. The others are waiting in my office. We have much to discuss.”

Tori, Phi, and Hal jumped as Bailey, Gwen, and Tremelo entered. Outside in the halls, the sounds of whoops and laughter echoed as students made their way to dinner after an
afternoon of no classes. Tremelo locked both the classroom and office doors.

“Now,” Tremelo said. “Tell me what was said in the assembly.”

Hal spoke up first, unfolding the note with the missing letters.

“This ‘Reckoning' thing, she has it set for the Equinox,” he began. “And it's going to be big—she's planning to hold a giant Fair in the city, and
she's invited the whole school. There's going to be a Scavage game, vendors, and a Science Competition.”

“Just like the one King Melore held, when he was killed,” Tori said, nodding.

Tremelo was silent for a moment as he brushed his mustache nervously with his thumb and forefinger.

“I too made a discovery this morning,” he said finally. He gestured to Fennel the fox, who sat upright and alert next to Tremelo's desk. “With Fennel's help, I was
able to find some plans—blueprints—for a very advanced machine Viviana is commissioning.” He cleared away some books on his desk and smoothed out a large sheet of paper with a
messy conglomeration of shapes and curves drawn on it. Bailey and the others crowded around the desk to get a better look.

“This casing here is engineered to hold something very powerful,” said Tremelo, tracing his finger around the outer border of shapes. “Given the construction, the piece in the
middle is likely volatile, whatever it is. One thing I
can
tell, it doesn't run on electro-current—it's got some sort of other source.…” He trailed off.
“Some of this is familiar—the shape of the casing is conducive for amplification, but of what?” He tapped his finger against the blueprint, lost in thought.

“Sir?” said Tori.

“Yes. Anyway,” said Tremelo, shaking his head. “It's impossible, at this point, to decipher what this machine is meant to
do
, but it's very likely involved
in her plans for this big event.”

“So, if we can figure out what the machine is for, then we can stop her from using it?” Bailey said.

Tremelo nodded.

“And there's only one way to find out what it does, though it involves some serious risk,” Tremelo said. Bailey sat up a little straighter. “We have to make our
own.”

“CONSTRUCTING THE CASING
should be simple,” Tremelo continued. “I have all the supplies we'll need in my workshop. The middle
part—this orblike object—that's what we'll need to research.”

He began to name parts they'd need to collect as Tori wrote down the list. Gwen tried to pay attention, but she was still somewhat lost in the shock of the day. The sight of Viviana on the
campus today had triggered a panic that had nearly paralyzed her. She'd had fun dressing up in Phi's clothes—almost enough to feel normal again. But as soon as she'd seen
the gray uniforms of Viviana's guards, and then Viviana herself, her hands had begun to shake. And when those guards then edged closer to the woods, she'd felt dizzy.

Tremelo had been furious.

“You're not my student—I can't tell you what to do,” he'd said after Phi and Tori had shuffled her through the halls to his office. “But I feel
responsible for you. And you've proved yourself just as foolhardy, just as obstinate as—” Gwen was sure he was about to say
Bailey
, but he stopped himself. “If you
had been seen by anyone who knows you're not a student, how would you have explained yourself?” She, Bailey, and Phi had not even thought that far ahead.

As the group walked from the Applied Sciences building to Tremelo's garage workshop, Tremelo kept close to Gwen.

“Once we're done here tonight, you'll return to the tree house. If anyone sees you in the meantime, I'll say…I'll tell them you're a visiting cousin.”
He sighed. “Not that that wouldn't raise suspicion on its own, given what the administration knows of my past.”

Gwen nodded, and continued the rest of the way in silence.

In the workshop, they split into makeshift teams, scouring through Tremelo's hoard of metal parts, wires, gears, and bolts. Gwen, Phi, and Bailey worked over a table piled high with
tangled wires, while Hal and Tori fought at the other end of the musty garage.

“I'd saved you a seat at the assembly,” Hal said.

“No one asked you to do that,” said Tori.

Gwen locked eyes with Phi, who made a face.

“Look for anything copper first,” said Tremelo, shuffling through a wooden crate of metal parts. “Most conductive—that
I
can afford, anyway.”

“Like this?” asked Gwen, spotting a few flat sheets of copper tucked behind the workbench.

“Yes, exactly!” said Tremelo. He grabbed them from her and started a pile in the center of the room. “Let's collect it all here,” he said. “We're
looking for electrical wiring, thin, conductive metal like that copper, and anything that could be used to construct the frame.”

Invigorated, the kids dug in. Every minute or so, one of them held up an object for Tremelo's approval or tossed it straight onto the pile. Phi untangled several feet of frayed,
cloth-covered wire as Bailey and Gwen sorted the rest of the metal sheets. Hal picked through a tub of nuts and bolts, matching them according to size, while Tori and Tremelo overturned a barrel of
discarded motorcar parts to search for framing pieces. The pile in the center of the workshop grew.

“What happens when we figure out what the machine does?” asked Hal. “What's next?”

“We stop it from happening, of course,” said Bailey. “Right?”

“Yes, but how?” Hal asked.

“That's obvious,” said Tremelo. This pronouncement was followed by confused silence from the students. “Once we know what the machine does, we'll know how to
counteract it. And once we know that, we'll build a modified version that Tori will enter into the Science Competition.”

Tori looked at them all with a satisfied smirk.

“I wouldn't exactly call that ‘obvious,'” said Hal. “Why Tori?”

“Because I'm the only one of us taking Tinkering,” Tori said. “And I get it—we enter the competition so that no one will look twice at us lugging some huge
machine—”

“Don't assume it will be huge!” Tremelo interrupted.

“Okay, some mystery machine into the Fair,” Tori finished. “And then once the time is right, we flip the ‘on' switch and—”

“Bam,” said Hal. “Whatever ‘bam' will be.”

“That's right,” said Tremelo. “Getting our machine into the Science Competition will mean better access to Viviana, and whatever her ‘Reckoning' will
be.”

Gwen glanced at Bailey as they found another sheet of gleaming copper. He was smiling, his blue eyes glittering with purpose.

“You seem happier,” she said.

“Nice to have a plan,” he said.

“Ah! And if I'm not mistaken, there should be some silver shavings in my kitchen,” Tremelo called out. “Be right back!” Tremelo rushed out of the workshop, nearly
skipping.

“King Trent Melore, everyone,” said Hal. “The rightful ruler of Aldermere, off to fetch silver shavings…”

“He's younger, though,” said Tori. “I mean, if you want to get technical about it, Viviana
is
the rightful ruler.”

Bailey and Phi stared at her.

“But she's evil,” Bailey said.

“Obviously,” sighed Tori. “And that's why we have to stop her, and so on.
I
know that. But if you think about it, the Loon's prophecy could just as well be
talking about her as it was about Tremelo. Except for the fact that Viviana's a crazy person, there's no real reason that he's the True King.”

“That's not true,” Bailey said.

“It is,” Gwen said, surprising even herself. The others turned to her with curious expressions—eyebrows raised, mouths half-open in anticipation of what she would say next.
“I despise her—I know what she's capable of. But if Melore had lived, Viviana would have eventually taken over the throne as the eldest. That's one reason Parliament was so
divided when she returned to the Gray.” She thought about the men and women of Parliament, arguing deep into many nights about exactly this.

“Right,” said Tori. “My parents knew plenty of Melore loyalists at home who thought she ought to be queen.”

“It was the same in Parliament,” said Gwen. “Though some could see what the years in the Plains had done to her—like the Elder. Others wanted to keep her out because a
new ruler would take Parliament's power away.” She pulled at her hair. Everyone's attention was on her. She hadn't spoken very much about Parliament, and the dark days
before it disbanded. When she considered everything that had happened to her, those days seemed like a lifetime ago.

“But this isn't about who has the right to rule,” said Bailey.

“Of course,” said Gwen. “The Elder taught me no one has the
right
to rule anything, only the ability to prove that they can. But not everyone in the kingdom thinks
that way. And they'll hear the name
Melore
, and think she's what they've been waiting for. They don't know. And by the time they do, it might be too late to stop
her. It makes our task harder.”

“Sadder too,” said Phi. “Viviana must have gone through some terrible things in the Dust Plains.”

“You're a very forgiving person,” Gwen said, trying to catch the edge in her voice. She couldn't shake the memory of Viviana pointing up at Grimsen the owl and shouting
the order to end his life.

“I've seen what it's like out there,” Phi said. “It wasn't fair, what happened to her. But that doesn't change what she is now.”

“No, it doesn't,” Gwen said. She stared at the wood grain of the workbench in front of her, her vision blurred with anger or sadness—or both. A moment passed before she
realized that Phi was looking at her, her eyes soft and full of concern.

“You saw her, didn't you? Before today, I mean,” Phi said.

Gwen nodded. The others slowed their movements, turning ever so slightly toward her to listen better. She felt a knot begin to tighten in her chest.

“Yes,” she said. “I've seen her and Sucrette. There was a
demonstration
.…” She said the last word harshly. Gwen put down the wires she was untangling,
and took a deep breath. She had witnessed the Dominae's cruel exercises of control, and watched Viviana take the life of an animal Gwen loved. But she wasn't sure she could bring
herself to tell them that. To say the words made her think of how she'd failed the Elder.

“She uses machines that look like animals,” she said, thinking of the Clamoribus. “They're not alive, made of metal and wire.”

“Oh, sure, we've seen those,” said Tori. “They were all around the city during break.”

Gwen shook her head. “But she thinks of living animals the same way—easy to control. Easy to kill.” She paused, and took another deep breath. “She murdered the
Elder's life-bonded kin, Grimsen, right in front of me.” She broke off.