The Ruby Moon (4 page)

Kendrick, Kate, and Avery sat in the sitting room as Tuck paced.

Avery had seen Tuck this upset only the day she had returned to the castle after sneaking back to her family home. He was inconsolable. “We’ve got to fix this!”

“How can the scouts have seen nothing?” Avery said. “People can’t disappear into thin air. Someone isn’t talking.”

“How do we make them talk?” Kendrick asked.

“We don’t,” Kate said. “We begin with what we know.”

“We’re disappearing the same way we all arrived,” Kendrick said.

“Not exactly,” Avery said. “Sorry to be blunt, Kate, but obviously your grandmother isn’t involved.”

“What I mean,” Kendrick continued, “is there appears to be no pattern. The missing seem to have nothing in common.”

“We only
assume
they’re being snatched,” Avery said. “What if they’re leaving because they’ve found a way out? Leaving by choice?”

“Why wouldn’t they share the news with their closest friends? And where would they go?” Kate asked. “It’s not like most of us have homes to return to, and it’s the wrong time of year to sleep outdoors.”

Tuck stopped. “We need to move,” he said. “We’ve got to find a place to relocate before the next person is grabbed. At the very least, relocating might buy us time to learn what’s happening.”

“Where could we possibly go that would be large enough to hide everyone?” Kendrick asked.

Avery shot Kate a knowing glance.

She would go back to the tunnels tonight with or without Kate’s approval.

Avery intended her second trip into the tunnels to be brief. She wanted to approach Tuck with the idea of moving, but she needed more information. He would ask where they would sleep, eat, meet, and work.

She hadn’t considered getting lost.

Yet, thirty minutes into her trip, the maze of interconnecting chambers broken by giant columns dizzied her. With only a candle to guide her, the catacomb of blown-out rooms overwhelmed. The space was enough to house an underground city. But the longer she walked and the deeper she traveled into the castle’s underbelly, the more certain she felt she had gotten in over her head.

Armed with a pocket of matches and her jeweled dagger, she moved silently through the space, wondering how many eyes watched her from the deep shadows.

She turned a corner and realized she had already seen this part of the tunnel.

In fact, twice—maybe three times.

She had heard the tunnels were a death trap to anyone incapable of figuring them out. It was the castle’s hideous joke on lawless men who hid in its subterranean shadows to avoid the dungeon or the chopping block.

Bending, she quickly dragged her fingers through the mysterious sludge coating the floor, drew an X on the wall, and picked up her pace.

Avery saw the same X again a few minutes later and slumped against the wall.

Tears stung as she rested her head in her arms. She smelled dead fish and heard a voice she recognized immediately. “I told you never to come back here again.”

Avery whipped around in time to see the dim light of a waning torch. She pushed herself up and backed away from the voice, reaching for the dagger in her pocket.

The voice continued, “Go straight until you reach a fork. Then left until you see the X that leads to the stairs. And
don’t come back.
I know who you are. You aren’t safe here.”

Avery turned and ran, relief sweeping over her when she reached the library and let herself back inside. She had been gone much longer than she intended.

She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Girls huddled in the bunkroom, wailing. Avery knew immediately someone else was missing, but who?

She approached a group of girls, frantically searching for Kate. “What happened? Who’s missing?”

A great cry went up as Kate raced across the room and grabbed Avery, shaking her. Kate’s voice quavered with rage. “Where have you been, Avery?”

Confused by the startled expressions, Avery finally comprehended what had caused the upset.
I missed supper. I missed roll call. I wasn’t in my room.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I lost track of time.”

“You were
gone
!” a girl wailed.

“So sorry,” Avery said, louder now, realizing everyone thought she had been swallowed by that mysterious hole everyone seemed to be falling into one by one. She was overcome that girls who had never spoken to her had been mourning her demise and were now celebrating her appearance.

Grief makes best friends of strangers.

Within moments, the crisis had passed and the girls had moved on to other things.

“Where were you?” Kate demanded.

“You know where, and don’t start with me. I had no choice. You heard what Tuck said about moving. You know the tunnels are a good choice—maybe even our
only
choice.”

“It’s my
job
to keep you safe,” Kate said.

“Says who?”

Kate looked away and her tone softened. “Especially right now, you need to follow orders. Please, for me, stay out of the tunnels.”

Tuck wanted Avery to join him in the sitting room after supper, and she knew that couldn’t mean good news. The twinkle was gone from his eyes, and she hadn’t seen him smile since the thirteen-year-olds started disappearing. She just hoped Kate hadn’t told him where she’d been.

He’ll take her side for sure. Everyone always does.

In the corner of the sitting room, she found Tuck, Kendrick, Kate, and a scout she didn’t know. Tuck motioned for her to sit. “We have a problem.”

“Only one?” Kendrick muttered.

“As you know,” Tuck continued, “Thomas was to run in the Olympiad half mile. We have no idea if he’ll be found in time.”

“The scouts want you to run,” Kate blurted. “It’s a terrible idea.”

Tuck nodded. “Terrible.”

Avery looked to Kendrick, who shrugged and turned away.

“We hope Thomas will be found,” the scout said, “but we need a backup. The king will be furious if no one represents the kingdom. We were told to produce a runner, and if we don’t, there will be no mercy.”

Everyone looked grave.

Kendrick said, “The king doesn’t give second chances, Avery. Whoever runs must win.”

“You think I can’t?”

No one looked her in the eye.

“What do you think, Tuck? Do you believe I can win?”

Tuck didn’t respond.

“You’re the only one willing to try,” the scout said. “You could get out of the castle a bit. See the Olympiad up close, visit the tents.”

Avery’s friends shook their heads.

“If something happened to you …,” Tuck said.

“I’ll do it,” Avery said, a little too loudly.

I’ll prove I can do something right.

In bed that night, Avery began to doubt her decision.

Who might her competition be? Whoever it was, they had likely been training for months while she had been cooped up letting her muscles shrivel and grow weak.

Why am I so impulsive? What have I agreed to?

This wouldn’t be one of her races back home on a bright, cold morning where the winner received the praises of her friends. The outcome of this race could mean the difference between freedom and the tower, life and death.

Unable to sleep, she dressed and went to the Great Room the kids used for midnight court. She ran as quickly as she could from one side of the room to the other until she was exhausted. She looked silly, but she didn’t care. It felt good to fill her lungs again and feel the ground fly beneath her bare feet—even if it was marble instead of dirt. Avery was not ready for a half mile, but if she ran each night while her friends slept—also on the stairs and through the halls—maybe she would be.

A shift in the shadows just outside the room caught her eye.

She needed to get back to her mattress before anyone worried.

Avery lay staring at the ceiling and decided, regardless how the race ended, she owed it to her friends to tell them they had a safer place to live right beneath them. If it was the last thing she did, she would ensure their safe passage to the tunnels.

She
needed
to go back underground, and she needed someone to go with her.

Avery cautiously approached the storage room where each afternoon Kate organized the shipment of castle castoffs the scouts delivered by the trunk load. With the Olympiad fast approaching, the castle was in pandemonium, with artisans making new clothes and fashioning new jewelry, so castoffs were plentiful. Most wound up in the kids’ store, where the thirteen-year-olds bought and sold with marbles.

“I need you to come with me,” Avery said.

Kate looked up from sorting a box of furs. “Where?”

Avery paused, summoning her courage. “To explore the tunnels.”

Kate started to protest, but Avery put up a hand. “If Tuck is serious about moving us, the tunnels could be our only option. I just need one more visit and someone to go with me who’s—I know you told me not to go back and I know it’s not safe, but it’s not safe staying on this side of the castle either. I’d rather get in trouble trying to find a solution than be snatched while doing nothing. I know this isn’t a game.”

“But it
is
,” Kate said. “We just have to prove ourselves better at playing it. Let’s go!”