The Ruby Moon (9 page)

The twenty-five kids filed into their new makeshift Great Room for midnight court. The space was smaller than it had been upstairs, so they sat shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Tuck to call the meeting to order.

“We have to be quieter here,” he began. “You never know who’s listening or who they might tell. And we have not simply changed our residence. We have changed our identity. We barely have enough resources to protect and feed ourselves. We’re down to scouts and scavengers. Each one of us is now responsible to gather or protect. We must all do our best and not lose heart. We
will
get out of here.”

The kids broke into muted applause.

When the meeting ended, Kendrick motioned for Avery to join him, and she followed him into the main tunnel to a tiny alcove where they could be alone, hoping he had news.

He pulled a folded bulletin from his pocket. “Brace yourself,” he said.

Beneath a headline about the mystery girl who had won the half-mile race, an artist had drawn Avery’s face.

“My nose is the wrong size. And my eyes—do they look like that?” Kendrick shook his head. “Good.” She handed it back. “Nobody will recognize me from this.”

“You don’t want to read about the reward for your return?”

“I assume they want me dead, so no, I’d rather not.”

“Actually, they want you alive.”

Avery took back the bulletin and read the story. The reward was handsome, but indeed, only if she was delivered alive.

Kendrick said quietly, “Only the crown has access to that kind of reward.”

“Obviously.”

The figure was more than three times her father’s annual income. Much as she’d like to believe he was trying to find her and would capitalize on the race to make it happen, she knew otherwise.

“With a reward like that, they must
really
want to find you.”

“So let them,” Avery said, putting the bulletin in her pocket.

Her afternoons began to consist of sitting beside Tuck in the Great Room listening to the complaints of the kids and the stragglers. Damp, dark days fueled frustrations and allegations, and often the line to speak to him stretched twenty deep.

Tuck would listen, suggest a solution, and send the person or pair on their way.

“He stole my brooch!” one girl accused an old man who lived in the tunnels.

“Do I look like the type of person who would wear a brooch?” the man said.

Avery had to stifle a laugh. She suspected this man was
very
interested in stealing
and selling
brooches.

At night the tunnels belched beggars and thieves onto the streets outside the castle. A beautiful brooch could sell for a pretty penny and the money used to buy whatever an old man desired.

Distant wailing kept Avery awake long after she should have fallen asleep each night—that, and the bone-chilling dampness that made her toss and turn. She pulled the covers up to her chin to no avail. There weren’t enough blankets in the world to make for comfortable sleeping in the tunnels.

But the wailing, oh, the wailing.

Was it a child crying for her mother or a mother crying for her child?

Kate appeared to sleep despite the sound.

But what was that in the darkness on her pillow? Avery strained to see. The ruby ring Kate had received from her grandmother? Whether she had taken it off or it had fallen off, Avery didn’t know, but what Kate had told her about it Avery could never forget:

“It belonged to my grandmother. It’s a locket. She wrote me this message, but I’ll never show anyone what it says.”

Avery threw off her blankets and sat up, curiosity intruding like an unwanted visitor.

Kate would never know.

What agony! Avery wanted to read it so badly, yet something compelled her not to move.

Friendship cannot survive if trust is broken.

She slid her legs over the side of her mattress and froze to see if Kate stirred. Her friend looked like the daughter of nobility, her breathing still steady and deep.

Avery battled every impulse and slipped outside their room. Taking a torch from a sconce on the wall, she would find out where the wailing was coming from.

With the torch aloft, Avery navigated the maze that so many came to in order to escape the king’s wrath.

As she followed the sound, the louder it grew and the more familiar it sounded.

“Mother?” she whispered, twisting and turning with increased speed.

It was crazy—maybe impossible—but she couldn’t imagine happier news than finding her mother in the tunnels. Her mother would know how to fix the mess involving the thirteen-year-olds. And she would do it with her trademark kindness and wisdom. Avery quickly rounded a corner and then another, and suddenly the crying stopped. She stood still and waited, willing it to start again so she could follow the sound.

She considered calling out before realizing her foolishness. Why would her mother have disappeared from their country cottage to hide in the castle’s underworld? Angry with herself, Avery turned to go back to bed.

But a hundred feet from where she stood, a cart sat in the center of an alcove.

Had it been there all along? She hadn’t seen it a moment ago.

She looked closer and saw that it was not just any cart. The very sight of it made her heart quicken and her eyes fill.

Avery knew from the moment she spotted it that this was the cart that had brought her to the castle. She took a step forward and it rattled, sending her reeling backward.

Another child inside?

She raced to it and yanked back the lid. A pigeon flew out, making Avery shriek. It soared straight up then thudded to the ground. She caught her breath, looked closer, and saw a tiny tube fastened beneath its beak.

“How long were you trapped inside?” she asked, finding a sconce for her torch and picking up the creature so she could open the tube as she had seen her father do a dozen times with his carrier pigeons.

She removed a tiny parchment from the tube and unrolled it.

Avery, agree to help me and I will return you to your family.

Her mind raced with questions, one above all:
How could anyone know I would find the box?

Whoever brought the bird could still be in the shadows. Avery whirled, senses crackling. Not sensing any movement, she considered what to do next. Not responding was not an option.

Pigeons fly only one direction. Home. I should release this bird back to whoever sent it.

She grabbed her torch and quickly carried the bird to Kendrick’s little study near the dining room where he kept a stash of parchment and ink. With the pigeon cradled under her arm, she scratched out:

Tell me more. I will help however I can. Who are you?

Avery blew the ink dry and tucked the message back into the pigeon’s tube. She hurried to the base of the stairs that led to the library door.

She hadn’t been outside since the race.

Kendrick’s warning not to leave rang in her ears, and of course the whole kingdom knew the bulletin offered a huge reward for her capture.

Could someone be trying to draw me out of hiding?

I could be trapped as soon as I step into the library.

But dare I ignore the message?

She climbed the stairs to the library door. It opened with a reluctant groan, and she carefully stepped inside.

Moving soundlessly, Avery tiptoed briskly to the kids’ stairwell and up to the door that led to the sloping rooftop where she and Kendrick had seen the ruby moon. To her relief, the deserted old quarters lay eerily quiet.

Out on the balcony, she released the bird and it soared into the midnight sky.

As she urgently made her way back, she wondered,
Who knows we moved to the tunnels?

The next afternoon, the thirteen-year-olds chatted happily over a lunch of boiled meats and thick puddings until two scouts appeared, breathless, wide-eyed, and speaking over each other.

Words rising from the din like fire,
king, angry,
and
destroyed
sent everyone into an uproar.

With no sign of the rest of the cabinet, Avery stood and pointed at one of the scouts. “One at a time! You, what’s wrong?”

“The Olympiad is in flames!” he said. “The tents, the grounds, everything is on fire. The stadium is destroyed. It’s chaos. People are running for their lives, trampling each other on their way to the sea. They say the king is furious, going mad to save his reputation.”

As the room dissolved into pandemonium, Avery motioned the scouts to follow her out to where they could talk in peace.

“Are we in danger?”

“If the wind shifts and the flames aren’t contained.”

“How did it start?”

“Some say it was the king’s foolishness—his tent was full of candles.”

Avery nodded, remembering her brief time in the king’s tent. If even one of those candelabras had been knocked over by an errant elbow, the king’s own tent could have gone up in an instant.

The second scout, the mousier of the two, shifted from leg to leg, clearly eager to share his opinion.

“What do
you
think?” she asked him.

“I heard it might have been a plot against the king. He’s invited his enemies to compete in the games then put his best athletes up against them. That hasn’t won him any friends.”

The other scout added, “He
was
in his tent when it erupted. He was lucky to escape.”

Avery closed her eyes.

The king believed victory would signal God’s favor on his reign.

What would he make of the destruction of the Olympiad by fire?

Avery thanked the scouts and instructed them to return to their posts and keep her updated. She headed back to find Kendrick, Kate, and Tuck. The sooner they assessed what this meant for the kids, the better. One thing was certain: an angry king was a threat to everyone, including himself.

“There is something else,” a voice said behind her.

Avery turned to see the mousy scout. “What is it?”

He looked around and approached. “I may know who started the fire.” He leaned close and whispered into Avery’s ear a name that made her eyes widen.