The Dragon's Tooth (35 page)

“Quite,” said Horace.

“I know Latin!” Cyrus yelled.

“Not quite,” said Nolan.

Horace plowed on through the laughter. “As the representative of one William Cyrus Skelton, Keeper, now deceased, it is my duty to inform you that, in the eyes of the Order of Brendan, you are now—finally—considered to be Mr. Skelton’s full, complete, and uncontested heirs. Barring, of course, any specific exclusions in Mr. Skelton’s Last Will and Testament.”

The table went silent. Horace peered at Cyrus over his glasses.

“Well,” said Cyrus, “what do we get?”

“That,” said Rupert, eyeing Horace, “is between you and the Order. And as the New Year has now arrived, I am here to invite you to join me in my office for an unsealing of the documents and a formal reading of the will.”

Cyrus and Antigone stood up and pushed back their chairs.

Antigone waved to the group. “We’ll be right back.”

“No,” said Horace, laughing. “I don’t think you will. This should take some time.”

Beside a quiet country road outside of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, not too far west of the frozen freshwater sea called Lake Michigan, there is a lady on a pole. She stands as silent and pale as the snow falling around her, crowning her head, chilling her extended arm.

Behind her, the Red Baron slept in a bed of snow beside an enormous bulldozer. Beneath her, an old green pickup idled. A large woman leaned against its hood.

A man, as big and bearded as a musk ox, came hustling toward her. He was holding a silver box and switch, dragging an electrical cord behind him.

He put his arm around his wife. She put her arm around her husband. The two of them looked up at the Pale Lady.

And then the New Year erupted with life, with silent, slow-falling flakes of wealth. Snow became golden. Darkness crept away.

Cyrus gripped the worn leather on the arms of his chair and glanced at his sister sitting next to him. She tucked back her short black hair and bit her lower lip. Across the top of the large desk, John Horace Lawney adjusted his half-moon glasses. Rupert Greeves stood behind him, arms crossed.

The little lawyer set a blue glass brick the size of a shoe box on top of his desk. Dust ghosted off its sides. Cyrus leaned forward. It wasn’t glass all the way through. It was some kind of package wrapped in glass. Heavy folds met on the top beneath a large black seal.

“Will the Avengel please break the seal?” Horace asked, leaning back in his seat. Rupert stepped forward, sliding a gold ring onto his finger. Clenching his fist, he dealt the center of the seal a quick, crisp blow. The glass cracked through the corners. Horace delicately peeled the pieces away like giant petals.

An ebony box sat amid the shards.

Horace opened it and leaned forward, peering beneath the hinged lid through his half-lenses. Cyrus held his breath as the little lawyer lifted out the contents one at a time. First, a creased and folded hand-drawn map of Mongolia. Second, an apple core the color of leather. Third, a little booklet called
How to Breed Your Leatherbacks
. Fourth, a folded rice-paper sphere for a Chinese lantern, wrapped in a protective oilcloth. The lawyer expanded it carefully until it sat on his desk in front of Cyrus and Antigone, a little larger than a classroom globe. A map of the world had been crudely drawn on its yellowing paper, and the oceans were filled with ink scrawlings in a language even Rupert didn’t recognize. Also in the box, a tiny bamboo tray full of hardened oil with a candlewick.

While Cyrus and Antigone watched, Horace attached it to the bottom of the paper globe and lit the wick.

The room glowed orange. Cyrus glanced at his sister. Map shadows striped her surprised face. Moments later, the sphere floated gently into the air, spinning slowly. “Right,” said Cyrus.

“So …,” said Antigone.

Rupert Greeves laughed. “Horace, I think you’d better read them the will.”

EPILOGUE

I
N A COLD
, dark room, Dr. Phoenix sat at his desk, chewing thoughts, digesting dreams. A smooth black tooth chilled his one remaining palm. His soiled white coat had only one full arm, and so did he. Despite every spell and charm and oily medicine, the other hand had drifted away. In ash.

Smiths. He hated all Smiths.

He ran a finger across the tip of the Reaper’s Blade. He had done much with it already. He had planted many seeds. Soon the harvest would come.

This would be a year the world would remember.

Five minutes later, Phoenix stepped down a flight of tight stairs and pulled open a heavy metal door. Frozen air flowed out around his crippled legs, and he hobbled in, passing between stacks of long metal boxes, each with a glass door in its side. Naked shapes were visible behind them.

Finally, he stopped, breathing hard, puffing vapor.

Behind a glass door, three boxes up from the floor, lay the lifeless body of a tall man with blond hair. His puckered bullet wounds were pale. His dead lips and ears and eyelids were blue. His name was written in ink on a small card attached to the glass.

LAWRENCE JOHN SMITH

END OF BOOK ONE

Obsecro ut haec recites: Jam incipio calcare orbem terrarum, colere agrestia, jugum injicere maribus quemadmodum antea fecit frater meus, sanctus Brendanus. Nec prae timore avertam gradum ab umbris nec mea lumina a luce. Secundum imperia Procuratorum me geram, nec quicquam secretum ab Sagis habebo. Sint stellae mihi duces et Dominus me servet semper. Ceterum, in Bibliotheca inhaustu abstinebo fumorum
.

G
RATITUDE

Kate Klimo and Mallory Loehr
for eyes, words, and belief

Meg O’Brien for laughter

Dennis M., Joe E., and the rest of the sixth floor
for batting cleanup

Ellice Lee for my new uniform

Heather Linn for every little thing

Rory, Lucia, Ameera, Seamus, and Marisol
for being (and test-driving large portions of this
in their own bedtime adventures)

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

N. D. WILSON lives in Idaho with his wife and their five young explorers. For more information, please visit
ndwilson.com
.