Welcome, Dancer

Where do you want to go?

"May my song pierce your slumber, my lady of silver, bearer of such lonely fate. May you hear and remember my sorrows and joys, for the night is short, and the hour is late."

Synopsis

The fate of every life in Iaela is governed by a star...

But if you’re Sevi, you live in a place where not even they can see: the Cut. Wrapping around the walls of a castle and running into the heart of a mountain, the labyrinthine, bioluminescent plant-lined tunnels of the Cut make the only home Sevi has ever known. Suffering from horrible nightmares and missing his memory, all that he understands about the outside world is that it brings death.

Luckily, he has his best friend Lily—his savior and protector against the castle’s denizens called the Fablings. Invaders from a neighboring land, the Fablings killed the castle’s previous occupants and would gladly do the same to Lily and Sevi should

they be discovered.

Their seclusion, however, soon comes to an abrupt end when a flying ship appears bearing a human prisoner with knowledge of the Cut. Escaping through its tunnels, he quickly returns with an army, separating Sevi and Lily in the ensuing battle. Alone and exposed, Sevi is faced with a choice: inherit the fate awaiting him or make one for himself.

Inspired by the author’s experience with derealization,

The Dance Between is a story of fate, choice, and discovery. Within its pages the reader will find firedrakes, guns, quicksilver, Fae, flowers, masquerades, and a fairy tale spun to ensnare the imagination of any new adult and beyond.

"There once was a castle on the mountaintop high, a jewel for the whole world to see. Within its walls lived a girl and a boy, an unlikely family."

Praise

"The Dance Between is a wonderfully built epic fantasy akin to the ​Shannara books, holding everything which makes humanity so ​precious (and dangerous): love, sorrow, growth, loss, etc. Though ​the protagonist is a teenage boy, the book can be enjoyed by those ​of any adult age, and I would recommend it to any fans of the genre."

— Megan Weiss, Reedsy Discovery (See the full review here)

"In a genre that often feels recycled, Christopher Katalinas stands out from the crowded pack with a fresh storyline that is very different from anything else I've read. Overall, this is brilliant work, and I look forward to following the author and seeing what he comes up with next."

— Asher Syed, Reader’s Favorite (See the full review here)

"Katalinas nails the characterization, suspense, and worldbuilding, ​leaving readers both pleased and hungry for more. Apart from being a ​great story for dark fantasy and adventure fans, The Dance Between is ​also suitable for readers who love political conundrums and military ​strategies. I enjoyed every bite of this chunky, flavorful tale that's ​brimming with distinctive magic and slowly unfolding secrets."

— Foluso Falaye, Reader’s Favorite (See the full review here)

"The Dance Between will appeal to a wide range of readers as it spans several genres, including fantasy, science fiction, and adventure. There are no dull moments and the book is filled with magic, loyalty, danger, and espionage. The intensity of the suspense captured my imagination."

— Stephanie Chapman, Reader’s Favorite (See the full review here)

Listen

the song that inspired the novel

Purchase

Get the story at any of these retailers

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Kobo
• Apple
• Thalia
• Vivlio
• Smashwords
  

• Books-a-Million
• !ndigo
• Angus & Robertson
• Waterstones
• Blackwells
• Bookshop.org
• And More!
  

An offer for U.S. indie bookstores!

If you would like to display my book in your store then contact me at ckatstories@yahoo.com with the subject, "Indie Inquiry." I will send you paperback copies at-cost of production and shipping!

"The boy was a mouse who kept his head down, seen only by lizard and stone.

Each morning he went out to look for himself, each evening he came back alone."

About the Author

An avid reader from an early age, I am a self-taught writer with a deep, abounding love for storytelling across all media. The greatest inspirations of my childhood and adolescence come from the stories written by Cornelia Funke,

Eoin Colfer, and Rick Riordan, though I have since developed an appreciation

for the works of Mark Lawrence, Naomi Novik, and Brandon Sanderson.

Greatly influenced by my past love for poetry, I endeavor to instill a sense of poetic narration in my style, believing it to be the greatest vehicle for wonder

and beauty in the literary arts.

When not writing or reading my favorite activities include singing with my ukulele, playing tabletops, learning how to swing dance, and dreaming about finally getting that dog I've always wanted.

You can find me on Twitter or Instagram at the handle @ChrisWritesNow, or email me directly at ckatstories@yahoo.com

Interested in what I've been up to? Check out my monthly newsletter!

(you can read it before you subscribe!)

"The girl was a flower, a friend, his best in the world,

with a wit just as sharp as her thorns.

Her head was held high with the helm of a knight,

but her heart was as low as the floor."

Chapter One

May my song pierce your slumber, my lady of silver, bearer of such lonely fate. May you hear and remember my sorrows and joys, for the night is short, and the hour is late.

A grand, imposing castle stood before a wide courtyard, staring down at squads of drilling soldiers clad in green as they hurled lightning down the field to strike the mountainside. A spire rose from the ground at every corner of the structure, each with a pointed top and faded-blue tiles. They guarded its body like silent sentinels, with their eyes turned out to face the world, and all the dangers it might bring. Smaller, flat-topped towers trailed away from the walls to a lower shelf of rock, as though the castle had moved and left pieces of itself behind.

Within the castle’s bulk stood a tower taller than any other—the leader of the sentinels. The wind, borne of snowy mountaintops and eager to race down their slopes, buffeted its side, lending the monolith a voice to groan. It was a thing of contradictions: whimsical, but sober. Regal, but crude. Beautiful, but terrible. One had to know its purpose to understand.

Inset into the castle’s walls were magnificent windows of stained glass and shimmering metal. They glowed orange in the setting sun’s light, enhancing the structure’s façade and elevating its countenance. But even with such jewelry, it remained the face of an old, grumpy giant, sitting on its plateau and glaring down at the rest of the world, as if to say, ‘stay away!’ The rest of the world must have heard because it was the only building to call the peak its home. All the other, smaller, less-imposing buildings contented themselves with the forests far below, hidden beneath the canopy and wrapping around the mountain’s base, fleeing the behemoth’s stony gaze.

But the castle, its windows, its sentinels, and its tall, cynical tower were not the only observers of its strange, magical denizens. Above the gardens, shaded by all manner of dense foliage, was an outcrop of rock fondly named the Overlook. It was a place that begged not to be seen, to remain hidden; to stay a secret known only to the few lucky enough to find it and quiet enough to keep it. For what makes a secret a special, precious thing, is its silence.

It was here where two figures lounged on ragged blankets, stolen from the castle's soldiers at great risk to themselves. They were the secret’s only acolytes, and they devoted all their hearts and minds to keeping it that way. Nobody knew silence as well as they.

“What about that one?” asked the first.

“I call her, ‘Lady Boil.’”

“She doesn’t look that pimply to me. Far from it.”

“She gets angry a lot,” the second figure explained. “And when she does her face gets red enough to boil water. Then she starts slapping people.”

The first speaker shook her head. “I don’t know if I’d call her that then. Maybe something like, ‘Lady Doom’ instead, on account of how she hands out doom to everyone around her.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Don’t be jealous. It doesn’t suit you.”

The shadows across the grounds grew longer as the sun sank behind the mountain’s ridge. A kind breeze blew over the cliffside as the evening bells rang out, banishing the day’s heat. The flowers in the courtyard garden, normally vibrant enough to make any painter weep, had been robbed of their colors and replaced with a pervasive shade of gold. It was with great hope that the boy, the second of the two speakers, wished that he might walk among them one day.

Both he and his friend had their spyglasses to their faces, spying on the soldiers as they went about their business. The boy had collectively named them all Fablings, on account of the fantastical features each of them sported, with no two ever being exactly alike. They could have only been born from a story.

“I’ll call her what I want,” he said, brushing his ratty brown-blond hair back from his face. It had never felt the bristles of a comb, and only rarely the edge of a knife. “My name sounds much better than ‘lady doom.’”

His companion—the elder of the two by several years—sighed, and readjusted the blanket over her head. “I’m not arguing with you. Go ahead and be flowery.”

The iron helm of a knight peeked out from beneath her covering, made for a head two sizes bigger than hers and sweeping along her skull to hide all her hair and most of her cheeks. Where once the metal had been lavishly emblazoned with silver celestial embossments, now it was scratched and worn. Its visor slumped over her forehead in a perpetual fight to shade the green in her irises. But it always lost.

She moved her glass, training it on someone new. “What about that one by the flyers? What about him?”

The boy followed her path, moving his glass from the lady near the geisthound kennels to fix it on a short soldier with leaves growing out of his shirt. “The one with the bark-looking skin?”

“No, the one with half a wing.”

The boy moved his spyglass again to peer at a sorry-looking figure with a pair of lace wings on his back. One of them was broken. “Raindrop,” he said.

The corner of the girl’s mouth tightened in a practiced manner, waiting for an explanation that never came. Finally, she said, “Well? Why is he called that?”

“He always looks ready to fall to the ground, like a raindrop,” the boy said, following their target as he shuffled from one side of the courtyard to the other. He had a stack of papers in his arms, which he clutched tighter as he weaved between a squad of soldiers.

The girl laughed. “You’ve got a funny way of seeing people.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“What would you call him then?”

“Pariah. Or maybe Lost Cause.”

She added a bite to her words that was both nonchalant and unnecessary. It made the boy pause. “Lily—”

“No, he doesn’t look like a Lily. I would know. How about, ‘Forsaken?’ Cause it looks like the gods—oooo, that must’ve hurt.”

Lily laughed as a bigger, burlier figure with four arms shoved Raindrop, causing the latter to stumble, fall, and drop his papers in every direction. The breeze quickly picked up the sheets and carried them away, proving to be not as kind to Raindrop as it had been to his observers. “Or Fallen, cause, y’know, that must’ve hurt. But you were right, he was ready to fall,” she said.

The boy sighed, watching as Raindrop flicked his hands and caught the wind in his grip before it could slip away entirely, reeling the floating papers back within reach. He tried mimicking the gesture, waving his hand in the hopes he could summon the wind himself one day. “Why are you so mean today?”

“You think I’m mean? I’m like this every day.”

The boy put down his spyglass and turned a hazel eye on her. On his other he wore an eyepatch with a large scar poking out from beneath. The grisly wound traveled along his face from the top of his left brow and swooped down his cheek, exiting at the jawbone. Another scar, just barely visible at the hollow of his throat, peeked out from the collar of his shirt in the shape of a star exploding in all directions, seared into his skin. “Lily, what’s going on?”

“I told you,” Lily said absently, still looking through her spyglass. “Nothing.”

The boy watched her a moment longer. When she stayed quiet, he scowled. “Fine.”

Lily shook her head, keeping her eyes on the courtyard below. “Don’t get dramatic.”

“I tell you everything, Lily.”

“Sometimes I wish you wouldn’t,” she muttered.

The boy’s expression fell. At his sullen silence, Lily put her glass down and turned to him, revealing a cherubic face. “Having a tantrum?”

The boy crossed his arms. “You can try to hide it, but I know when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

“You’re never like this without a reason.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I just don’t like him.”

“You’ve never met him.”

“But you said it yourself, I’m a heartless little girl who doesn’t tell you everything.”

The boy huffed indignantly. “I never said that!”

“Yeah, well, it’s what you meant.”

He stared at her in disbelief for several breaths before grunting and standing up. He was done with this back-and-forth. Gods only knew how often they’d gone through it before.

“Sevi.” She sighed. “Stop.”

“I’m going to get food,” Sevi said, turning away.

Lily watched for a moment, allowing him to walk a distance away, before finally throwing up her hands. “Gods. Fine.”

Sevi stopped, turning to face her expectantly. His clothing—threadbare and torn—hung loosely on a lean frame that was hollowed out from years of hunger. Lily was in no better shape, but he could pride himself in the extra head of height he had on her. She, however, could boast of retaining her shadow. His own had been absent for quite some time.

“I hate it when you do this,” Lily grumbled. “I wasn’t going to tell you, just because I knew this would put you into one of your sulking moods, but hey, you went there yourself.” She crossed her arms.

Sevi scoffed. “You know, I don’t have—”

“I heard something coming from the mines last night.”

His protest died on his lips as quickly as it formed.

“They weren’t the kind of echoes you’d hear from Outside, or the kitchen,” Lily continued. “It sounded… not like an animal, but not like the normal cavern sounds. More like scratching, or hammering, as if something had struck a wall.”

A shiver washed through Sevi. He clutched a hand to his chest, touching the scar beneath his shirt. His lungs fluttered, and his heartbeat spiked.

Seeming to have expected this, Lily immediately raised her hands in a placating gesture. “See, I knew you would… ugh. Relax. I checked it out. We’re still sealed up tight. Whoever or whatever it was must’ve just gotten lost in the mines, if they ever existed at all. Maybe it was a large rock falling. Maybe it caused a cascade somewhere. Echoes are weird in the Cut.”

Sevi nodded and closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to settle. He didn’t say anything for a moment. When he opened them, it was just in time to catch Lily scooping up a pebble. She chucked it at his face with frightening accuracy, bouncing it off his nose.

“Get me something, too, while you’re at it.” She settled back down with her spyglass.

“What?”

“Food. Get. Me. Food,” she said slowly, enunciating each word. “I’ve been lying on my belly all day. I could use something to eat.”

Sevi inhaled and let his breath go, bit by bit, until the tightness in his chest loosened. “Food. Right. Yeah.”

“Do you have your iron?”

Sevi patted at his clothing until he felt the familiar handle of a small, needly knife, wrapped with cloth in his pants pocket. “Yes.”

“Whistle, too?”

Sevi reached into another pocket and brought out a well-used signal whistle carved from bone. He blew two chirps into it.

Lily nodded in approval. “Will you be stopping by the garden?”

“Only if I can’t get enough food from the kitchens. I have enough effizinum to last another couple nights.”

“You’re all set, then. And it’s alright, Sev,” she added, throwing him a smile. “Relax yourself, or you might break.”

Sevi shot her another scowl. He grabbed some rope and a dirty pack, slinging them over his shoulder before stepping away. Leaving Lily to her surveyance, he set his mind to the daunting task of finding them a meal.

Chapter Two

There once was a castle on the mountaintop high, a jewel for the whole world to see. Within its walls lived a girl and a boy, an unlikely family.

Near the Overlook lay a tunnel that cut into the heart of the mountain—one of many others. Soft, fading light filtered in from the ceiling and walls, seeping in from thin crevices in the rock.

Sevi took a moment to adapt his sight. He flipped up the eyepatch that covered his scarred, perfectly functioning eye, and shifted it over to his useless, unadjusted eye. He had discovered in his first months living in the Cut that having a cloth over one eye would keep it continually adjusted to the dark, as annoying as it was to wear.

He moved deeper into the tunnel, and the further he went, the more vibrant it became. Exotic vines and moss thickened along the walls, glowing with colorful bioluminescence bright enough to show the edges of the path. Light motes twinkled and floated about dreamily on a gentle draft, and shimmer lizards, bright even in the dark with their purple and green hides, skittered away as his footsteps approached.

They had never gotten used to his presence. He would’ve fed them in hopes of gaining their trust, but Lily had chided him for wasting food the first time he’d tried, and he’d given up. Sometimes he wished she would be a little less practical.

She had taught him everything on how to survive the Cut. He had no doubt she would’ve been fine on her own—perhaps even happier. But their partnership allowed room to split tasks, such as spying on the castle’s soldiers while he gathered food, or so she said. He privately believed she just hated kitchen duty and wanted to keep lounging in the sun.

But they were partners, now and forever, and he would play his part.

The path took him to a rough section of wall containing the outline of a crudely bricked-up tunnel. He took a moment to place his hand on it, looking at it from floor to ceiling for any noticeable gaps before finally giving it a pat. He muttered, “Still sealed tight.”

A sound in the Cut was always amplified. What Lily heard could’ve been anything. That’s what he told himself, at least, in order to tear his gaze away. It was enough to let him move on but not before he’d conducted his regular ritual.

He called out, “Shy? I’m here. Are you out there?”

No answer. One more failed attempt. Sevi was used to it, but it never stopped disappointing him. He missed Shy’s quiet, nonsensical company, and scavenging for food would have been easier with them around. He’d keep calling. Maybe one day they would come out of the dark.

He wound his way deeper into the mountain, walking down a slope until he hit the lip of a subterranean escarpment. A peg had been hammered into a stone next to the drop, holding a well-used rope that trailed over the side. Sevi hooked the crook of his arm around it and easily slid off the rock, carefully rappelling down to the floor a couple stories below.

At its base, the tunnels split off into two separate directions. He took the left, downward-sloping tunnel at an easy pace, until the exotic plants and rocky walls slowly gave way to chiseled stone. He stopped and moved his eyepatch back to his light-adjusted eye, placed one hand on the wall for guidance, and walked forward.

The light inside the tunnel grew brighter, and the plants and floating motes faded away as he crossed over the threshold into the open air. The path had set him on a narrow cliff hugging the castle’s outer walls, hidden by light brush and overlooking a vast swath of unsettled forest far below.

A sky, awash with the dying light of day, stretched out before him, full of big, fluffy clouds passing over a glistening river in the distance. Strong gusts of wind carrying the smell of mountain water buffeted his body, eager to knock him from his perch should his attention slip for even a moment.

He breathed in deeply and pressed on, reaching a gap in the cliff that dipped down to a lower level, where he attached a rope to the trunk of a nearby tree that had found purchase in the stone. Securing it, he rappelled down another level and moved a short distance to where a patch of leaves rested. He reached into them, took hold of the wicker frame they were attached to, and moved it aside, revealing a crack in the stone big enough to get through. He entered quickly, then moved the covering back into place.

In darkness once more, Sevi moved his patch and hopped off a narrow ledge, striding into a small, snug room. Two tunnels branched off left and right. The same exotic plants from the caves lined the walls, but less in quantity and thinner. They would disappear entirely the deeper into the castle he went. He often wondered why that was—why shouldn’t they grow just as thickly here as they did in the mountain? But the plants had nothing to say to him, no matter how often he’d asked.

Taking the tunnel to the right, Sevi walked a short distance before being alerted by a familiar collection of muffled sounds humming through the walls. He placed a hand on the inner stone of the tunnel and walked more slowly. They’ve lit the logs. Good.

The tunnel narrowed as he reached the end, forcing him to squeeze uncomfortably into the bigger room beyond. It was half-full of items gathered over years of hoarding from different places in the castle. Two makeshift beds made of raggedly stitched cloth lay in the corners, each stuffed with straw.

It was also not unoccupied.

Curled up in a corner, snug in its small, cracked alcove, lay a drake made out of fire. But only when awake. For the moment, it slept soundly, steamy wisps of smoke curling up from its apathetic form, smoldering as dark as charcoal in its slumber. It looked almost endearing in this state, with a wide, flat head and big eyes, but at any moment it could spring awake, and its stony skin would crack with flames, turning it from a lump of coal into a blazing inferno.

It terrified Sevi. Lily had wanted to kill it, citing all the many reasons why having a sentient ball of fire in their tunnels was a bad thing. Some part of him wanted to let her, to never see its terrible flames again, but… it was all alone. All it wanted was a home, and it never once tried to hurt them. How could he kill something that only wished to live?

They eventually compromised and chose to run it off instead. But it always came back. Seeing it in their bedroom had become a regular, unwelcome occurrence, constantly threatening to burn up their belongings. But it never did, thus Lily never tried to kill it again, and they all settled into an annoying game of chase that had lasted years.

Not seeking to risk its ire alone, Sevi carefully tiptoed around it, making sure that the pail of water left in the corner had been kept full. Nodding with satisfaction, he checked one last item before moving on. Shifting aside a wooden crate, he ensured that a certain special box underneath hadn’t been discovered by the drake.

It looked pristine. He set the crate back down, adding whatever meager camouflage he could to dress it up as unappealingly as possible, then moved to the other side of the room where yet another tunnel waited for him.

After another short walk, he got down onto his knees, slid his hand along the wall, and gripped the edge of a cracked stone with the tips of his fingers. He gingerly wiggled it from its place as quietly as he could. When it was free, he moved his patch to put his daylight eye to the revealed hole and peered into the room beyond.

His sight was obscured by the top of a table pushed against the wall, but he could see the boots of people moving about. Some of them walked barefoot with feet that looked far more suited for animals than people.

He settled in and waited for his moment.

It was not possible to pick out any specific conversation from the clamor of the kitchens, but he could gauge how busy they were by the number of curses and annoyed shouts as the crew prepared dinner for the castle garrison. It was in moments like these, where he had nothing to do but wait, that Sevi let his mind drift.

He tried matching faces to feet. Was that Quickscale with the bare purple, scaly toes? Sevi wondered if he’d ever gotten the strings on his lute replaced. Was that Sandflower, with the pristine red-leather boots, so different from the others? Had she ever found her missing bracelet? He’d keep an eye out, in case it had fallen anywhere near the floor. Maybe if he found it, he could find a way to put it where she’d see it.

But over time the number of boots began to dwindle as the cooks ended their shifts, having successfully fed the soldiers for another day. Eventually they all left, save for one, who had settled heavily into a chair with little intent of leaving it anytime soon. His characteristic snores soon rattled into the air with gusto—so full of personality that Sevi had taken to calling him Rumbles.

“Now, Shy?” Sevi asked the air. After a moment without an answer, he nodded to himself, and placed the spystone back. He missed Shy more than ever whenever he had to leave the Cut.

He reached over and pulled at a larger stone with an inset handle just to the right, slowly shifting it out of the way until he’d revealed a hole big enough to crawl through. Leaving his pack behind, he got on all fours and carefully worked himself through, listening attentively for any changes in the remaining cook’s breathing. When he was satisfied that all was well, he quietly pulled himself out from under the table entirely without so much as a scuff of shoes.

He popped up just to the side of the sleeping cook’s chair. He hadn’t moved a muscle. Old, stout, short Rumbles, with the characteristically pointed ears that marked him as a Fabling, was always charged with cleaning the kitchen at the end of the day. But he never did, and he always got yelled at for it. At least until Sevi started helping him some couple of months ago.

It had become the perfect relationship. Sevi got all the food that Rumbles failed to toss, while Rumbles appeared to be doing his job. The old man seemed just as content with it as Sevi was and never seemed to bother looking into it, so long as he got his sleep.

Sevi smiled at the old man. A small cloud of butterflies had a habit of forming around him whenever he dreamed, appearing from thin air as Sevi watched and landing all along the cook’s body. They flashed their bright, blue wings at him as he stepped away. “I hope your dreams are lovely,” Sevi whispered.

Today was a particularly lucky day. Rumbles hadn’t touched his broom yet, and the room was completely littered with a myriad of food scraps, all haphazardly strewn about the counters. A fireplace, inset into the same wall where the firedrake rested, still had tiny flames flickering in its half-doused coals.

Sevi carefully looked around for any signs of the other cooks before getting to work. He focused on whatever larger scraps he could find, stuffing them into every pocket, navigating the kitchen as thoroughly and discreetly as possible while timing the cook’s snores to muffle the sounds of his scrounging. He avoided most of the fuller looking foods—he’d learned long ago that when the big, tasty things went missing, the Fablings started looking.

When his pockets were overflowing, he turned back toward the wall, ready to exit, until he noticed something he couldn’t ignore. Sitting on top of the sleeping cook’s knee was a half-eaten pot pie, glistening with a warm golden-brown crust and stuffed with a filling that smelled divine from across the room. Rumbles had fallen asleep before he could finish it.

It was Sevi’s favorite meal. He was lucky to get his hands on one once or twice a year.

Sevi knew he shouldn’t. He really, really shouldn’t. Lily had always warned him not to take chances and to favor certainty more than possibility. But the growling of his stomach was too incessant and the potential reward too great. He could practically taste the first bite already, bursting with a rare, rich, savory flavor that he only experienced in memory.

He wiped fresh saliva from his lips and carefully approached the cook, eyeing his face for any signs of wakefulness, placing the outsides of his feet down first and rolling onto the rest in order to limit his noise as much as possible. He reached out with each hand, touching his fingertips to the pie’s sides, ready to lift it off his leg as lightly as a sparrow lifted from its perch.

Voices appeared down the hallway. Sevi jerked his hands back, grazing the pie with enough force to shake it precariously on the cook’s leg. The man’s face twitched.

A door opened somewhere, followed shortly by approaching footsteps.

Sevi panicked and immediately dove under the table toward his tunnels, but stopped himself from going through altogether. Those footsteps were too close. There’d be no time to place the stone back, not without anyone hearing it, and if he moved too fast back into the Cut, he could give himself away. Terrified, he bunched himself back as much as he could manage, pulling his thin, iron knife out just as the kitchen door swung open.

“... and… close… be back in time for the Turning,” the first person said, their voice becoming discernable as they entered the room. They sounded male.

“I’m not so sure,” the second person said, also male. “We’ve—wait a minute… By the Amber. Heh. Look at this. Hey, Cirrus, wake up. Is it true? Have you actually been cleaning the place? There are significantly less pieces of garbage around than I was expecting.”

The cook snorted. “Eh? What? Clean?”

The second man said, “Yes, the place looks half cleared. Were you so hungry that you ate it all, or have you found someone who’s actually lower than you to subjugate? I refuse to believe that after all this time you’ve only just now started doing your job.”

“Errm…”

“He’s never cleaned without command. Maybe he opened the door and let all the birds come in for a bite,” said the first voice.

“Get to work. You can sleep when it’s done,” said the second voice.

“Mrrg.” Rumbles lumbered up from his chair.

Sevi watched him pick his meal up, eyeing the pie, somehow managing to feel mournful amid his fear. The cook placed it on the counter as he grabbed a broom and began sweeping up.

The first speaker started up again. “Raine, all I’m saying is that we can put in our leave. If nothing happens then we can at least enjoy the festival.”

Raine. Somewhere in the back of Sevi’s mind he connected the name to the person. It belonged to one of the castle’s officers. Staring up through the table, Sevi envisioned a man with a long face, dark hair, and eyes as sharp as his ears. Sevi had always called him Rockman given his unshakable demeanor, which would make the first speaker Thistlebee—a name given on account of how he always hovered around Rockman, like a honeybee to a flower, and the spiky, thistle-like hair he had sprouting from his head.

“Except everyone is doing the same thing,” Rockman said. “Getting approval will be a nightmare. If you wanted to go you should’ve asked the Matron two weeks ago, instead of trying to suck up to me.”

“They hadn’t made it to the castle two weeks ago,” Thistlebee said, an edge creeping into his voice.

“They haven’t made it now,” Rockman insisted.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course.”

A bumping sound close to Sevi halted their conversation.

Sevi’s breath caught in his throat. He jerked his head toward the noise and nearly bit through his tongue. There was a long, pregnant pause.

“What was that?” Thistlebee said curiously.

Sevi put a hand over his mouth, trembling violently. His grip tightened on the iron in his other hand as he desperately tried to ready the courage to cut at any arms that might reach for him. It was all he could do not to bolt.

The two pairs of boots began scuffing about, meandering over toward the source of the noise. One stopped by the table beside the fireplace, situated right next to Sevi’s own, and their owner began to bend down on their knees.

“I bet it’s Cirrus’ custodian,” Thistlebee said.

Sevi felt his heart stop.

“What do you—moon above!”

Thistlebee jumped up as a scaly, wriggling creature flashing incandescent colors streaked out from under the counter and skittered away, scrabbling around the room with quick, lateral dashes and a flurry of claws.

“Get it!” Rockman yelled.

“Is that the thing you passed your job to, Cirrus? Do you need to be replaced again?”

“What?” Rumbles grumbled.

“Shut up and get it!” Rockman yelled again. “I’ve always wanted to try one!”

The three Fablings chased the creature all around the kitchen before it found its chance and darted under the kitchen door. In the commotion, Rumbles’ half-eaten pie was knocked to the ground, splattering on impact as it landed upside-down.

The cook cried out, “Oh just great!”

“Get it! Get it!” Rockman demanded fervently.

All three dashed out of the room, chasing the creature down the hall, leaving Sevi alone. Over fifty breaths passed before the knots in his chest loosened. He took another few just to stop shaking.

He looked behind himself at the tunnel, then back out at the kitchen. There lay the pie. Ruined, maybe... or maybe it tasted just fine.

He flashed one last glance at the door before darting out, snatching the pie off the floor, and scurrying back into the Cut. Shaking with nerves, Sevi looked down at the messy remains of the treasure. He smiled with relief as he gingerly put it to the side, then hurriedly pushed the entry-stone back where it belonged.

With the wall resealed, he slumped against the stone and yanked his eyepatch off his head, taking a moment to gather himself. Close. That had been too close.

“Lily is getting the floor scraps this time, Shy,” he said to no one. “And if she doesn’t like it then she can get the next batch herself.”

After that sloppy display of thievery, he thanked the gods that shadows couldn’t speak, imagining the stern critique the Cut’s dark tunnels would’ve given his near disastrous performance if they could. Putting the pie into his pack and slinging it over his shoulder, he turned and tiptoed back around the sleeping firedrake, putting distance between himself and the kitchens as quickly as possible.

Meet the Characters