It was something that he had never thought he would agree even to consider. His instincts were all directed toward protecting himself—to never give up his staff or put himself at the mercy of another or trust the word of someone he didn’t know. He almost said no. He almost decided that enough was enough and he would just go in there and get this over with. But he calmed himself by remembering that with kids you needed to earn their trust. These kids were just trying to stay alive, and they didn’t have anyone to help them do that. They were on their own, and they had learned early on that they could only rely on themselves.
He turned around so that he was facing away from the door, laid his staff on the floor, spread his arms out from his sides, and waited. After a moment, he heard the sounds of an iron bar being pulled free and locks being released. The door opened with a small squeal, candlelight seeped out through the opening, and instantly a pair of cold metal tips pressed up against his neck. He stayed where he was, calm and unmoving, even when he saw the dark length of his staff sliding away from him, disappearing from view.
“Look at these carvings,” a boy whispered in awe.
“Leave that alone,” another snapped. Then to Logan, he said, “Those are prods you feel. You know what they are, what they can do?”
Logan smiled faintly. “I know.”
“Then don’t move unless you are told to.”
There was a hurried discussion and a brief argument about what to do next.
Hands patted at his clothing, searched his pockets, and came away with the black cloth that held the finger bones. “Yuck!” someone said, and stuffed the cloth and the bones back in his pocket. “He’s carrying bones!”
“Maybe he’s a cannibal,” another whispered.
The older girl said, “Turn around.”
He did and found himself staring at nine dirty faces backlit by the candles burning within: five boys, four girls, all of them sharp-eyed and wary.
The youngest boy and girl couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The oldest boys, one big and burly, one darkskinned and hard-eyed, held the prods against his neck. Another of the boys, his skin almost white, was kneeling in front of the staff, running his hands over its polished surface. One of the girls, the one whom he now believed to have done all the talking, was in a wheelchair.
Another girl, her straw-colored hair sticking out everywhere, her face and arms marked with angry scratches and dark bruises, held a viper-prick. Her blue eyes were steady and unforgiving as she peered up him. They were a ragged, motley bunch, but if how they looked concerned them in any way, they weren’t showing it.
Crouched just behind all of them, yellow eyes baleful, was the biggest dog he had ever seen, some mixed breed or other, its mottled coat shaggy, its body heavily muscled, a huge and dangerous-looking animal. It was no longer growling, but he knew that if he moved in a way it didn’t like or threatened these kids, it would be on him instantly.
Almost incongruously, the girl with the straw-colored hair moved over to it and patted its head affectionately. “He won’t hurt you if you don’t do anything stupid,” she said.
The girl in the wheelchair announced quietly, “We are the Ghosts. We haunt the ruins of our elders.”
He looked at her. She sounded as if she were reciting a litany she had memorized. “Are you Owl?”
She nodded. “Why should we believe anything you’ve said? None of us has ever heard of Knights of the Word or demons or this gypsy morph. It sounds like the stories I tell, but those are made up.”
“Not about the boy and his children,” the smallest girl declared, her red hair framing her anxious face in a fiery halo. Her eyes fixed on him, and he realized that she was the one who had persuaded the others to open the door to him.
“Hush, Candle,” Owl said. “We can’t be certain yet of his purpose in coming here. He must convince us further before we can trust him.”
Her plain, ordinary features masked a fierce intelligence. She was the leader, the one the others looked to, not only because she was older, but because she was the smartest and perhaps the most knowledgeable, too.
“I will say it again,” he said. “The end is coming for all of us.
Something terrible is going to happen, something that will destroy what remains of this world. Weapons, perhaps. But maybe something else. The gypsy morph is the only one who can save us. The morph is the child of one of the most powerful magic wielders of all time. Nest Freemark is a legend. Her child carries her promise that there is a chance for all of us.”
“Her so-called child would be maybe sixty or seventy by now,” the darkskinned boy pointed out. “Kind of old to save the world.”
“Her child would not have aged as we do,” Logan answered him. “A gypsy morph is not subject to the laws of humans. It is its own being, and it takes the shape and life it chooses. It was a boy once before, when it was brought to Nest. It may have taken that shape again.”
“Well, it ain’t me,” the boy snapped, his lip curling. “Ain’t them, either.”
He pointed at the other three boys, who seemed inclined to agree with him, their faces reflecting their doubt.
“What of your talisman?” Owl asked him. “What does it tell you?”