“Don’t gasp,” High Brunka Marya whispered.
What was there to gasp about? Elodie braced herself for a shock. The high brunka opened the door.
The air smelled metallic. Near the ceiling of a narrow corridor that had been carved out of the mountain, wee lights twinkled.
“Lambs and calves!”
“Shh!” But the whisper sounded proud. “Oase glowworms. Brighter than my rainbow.”
“Flying worms?”
“They hang.”
The worms emitted a green light. Each one was as tiny as the tip of a blade of grass, and they were as crowded together as grass in a meadow.
“They hiss,” the high brunka added. “But you probably can’t hear them.”
She couldn’t. She followed High Brunka Marya straight ahead, looking up as she walked. The glowworms continued into the distance. “Are they magic? Did Brunka Harald make them?”
“They were here before him. They’re just worms.”
They weren’t just anything. “Why don’t they light up the great hall?”
“They prefer smaller places.” She turned right into another corridor. The worms shone here, too.
The passageway was warmer than the great hall had been, as warm as spring. Elodie let her cloak hang loose.
“Lamb . . .” The high brunka stopped. “If you want to stay here, no matter what happens with the Replica, we’ll give you asylum. You don’t have to continue to serve the dragon. You’ll be as safe as the glowworms here.”
Oh no! “Did something happen to my parents?”
“No. I believe they’re fine. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Then why would I need asylum?”
“Your parents sent you away, a twelve-year-old lamb—I mean, child.”
“My parents love me!”
“You could be a bee if you like.”
Elodie shrugged this off. Bees didn’t mansion or deduce or induce. “High Brunka, I’m old enough to apprentice, and my family thought I could do it for free.”
Her parents, with the encouragement of Albin, who knew she wouldn’t live a happy life on the farm, had sent her, less than six weeks ago (although it seemed like an age) across the strait to apprentice in Two Castles town. They hadn’t known what she’d learned only on her way over, that free apprenticeships had been abolished. If Masteress Meenore hadn’t taken her in, she might have starved. If Count Jonty Um hadn’t hired them, he’d still be just a frightening figure to her.
So much had happened, so many wonders, so much terror, but also great happiness.
“Few live the life they thought they wanted, lamb.” The high brunka started walking again.
They passed six closed doors on each side.
“What rooms are these?”
“They’re for guests, but they’re empty now.”
The Replica could be in one of them, Elodie supposed.
Or it could be outside, in a tree hole or buried under earth and snow, and then how would anyone find it?
Only by luck or cleverness.
The doors ended. Other corridors branched off to the right and left, here and there, but this one continued for at least a quarter of a mile. Elodie felt the weight of the mountain press down on her. How much time had passed since she’d left her masteress? Was Zertrum’s volcano already spewing?
“When I get this far, I can no longer hear a sound from the great hall, not even a shout.”
“How did you hear my masteress?”
“We’ve been walking south, not far from the face of the mountain. I can hear the world outside. And ITs voice carries.”
“How far can you hear ordinary conversation?”
“Eavesdropping is as rude as picking one’s teeth!”
Elodie’s smoke would have turned red if she’d had smoke. If the high brunka had been willing to be impolite, she might have heard something and prevented the theft. “If you did listen, how far could you hear?”
“About two hundred yards.”
“A whisper?”
“I don’t know, lamb. A hundred yards, perhaps.”
“High Brunka, begging your pardon, you’ll listen until the Replica is found, won’t you?”
“I hadn’t thought . . . It’s a habit not to . . . Yes, lamb, I’ll listen.”
Doors began again on the left.
“We put guests in here only in summer when all the other rooms are full,” the high brunka said.
“Why do you wait till then?”
“So I can sleep. My room is nearby. When these chambers are occupied, the people keep me awake, just by rolling over in their sleep. I feel like I’m in the middle of a flock of noisy pigeons.”
A single door broke the right-hand wall, and it alone had a lock.
“What room is this?”
“It’s a storage area.”
“When the Replica was stolen before, did that high brunka keep it in the same place as you do?”
“No. Then it was on a table in the middle of the great hall. I was just a brunkle, a lamb like you. No one gave a thought to theft. It had never happened.”
Another right and they reached a series of doors on either side of the corridor.
The high brunka said, “These chambers hold just relics and curiosities.”