Gregor and the Code of Claw

CHAPTER 19

Lizzie flipped over the strip of fabric and wrote the alphabet on the blank side as the words tumbled out of her mouth. "Okay, okay, what if it's like an anagram, and there are letters that don't change. Then all you would need is one key word and a really simple code and the rats could still keep it in their heads."

"And you think it's 'Gregor'?" asked Ripred.

"It's the word I saw," said Lizzie.

"It would be a good choice. You could remember it by 'Gregor' or 'Gorger,'" said Heronian.

"It is even easier," said Reflex. "The words only require four letters: G-O-R-E. 'Gore.' One needs only to remember the word gore."

"Yes," said Lizzie. "Yes. So the G, O, R, and E stay the same." She wrote these letters above themselves on the alphabet.

E G O R

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

"And now we use a cipher so simple that no one could forget it," said Daedalus.

"Single shift, be the simplest, single shift," said Min.

Lizzie nodded and began to fill in the letters.

"A is represented by B, B is C, C is D, D would be F because the E remains unchanged...." Heronian said, although Lizzie was way ahead of her. Her aqua marker speedily filled in the remaining letters.

BCDFEHGIJKLMNPOQSRTUVWXYZA ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

"Try it! Go on, try it!" said Ripred, thrusting an unbroken strip of code before Lizzie.

Lizzie's hands were trembling as she lifted the strip and began to read. "Diggers — arrive — at — camp — near — Regalia. Tunnel — under way." For a moment, they all just sat there, stunned at their success.

"That's old. We need the latest transmissions." Ripred ran to the door. "Fresh code! Fresh code!" he called. He bounded back to Lizzie, scooped her up with his nose, and tossed her in the air. He spun half-way around and caught her so she landed on his back. "A letter can be itself!"

Lizzie was laughing as she flung her arms around his neck. "A letter can be itself! A letter can be itself!"

And suddenly the whole code team burst into some kind of brainiac celebration. Reflex began to shoot lines of silk around the room like they were streamers. Daedalus was scooping up heaps of code with his wings and flinging them in the air. Heronian leaped back and forth over Ripred and Lizzie. And even old Min had geared up into some creaky old cockroach dance.

Boots was in heaven, running here and there, spinning in the streamers of silk, and boogying on Temp's back. "A letter can be yourself! A letter can be yourself!" she crowed.

"Yes, a letter can be yourself, you clueless little thing," said Ripred. But he was happy. Joyful even. Hazard wrapped his arms tightly around Luxa. "So everything will be all right? Now that they've broken the code?"

"It will be better at least, Hazard," Luxa said, hugging him back. But when she looked at Gregor, he could tell she was thinking of the rest of the prophecy. Of his death.

"Everything's going to be just fine, Hazard," said Gregor. The last thing he wanted to do was crush this moment of victory with his own troubles. "Good job, Liz!" he said, high-fiving his sister.

"It was all of us," said Lizzie. "And Hazard, too. He's the one who made me think about the anagrams."

"Can I go tell the nibblers the code is broken? I am sure it will lighten their hearts," Hazard said.

"No!" said Ripred, suddenly serious. "No one outside of this room must know we have broken the code. I will personally inform Solovet. The rest of you must swear to secrecy."

All the code team nodded in agreement, so Gregor nodded, too, although he thought Hazard was right and that the news might give everybody a big psychological boost. A young woman brought in a basket filled with tightly rolled bundles of code. The code team gathered around it, eager to decipher the latest messages. Despite the general excitement, Gregor began to think about that nap again. But Ripred had other work for him. He enlisted Gregor, Luxa, Hazard, Boots, and Temp to decode the piles of accumulated messages, just in case there had been anything of value in them. Luxa suggested they work back in the bedroom, so Gregor was able to lie down again, anyway. They had to do two passes on each strip of code, one to write it as the alphabet, the second to decrypt it with the Code of Claw. Most of the messages were old news — updates on the battle to free the nibblers, the alliance with the diggers, the Bane's location — but some yielded important information in terms of which species had sided or not sided with the Bane. The cockroaches had not, the spiders were trying to remain neutral (so Reflex's presence here must be a secret), and it was too dangerous to try to approach the ants. Gregor found it difficult to believe the ants would join either the humans or the rats. They had made it very clear they wanted both species dead. Probably nothing pleased them more than a big old war between the two.

Try as he might, Gregor could not keep his eyes open. At one point Luxa whispered, "Sleep, we will manage this."

So Gregor just let himself drift off. When he awoke, everything was quiet. Luxa, Hazard, and Boots were asleep on the bed across from him. Temp snored gently on the floor. Ripred must have sent everyone to bed. Gregor tried to go back to sleep, but his back and hip hurt. He was hungry again, too. He made his way to his feet in stages and went into the code room. Lizzie and Ripred were asleep on the floor, as they'd been the other night. Ripred opened one bleary eye, took him in, and then let the lid slowly slide shut. Gregor went over to the food cart and rooted around for a snack. He found a tureen half-filled with lukewarm beef stew and finished it off. His stomach felt better, anyway.

Gregor wished Howard would come by with some more medicine. But when he thought of the wounded, and his shoes sticking to the bloody floor of the High Hall, he knew Howard hadn't had a second to do it. He could send a message to the hospital, but again, they were so busy just keeping people alive he felt like a wimp bugging them. He wondered about his mom up at the Fount. Was she getting the care she needed? Or was the hospital there as overwhelmed as the one in Regalia? And what about his dad and grandma? Boy, he hoped his dad wasn't having any ideas about coming down here to rescue them all. Maybe his relapse was bad enough to keep him in bed. It was an awful thing to wish on his dad but it was better than having him drop straight down into the jaws of the rats.

He poured a mug of cold tea and gave up on the idea of returning to bed. He wasn't really tired now, anyway. Might as well make himself useful. The area on the stone grid was covered with the latest messages all neatly transcribed in Lizzie's aqua marker. But there were still bunches of the old code spilling over baskets. Gregor grabbed a handful of strips and settled himself down to work. It was mostly the same-old same-old stuff about troop movements that had occurred weeks ago. And then out of nowhere came this message:

// |||\ |\\ // |/ / // |\\ \|. ||\ |\\ \ ||\. |\\ \\ . \| |\\ //. He wrote it as the alphabet:

UXJUDIUJQ. FJEF. JP. QJU

And then applied the Code of Claw using Lizzie's system. The words stabbed him in the heart.

Twitchtip. Memories of the rat swam before his eyes. Her nose buried in the moss of the arena because the smell of humans made her ill. The desperate look on her face as she spun around in the whirlpool. Her claws digging into his life jacket, as she choked out, "Don't — let — go!" And he hadn't let go. He had risked his life to save an outcast rat when no one else would bother to try. And then they were friends, despite the rat/human thing. Twitchtip was the first one who knew he was a rager. She had given Boots food. She had dragged herself through the rats' maze to help Gregor find the Bane, then forced him and Ares to leave her to die. But she hadn't died. Not right away. The rats had kept her alive in a pit and probably tortured and starved her while they tried to extract information out of her about Gregor. And finally, only recently, she'd left the world. As alone as ever. The tears splashing down on the words surprised him because he hadn't cried in such a long time. Not for his mom or Ares or the mice or Thalia or Luxa, or even for himself when he knew about the prophecy. It was just that it had all been so awful, Twitchtip's life. Banished to the Dead Land because of her remarkable sense of smell, living alone in that harsh world before she finally, desperately, had teamed up with Ripred. Bleeding to death in the maze but not fast enough, not soon enough to escape falling into the hands of the rats who hated her for being a scent seer and then hated her even more for helping Gregor.

"All right. All right now." Ripred was looking over his shoulder at the message.

"It's not all right!" Gregor's voice was harsh, but low, because he didn't want to wake everyone to see him like this. "I should have gone back for her."

"We thought she was dead," said Ripred.

"But we didn't know. And they had her all this time. And we never even found out for sure," said Gregor. He thought of his dad, wasting away for years in that rat pit. Had she died in the same one they'd found his father in?

"Even if we'd known, there's almost no chance we could have gotten her out," said Ripred. "It isn't likely they —"

"Just shut up, Ripred! I mean, what do you care? You never even liked her! You treated her like trash. You only made that deal with her to help yourself, so I' could kill the Bane for you. Don't act now like — like she mattered to you!" said Gregor. He hadn't kept his voice down. Practically everyone was awake now. Frightened by his outburst. Afraid the rats had broken into the palace. "Just shut up!"

Gregor stormed into the rat room and yanked the curtain closed behind him. He sank down on the bed and wept. He knew it wasn't just about Twitchtip, it was about all of the dreadful things that had happened and the ones that awaited him in the coming hours. A hand, Lizzie's he thought, tentatively edged around the curtain. "Leave me alone!" The weeping sent new shock waves of pain through his ribs, but it was a long time before he'd cried himself out. Then he just lay on the bed watching the soft flicker of light from an oil lamp on the wall. It was quiet outside again. Everyone must have gone back to sleep.

Footsteps entered the code room. "Where is Gregor?" asked Howard in an exhausted voice.

"In there," Luxa replied. She had not gone back to bed, then. She was waiting for him. "We had word of Twitchtip's death. They had her imprisoned in a pit until recently. He is greatly upset."

There was a moment of silence while Howard absorbed the news. "So should we all be. Only Gregor's grief should not be mixed with shame, as should ours," said Howard. He had not attempted to save Twitchtip from the whirlpool at first but had taken excellent care of her afterward. "She did us all a great service and what poor treatment we gave her in return."

Howard opened the curtain to the rat room and came in. "I am sorry," he said. Gregor didn't reply. "Come. Sit up. You must have need of this." Howard helped him to a sitting position, administered a dose of painkiller, and gave him the rest of the bottle for later. He painted a new coat of medicine on Gregor's hip and calf stitches, and applied fresh bandages. Finally he examined his back. "Quite a bruise, but the bones are holding in place," he said as he wrapped the ribs again. Then he sat on the bed, elbows on his knees, digging the palms of his hands into his forehead, trying to find the right words. "Gregor, of all those Twitchtip knew in her life, I am sure she would wish you the least amount of grief," said Howard.

"You helped her, too. After the whirlpool. In the maze," said Gregor.

"Because you were right," said Howard. "You were the only one of us who looked past her fur and teeth and claws and saw who she really was. If we are ever to have peace, that will be the first step. The alternative is this." Howard waved a hand vaguely, somehow suggesting their current situation. "Slaughtering one another. Walling ourselves in with our dead. So pointless. All of it." He gingerly touched his eyes, bloodshot and swollen from fatigue. "You must rest your back if it is to heal."

"You need some rest, too, Howard," said Gregor.

"No. If you could see the hospital..." Howard looked down at his hands. They were shaking badly.

"Only I begin to fear I will do more harm than good."

"Just for a few hours. Lie down. I promise I'll wake you," said Gregor.

Howard looked at him as if he couldn't quite process the words. "A few hours?"

"You are going to hurt somebody. Lie down." He stood up and pushed Howard back on the bed.

"Two' hours. No more," said Howard.

In the time it took Gregor to pull the blanket up, Howard was asleep. Gregor came out into the code room. Everyone was up again, back at work. Boots came over and put her arms up. He couldn't lift her, with his back and all, so he sat down and pulled her onto his lap.

"Ow," said Boots. She pressed her hand to her nose. "Ow." This was the sign she had used for Twitchtip, to indicate the rat's hurt nose, when she was still too little to say her name. "She died."

"Yeah," said Gregor, thinking. it had been better before Boots had understood about dying.

"You put her here," Boots said, patting his chest over his heart. Well, not exactly — she got the wrong side. But he knew she meant his heart.

"I'll put her there," Gregor confirmed. He caught Luxa's sad gaze. She had had her own connection with Twitchtip. They had protected each other in the maze for as long as they could.

Gregor set Boots back on her feet and went over to help Luxa with the strips of code. "I truly believed her dead, Gregor," she whispered.

"I know," said Gregor. "I guess I must have, too. But I didn't deal with it. I had, like, this fantasy that she'd escaped. She was safe back in the Dead Land or something."

"She is safe now," Luxa said wanly.

"That's how it works down here," Gregor said. Nothing was really safe until it was dead. He looked at Ripred, thought about the rat's family, and wished he hadn't yelled at him. If anyone knew about being tortured in a pit it was Ripred, who had been left by the Bane to die in the Firelands, his teeth overgrowing until they'd locked in a grotesque fashion. Ripred had treated Twitchtip like he treated almost everybody else. Not great. But Ripred hadn't killed her and if she had lived, Gregor felt sure he would have made good on his promise to let her join his band of rats. Not that it mattered now. A basket of new code rolls came in and Ripred put everybody, even those who had been translating the old stuff, on them. They had been working only a few minutes when Min began to click in distress. "Bad news, here be, bad news!" The cockroach was too agitated to read the message outright, so Luxa hurried to help her. She could translate the chicken scratch into letters and then break the code on sight now.

"When — diggers — reach — arena — launch — attack —" she read.

"What? Where?" asked Ripred, jumping to her side.

Luxa held up the strip of fabric so they could both see it.

"By the river," he read aloud.

"By the river," Luxa repeated. "No one can attack by the river. They would be torn to shreds in the rapids."

"Not anymore. Have you seen it lately? Since the earthquake?" said Gregor.

"No," said Luxa. She had been too ill to notice anything on their flight back from the Firelands.

"It's very low. They would have to swim down several hundred yards from the north beach, but they could do it," said Ripred.

"You have been in the war room. What defense have we in place at the docks?" asked Luxa.

"Nothing," said Ripred. "Nothing at all."

CHAPTER 20

Ripred began to pace. "All right. First priority. We split up the code team. If the rats should enter the palace, we can't have you all sitting in one bunch. I want Min, Reflex, and Luxa in the war room. Lizzie, Daedalus, and Heronian stay here. Shred every bit of evidence that we've broken the code. Gregor, Hazard, Boots, and Temp go to the prophecy room. Nerissa is there with a key. Lock yourselves in and don't open it until you've been told to."

"Why? I should be getting on my armor," said Gregor.

"You think you're in any condition for battle? Attack me," Ripred ordered.

Gregor's back screamed as he reached for his weapons. He managed to pull them from the belt but ended up dropping his dagger on the floor.

"You can't fight like that. Even if you could, we'd never waste you in ordinary combat now. We need you to fight the Bane. But don't worry. I don't expect he'll be swimming down the river," said Ripred. "They've got him hidden in a cave more likely, with a team of spinners to keep his tail bandaged."

"I thought the spinners were neutral," Luxa said, eyeing Reflex.

"Neutral meaning they help both sides so when the war ends they've aided the victor," said Ripred. "They're helping you, aren't they? Now move out!"

Gregor retrieved his dagger and took a step toward the door. "No, wait. I want Lizzie with me."

"Really? You want Lizzie in the prophecy room with nothing to do but... read prophecies all day?" said Ripred pointedly.

Gregor knew what he meant. Ripred had taken great care to keep Lizzie from knowing about the real "Prophecy of Time" and what it predicted for Gregor. Everybody had. If she came to the prophecy room, she'd read the truth.

"I'll be okay in here, Gregor. Ripred's right. We have to split up," said Lizzie.

"If danger approaches, I will find a way to fly her to safety," Daedalus said. "I know of a window not far from here."

"All right," said Gregor. Maybe that was better, anyway. Maybe Daedalus could even find a way to fly her home. "How long will this take?"

"No telling. Better grab some blankets and one of those carts," said Ripred, nodding to a group of fresh food carts that had recently been wheeled in.

Lizzie piled a stack of blankets on Temp's back and Boots climbed on to ride. Gregor tried to push a cart, but he ended up having to let Hazard do it.

"I will come see you as soon as I can," said Luxa, giving Gregor's arm a farewell touch.

The group split up, according to Ripred's instructions, and Gregor led the way to the prophecy room. It was very slow going, especially with the cart. Gregor considered abandoning it, but he had no idea what they were in for.

Nerissa was waiting for them. She drew them into the prophecy room, closed the door, and locked it at once. The key disappeared in the pocket of her skirt. She'd made no provisions for eating or sleeping, but there was a stack of new torches by the wall.

"Why did Ripred want us in here?" Gregor asked her.

"It is one of the few rooms in the palace with a door. It will offer some protection," said Nerissa.

"Some," agreed Gregor. But not much. The door was made of thick wood. It would take time, but the rats could eventually claw through it. He estimated that diggers could take it out in less than a minute. At least there would be some warning. He wondered if that mattered much, though. If Gregor didn't heal up pretty quickly, who would defend them? Nerissa had probably never even held a sword. Hazard and Boots were little kids. Temp could fight and would fight if the going got rough. But he'd be no match for rat soldiers.

Gregor decided to put all of his energy into getting better. Howard said he needed to rest, so he would rest. They fashioned the blankets into beds along the walls, and Gregor lay down. If he didn't move, the painkiller Howard had given him made him comfortable enough. He willed himself to ignore what was happening outside the door, and dozed off. Hours passed and then became days. Temp amused Boots and Hazard. The three of them chattered away in Crawler while Gregor ate, took painkillers, and slept. No one came by to give them any word. Occasionally they would hear footsteps running down the hallway and voices shouting indistinct words. But nothing else. As Gregor's back improved, he became more and more anxious about what was transpiring in the palace. Had the rats attacked? Were the humans prepared? Why had no one updated them? He suggested that they open the door and just call out for information, but Nerissa adamantly refused.

"This is not your battle, Gregor," she said. "This is your time to wait."

Waiting, it turned out, was a lot tougher on Gregor than fighting. Nerissa tried to distract him by showing him different prophecies, telling him their histories. He learned a lot about Regalia's past, but not much about its present. "Come on, Nerissa, what's one little peek going to hurt?" he begged.

"Look at this poem, Gregor," said Nerissa. "It is by far my favorite. When all seems lost, I comfort myself with its words."

Gregor sighed and turned his eyes to a short poem on the wall in the corner where Nerissa usually curled up.

On soft feet, by none detected,

Dealing death, by most rejected,

Killed by claw, since resurrected,

Marked by X, two lines connected.

Finally, they intersected, two lines met, one unexpected.

"That comforts you? Why?" asked Gregor. To him it was just more junk from Sandwich, whom he now had a very low opinion of.

"Read you the title?" asked Nerissa.

Gregor noticed the title for the first time. Above the poem were written the words:

The Peacemaker

"Perfect. The Peacemaker," thought Gregor. What did Sandwich, the digger killer, know about making peace? "So you think a peacemaker's coming? When?" asked Gregor.

"No one knows. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps in a thousand years. But the peacemaker will come. Just as the warrior did," said Nerissa.

Something tugged at the back of Gregor's brain. The peacemaker. He'd heard it before. When? It came to him. A long time ago, when he had just arrived in Regalia for the second time, he'd been walking around the palace at night and overheard Solovet and Vikus arguing over whether or not he was to be trained. Solovet had wanted him armed immediately of course. "And the prophecy calls Gregor 'the warrior,' after all. Not the 'peacemaker,'" she had said.

"Well, it's not me, Nerissa. And I won't be around when whoever it is shows up. But I hope they do," said Gregor. "Now can we open that door?"

Nerissa shook her head. He couldn't wrestle the key away from her. Well, he probably could but he didn't want to. Maybe when Nerissa fell asleep he could slip the key from her pocket and just look out for a second. He had to find out what was going on. Besides, the room could really stand some fresh air. They'd been using an empty pot by the door for a toilet and the place smelled like a sewer. While Gregor waited for Nerissa to sleep, he tried using his swords again. He was still sore, and there wasn't much room, but he could swing his blades. He figured he might be able to fight at about seventy-five percent, if it came to it, and that only made him feel more secure about his plan. Even if a couple of big old rats were sitting right outside the door waiting to pounce, he could take them.

By the time Nerissa had finally drifted off, Boots, Hazard, and Temp were asleep, too. This was just as well, because Gregor didn't really feel great about stealing the key. "Borrowing the key," he corrected himself. "And then I'll put it back before anyone knows it was gone." He crossed to Nerissa and carefully pulled the key out of her pocket. As quietly as he could, Gregor walked to the door and slid it in the keyhole. He was just about to turn it when he heard shouting. There were footsteps, scuffling, and a human cry. Then a tremendous blow hit the door, causing it to reverberate. Scraping, and then another blow followed by a rat claw that punctured the wood directly in front of Gregor's face. He automatically stepped back and pulled his blades. More shouts and footsteps. A gruesome gurgling sound from the rat. Blood seeping under the door. Silence.

Gregor turned and saw the others awake and looking at him in fear. He reached down, withdrew the key, and returned it to Nerissa without a word. She was nice enough not to say, "I told you so."

The seconds ticked by. So rats were definitely in the palace. Possibly right outside the door. There was a small opening, about the size of a peephole, left by the rat claw, but as there was no light in the hall, Gregor could see nothing. His anxiety grew with every passing minute. Rats were in the palace. They had found him. Had they found Lizzie? Luxa? What was going on? When would someone contact them? He could fight now. He should be fighting. But what if he left and the prophecy room was attacked again? That door wouldn't hold long. Who would protect Boots and Hazard and Temp and Nerissa?

Gregor's head jerked up as the claws scraped the door. He took careful aim and drove his sword right through the peephole.

"Well, at least you're useful again," he heard Ripred from behind the door. "Open up in there! The palace is secure!" Nerissa unlocked the door to reveal Ripred, who was bloodstained but not visibly wounded.

Questions began pouring out of Gregor's mouth but Ripred cut him off. "Many are dead, but everyone of significance to you still breathes. We were able to defend the city thanks to your sister's breaking the Code of Claw. The rats have been driven away, but they will regroup and rally around the Bane. We need you in the war room now, boy." He turned to Nerissa. "I will send instructions for the rest of you later. Until then, sit tight."

Gregor followed Ripred through the halls where kids his age were loading dead humans, rats, and mice on stretchers and removing them. Sometimes it took six of them to carry a body. "They're too young to be doing that," he thought. Then he remembered what he and Luxa had been doing lately, and it seemed like a pretty tame job. Of course, he was different. He'd left any vestiges of childhood behind months ago. Hadn't he?

The war room was crowded with people and creatures, but Gregor's attention immediately went to Luxa. She must have been in battle. Although her clothes were clean she wore a fresh bandage on her forehead. Her cough was back, too.

"You shouldn't have fought," said Gregor, tucking in a stray edge of her bandage.

"This is my home," said Luxa. "How fares your back?"

"Good to go," said Gregor.

"Excellent," said Solovet. "We shall be leaving to pursue the gnawers shortly."

"I will send for Aurora," said Luxa.

"No, Luxa. You are unfit. And we need you here," said Solovet.

"You cannot ask me to stay behind," said Luxa. "Not after what has been done to Regalia."

"But stay you must," say Solovet.

Luxa cocked her head slightly. "Must I?" Gregor could feel a battle of wills coming on and felt guilty because he was on Solovet's side. He didn't want Luxa going after the rats for a number of reasons. She wasn't well; he wanted her somewhere safe; and, mostly, he didn't want her to see him die.

Ripred stepped between Luxa and Solovet. "Listen, Your Highness, it's Regalia we're thinking of. We're going out to finish this thing. But when it's over, your people will be desperate for guidance. Rats overran the council room and almost none survived save your grandparents, who are acknowledged to be powerful, but no longer trustworthy. It will be you the Regalians expect to lead them."

"He speaks the truth, Luxa," said Solovet. "With the demise of the council, power will shift to you."

"I am not yet of age," said Luxa. "You know I cannot officially lead."

"It doesn't matter. Not in times like these. Not after the courage and brains you've demonstrated recently. Trust me, it will be you. If they followed you into this war they will follow you out of it. Now can you see how you are too dear to risk in battle?" asked Ripred.

He didn't sound like he was flattering her, just laying it out on the table, equal to equal.

Luxa stared at Ripred, considering his question. Then she dropped her eyes to the ground. "Yes, I do see. I will remain here."

Ripred and Solovet exchanged a pleased look and were turning back to the business of war when Gregor saw the ghost of a smile playing on the corners of Luxa's mouth. "She's lying," he said. Disbelief, hurt, and then rage washed in rapid succession over Luxa's face at his words.

"Why do you say this?" asked Solovet.

"Because I know her. If you want her to stay ..." Gregor had to swallow hard before he could get the next words out. "Lock her in the dungeon."

CHAPTER 21

Solovet studied Luxa a moment and then gestured to a pair of guards. "Do so. Confine her flier, as well."

Gregor forced himself to watch as they seized her and carried her, screaming, down the hall. She was beating at the guards but her words were for Gregor, full of hatred at his disloyalty. The things she said cut right through him. That she should never have trusted him. That he was as bad as Henry had been. And while it was not included in her rant, Gregor felt sure that he had lost all of the affection she had ever felt for him. His feelings, on the other hand, had only intensified when he betrayed her. So he watched until the guards turned the corner at the end of the hall, taking her out of his life forever. Even the sight of Luxa despising him was precious to him now.

When she was gone, his hand fumbled in his back pocket to make sure he still had the photograph they'd taken in the museum. It was there. He didn't pull it out. But later, in some tunnel or cave, while the others slept, he would spend some time with it. Tell the picture of Luxa what he would never have the chance to explain to her in person.

"It was a wise move, Gregor. She will always hate you for it, but with time, she will understand its necessity," said Solovet briskly. She went back to study the map on the wall.

Somehow having Solovet's approval didn't make Gregor feel any better. He disliked her so much. And she thought things like turning the plague into a weapon and setting rats on fire were wise moves. He would much rather have had her condemn him.

Vikus came up and patted his arm. Gregor hadn't even known the old man was in the room. "She will not always hate you. If she still cares for Henry, who put her life in jeopardy, will she not care for you who tried to save it?"

"I doubt she sees it that way," said Gregor. "It's done. Let's not talk about it."

"We shall depart from the river in one hour. Gregor, you must go to the armory to prepare," Solovet said.

One hour? Was that all that was left? "I'll dress. on the trip. I want to be with my sisters," said Gregor.

"They will be accompanying us," said Solovet. "Lizzie still may have use as a code-breaker. Boots will rally the crawlers. Rest assured, I shall keep them at a good distance from the battle."

There was no arguing with Solovet. And her reasons for taking his sisters were valid. Still...

"They'll be safe," Ripred said. "Count on it. One rager to another."

When Gregor went to the armory, food had been brought for him. After he ate, Miravet sent him to a nearby bathroom to bathe. Everything had a feeling of finality to it. Last hot meal, last bath, last set of clothes. As he was dressing, Howard came in to treat his wounds. "You look a lot better," said Gregor.

"Because I slept for two straight days," said Howard.

"Oh, man! I was supposed to wake you. Sorry, Ripred sent me down to the prophecy room and I totally forgot," said Gregor.

"Do not trouble yourself. I am practically the only coherent person in the hospital. There should be at least one," said Howard. "Your wounds are much improved." He removed the stitches from Gregor's calf, although he left the ones on his hip, and put on fresh bandages. Then he refilled Gregor's bottle of painkiller. "Well, then," said Howard, rising. "I must get back."

"Last time I'll see Howard," Gregor thought. He stood up and hugged him good-bye. "You'll keep an eye on Luxa, right?"

"As if she were my own sister," Howard said. "Fly you high, Gregor."

"Fly you high," said Gregor. He wished he could have said more. About how grateful he was to Howard for all he'd done, about how if he'd had a big brother, he would have wanted him to be just like Howard. Someone who was kind and brave and not afraid to say he cared about things or to admit he'd been wrong. But now Luxa would have Howard for a brother, and that was more important. Gregor's armor had been retrieved from the balcony, cleaned, and repaired. Miravet had made some adjustments to make it fit more comfortably over his injuries. When he was suited up, a little girl hurried in with the pink backpack Gregor had taken on his last trip to the Firelands. He had tossed it somewhere in the hospital, forgetting about it in his worry for Luxa. It contained the flashlight York had returned to him, batteries, duct tape, water bottles, Lizzie's cookies, and the travel chessboard. "Howard bid me bring you this," said the little girl. "He thought you might need it."

"Tell him 'thanks.' It will be a big help," said Gregor. The girl gave him a shy smile and ran off.

When Gregor arrived at the dock on the river, he found a solemn ritual going on. The Underlanders were doing funeral rites for the dead. Each human, bat, or mouse body was placed on a small raft of some kind of woven plant fiber. A torch was inserted in a holder at their shoulder. A woman softly chanted some words Gregor couldn't catch. Then the raft was set in the river and released. Although it was not as fierce as it had been before the earthquake, the current was still strong enough to quickly carry the rafts away. As far as he could see down the river tunnel, torches reflected off of the water.

So this was how they buried their dead. Sent them on a lit raft down the river to the Waterway, the giant sea, where they would be swallowed up by the waves. It made sense. There was little earth to bury them in. Gregor had seen what he would call soil only in the jungle and in the farmlands. Stones might work, but it would have to be somewhere outside of the city. You could burn the corpses, if there were only a couple, but hundreds? The air would be thick with smoke. There were no strong winds here, like there were in the Firelands, to blow it away.

The six kids he had seen earlier hauled in a stretcher with a dead rat. It was dumped into the river with no ceremony.

Ares landed on the dock next to him. "Lot of dead," said Gregor.

"Yes," said Ares. "Hundreds have made this journey already."

"How did you fight the rats?" Gregor asked. He wanted to know what had happened while he was in the prophecy room.

"When word came of the invasion, the gnawers were just entering the water from the tunnel north of here. We waited until they were swimming and attacked from the air. It was very difficult for them to swim and defend themselves, but they had great numbers. Many were destroyed but some made it into the palace. A group raided the hospital, killing the patients. Others swarmed through the halls, fighting where they met resistance. Eventually they were driven back out to river, and those who could swam for safety," said Ares.

"No Bane?" asked Gregor.

"No Bane. He has retreated toward his own land. The others will find him and regroup their army," said Ares.

It took Gregor a moment to recognize the mouse they placed on the next raft. He looked smaller, more vulnerable, dead. "Is that Cartesian?"

"He died defending the nursery," said Ares. "But the pups are safe."

Gregor felt sadness well up in him. He hadn't known the mouse well, but they had traveled together. Witnessed the nibblers dying at the volcano. Played hide-and-seek with Boots and the mouse pups. He went over and patted the mouse's soft fur before they lowered his body into the water. Ripred had said, "Everyone of significance to you still breathes." By that he must have meant Gregor's family and Luxa. But there were many others who Gregor cared about. Who knew if they were alive or dead?

The rest of the traveling party arrived. Lizzie, Hazard, and Boots were blindfolded and being carried by guards. "No point in giving them nightmares," said Ripred. Gregor thought of the grisly halls and was glad of the precaution.

Ares was best suited to carrying Ripred, so Gregor, his sisters, and Temp joined Vikus on his big gray bat, Euripedes. Solovet was beside them on her bat, Ajax.

"Greetings, Pincess," Gregor heard Boots say behind him. He turned around and saw her peeking at Nike from under her blindfold.

"Greetings, Pincess," said Nike, lifting her black-and-white-striped wings.'

"We are both Pincesses," Boots said with a laugh.

Gregor pulled the blindfold down over her eyes. "Stay in there, you." He turned to Nike. "Good to see you. You coming with us?"

"I am carrying some of the code team," said Nike. Reflex and Heronian climbed on her back. "Daedalus and Min remain here."

"Isn't their job done now?" asked Gregor.

"There's still plenty of information to decipher," Ripred said. "And the code could unexpectedly change."

As they lifted off, Gregor realized there were so many friends he hadn't said good-bye to. Mareth, Dulcet, Nerissa, Aurora — well, forget Aurora, she was locked in the dungeon with Luxa, and probably cursing him, too. Maybe it was just as well. Even that one good-bye with Howard had drained him. And there were still more painful ones in the hours ahead. He thought his friends would understand.

They flew down the tunnel and out over the Waterway. It twinkled with the flames of the torches on the rafts of the dead. About fifty soldiers on fliers joined them, and there were several mice traveling as well. "Are the mice coming to fight?" Gregor asked Vikus.

"Not these. They have a special purpose. The rats are still receiving information from their spies in the area. We have chosen four lines of communication to sabotage. We will disable a rat who transmits the code, replace it with a nibbler, and feed false information to the rats," said Vikus. Gregor saw a group of soldiers and a nibbler peel off and disappear into the dark.

"There goes the first team now."

"What sort of information will you give the rats?" Gregor asked.

"Lies. We will tell them that our losses are higher than expected, that no force can be assembled to follow them, that you have died due to injuries inflicted by the Bane," said Vikus. "Since the rats do not know we have broken the Code of Claw, they will take these things as truth."

"That's why Ripred wanted to keep it a secret," said Gregor.

"It is the most powerful weapon we have. The difference between losing and winning the war," said Vikus. "The rats will believe they are safe for the moment. But soon we will attack them on the Plain of Tartarus, where they now gather."

"A surprise attack," said Gregor.

"When they are asleep, with no plan for counterattack," said Vikus. "It is our best hope. Regalia still teeters on the brink of destruction. The diggers have created paths to our arena and possibly elsewhere. We destroyed the ones we could find but who knows how many exist? If the Bane lives and the rats attack again, I do not think we can hold the city."

By the time they broke for a rest at the mouth of a tunnel, their party was somewhat diminished. All of the nibbler code transmitters and their guards had left them. The soldiers had stopped at a landing a few miles back. Solovet had not been on the ground more than five minutes when she announced she was going off, too.

"Where?" asked Gregor.

"The spinners are still conflicted about whom they choose to side with. They require my personal guarantee of their safety when the war ends," said Solovet.

"I will rejoin you in two days' time on the Plain of Tartarus. If you battle before then, do not forget that your weakness is your left side."

And then she took off on Ajax with Gregor's old bodyguards, Horatio and Marcus, flanking her on their bats. It was just like her to up and go with nothing more than a combat tip.

It turned out they were making camp for a while. Ripred and Vikus had their heads together, poring over maps. Lizzie, Reflex, and Heronian were busy decoding messages that came in on bats. Nike, Ares, and the two remaining guards and their bats took turns patrolling the area. Boots, Temp, and Hazard were playing one of their games in Crawler.

Gregor was left to his own devices. He went deeper into the tunnel and practiced with his sword and dagger. His back was still sore, but he didn't think he would even notice it in battle. It felt good to use his muscles. When he was warmed up, he added in his echolocation, running through the tunnel in darkness and then striking points on the walls and ceiling. It was very freeing not to be constantly worried about his batteries running out.

After about a half hour he was good and loose. He decided to try to get Ripred to spar with him for a while. Maybe he could use a break from those maps. But when Gregor reached the mouth of the tunnel, no one was doing anything. All of the activity had stopped.

"What's going on?" asked Gregor.

"We just intercepted a message. The rats know of Solo vet's trip to the spinners. They mean to ambush and kill her," said Ripred.

"How do they know?" Gregor asked. "Did they spot us?"

"No. One of the spinners must have leaked the information. Perhaps a lowly soldier, perhaps the queen herself. Their loyalties are very divided," said Vikus. He looked calm, but his skin had a strange gray cast.

"We'll go after her. Ares and me. We can overtake them. We've got, like, fifty soldiers with us and—" Gregor began.

"No, boy. We can't," said Ripred.

"But she's got next to zero backup. You're just letting her fly to her death?" said Gregor.

"Yes. We are. We must," said Vikus, as if trying to convince himself.

"Okay, I don't know what's going on. I mean, I don't even like Solovet, but I'm not going to just sit here and let her die!" said Gregor.

"You have to, Gregor!" Lizzie said. "Don't you see? If we rescue her they'll know we've broken the code."

"What?" asked Gregor.

"The only way we could have read the message is if we had broken the code. If they find that out, there will be no surprise attack, because they will instantly change their rendezvous point. All of the lies we are planting will be suspect. And they will issue a new code immediately that may take weeks to break," said Ripred.

"But you found out about the rats attacking from the river and you acted on that," said Gregor.

"That was simple to explain. They were so close; we had only to send some scouts up the river and pretend to discover them. This is entirely different," said Ripred.

"She would not want us to try to save her," Vikus said hoarsely. "Not at this price."

"But... maybe we could ... maybe we could make it look like we were just going after her, anyway," Gregor suggested. "That wouldn't be suspicious."

"Wouldn't it? If she had wanted to travel with an army she would have traveled with an army. One showing up at the eleventh hour will point directly to the breaking of the Code of Claw," said Ripred.

Gregor was still not quite ready to accept this. "There must be something we can do."

"There is," Ripred said. "We can sit here and wait."

CHAPTER 22

So Gregor sat and waited as the seconds went by. Not with the urgent ticks he had heard so often since the war began, but with slow deliberate ones that had long silences between them.

The code team continued decrypting messages. They couldn't afford to be idle no matter what the circumstances. Boots, who didn't really know what was going on, fell asleep on a pile of blankets. Temp and Hazard resumed their discussion in whispers. But Gregor, Ripred, and Vikus seemed suspended in time as they waited for word of the ambush.

"Maybe they missed them," thought Gregor. "Or there was a fight and Solovet, Marcus, and Horatio were able to hold their own and escape." Why not? They were on bats and were excellent soldiers. But whenever Gregor sneaked a glance at Vikus's ashen face, he felt that this would not be the case. He wished he hadn't said that thing about not liking Solovet. He didn't, though. How could he after her involvement with the plague and her throwing him in the dungeon, and Ripred's warning that she would never let his family go? In a way if she died it would probably be easier for Ripred to get his family home. Of course, if what -they had said about Luxa being in power after the war was true, Gregor was sure she would send his family home, no matter what her grandmother said. Wouldn't she? He was glad he still had Ripred's promise as a backup.

Solovet. No, he could not pretend he liked her. Still, there had been moments along the way when she had treated him decently enough. When he'd landed in Regalia she'd been the first person to reach out and touch him, taking his hands in a gesture of welcome that had felt genuine. She had protected him by insisting he be trained, and now he knew that if she hadn't he would be dead. And she'd given him her own dagger. He fingered the hilt guiltily, thinking of how she was under attack without it. At least he had tried to go after her, despite his feelings for her. He hoped whoever broke the news to Luxa would mention that. Maybe she wouldn't hate him quite so much.

After a couple of hours, Heronian said quietly, "We have received word. All three humans and their fliers were killed in the ambush."

Ripred ran a paw over the diagonal scar on his face. "Well, I have this to remember her by."

So Solovet had given Ripred that scar. When? During a war between the humans and the rats? During a sparring match they'd had for fun? Gregor thought about how Solovet had left all kinds of scars, on rats, on her family, on the Underlanders' frail attempts at peace.

Ripred turned to Vikus. "That's the way she always said she wanted to go."

"Fighting." Vikus's lips formed the word but no sound came out.

"Yes, fighting. Not on some sickbed but with her sword in her hand," said Ripred.

Gregor tried to think of something consoling to say to Vikus, but he was never good at this stuff. Howard was, Luxa was, but all of the words he came up with seemed trite and empty. It was even more difficult because while he knew Vikus must have loved Solovet — they'd probably been married for, like, forty years or something — he also knew they had fought a lot. Their ideas on how to handle problems were totally different: Solovet calling for force, Vikus for working things out. When he discovered his wife's role in the plague, Vikus had been crushed. But he must have loved her, because he was utterly stricken now.

Hazard came over and kneeled next to Vikus, slipping his hand into his grandfather's. Vikus gave it a squeeze but didn't say anything.

"Sorry about your grandma, Hazard," Gregor said. He could manage that. "You okay?"

"Yes. In truth, I do not know how to feel. Solovet rarely spoke to me. I don't think she cared for me. Perhaps it was because she and my father hated each other so much," said Hazard with his usual frankness.

The words were simple and without malice, but their effect on Vikus was immediate and devastating. Solovet and Hamnet. All of the awful family history between his wife and his son — the tragedy at the Garden of Hesperides, Hamnet's mad flight from Regalia, the anger that passed between them in the jungle, losing Hamnet not once but twice.

Vikus made a strange sound in his throat. His hand went toward his cheek, then fell to his side. "Vikus? You all right there?" Ripred asked. Vikus tried to answer but the words that came out of his mouth were thick and garbled. "Doctor!" Ripred called at once. "Get a doctor in here!".

Ripred continued to talk to Vikus, pushing his nose right up into his face, urging him to stay calm. In less than a minute a doctor had flown in, taken one look at Vikus, dumped something down his throat, and had him loaded onto a bat.

Hazard hung on the doctor's sleeve. "What's wrong with my grandfather?"

"He is having an attack. We must get him back to Regalia," said the doctor.

"Is he going to be okay?" asked Gregor. His voice sounded almost as young as Hazard's. Half of Vikus's face had gone slack and Gregor realized he couldn't move it. It was scary to see him like that. Gregor didn't want Vikus to leave him. He didn't want to lose the one Underlander whom he knew had always had his best interest at heart.

"We will do all we can," said the doctor, and the bat took off.

"A stroke," said Ripred. "I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. This last year has been murder on him."

"Was it what I said? About my father?" Hazard asked worriedly.

"Goodness, no. It would have happened with or without your words. Now you go back and, I don't know, see if you can't help with the code, okay?" said Ripred. Hazard obeyed. When he was out of earshot, Ripred whispered to Gregor, "Probably not the best time to have brought up all that business with Hamnet. But he would have been thinking about it, anyway."

"People recover from strokes, though. Right?" Gregor asked.

"Some do. With time," said Ripred. He didn't seem to want to continue the conversation.

The cave seemed very vacant without Solovet and Vikus. "Now what?" said Gregor.

"Now I need a human who can command. Mareth's back in Regalia...." said Ripred. He sent for Perdita. When she arrived, he got right to the point. "Solovet's dead. Vikus is disabled. You just became the acting head of your army."

Perdita looked shocked and then conflicted. "There are others with more seniority."

"I don't want them. I want you," said Ripred. "I need someone we can all trust." Ripred began to go over the battle plan with Perdita, leaving Gregor to deal with the double tragedy on his own. First Solovet, then Vikus. Although Vikus might recover. If he didn't...Gregor's thoughts turned to Luxa again. He slipped the photo of them in the museum from his pocket and tried to think of happier times, but it was no good. He kept visualizing her face at the moment he had told them to lock her in the dungeon. He couldn't stand that being the last thing between them. He got a strip of code and asked Lizzie for a marker. She was writing with a quill and ink. "The markers all dried out," she said. She dug a red one out of her backpack. "You might get a few more letters out of this one. If you get the tip wet."

Gregor spat in the cap of the marker, closed it, and let it sit a minute. He would have to make his note short. He thought about writing it in the Code of Claw, but if the rats intercepted it, they would know it was broken. He settled on using the marks from the Tree of Transmission. That would make it seem a little more private somehow. After a couple of minutes he opened the marker and tested it. The results were faint but legible. He wrote:

LUXA

/ \ |// \ / \ / | | | /. | \ / // /|.|// | / | \. | / / | | \. / / / \. | | / | / \ . / | | //. | \ / / | | \ \ \.

"Go ahead," he thought. "Write it. You'll be dead before she even reads it. And anyway, it's true."

/. |\ / | / / | | \ \ \. | | | / | / / / /.

GREGOR

The last few words were too hard to read. Gregor nicked his index finger on his sword and wrote over them with a thin, smeary line of blood. There.

It wasn't much of a letter. He felt stingy using just thirteen words. But even if he'd had boxes of markers, what more would he have said? Maybe explained better why one of them had to live. So both of them could. So one of them would remember the other as they went through life. That it wasn't going to be him, so it had to be her. And he had to be able to think of her growing up and doing things and someday being happy if he was going to be brave enough for his last moments with the Bane. Luxa was smart. She'd figure out what he meant. He hoped.

Gregor rolled up the message and gave it to Lizzie to deliver to Luxa in Regalia.

"Why don't you give it to her yourself?" asked Lizzie.

"Because she's really mad at me right now," said Gregor. "She'll read it, though, if she thinks it's from you. Besides, you'll probably go back before I do." Lizzie agreed to take it. Gregor wondered if Lizzie would hate him, too, when she found out he'd been lying to her all along about the prophecy.

Gregor announced he was going to practice some more and went back into the tunnel. Then he just lay down on the stone floor with his head propped against a rock. He didn't feel like sword fighting, so he turned off his flashlight and clicked. His echolocation ability was improving by leaps and bounds. He could see so much — the jagged edges of the ceiling, individual pebbles on the floor, even small details in the rough surface of the walls. He experimented using different sounds — coughing, humming, whistling. In a quiet moment, he realized that even the sound of his own breathing could send images back to him. He felt comforted, because that meant as long as he was alive he would be able to see.

His heart rate slowed and he dozed, slipping in and out of sleep, alternating between dreams and images of the tunnel. Fear crept into his dreams. He was lying helplessly on his back, when a rat appeared over him, then another, then he was surrounded by their faces. Gregor shook his head to awaken only to find he hadn't truly been asleep. The rats were still looming over him, and they were real.

Without even attempting to rise, Gregor yanked his sword from his belt and sliced the air over his body to protect it. The rats fell back, giving him a chance to spring to his feet. By this time his dagger was out and he was about to start killing, when the voice reached his brain: "Stop, Overlander!"

Gregor hesitated. He knew the rat's voice. It was higher-pitched than Ripred's rough growl. Female. But not Twirltongue's silver tones that had so easily led him astray. Twitchtip? No, she was dead. And this voice didn't belong on his voyage across the Waterway, or in the impossible twists and turns of the rat's maze. It came with memories of jungle heat and sweat and the smell of sweet deadly blossoms. He clicked and tried to focus in on the speaker. "Lapblood?"

"Yes, it's me. Put away your sword. We're not here to fight you," said Lapblood.

Gregor clicked again. The small pack of rats was hanging back, none of them in attack position. He slowly slid his blades back in his belt. Rat or no rat, he didn't think Lapblood would lie to him. Not after what they had been through together. Besides, if the rats had been after his blood, they'd have taken him on the ground. "What are you doing here?"

"We've come to join with Ripred against the Bane," said Lapblood. "I'm supposed to meet him now for our battle orders."

"For real? How many of you are there?" said Gregor. Echolocation was great, but he wanted to use his eyes again. He snapped on his flashlight, causing the rats to squint in the sudden brightness. "Sorry." He pointed the beam to the floor.

"There are a dozen of us here in the tunnel. But hundreds wait in the caves below," said Lapblood.

"Hundreds?" Gregor said. He knew Ripred had a small band of rats loyal to him in the Dead Land, but where had hundreds come from?

"Did you think every rat wanted the Bane for their leader?" asked Lapblood. "That we would willingly live under his rule?"

"Pretty much," admitted Gregor. "I mean, except for Ripred, we haven't seen a whole lot of resistance from you guys."

"Well, you're wrong," retorted Lapblood. "Many of us have no use for that bloodthirsty, twisted creature or the connivance of those who guide him."

"That's good to hear," said Gregor. He noticed two smaller rats crouched at Lapblood's side. They were too big to be called pups, but they weren't fully grown, either. "Are they ...?" He didn't want to say the names in case he was wrong. "Who are they?"

"Flyfur and Sixclaw. My children," said Lapblood.

The children she had gone to the jungle to save by finding the cure to the plague. Mange's children, too, then, although he had never lived to see them again. He'd been ensnared and eaten by giant carnivorous plants. But his pups had lived. Gregor peered closely at them. They stared back, scared but tough. "You look a lot like your dad," he said, and was surprised by the emotion in his voice, by how moved and glad he was that they'd survived.

"And your mother?" asked Lapblood.

It seemed like an eternity since anyone had asked him that. People avoided the topic of his mother's health in general, as if bringing it up was just a painful reminder of her sickness. But Lapblood knew better. "She's okay, I think. I mean, she was real sick from the plague, but she got better. Only last time I saw her she had pneumonia and they evacuated her to the Fount. It turned out to be a good thing, because the hospital at Regalia was so packed, but I haven't had any news of her since. Ripred says he'll get her home for me. After the war. Since I can't. Ripred says he will." Gregor realized he was babbling and pulled himself together. "Thanks for asking."

Gregor had a sudden impulse to touch Lapblood, to place his hand on her head and feel that silky fur again. But he knew that would seem weird, if not downright threatening, to the other rats. So he just headed up the tunnel. "Come on. Ripred's up here."

Lapblood followed him while the rest of the rats remained deep in the tunnel. This was just as well. Gregor was afraid the arrival of even one rat might start a panic attack in Lizzie. But she took her cue from Ripred, and he was pleased to see Lapblood.

"Good. You made it. How many do we have?" he asked her right off.

"At least seven hundred. Perhaps as many as a thousand," said Lapblood.

Ripred raised his eyebrows, a bit impressed. "That many? You've been busy."

"Where do you want us?" asked Lapblood. Ripred quickly gave her a time, position, and instructions. She nodded, turned to Gregor, and said, "Thank you for what you did in the jungle."

Gregor had saved her life, but Lapblood had saved Boots. "You, too."

Lapblood touched her muzzle to his wrist, then she was gone.

"Just another good-bye," thought Gregor. Another last time. But it was nothing compared to the ones he would have to face in the next couple of days.

Ripred ordered them all to bed. Gregor's slumber was deep and dreamless. He was awakened by Ripred's nose nudging his shoulder. Gregor rubbed his eyes and looked around. No one else was up. "Over here," the rat whispered, and Gregor followed him to the far end of the cave. "This is the day," Ripred said.

"The day I die," Gregor thought. But he only said, "So soon?"

"Yes. We have to move fast. But there's something I want to say to you in private," said Ripred. "It's regarding a certain line in 'The Prophecy of Time.'"

The warrior's death. "Here it comes," thought Gregor. He braced himself for the good-bye, but the rat's next words were something entirely unexpected.

"The thing is ..." said Ripred. He glanced around to make sure everyone else was still sleeping. "The thing is, I don't believe in Sandwich's prophecies."

CHAPTER 23

Gregor was floored. "What? But you ... always do what they say."

"No, I don't. If I really believed in them, would I have run after the Bane and tried to kill him myself? It would have been pointless. I pretend like I believe in them, even try to convince myself I do for short periods, because everybody else down here does. So if you want to make them do something, it has to fit the prophecies, you see?" said the rat.

"Not really," said Gregor. What was Ripred saying?

"Look, there are hundreds of prophecies predicting all kinds of things. If you wait around long enough, numerous events that resemble each and every one of them are bound to come up. Take that plague. We've had loads of plagues down here. Might have been interpreted to fit any of them," said Ripred.

"But you're always trying to interpret them," Gregor said.

" I have to. If I don't come up with some reasonable interpretation of them first, someone else comes up with a foolish one," said Ripred. "And then it's a whole lot of extra work changing everyone's minds."

"What about in the jungle? After the ants destroyed the starshade and we had all given up," Gregor protested.

"I really thought Neveeve might have been right about the starshade being the cure. When it was gone, you were all ready to start digging your graves. The idea that we might have misinterpreted the prophecy was the only way to get you moving. I jumped on it. And we kept thinking. And we found the cure. The alternative was to let everyone sit there boo-hooing until they died," said Ripred.

Gregor frowned. "What about the warrior stuff? And me leaping?"

"Maybe you only leaped because that prophecy suggested that was the thing to do," said Ripred. "Maybe that children's song about killing the mice really only was a children's song. Maybe Sandwich was a madman who locked himself up and wrote crazy poems on the wall. And maybe — you're not going to die."

Not going to die? The words hit Gregor like a truck. Could it be possible? No, everyone knew he was going to die. He would prove it to Ripred. Gregor tried hard to think of one incident that could not be contested. "But... how about Nerissa? When she was a little girl, she told Hamnet he would be in the jungle with a hisser and a kid ten years later."

"I admit that one's hard to explain. Unless Hamnet sought out a hisser because of her suggestion and then didn't say no when Hazard's mother appeared in his life. Or it could be a strange coincidence. They do happen. Anyway, Nerissa is not Sandwich, and it's him we're talking about," said Ripred. "'The Prophecy of Time.' Look how easily we bent it to replace Boots with Lizzie. What does it really call for? A war? We have those all the time. A code? Every new war has a new code. The death of a warrior? Well, if we can swap princesses so easily, why not warriors ? Thousands will be dead at the end of this mess. But I'm not convinced you will be. One rager to another, I think you can beat the Bane. I think you're better than he is. And I don't think any mumbo jumbo of Sandwich's can change that. Unless you let it. So you fight, Gregor the Overlander. And don't you let your guard down for a second because you think anything's inevitable!"

Gregor's head was spinning with this new way of thinking. That they were really fulfilling Sandwich's prophecies on their own. Basing decisions on what his words said. He gave an incredulous laugh. "I thought you were going to tell me good-bye."

"No such luck," snorted Ripred. "But keep this under your hat. If everyone finds out what I really believe, I'll lose what little credibility I have. Come on, let's wake up the others. It's going to be a long day."

Gregor went over and blew raspberries on Boots's stomach, so she woke up giggling. "Stop! I need more sleeping!" she said, and pretended to go back to sleep three times to get more wake-up raspberries. As Gregor hauled her over to eat breakfast, Boots poked him in the chest. "You seem like you again," she said.

"I seem like me again?" Gregor asked. Then he knew what she meant. He hadn't really teased Boots in a while. Hardly ever smiled even. But Ripred's words had given him something he'd abandoned since he'd first read "The Prophecy of Time." Hope. That he might live. That Sandwich was wrong.

He wondered if the rat was lying to make him fight his best. But he didn't think so. Ripred's not believing in the prophecies explained certain things. Not just why he had tried to kill the Bane himself but how easily he had tossed out Boots for Lizzie, and how he had always been so sarcastic about Nerissa's ability to see the future. Probably didn't want her coming up with a whole new room of prophecies to control people. Not that Ripred didn't use the prophecies to his advantage. He had manipulated Gregor repeatedly with them. Even used the warrior's death to get Gregor to let Lizzie stay. But the rat was always doing whatever it took to get his way.

Gregor realized something else, too. He didn't want to believe in the prophecies, either. Not just because they forecast his death but because he loathed Sandwich. Ever since he had learned about how he had murdered the diggers for the land that was now Regalia, Gregor had wanted to distance himself from the man. To discredit him. To reject his guidance. Now Ripred had given him a way. "It's just me and the Bane. And I'm fighting him because he killed all of those innocent mice and people, and I have to stop him. Not because Sandwich says so but because I say so. And Ripred's right. I'm better than the Bane. And I can do it," he thought.

So Gregor was able to get through the moment he had dreaded above all others: saying good-bye to his sisters. He fixed up the pink backpack, refilling the water bottles and putting fresh batteries in his one remaining flashlight, and gave it to them to keep.

"Won't you need the flashlight in battle?" Lizzie asked with concern.

"I cracked that echolocation thing," Gregor whispered in her ear, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"Wow. Will you teach me?" she asked.

"You bet," said Gregor. "And look here." He pulled out the travel chessboard.

"I found it in the museum. It's yours."

"For keeps?" asked Lizzie. "Jedidiah has a chessboard, but not a magnetic one."

"Yeah. He's going to be real jealous," said Gregor.

Boots tried to poke her nose in the backpack. "Where's my present?"

"Your present?" asked Gregor. He dug out the rest of Mrs. Cormaci's oatmeal raisin cookies, still wrapped in foil. "You get the cookies."

"Oh!" said Boots. "All for me?"

"Well, you'd better share at least one with Ripred," said Gregor.

Boots shared with everyone, even tucking two cookies in Gregor's pocket so that he and Ares could have a snack later. Then it was time to go. Gregor pulled both of his sisters into his arms and held them tight. "You guys be good, okay?"

"Okay," said Lizzie.

"I am good," said Boots.

"I know. I love you. See you soon," said Gregor.

"See you soon," they both echoed.

Ripred had already given Ares directions to their position at the Plain of Tartarus. "Remember, Gregor, they think you're dead. So don't let them see you until the Bane appears."

"Got it," Gregor said.

"All right. Fly you high, you two," said Ripred.

"Run like the river, Ripred," said Gregor. And then Ares took off. They flew through the darkness that was no longer darkness to Gregor. While clicks and coughs produced brighter results, he concentrated on using his breathing to see. The images were not quite as clear but they were continuous, since he was either inhaling or exhaling as a matter of course. And the longer he relied on the breathing, the more distinct his surroundings became. In about an hour they had reached their destination. Ares landed on the floor of a small tunnel just before a wall made of a pile of large rocks. Beyond it, Gregor sensed emptiness. He dismounted cautiously and made his way to the wall. Hanging his head over, he let out a deep breath. His mind registered a cavern so vast he could not find the other end of it. The walls sloped up at a steep angle. Far below him, the floor was occupied by the single largest gathering of rats Gregor had ever encountered. There must have been well over a thousand, sleeping, fidgeting, nursing their wounds. Ordinarily Gregor would have been more concerned with them catching his scent. But the air was heavy with the smell of rotten eggs, which he remembered from his first journey, when Ripred had dragged them all through dripping caves, soaking them in sulfurous liquid to conceal their natural odor. This time, the smell seemed to be coming from a mist that rose out of a foul river winding its way along the side of the cavern. Even at this distance, Gregor was pretty sure that there was nothing alive in that water.

"So this is the Plain of Tartarus?" Gregor whispered to Ares.

"Yes. You can see it?" the bat whispered back.

"Yeah. Ripred finally knocked echolocation into my head," said Gregor. "I have to admit, it's cool. You see the Bane anywhere?"

"No. He must be nearby, though. He is the reason they have come here," said Ares.

They settled themselves down to wait. Gregor passed Ares a cookie and ate the other. If he did end up dead, he was glad the last taste in his mouth came from Mrs. Cormaci's kitchen. But he was no longer so resigned to dying. Not after what Ripred had said. Then it occurred to him that he was not alone; he was only half of a team, and it might be important for Ares to know Ripred's thoughts as well.

"Hey, Ares, can you keep a secret?" said Gregor.

"I would say it is one of my few talents," said Ares.

"Ripred doesn't believe in the prophecies. He thinks Sandwich was a crazy fool, and that we're all running around trying to make what he said come true," said Gregor. Ares was silent for a while. "I would be a liar if I said similar thoughts had not crossed my own mind," said the bat.

"Why didn't you say so?" asked Gregor. Were there other Underlanders who had their doubts?

"Because everyone treats his words with such reverence. But who was he, really? Not a kind or wise man. His words are full of doom and only terrorize us into killing one another," said Ares.

"You know, when I first got down here, I didn't believe in his stuff at all. Then, as things happened, it seemed like it was coming true. But what if we did just make Sandwich's words fit? Take 'The Prophecy of Gray.' That whole thing about me leaping and then Henry dying. I could have died and the prophecy would have still made sense. So maybe the only really remarkable thing that happened that day ... was that you decided to save my life," said Gregor.

"I was not thinking of Sandwich's words. I was thinking of what was right," said Ares. He crunched down on his cookie. "Do you know, when a prophecy does not fulfill itself in a coherent manner, we always say it was not yet its time. And we blame ourselves for not realizing it."

"I'm beginning to think the main thing we ought to be blaming ourselves for is letting Sandwich boss us around instead of doing what we think is right," said Gregor. "Using him as an excuse to kill one another. At the end of the day, we're the ones holding the swords."

"There must be better words to follow," agreed Ares.

"Sure there are. You and me, we could make up better words in our sleep," said Gregor.

Suddenly Ares lifted his chin, his ears twitching.

"What? What is it?" asked Gregor.

"It has begun," Ares said.

They rose and looked out over the rock wall. At first, Gregor could detect nothing new, only the army of rats sleeping fitfully in the gaping cavern. Then a faint ripple of air hit his cheek, and the scene in front of him exploded.

It was a well-coordinated attack and unlike anything Gregor had ever seen. The ripple he'd felt came from the beating of a thousand wings as a wave of humans flew through the darkness toward the rats. The bats were carrying large unfamiliar packages of some sort in their claws. When they were over the rats, they released their cargo. The packages exploded into small bonfires when they hit the ground. They must have had plenty of fuel because they continued to burn brightly after they landed.

The rats' warning system was not working well. Ripred had probably sent in soldiers to kill their scouts ahead of time. Gregor had heard a few cries of alarm, but they had not been enough to rouse the Bane's army. So the rats were still sleeping when the firebombs were dropped, and the swords and claws began to assault them.

At the same time, other adversaries were attacking from all sides. Cockroaches and mice were pouring in from the left and right. Spiders — who had apparently decided to join with the humans — began to drop from the ceiling. And then Lapblood's rats appeared from the tunnels behind the rat army, essentially cutting off any possibility of retreat. They had dipped their tails in some kind of glow-in-the-dark coating, something phosphorous maybe, so that their allies could distinguish them from the enemy.

Awaking under these conditions, the Bane's army panicked. Some were on fire, others had already received mortal wounds. The human/bat teams and the rats carried the bulk of the fighting, but the smaller creatures were inflicting a lot of damage, too. The mice and cockroaches targeted wounded rats, swarming them and finishing them off. The spiders would drop suddenly on unsuspecting rats, sink their poisonous fangs into their bodies, and whiz back up their silk lines before their victims knew what had hit them. But the Bane's rats were hardened soldiers, and after the initial shock, they pulled themselves together and fought back.

Silently, from their perch high above, Gregor and Ares watched. By the time the ground fires died down, torchbearers had lit the area sufficiently so that Gregor didn't need to use echolocation to see the hell unfolding below him. The battle soon lost any sense of organization and deteriorated into a killing frenzy. Everywhere, every second, creatures were dying. Human, rat, bat, mouse, cockroach, and spider bodies accumulated on the ground, until those who still survived were fighting on a carpet of corpses. Panic and confusion reigned. Fighters had to be wary even of their allies. A human ran a sword through a nibbler, a rat blinded a rat on the same side, a torchbearer set a spinner on fire. The clear purpose that had taken the soldiers into the battle was becoming muddied in the turmoil. Remote and safe for the moment, Gregor had a hard time making sense of the picture. It seemed unreal, as if he were watching a movie on television and he could make it stop by clicking to the next channel. This couldn't really be happening, this carnage, this waste of precious life. Who would do something like this? Why would they do it? What could they possibly accomplish? They were killing, killing, killing one another and then at the end they would have diminished one another's ranks but... what would have changed? The whole thing suddenly seemed like a ridiculous game that could easily have been replaced by another game, a hand of cards, a chess match, a roll of the dice. A game from which everyone could have gone home alive.

"Gregor! There! Above the river!" Ares said.

Gregor unglued his eyes from the battle and scanned the wall above the river. In the distance, they found Nike's black-and-white-striped wings fluttering in the mouth of a cave or tunnel — Gregor couldn't tell which — as she fended off a rat on the shelf of rock before her. About twenty yards above her, a digger's claws were widening a fresh hole in the steep wall. A stream of rats was emerging from the hole and half-climbing, half-sliding down toward Nike.

"What's she doing here?" asked Gregor. She was supposed to be with Boots and Lizzie, far from the battle as Solovet had promised. If Nike was here, where were his sisters? Stuck somewhere with only Temp, Hazard, Reflex, and Heronian for protection? And why didn't she just fly off? She wasn't big enough to be taking on that rat without a human teammate. What was she — ?

And then Gregor saw something that stopped his heart. A thin beam of light shining out of the opening behind Nike. It was flashing in a pattern that Gregor recognized. Played on the bedroom wall, tapped out with a fork on the kitchen table, the flashlight signaling... dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot...dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot... SOS. SOS. SOS.

"Lizzie," he whispered. Then he began to scream. "My sisters! My sisters are in there!"

CHAPTER 24

Gregor vaulted onto Ares's back. "Go!" he shouted. "Go!"

Ares didn't object, but he did remind Gregor: "They will know now! That you still have life!"

Ripred had told Gregor to lie low until the Bane arrived, but that seemed of little importance now. He hardly noticed — or cared — that his appearance was a huge shocker for the rats, who began to howl his name the second he and Ares left the cover of the rocks.

Gregor ignored them. He would deal with the Bane later, if the white rat even showed up. Now he had a far more urgent mission. And he wasn't going to make it. He wasn't going to. He had flown on Ares enough now to gauge the amount of time it would take him to travel a certain distance, and they were too far. The rats would beat them. Nike could not fend them off. His sisters would be torn to pieces and —

Suddenly he saw a form streaking up the side of the cavern wall toward Nike. It didn't seem possible that any creature could scale such a steep incline with such speed. But one could. The one Gregor would have chosen. "It's Ripred!" he told Ares. "If he gets in, we can attack the rats from behind!"

Nike fell back out of sight as the rats from the digger's hole began to rain down onto the shelf of rock and lunge in after her. At least twenty had made it when Ripred reached them. Not stopping to fight, he raced over the backs of the enemy rats and was swallowed by the darkness beyond. Seconds later, Gregor and Ares dove in and threw themselves into the battle. It was like old times for Gregor, like when he had first become a rager and the adrenaline rush had obliterated his awareness of his actions. But he was so afraid, so deeply terrified for Boots and Lizzie that he could not contain himself. Every stroke of his blade was a death stroke, every movement designed to kill. He hacked and sliced and plunged his blade into rat after rat, oblivious to all else.

Ares had to arch back and crack Gregor in the face with his head to get his attention. "Gregor!"

"What?" Gregor snarled back. "Get in there, Ares!" His bat was drawing him away. "I have to kill those rats!"

"Try this one!" Ares said. The bat swung around and there was the Bane, right in his face.

To Gregor, who had been absorbed in the fight to save his sisters, it seemed as if the Bane had materialized out of nowhere, as if he had simply sprung out of the ground to exact his revenge. Ares veered sharply to the side just as one of the powerful clawed paws whistled by Gregor's ear and then scraped down the side of the cavern, unleashing a magnified sound like nails on a chalkboard.

"We must have more space!" said Ares. They couldn't fight the Bane trapped up against this wall. They needed room to maneuver.

"But my sisters —!" Gregor began. Then he knew he had to let them go. To trust Ripred and the humans and bats who had flown in to save them. Because wherever Gregor was now, so was the Bane. "All right!"

Ares swiftly flew back toward the heart of the battle, drawing the Bane after them. But Gregor had a few moments to assess his opponent. Boy, the Bane was a royal mess! He was scarred and hurting from their last encounter. The stump of his tail was capped with a huge ball of bloody spider silk. Losing the tail seemed to have done something to the Bane's sense of balance, because he moved unsteadily, almost as if he were intoxicated. But the real change was the look in the white rat's eyes. One glance told Gregor he had crossed over the line from damaged to demented.

The Bane came crashing across the plain toward them as the other creatures desperately fled to escape him. Bodies on the ground burst open under his feet. Anyone in reach of his claws was shredded.

"This isn't like before," thought Gregor. "I'm fighting a whole new opponent." For a moment, he felt a shudder of fear deep inside him. Then he pushed it down. "Where'd he come from?" he asked Ares.

"The tunnel to the right," Ares replied. "I know it. It leads farther into the rats' land."

"Is there much room?" asked Gregor.

"Yes. A large tunnel, then more caverns," said Ares.

"Take it," said Gregor. "Let's make him work for us." A chase would hopefully wear the Bane out a bit and keep him from killing anyone else. It would also give Gregor a less distracting place to fight. He wanted quiet. He wanted one-on-one.

Ares shot down the tunnel, and the Bane was right behind them, bouncing off the walls, roaring. The torchlight was gone, but Gregor's breath was coming in pants and he had no trouble seeing. The tunnel led into a rocky cavern that soared high into the air. Ares flew up higher but the Bane followed, making seemingly impossible leaps up boulders and onto ledges as he followed behind. At first, Gregor could sense other rats in the area, but soon they fell away, either unable or unwilling to pursue them. And still Ares flew higher, finding a strange tunnel with dripping rock formations, and finally coming to rest on a plateau that seemed a million miles from anywhere. He was able to land for a minute and rest. They listened to the sound of the Bane, bellowing in rage and pain as he struggled toward them.

"Will this place do?" Ares asked.

"It's perfect," said Gregor.

As the Bane took one last giant leap onto the plateau, Ares took to his wings. The chase had been a good idea. The Bane was drained, gasping for air, thick foam hanging from his mouth. Several wounds had reopened on his face. The spider silk bandage had ripped off somewhere and blood ran from the stump of his tail.

"Alone at last," Gregor said. But they weren't.

"Take a minute," said the soothing voice. "Calm yourself before you destroy him."

"Twirltongue," Gregor said to Ares. "Where'd she come from?"

"I do not know," said Ares. "She was not with him on the Plain of Tartarus."

The Bane must have picked her up somewhere along the way. She leaped off of his back now, onto a pile of boulders. A nice safe place to observe the match. Gregor could see she was unmarred, not a wound on her anywhere. Her silver coat was flawless and unruffled.

It was all Gregor could do not to take her out right then and there. She was the one who had made the plans and groomed the Bane into this deranged creature. She'd probably ordered Twitchtip's death, too. Twirltongue and her silken voice. How he hated her. "You're looking good, Twirltongue," Gregor called. "A little too good. Seeing much action? Or you just sending the Bane in to lose his tail and such?"

"My tail? My tail?" said the Bane. He began to move in circles, trying to locate it. "My tail!"

"A king does not need a tail," said Twirltongue.

"He's not going to be king," said Gregor. "Are you, Pearlpelt?"

The name distracted the Bane from his tail. "I am king. I am king now! The rats follow me!"

"Then how come they're out there attacking you? Plus the spinners, the crawlers, the humans, the fliers, the nibblers," said Gregor. "Hey, that whole nibbler thing kind of blew up in your face, didn't it?"

"Twirltongue says I'm the king!" said the Bane.

"Yeah? Is that how it looks to you?" said Gregor. "Because from up here, it looks like she's getting you killed so she can take over."

"What? What?" The Bane was so far gone that that was all it took. He turned to Twirltongue, his eyes narrowing into slits. "You will not take over. I'm the king! I'm the king!"

"Of course you're the king. Who would follow a nothing like me?" said Twirltongue with a light laugh. But she was backing away. "He's lying!"

"If he's lying, then why are you untouched and I am like this?!" hissed the Bane.

"Because kings are bold and brave fighters. Your scars are badges of your might. No one would follow someone as untried and feeble as myself," said Twirltongue, edging along a boulder.

"No. You're right. No one will follow you. No one will ever follow you again!" The Bane sprang and, in one bite, ripped Twirltongue's head from her body. It hung in his mouth, teeth bared in a final grotesque grimace, before the Bane flung it at Gregor and Ares, almost hitting them. It smashed into the ground with an awful, hollow sound. The Bane stroked his paws over his eyes a few times, then looked up in confusion. "Where's Twirltongue?" he said forlornly. "Where did she go?"

Neither Gregor nor Ares replied.

The Bane nosed along the ground until he found the head. "Twirltongue? Twirltongue? She's dead...." he began to whimper. "She's dead...." And then his distress transformed back into rage. "You killed her!" he spat at Ares and Gregor.

"Man, he really believes it!" Gregor said in a hushed voice.

"Just like you killed my mother!" said the Bane.

Whether the Bane had just thought that one up on the spot or Twirltongue had planted it in his brain along the way, Gregor had no idea. He only knew that twelve feet of rat was coming at him and the long-anticipated fight had begun.

Ares dodged the rat's first attack. By the time the bat had spun back around, Gregor's rager state was at its peak. But he was not overcome by it. In fact, he could control his actions with a deadly accuracy that left him heady with power. This was a new feeling. This strength. This lethalness. This must be what Ripred felt all the time.

"Go for his face!" Gregor said. This strategy had worked well before and now the Bane had no tail to retaliate with.

But if the Bane had been a challenge back in Regalia, there had been at least some sense to his movements. Now his motions were erratic and unpredictable. He wasn't concerned with his own state, only that Gregor end up dead. The Bane swiped at them again and again, not bothering to block Gregor's attacks, ignoring his own wounds as his claws found Ares's wing, Gregor's arm, Ares's ear.

"Pull back!" Gregor shouted and Ares whipped out of the Bane's reach.

"We need a new plan," said Gregor, trying to twist the sleeve of his shirt into a sort of bandage over a gash on his left arm.

"He has lost his balance," said Ares.

"Use it," said Gregor.

Ares began to dive in wild circles around the Bane. The rat soon became disoriented, lurching from side to side, but was still fighting bitterly. Gregor did some damage to his paws, but that was all that his sword could make contact with.

"I've got to get in closer if I'm going to take him out!" said Gregor.

"Hang on!" said Ares, and suddenly they were spinning over and over, and Gregor found himself directly under the Bane's foreleg. He plunged his sword into the soft flesh. The Bane gave a strangled cry and jerked backward, freeing Gregor's blade.

"Get out!" Gregor cried. "Get out, Ares!" He had a terrible sense of dread. Something was wrong about their position, their proximity to the Bane. Even before his bat opened his wings, Gregor knew there was no way they could clear the claws. He thrust his sword in the Bane's direction but it was too late. "Ares!" Gregor cried. "No!" Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the rat caught Ares's wing, spun him around so they were face-to-face, and pulled him forward. Gregor dropped Solovet's dagger and wrapped both hands around the hilt of his sword. As the Bane sank his teeth into Ares's neck, Gregor's blade pierced the rat's heart. For a moment, they hung there, interconnected, supported by teeth and swords and claws. Then the Bane made an unearthly sound and rammed his free paw into Gregor's chest. Gregor lost his grip on his sword as he flew back into the air and slammed onto the stone floor. His hand went to his breastbone. The claws had torn aside his armor and opened a hot wet hole in his chest. His fingers pulsed with the rapid beating of his heart.

Above him, Ares still dangled from the Bane's jaws. The rat opened his mouth and the bat fell, lifeless, to the ground. The Bane pawed at the blade in his chest, trying to dislodge it. Then he became still and slowly sank down to four legs, onto his side as if to curl up, and rolled onto his back.

He knew they were dead. Both Ares and the Bane. Because only one creature was breathing. And it was Gregor. Despite this knowledge, despite the pain, he dragged himself across the floor to his bond. Ares lay on his back, his wings bent at awkward angles. The entire front of his neck had been torn off. Gregor pressed his face into the bat's blood-soaked chest, hoping in vain for a heartbeat, a chance to revive him. "Ares? Ares? Don't go, Ares, okay? Don't." But he had gone. No one could survive a wound like that. "Ares?" Gregor's right hand reached out and found Ares's claw and latched on to it.

Ares the flier, I bond to you.

The words went through his mind but he couldn't speak them. Not anymore.

Still clutching Ares's claw, Gregor rolled over onto his back and found himself cradled by the bat's wing. The blood was leaving his body fast. Seeping out of his chest and mingling with Ares's blood, then running onto the ground to join the Bane's.

"This is it," thought Gregor. "This is the end." The blood was flowing too quickly and no one who could help even knew where he was. Sandwich was right. He was right after all. The Bane would die, Gregor would die, and they could even throw in Ares for good measure. This is where they would eventually find them, already buried in this sunless hole far beneath the earth's surface.

"It's okay," Gregor whispered to himself. "It's okay. Think of the knight." He remembered the calm, smooth face of the knight in the Cloisters, a face free of all earthly pain, and a feeling of peace slowly descended on him. He realized his death was not only okay, it was for the best. He was never going back to New York, anyway. That had been some laughable dream. How could he go back after all that had happened? After what he had become? Where would a twelve-year-old kid, a warrior, a killer, ever be at home? Not in the Overland. And the Underland? No, he'd eventually end up like Ripred. Like Ares. A dangerous character. Suspicious. Scraping out a life in some desolate place. Because no matter how much the humans loved him during a war, who would want him around on a regular basis? There was no place for Gregor. Over, under, or in between.

He wasn't really so different from the Bane. Both of them were pulled into this whole mess without having any real understanding of it. Both of them were used — the Bane by the rats, Gregor by the humans — to play out this war. And both of them were paying with their lives. To have them dead would be a relief to everyone.

Except maybe Gregor's family... but they had no idea who he had become ... how much he had killed ... and he hoped they never found out....

The images of the cavern were dimming. His breathing became shallow. He could feel the world slipping away. "It's okay," he whispered to himself. "It's okay."

Far away, a pure, blue light appeared. It must be the light people talked about. The ones who'd had near-death experiences. You went down a tunnel. There was a light. People you'd loved who had already died were reaching for you. "Maybe Ares is there," thought Gregor. "Maybe he's waiting for me."

The pain left his body and Gregor had the sensation he was traveling. He was gliding closer and closer to the beautiful blue light. In a few seconds he would reach it. He wanted to reach it. To dissolve into the blueness. He was almost there.

Then everything went black.

CHAPTER 25

Something sprinkled across his forehead. Sand maybe. Was he at the beach, awaking from a long, warm nap in the sun? There it was again. People needed to be more careful. Kicking sand around. He should have picked a better spot. But when he'd died in that cave he'd been thinking more about — Wait! When he'd died in that cave? Where was he?

Gregor's eyes flew open. Above him, the hospital ceiling was brightly lit by torches. Boots's face slid into the frame. She took a bite of a cookie, showering crumbs down on his face. "Hi, you!" she said.

Something must have gone terribly wrong. He was still alive.

Boots took another bite of cookie and he shut his eyes to avoid the fallout. "You sleeped a long time. I got tired waiting." She did seem slightly put out.

"You're getting crumbs on him, Boots," he heard Lizzie whisper.

They were both alive. Ripred had gotten them out somehow.

"Gregor?" said a voice he had never hoped to hear again. His dad leaned over him, his face worn, older. "How you doing? How's my little guy?"

His dad? What was his dad doing here? What was going on? Why wasn't he dead? Where was the blue light? Who could possibly have found him in that forsaken place?

"Can you understand me, Gregor?" asked his dad. Gregor could see the concern in his eyes.

"Yeah." His voice was rusty and almost inaudible. "Hey, Dad. You're here."

"I came down just as soon as I could," his dad said. "Come to take you all home."

Gregor slowly became aware of his body. With great effort, he managed to wiggle his toes. Why was he so weak? How long had he been here? He struggled to move the fingers on his right hand but found it impossible. His left arm jerked up in a panic and pain spiked through his arm, his chest, oh, man, his chest! He dropped his arm back quickly. The pain ebbed but was still there. It was better if he didn't move.

"So, you have decided to wake up?" Howard's smile was so warm that Gregor couldn't help smiling back. The muscles on his face felt stiff and unused.

"What happened?" Gregor asked.

"You were rescued from the Dead Land by a pair of daring adventurers, who risked all to carry you back to our doctors," said Howard. "At least, this is how they tell the story. Some, myself included, feel it had less to do with a love of you and more to do with a love of cake."

"Cake?" said Gregor. And suddenly it became clear to him. "Not the fireflies."

"Oh, yes. Our old and dear friends Photos Glow-Glow and Zap," said Howard.

That explained it. The beautiful, blue light wasn't from another world; it was from Photos Glow-Glow's butt. Gregor couldn't help laughing, even though it hurt like crazy. The whole thing was so absurd.

"They have spent the last two weeks gorging themselves in a room off of the kitchen. You see, it is quite impossible for them to leave until they are assured of your recovery. And Luxa indulges them for her own reasons," said Howard. "So, Gregor, just how bad do you feel?"

"Very," said Gregor. "Whole body hurts."

"Good. Then your nerves are working. Drink this," said Howard, lifting his head to help him swallow some medicine and a little water.

"I can't move my fingers." Gregor glanced down at his right side, where he hoped he still had a hand.

"Yes. Well. They will work by and by," said Howard. His face was sober as he gently lifted Gregor's hand into his line of sight. Locked in his fingers, cemented with blood, was Ares's claw. "The shiners were unable to release your grip. Zap managed to gnaw his claw free. We have not wanted to force your hand open, for fear of breaking bones. We can soak it... but you will have to let him go yourself."

Ares. The last horrible moments of his bat's life replayed in Gregor's head and he squeezed his eyes shut tight. Howard asked him more questions, but he couldn't respond.

"In his mind, all of this happened only minutes ago. We must give him time," said Howard to his family. "He must rest."

"Girls, you go up to the nursery. Give Dulcet some help with those mouse babies, okay? I'll sit with your brother," said his dad.

Gregor heard his own voice in his ears. "I've got to get in closer if I'm going to take him out!" Wing snagged. Bane drawing them in. Locking his jaws on Ares's throat. Sword in heart. Chest ripped open. Falling. Dying. "Don't go, Ares, okay? Don't." Lying in blood. Soaked in blood. Dying. Dying.

The darkness began to close in around him again. But through it he heard his dad's voice. "It's going to be okay, Gregor. You don't think so now. You don't see how it ever could be. But one day, I promise, it's going to be okay."

When he woke again, Mareth was sitting in the chair next to his bed. His dad was asleep on a cot. A couple of nurses propped Gregor up a bit with pillows and brought him some broth. Mareth volunteered to feed him, and the nurses accepted and dashed off.

"The hospital staff is still working around the clock," said Mareth. "Come, you need some nourishment." The soldier spooned broth into his mouth and filled him in on the last couple of weeks. The minute the fireflies had brought word of the Bane's demise —along with Gregor's unconscious body — to the Plain of Tartarus, the Bane's forces had fallen to pieces and been easily defeated by the humans and their allies. They were already weakened psychologically, having by that time figured out that the Code of Claw must have been cracked. Lapblood's armies fighting against them had been a significant blow, too. The Bane's death had just been the final straw that had broken their spirit. There would be an official surrender in the arena soon. Terms would be agreed upon.

As for his loved ones, Vikus was recovering but had lost much of the use of his right side. Just as Ripred had predicted, everyone was turning to Luxa for leadership. Her uncle, York, was going to come down from the Fount for the surrender as well. He would bring Gregor's mother with him.

"She's better, then?" asked Gregor.

"Yes. But still very weak," said Mareth. "Your family will have much healing to do."

"Who else was lost?" asked Gregor.

"Many," said Mareth. "Better perhaps to think of who still lives. Your family. Luxa. Hazard. Aurora. Nike. Howard. Nerissa. Vikus. All of the code team survived."

"And Ripred," said Gregor. "I've got a lot to tell him."

Mareth stirred the broth, avoiding his eyes. "No, Gregor, he did not make it."

"What? But everybody got out of that cave," said Gregor.

"It was a tunnel actually. A short one that ran between the Plain of Tartarus and another cavern beyond the walls. The rats attacked from both sides. Ripred was able to fight a path out the back, enabling Nike to flee with your sisters, Hazard, Temp, Heronian, and Reflex. But he was overcome, his body flung into the abyss below. We sent a rescue team when word came. When they arrived, he had already been devoured by the swarms of flesh-eating mites in that nest there. You know the ones. We met up with them on the Waterway."

"The mites who killed Pandora," said Gregor.

"The same," said Mareth.

"Then you never actually found Ripred," Gregor said stubbornly.

"We found rat skeletons. Three of them. One, a large male who had evidently survived the fall and dragged himself some twenty yards before the insects overcame him," said Mareth. "The rescue team saw only this much, as they were forced to flee. But ask yourself, who but Ripred could have managed such a feat?"

"No one," said Gregor softly. Still, it did not seem quite real. That Ripred had died. Ripred couldn't die. He was invincible. A rager. Then he remembered Ripred's words. "Even a rager can be outnumbered, Gregor. I start to crack at about four hundred to one." There would have been more than four hundred mites in a nest. There would have been thousands and thousands.

"Beyond that, we have had no word of him. It is unlikely, having been so instrumental in this war, that he would be silent in the aftermath," said Mareth.

"Yeah," said Gregor. To his surprise, he felt as devastated by Ripred's loss as he had by Ares's. His bond at least knew how Gregor felt about him. He had never showed any gratitude toward Ripred. Never really thanked him. Never once told the rat how much he admired him. Maybe even loved him. It was not the kind of thing they discussed.

"I didn't expect... to have to deal with this. Up until that last morning, I was sure I'd be dead. Then Ripred—" Gregor stopped. He wasn't supposed to tell about how Ripred didn't believe in Sandwich's prophecies. Did it make any difference now the rat was dead? Maybe Ripred would want everyone to know his position. And there was proof now, because he had been right about Gregor surviving the war. But who could Gregor tell this to? Luxa? Vikus? He was too weak to go into it now. "Ripred gave me a pep talk. Told me I could beat the Bane."

"And you did," said Mareth.

"Not by myself," said Gregor. His right hand contracted around Ares's claw, not wanting to let go. But he had to let go. Ares wasn't coming back. Holding his claw wouldn't bring him back. It should be buried with the rest of him. "Howard said I could soak my hand."

"He left you a basin," said Mareth. He placed it at Gregor's side and then guided his hand into the water.

"You don't have to stay, Mareth," said Gregor. "I know they need a lot of help right now. I'm fine."

Mareth seemed to understand that Gregor did not want company just then. "I will check on you by and by," he said, and left.

The water was warm and comforting. Slowly, Gregor loosened his grip. The blood that glued him to the claw dissolved. One by one, his fingers peeled away and he extended his stiff fingers. The claw broke away from his hand and floated beside it in the basin.

Somehow Luxa was beside him with a towel. She solemnly removed the claw and wiped the remaining blood from it. When it was clean, she wrapped it in a white cloth and laid it on the table beside him. Then she sat on the side of the bed, lifted Gregor's hand, and carefully dried it. "It does not seem to be injured. How does it feel?" she asked.

"Empty," said Gregor. Luxa entwined her fingers with his. Her skin was warm, like the water, but alive. "That's better."

There were probably a million things they should be saying to each other, but they just stayed like that for hours, not talking, until his dad woke with a start from a nightmare, and Gregor had to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. "Maybe if we just keep telling each other that, one day it will be true," he thought.

For the next few days there was not much Gregor could do but sleep and let people feed him. He was so weak it was an achievement when he sat up himself, a small miracle when he could walk across the room again. It wasn't until he took his first bath that his condition really hit him. He was so skinny, shaky, and beat up. The wound on his chest was unreal. They had painstakingly stitched closed the stripes left by each individual claw mark. When it healed, Gregor could see there would be five scars to remind him of the Bane's final attack. How would he explain that to someone in the Overland?

His dad kept talking about their new life in the Overland. And Gregor didn't know how to tell him that he didn't want to move to the family farm in Virginia, didn't even want to go back to New York. That the boy who had fallen down the air shaft on a hot summer's day was gone, replaced by someone who could never find a home anywhere. But there was his dad going on about planting extra tomatoes so they would have plenty to fry up green, and going fishing, and how Gregor could join the school band again.

The school band? It took him a minute to even remember what instrument he had played. "Saxophone. I ran track, too. I liked science class. At least, he did. That other kid from that other time," Gregor thought. And what about his sisters? Boots would be fine. She was only three. Eventually she'd stop talking in Crawler and probably forget all of this, which was sad in a way, a blessing in another. But Lizzie ... Lizzie would forget nothing. She would just keep turning it over and over in her mind. She hardly talked since the war had ended. She just sat with her legs tucked up under her in a chair, her face thin and sad. Half the time she didn't even hear people when they spoke to her. Ripred's death had hit her hard.

One night, when their dad and Boots were asleep, Gregor asked her about it. Why Ripred had even brought the code team so close to the battle.

"Because of me. He didn't say it, but I knew he wanted to keep an eye on me. To protect me the way he couldn't —" Lizzie cut herself off.

"The way he couldn't protect Silksharp," Gregor finished for her.

"How did you know about her?" asked Lizzie.

"Heard you guys talking one night," said Gregor.

"It was my fault he died, Gregor," said Lizzie. "If I hadn't been there, he'd still be alive."

And there was nothing Gregor could say to convince her otherwise.

"Oh, yeah, let's move on down to Virginia and plant those tomatoes," Gregor thought. "That's going to fix everything." But he couldn't say something like that to his dad.

By the end of the week, Gregor was taking walks around the hospital. Luxa spent as much time as she could with him, but she was already being consumed by her new responsibilities. With the council members and Solovet dead and Vikus trying to learn to feed himself with his left hand, everyone turned to her for answers. More than a third of the human population had been wiped out, Regalia was a wreck, and the entire nibbler nation was homeless. In public, Luxa was steady and strong, but sometimes when she was alone with Gregor, she would bury her head in her hands, repeating again and again, "I do not know what to do." And he would put his arms around her and hold her, but he had no idea what to tell her. In his mind, Gregor knew how to kill things, not bring them back to life.

At least Luxa had a strong support system: Aurora, Mareth, Perdita, Howard, Hazard, Nerissa, Nike, and several mice helped however they could. York advised her in letters from the Fount. And Gregor had to smile when he saw her in deep conversations with Temp. But ultimately, all of the decisions were landing squarely on her shoulders.

Looming over her was the day of the surrender. Although the Bane's forces had thrown in the towel when they had learned of his death, this was the official acknowledgment of the rats' defeat. But what was to be done with Lapblood and the rats who had sided with the humans in the end? Would they all be lumped together with the enemy rats? That wouldn't be fair, but as some pointed out, Lapblood's armies hadn't fought to save the humans, they had fought to save themselves from the Bane. Besides, there was so much hatred between the species now that anything was possible. Everyone knew the surrender was merely a gesture that would be directly followed by the question "What will happen now?" And Luxa, as the head of Regalia, would be expected to have answers about who would control what lands, and how the living would now pay for the acts of the dead, and if rats could be divided into friends and foes. It was very complicated stuff.

Gregor once walked in on Luxa and Nerissa trying to unravel the last stanza of "The Prophecy of Time" ...

When the monster's blood is spilled,

When the warrior has been killed, you must not ignore the rapping, or the tapping, tapping, tapping.

if the gnawers find you napping, you will rot while they are mapping

Out the law of those who gnaw

In the Code of Claw.

... but they stopped abruptly when they saw him. He wanted to tell them it didn't matter. Couldn't they see that? Wasn't he living proof that the prophecy was wrong? That Sandwich was a fraud? But he didn't know how to convince them to change their minds about Sandwich. They had lived by his words for too long.

The night before the surrender, Luxa was eating dinner with his family in the hospital room, when Gregor's mom walked in. She was way too skinny and unsteady on her feet, but she walked in and opened her arms without a word. They all ran to her and wound up in one big embrace. Boots, who was too little to get in on the main action, began to squawk, "Me! Me! Kiss me!" and his dad scooped her up and everyone covered her in kisses, which only made her giggle and call for more.

After a minute, Gregor noticed Luxa, standing alone by the door, watching his family reunite. He couldn't help thinking of how once she'd had so many people to love her who were no longer here. He reached out a hand for her to join his family, but she just gave him a small smile, shook her head, and slipped out the door. And for the first time in forever, Gregor remembered why he was lucky.

The next morning, Gregor met Luxa before the surrender. She was dressed in a gorgeous gown with a jewel-studded tiara on her head. "Wow, you look so grown-up in that. At least thirteen," he said.

That made her laugh, although he could tell she was pretty nervous. Gregor was just wearing a plain shirt and pants. And his swords. He felt naked without them. Back in the Overland, he couldn't wear them, of course. He had separation anxiety just thinking about it.

His sisters and dad had already flown ahead to the arena, but Gregor had promised Luxa he would walk through the city with her. When the platform lowered them to the ground, Gregor could see the road was lined with people. No one cheered. Rather, they bowed as Luxa passed. A lot of people had tears running down their cheeks. Luxa acknowledged the crowds, nodding, occasionally lifting a hand. She spoke only once when they came to a crossroads where four streets met. She stopped and surveyed the wreckage around her. The rats, with the help of the diggers, had turned buildings into rubble. The paving stones beneath their feet were stained with blood and scorch marks from the fallen torches. A little girl missing an arm stared at them with empty eyes.

"Look at my city, Gregor," said Luxa. "Look at my home."

When they got to the doors of the arena, Luxa paused. Gregor reached out and gave her hand a quick squeeze. Then she took a deep breath and headed in. Gregor followed a few steps behind. The place was packed with delegations from every species that had played a principal role in the war: crawlers, spinners, diggers, nibblers, fliers, gnawers, and humans. Gregor even noticed Photos Glow-Glow and Zap sitting on a bench. He hadn't seen them since the rescue, hadn't even thought to thank them. He would try to remember to after the ceremony. Even though a path had been left for them, it was hard to make a dignified entrance because the floor of the arena was so pitted with the tunnels the diggers had made. But Luxa swept around them gracefully while Gregor sort of hopped along after her. At the center of the arena was an empty circle. Three rats waited before it.

When Luxa stepped into the circle Gregor hung back at the edge. Aurora fluttered down and landed just outside of the circle as well. Nearby, Gregor could see his dad and Lizzie. Mareth, Perdita, York, and Howard stood in a group. Even Nerissa had pulled herself together for the event. Somewhere in a bunch of cockroaches he spotted the tops of two curly heads and knew that Boots and Hazard were watching, too.

As Luxa took her place, what little conversation there had been in the arena ceased. If she was still nervous, it didn't show. She held herself with dignity and her voice was clear and steady. "Greetings, all. We have gathered here to mark the end of an unhappy and costly war. I have come to accept the surrender and present the terms of the defeat. Gnawers, who speaks for you?"

One of the rats stepped forward to reply when there was a commotion. Small stones and dirt began to fly out of the mouth of one of the diggers' tunnels. A general ripple of alarm ran through the arena. Everyone was still so jumpy from being under attack. Then the bedraggled creature nosed its way out.

He was almost unrecognizable. Half of his fur and a good portion of his skin had been eaten away, leaving bloody, oozing places. One of his back legs was useless, trailing behind him. His face had received another diagonal slash, which crisscrossed with the existing scar. But his voice was unmistakable.

"I do," said Ripred, dragging himself into the circle.

"I speak for the gnawers."

CHAPTER 26

The stunned silence in the arena was broken by Lizzie's squeal of joy, "Ripred! Ripred!" She pushed her way out of the crowd and threw her arms around his neck. "I thought you were dead."

"I told you, it takes a lot to kill me. More than a few bugs, anyway," said the rat.

"But they found your skeleton," said Lizzie.

"That must have been Cleaver's. I dove under his body as soon as we landed and then ran. The mites had to chew him up before they got to me so it bought me some time. Not a lot, but enough to get away. Funny, I always despised Cleaver, but I can't help thinking warmly of him now," said Ripred.

"How did this happen?" asked Lizzie, reaching up to lightly touch the new slash on his face.

"Oh, a rat cut me. It's nothing. Now up you go." He nudged Lizzie up onto a patch of fur on his back.

"I'll hurt you," she said.

"No. You'll remind me why I'm here," said Ripred, and locked eyes with Luxa.

"And why is that, Ripred?" Luxa said icily.

"I told you. To speak for the gnawers. Or did you think I spent years risking life and limb so that you could dictate our future?" asked the rat.

Now the creatures in the crowd found their tongues, and everyone was turning to their neighbor in either dismay or confusion. Most of the rats had long considered Ripred an enemy. And he'd been fighting with the humans and their allies for so long, even they'd begun to take his allegiance for granted. But taking Ripred for granted was a big mistake. Gregor had the feeling that he had always been working toward this moment. Maybe he hadn't expected to be dealing with Luxa, maybe he'd thought Solovet or Vikus would be there to negotiate with him. It didn't really matter who he was up against, as long as he stood for the rats.

Luxa raised her voice above the hubbub. "Is this true, gnawers? Does he speak for you?" The rats were clearly as amazed by Ripred's appearance as anyone else. They shifted around, whispering among themselves, trying to reach some kind of consensus.

Then a voice rose, clear and forceful, above the others. "Yes! I say he speaks for us!" Lapblood and her two children made their way out of the crowd. If Ripred had always been an object of suspicion, it was clear that Lapblood was trusted among her own kind. She had been chosen to find the plague cure and had had the influence to lead the dissenters against the Bane. A moment after her declaration, the rats united with her and began to call for Ripred to act as their representative.

Gregor could see the tension in Luxa's shoulders. It was hard enough to have to lay out the postwar plan in front of the entire Underland. But to do it with Ripred standing by to challenge her every move? Ripred? She was out of her league and she knew it. Who wouldn't be out of their league with Ripred?

To make matters worse, Nerissa suddenly cried out, "Oh, Luxa, see you the mark on his face?"

Luxa scrutinized the rat's face. "It is but another scar among many."

"But look! It forms an X! The mark borne by the peacemaker!" said Nerissa.

"Many of us have scars that cross!" York strode out of the crowd.

"Think of the words," said Nerissa. And the arena quieted to hear her recite the poem from the prophecy room in her quavering voice:

On soft feet, by none detected,

Dealing death, by most rejected,

Killed by claw, since resurrected,

Marked by X, two lines connected.

Finally, they intersected, two lines met, one unexpected.

"Do you not see?" insisted Nerissa. "It describes Ripred exactly. Slipping in undetected, deadly, hated, thought lost, but brought back to life. And the X! One half was given by a human. One half by a gnawer. Two lines intersecting. And now the human line and the gnawer line meet in the flesh as well. In Luxa and Ripred."

The arena went nuts but Luxa remained unmoved. She waited for the commotion to die down, then said, "Do you fancy yourself the peacemaker, Ripred?"

"Well, I don't like to blow my own horn, but it does make a lot of sense, what Nerissa's saying. And if I am, there's really nothing I can do about it one way or the other, is there?" said the rat.

Gregor could hear everyone murmuring to one another that this was true, that the prophecies were written in stone. But the rat was looking at Gregor, smirking and rolling his eyes ever so slightly as if to say, "See what I mean?"

While he had no way to prove it, Gregor was suddenly convinced that Ripred had given himself the second wound. It would be a small price to pay for being designated the peacemaker.

"Good. Then you should have no problem peacefully leading your fellow gnawers into the Uncharted Lands," said Luxa.

This surprised even Gregor, although in retrospect, maybe it shouldn't have. When she had started the war, Luxa had told Gregor, "We may as well get it over with. Have the war that will answer the question of who stays and who goes." But he had thought, with all that had happened during the war, that she might have changed her mind. Apparently not.

With her proposal, everything became ugly and hard.

"Yes, I do have a problem with that, Your Highness. So much so that I flatly refuse to do it," Ripred spat at her. "What do you say to that?"

"I say that you may go peacefully or by force; it is your choice!" said Luxa.

"If it is another war you are looking for, then believe me you shall have it!" growled Ripred. "But I wonder how you will fare, with your limping army and your broken city and me at your throat instead of your back!"

"I do not need you, Ripred. I have Gregor!" said Luxa.

"Do you? I wouldn't count on it. Even if he stays, I'll wager he finds your measures too harsh. Perhaps he will even remember past kindnesses and take my side instead!" retorted Ripred.

Gregor's mouth dropped open in disbelief. What were they talking about? What were they both doing? Could they actually be going back to war? And did they plan for him to join them?

"We will leave it to him to decide," Luxa said, and then turned to him. Everyone in the whole arena turned to him, wanting to know where he stood.

"You're really going to do it, aren't you? You're really going to go back to war?" Gregor said. He could feel something boiling up inside of him. "So, we'll just forget about what happened. The jungle, the Firelands, the Bane." His voice was rising and he could feel the rager side of him taking over. "Forget about everybody who's dead! Tick and Twitchtip and Hamnet and Thalia and Ares! And your parents, Luxa! And your pups, Ripred! Let's just forget about everybody who gave their lives so that you could have this moment where you could — could make things right again! So you could stop the killing! We were fighting for the same thing, remember? You two owe each other your lives! You owe me your lives! And now you stand there and ask me to choose between you? To help you kill each other?" Gregor yanked Sandwich's sword from his belt and swung it so violently that even Luxa and Ripred stepped back. "Well, guess what? The warrior's not fighting for either of you!"

And with that, Gregor took the sword blade between his hands and slammed it across his leg with such force that it snapped in two. He flung the pieces aside, one toward Luxa, the other toward Ripred. Fresh blood was running from his empty hands as he held them up. "There. The warrior's dead. I killed him."

"And so 'The Prophecy of Time' is fulfilled!" said Nerissa breathlessly.

Gregor shook his head. Would they never shut up about those prophecies? But he only said, "Whatever. Now what are you two going to do?"

"What, indeed, after such a display?" said Ripred to Luxa. "Although the boy does make a point about the perversity of starting a new war while the blood is still drying from the last one. Especially when the cutters are amassing at our borders." The crowd reacted, and Ripred circled around to make sure everyone could hear him. "Oh, didn't I mention that before? Now I'm not saying they're taking this opportunity to finish us all off, but you have to admit it'd be an excellent time. With them so strong, and us so. weak. Of course, if things were different between us ..."

"Yes, I see. We might deter them," Luxa said sharply.

"We have done it in the past," said Ripred.

"The past is gone. How do we know we can trust you now?" asked Luxa.

"Trust us? You just tried to banish us to the Uncharted Lands! I think if anyone needs a little reassurance, it's the gnawers!" answered Ripred. "So — I don't know, write up a treaty or something."

"No one trusts treaties. They go up in a flash," said Luxa.

"Then you decide, Luxa. Friends or enemies. Trust or no trust. Between you and me. Between our species. You decide how it is to be," Ripred said.

It was the moment of truth. Gregor could see Luxa's internal struggle playing out on her face. Flickers of Solovet's hardness interchanging with Vikus's desire for understanding. All of the old hatreds and sacrifices and debts and hopes swirling around inside her as she tried to decide the fate of the Underland. War or peace. Battle or compromise. Solovet or Vikus. It was the very decision that had destroyed Hamnet. Made him go mad, then flee, then die in battle.

Finally Luxa's expression solidified. "There will be no treaties," she announced. "They have always failed us in the past." Gregor's heart slammed somewhere down around his feet. But she had not finished.

"There will be no treaties!" Luxa repeated. "But I offer this." She stepped forward and raised her right hand to Ripred.

The crowd let out a gasp at what she was proposing. Even Ripred was initially taken aback. But he recovered quickly. "A bond?"

"A bond between all humans and gnawers. A vow to defend each other to the death. I offer it. Do you dare take it?" asked Luxa.

"Do I dare?" said Ripred. "Yes, I do." He lifted his paw up and pressed it against her hand.

After a moment, Luxa began:

Ripred the gnawer, I bond to you, Our life and death are one, we two. In dark, in flame, in war, in strife, I save you as I save my life.

To which Ripred replied:

Luxa the human, I bond to you, Our life and death are one, we two.

In dark, in flame, in war, in strife,

I save you as I save my life.

Then the rat dropped his paw and gave a big stretch. "Don't we get a feast now?"

"Let it be as he says," said Luxa. And the whole arena broke into cheers.

"Your grandpapa is going to be so proud of you," Gregor heard Ripred say to Luxa.

"And my grandmama is rolling in her grave," replied Luxa.

"She was always too hard to please," said Aurora. Luxa put her arms around her neck, and the bat enfolded her in her golden wings. "It was the best thing to do," Aurora said.

"If you think so, then I can survive it," answered Luxa.

"What about me? Don't I get a hug?" Ripred asked.

"Ugh, you are teeming with infection. Lizzie, get off of him before you catch something vile." Luxa lifted Lizzie off of Ripred's back. "You had best get to the hospital," she told Ripred. "And then I suppose we must meet to determine the specifics of this historic day."

Ripred sighed. "I suppose so. You and I seem to end up doing everything. Shall we say four members for each delegation ?"

"Why not?" Luxa said. "Four can be as stupid as ten. No need to crowd the room."

Ripred laughed. "You know, I think you and I are going to get on famously."

"And you, Overlander," said Luxa, turning to Gregor finally. "You are bleeding, too."

"Well... I did kill myself," Gregor said with a smile.

"I do not suppose we left you much choice," said Luxa. "Come, then. I will walk you two down to the hospital. I want the pleasure of telling Vikus what happened. I need one human to genuinely approve of what I just did."

"You've already got that," said Gregor. He collected the broken pieces of his sword and they headed for the hospital.

As they walked into Regalia, Luxa said, "You should have made that cut a little deeper, Ripred. It may leave no scar at all, and then where will our peacemaker be?"

Gregor laughed. Ripred hadn't fooled her one bit.

"I have no idea what you're suggesting," Ripred said loftily.

"Bet there aren't any cutters on the border, either," said Gregor.

"Well, there might be," said Ripred. "It's their border, too. And may I add that I think it's very ill mannered of you two to be doubting me. Particularly my new bond."

"I expect you will get used to it," said Luxa. The rat did not deign to reply.

Lizzie went with Ripred to be treated, but Gregor wanted to see Vikus first. The old man was sitting, propped up in bed. The right side of his body was impaired by the stroke. But his left eye brightened and his good hand reached out when Gregor and Luxa came in. Gregor clasped his hand with his bleeding one. "Hey, Vikus, how you doing?" Vikus couldn't really speak yet. "Look, I just wanted to return this to you." Gregor held up the pieces of Sandwich's sword and laid them on the bed. Vikus raised his eyebrow for an explanation. "Luxa and Ripred were recruiting me for a new war, this time against each other. So, I retired the warrior. Killed him off really."

Vikus's face was registering alarm.

"Do not worry," Luxa said. "Yes, Ripred is alive and leading the rats, but there is to be no war. Do you not wish to keep the sword, Gregor? For memories' sake?"

"No, thanks. I've got more memories than I can handle." Gregor removed Solovet's dagger from his belt and put it with the sword. "Besides, my mom won't even let me have a pocketknife," he said.

Vikus gave him half a smile. With great effort, he worked a word from himself. It was difficult to distinguish, but Gregor thought he knew what Vikus wanted to say. "Hope?" Gregor asked. The old man nodded and pointed at Gregor's chest. "I give you hope?" Vikus nodded. "Well... just wait until you hear what Luxa did." Gregor leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. "Take care, Vikus."

Gregor left so that Luxa could tell Vikus about what had happened in the arena. Besides, he was dripping blood everywhere. He found Ripred and Lizzie in a room. A team of doctors was trying to put the rat back together, putting his leg in a cast, cleaning and bandaging his mite-eaten flesh. For somebody who was so tough, Ripred was putting up an awful big fuss. But not as big as it would have been if Lizzie hadn't been comforting him.

By the time Howard had bandaged Gregor's hand, the meeting of the delegates was about to begin. Lizzie wanted to go to be near Ripred, so Gregor went, too, to keep an eye on her. It was held in a room with a large, round table. Gregor and Lizzie sat up against the wall, but four delegates of each species, humans, rats, bats, mice, spiders, cockroaches, and moles gathered around the table. There were twenty-eight in all, but it was soon clear that Ripred and Luxa planned on doing most of the talking. For a couple of characters who had just bonded, they sure didn't agree on much. Not land division, not restitution, not military control. Other voices chimed in and soon the conversation had moved away from the future and back to the past evils they had done to one another. Things looked like they might actually turn physical when Ripred jumped on the table and shouted, "Don't feel superior! Don't anyone in this room feel superior! We have all inflicted unspeakable evils upon one another! Let's admit that or we're just sliding backward!"

"Hey, like in the prophecy," interjected Gregor. "Time is turning back."

"Shut up!" Ripred spat at him. The rat climbed off of the table and no one knew where to pick up the conversation. Then Lizzie timidly spoke up. "I have an idea." She wasn't really supposed to talk, but everyone respected the code-breaker.

"I am sure we would all welcome it, Lizzie," said Heronian encouragingly.

"I think there are too many of you. I think each group should only get one delegate." Lizzie licked her lips. "And that that delegate should be chosen by the other species."

There was a long pause while everyone considered this. Of course, everyone liked the idea of choosing the others' delegates. But to let the others choose theirs ...

"We make no headway here. I believe we should give Lizzie's suggestion a try," said Luxa.

"Well, I'll just leave now, shall I?" said Ripred, giving Lizzie a wounded look.

"Oh, stop sulking! It is not as if I will be invited to stay," Luxa snapped.

"Well, I wouldn't vote for either of you," put in Gregor. They both glared at him but that only made him grin.

The delegates were chosen. The seven were Mareth, Nike, Temp, Heronian, Lapblood, Reflex, and a mole whose name no one could pronounce.

"Oh, look, all the reasonable delegates are left," said Gregor as he left with the rejects.

"All the weak ones, you mean," muttered a spider who Gregor didn't know.

Gregor looked into the room. "No," he said. "There's nobody weak in that room. Good luck, you guys." He took Lizzie's hand. "And good idea, Liz."

"It's kind of like the logic puzzle about the cheese. Only you turn it inside out. So there's one cheese and seven creatures have to share it. The trick is, you have to figure out who are the most likely to share," said Lizzie. Then she added sadly, "But now Ripred's mad at me."

"On the contrary," said Ripred, tugging on her braid. "Ripred's very cranky that no one voted for him, but very pleased that he can go to the feast now. Hop on," he said, and Lizzie scampered up onto his back. "It's ideal really. They will come up with a plan. No one will like it. Everyone will feel they have been treated unfairly, but will be happy that their neighbors feel the same. And that is the nature of compromise. Now let's go eat an awful lot."

Gregor and Luxa lingered in the hall as the others went to the feast.

"When must you go?" asked Luxa.

"My mom wants to go today. In a few hours, maybe," said Gregor. "My dad convinced her it was important for us to stay for the surrender. But she wants to get to Virginia as soon as possible." , They collected a basket of food from the kitchen, and Aurora carried them out of Regalia to Ares's old cave. Then she flew out around the lake, leaving them alone.

"We finally can have that picnic," said Luxa.

"Yeah," said Gregor. But neither of them could eat. They just sat with their arms around each other.

"Where is Virginia?" Luxa asked.

"A long way from New York. Hundreds and hundreds of miles," said Gregor.

"We shall never see each other again," said Luxa.

Gregor found himself wishing Sandwich had been able to cough up a few more prophecies about the warrior. "Probably not. Won't even be able to write."

"Will you be glad to be home?" asked Luxa.

"No," Gregor said. "I can't even imagine being back. Anyway, Virginia isn't my home. It's just a place I've visited."

"It will be easier for you. Here there will always be talk of you. In the Overland, who but your family even knows my name? And they will not want to dwell on your times here. It will be quite simple to forget me," said Luxa.

"Never," said Gregor. "I'll never get rid of you, no matter how hard I try." It was no longer an effort to say the words. "I love you."

"I love you, too," said Luxa.

And after that, there was nothing left to say.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. ...

In no time, horns were blowing from Regalia. Aurora fluttered in. "They are calling us back," she said.

Gregor had trouble believing it was really happening. The quick flight back. His family waiting on the docks, ready to go. His few possessions from the museum already neatly packed in a bag. There were hugs and good-byes but only Boots said, "See you soon," as she showered Temp with kisses.

Ripred made a point of giving Gregor some last-minute rager advice. "Watch yourself. That rager thing isn't going to magically disappear. It's part of you. There won't be anyone you can't take. And you've killed enough that you don't have to think twice to do it. Remember, it's a lot easier to lose your head than to keep it."

The words made Gregor's blood run cold. "I'll remember," he said. He'd better remember. Or who knows what he might do? "Run like the river, Ripred."

"Fly you high, Gregor the Overlander," said the rat, and then turned his attention to Lizzie, who was crying her eyes out.

Nike and Aurora flew his family and Luxa over the Waterway and dropped them at the stairway beneath Central Park. Gregor said good-bye to the bats, then held Luxa's hand while his dad pushed the rock aside. Cool night air rushed in.

"Come and look, just for a second," said Gregor. But Luxa would only climb up to where her head and shoulders were aboveground. It was a clear night. A few stars were visible and the moon was magnificent.

"This is where I will think of you," she said. "You know where I will be."

Gregor kissed Luxa good-bye and climbed out into the park. Then she backed down a few steps and they held each other's gaze until Gregor's dad slid the rock in place, parting them forever.

CHAPTER 27

It was late. Two-fifteen by the clock on the taxi's dashboard. The driver was tired, uncommunicative, and didn't seem to wonder what they were doing hanging out in Central Park at that hour.

When they got to their building, the elevator was broken, so they took the stairs up to their apartment. Gregor's mom had to rest every couple of flights. His dad finally gave him the keys and told him to take the girls on ahead. When Gregor opened the door to his apartment, he couldn't believe how small and cramped the place looked. He and Lizzie slumped back on the couch while Boots immediately dumped a basket of plastic animals on the rug and arranged them in a parade. When she came to a little black bat she'd gotten last Halloween she held it up happily. "Look! Ares!" Gregor could think of nothing to say as she flew the bat around her head.

His parents came in about ten minutes later, and even though she was dropping from fatigue, his mom went right in to check on his grandmother. That's when Gregor realized she didn't know that Grandma wasn't there. His dad had been waiting until they got home to break the news. "It's her heart, Grace. She's in the hospital. We'll go see her first thing tomorrow," his dad said.

They went straight to bed. Gregor didn't even bother with pajamas. He just stripped down to his Underland briefs and crawled between his blankets. They had a dusty, familiar smell. A siren went by. Music from a car radio blared then faded. A toilet flushed. The old comforting sounds of New York City lulled Gregor to sleep....

The tunnel was dark. The flashlights long dead. Gregor was relying solely on echolocation. It had been stupid to go this way. Ripred had told him that but he hadn't listened. Now they had found him. As he ran he could feel the rats panting so he turned and swung, slashing open several faces, splattering himself with blood. But then something happened to his sword. It became rubbery, melting in his hand. He tried to run again but the floor was crumbling beneath his feet and then he was falling, falling, falling into a black pit. He screamed for Ares but there was no Ares and he could see the sharp rocks as they rushed up to meet him, feel the agony as they pierced his chest!

Gregor bolted up in bed, heart pounding, sweat-soaked, his right hand clutching his throbbing chest. Had his own voice woken him? No one came running in. No one called his name. The screams must have stayed in his dream.

The falling nightmares that had plagued him growing up had stopped when he'd had Ares. Now they were back again, filled with rats and blood.

Dawn was just breaking over the city. He'd been in bed only a few hours. He knew he should go back to sleep. But the nightmare had been too real. He sank back on his pillow and watched the sunlight brighten until it stung his eyes.

Gregor cracked open his window and took a deep breath of the exhaust-scented air. What day was it? What month was it? He had no idea. He hadn't been home since Hazard's birthday. That had been in the dead of summer. This air was crisp. Suddenly he had an urgent need to know how much time had passed, to ground himself in some kind of reality. The calendar in the kitchen would be worthless, but he could turn on the TV.... No, that would wake everybody.... He could go down to the corner and check the date on a newspaper. He flung off his blanket and froze as he got his first look at his body in sunlight.

"Oh, geez," he said. He knew he'd gotten beat up pretty bad in the Underland, but things healed up and you moved on. Only he hadn't accounted for the accumulation of scars that dated all the way back to his earliest visits. Marks left by squid suckers, vines, pinchers, teeth, claws. Then there were the wounds he'd made on his hands when he'd broken Sandwich's sword less than a day ago. His skin was like a map where you could trace all of the terrible things that had happened.

The Underlanders had given him more of that fish ointment. Maybe it would help. But some of these things ...like the five claw marks the Bane had left on his chest... They were going nowhere fast. They were part of him forever. How could he ever explain them? Say he'd been in a car wreck? Fallen through a plate-glass window? Wrestled a pack of tigers? If he couldn't explain them, he'd have to hide them. Forget the beach, forget gym class, and forget even going to the doctor unless he was on death's doorstep. A doctor wouldn't accept some lame excuse. He'd want answers and the truth would land Gregor in a mental ward.

Gregor dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants, both of which seemed too short. He'd done quite a bit of growing in ... in however long he'd been gone. He put on his socks and his only Overland footwear, a pair of dress shoes he'd gotten for the spring concert. His toes felt cramped and they looked stupid with his outfit. He wanted those great sneakers Mrs. Cormaci had sent him but they'd been ruined in the war.

He left quietly, but as he passed Mrs. Cormaci's apartment, the door opened. She had always been an early riser. "So. You stayed in one piece," she said, looking him up and down critically. "Your pants are too short. Want some French toast?"

Gregor followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while she made breakfast. She filled him in on his grandma's condition. "She's not doing too well, Gregor.' She's in intensive care. If your mother has some idea about taking her on a road trip to Virginia, well, that just isn't going to happen." She piled the thick slices of challah bread fried in egg batter on Gregor's plate and placed a platter of bacon in front of him. "I don't see how we can stay here," he said, pouring syrup on the toast. "Maybe she'll just take us kids." It would be awful breaking up the family again, though. They'd just gotten back together.

"Maybe. So, what's been going on with you, mister?" Mrs. Cormaci asked.

Gregor thought about all that had happened since he'd last been home. All he'd seen and done. He couldn't form any of it into words.

"Cat got your tongue?" asked Mrs. Cormaci. "It's okay. You don't need to tell me or anyone else about it unless you feel like it." She dipped a piece of bacon in his syrup and chewed it thoughtfully. "You know, Mr. Cormaci fought in a war. He didn't want to talk about it, either. I knew there'd been some terrible things, though. That man had bad dreams until the day he died."

"One woke me this morning," said Gregor.

"It won't be the last," said Mrs. Cormaci. "Want some juice?" She poured him a glass without waiting for him to answer. "It's like this. You spend your whole childhood hearing about being nice to other people and how hurting someone's a crime, and then they ship you off to some war and tell you to kill. What's that going to do to your head, huh?"

"Nothing good," Gregor said.

"You'll be all right, though, Gregor," said Mrs. Cormaci.

"I don't know. In my dream, I fell to my death," said Gregor. "I used to have falling dreams before, but this was the first time I hit bottom."

"Don't worry. If you hit bottom, there's a whole lot of people here to help you up," said Mrs. Cormaci.

"Help me up?" Gregor thought. "Wipe me up is more like it. Nothing left to help once you hit those rocks." And even if people wanted to help, Gregor was alone in his dreams. No one could help him there.

While he ate, Mrs. Cormaci found a pair of old sneakers that had belonged to one of her sons about twenty years ago. They weren't exactly in style but they fit pretty well and looked better than the dress shoes.,

"You're going to need new clothes for school," she said.

"Has it started already?" he asked.

"Weeks ago," she said. "We're halfway through October, Gregor."

"I didn't know," he said.

The morning was spent watching his sisters while his parents and Mrs. Cormaci went to the hospital. While Lizzie and Boots ate breakfast, Gregor stood at the kitchen window watching the neighborhood kids go off to school. He thought of his friends Larry and Angelina and wondered what they must make of his disappearance. Did they think he had moved? Was sick? Part of him wanted to see them badly and another part never wanted to see them again. He had been through so much, changed so much, that the idea of hanging out with them and pretending everything was back to normal seemed impossible.

His parents got back around lunch. The visit had been a shock to his mom. No one could say when his grandmother would be able to leave the hospital, and even then she'd probably have to go to some kind of nursing home with full-time medical care.

"Can I see her?" asked Gregor.

"Not now, son. Maybe when she's stronger," said his dad.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Gregor. "About Virginia?"

"I don't know. We'll work it out," said his dad.

"I don't want to go to Virginia," said Lizzie, and they all looked at her in surprise.

"But you said you did, Lizzie," said their mom. "You were the first one packing when I mentioned it."

"I don't want to go anymore. This is our home. I don't want to run away," said Lizzie. "Ripred says if you run from things that scare you they just chase you."

"What about you, Gregor?" asked his dad.

Gregor tried to imagine living in Virginia. Tried to imagine staying here. "It doesn't matter. I don't care where we live," he said. It would be awful wherever he was. He pulled his jacket off of the hook by the door. "I'm going for a walk."

He hadn't had a destination in mind when he'd left, but in a few blocks he knew where he wanted to go. He checked his pocket. Thirty-five bucks. That would be plenty. He hopped on the subway and headed to the Cloisters. He had to see the stone knight who had gotten him through these last weeks. Maybe that would help him make sense of things.

The day was cool and sunny. The trees were starting to turn. But Gregor kept thinking of another world, one without sunlight and precious few trees, that he seemed to belong to now. What if he'd told his parents he wanted to go back and live in the Under-land? Where he was not such a freak? Where he had friends? Where he had Luxa? They would never let him go. And did he really want to go? He didn't know. He only knew that he felt like a stranger in what used to be his home. And he felt very alone.

The woman at the booth hesitated when he tried to buy a ticket. What did she see? Some kid in mismatched clothes showing up alone in the middle of the school day. Weird bandages on his hands. And Gregor couldn't remember the last time he'd had a haircut. He tried to cover. "I have to do a school report. We're supposed to write about the coolest building in New York. I picked here. Do you have any information or anything I could look at?" She was still wary, but she let him in with a couple of glossy brochures and a warning not to touch anything.

The place was almost empty. Gregorian chants were being piped in, which were sort of eerie and calming at the same time. The Cloisters reminded Gregor of Regalia, with the carvings of strange animals, the tapestries, the stone walls, floors, ceilings. He wandered through a couple of rooms before he found the tomb. The knight was just as Gregor had last seen him, lying beneath the window, his hands resting on his sword, sleeping away eternity. Thinking of this knight had gotten Gregor through some tough times. He had made the trip today because he expected to find some comfort in the stone figure. But now, he realized it was no longer of use to him. He had spent the last months learning how to die, and now he was going to have to learn how to live again. The knight couldn't help him with that.

It was late afternoon when Gregor got home and he wasn't one step in the door when his mom descended on him. "Where on earth have you been? Do you know how long you've been gone? You had the whole family worried sick!"

Boy, she was upset! Her eyes were red as if she'd been crying.

"I'm sorry," Gregor said. "I just went for a walk."

His dad laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. You've just got to get used to having parents again."

"I'm sorry," Gregor repeated. His parents went in the bedroom to talk. Lizzie and Boots were playing some game with the plastic animals on the floor. Gregor turned on the television and flipped through the channels. He stopped on the news. A bomb had blown up in a marketplace somewhere, killing forty-nine. There were body parts and smoke and relatives wailing. The next story was about refugees dying on the road, driven from their homes by an enemy army. The news anchor was just starting to show a grainy video of a soldier who had been taken hostage when his mother reached in and switched off the television. She looked so sad. "I think you've seen enough, Gregor."

It had all looked pretty familiar. The bodies, the fear, the desperation. These things had always been here in the Overland, he supposed, but he had never really paid any attention to them until now.

"Why don't you take your sisters out to the playground?" said his dad. "They've been cooped up in here all day."

"Are we moving to Virginia or staying here?" Lizzie asked.

"We're still working that out," his dad said. "You kids go on out and play a while." When they reached the playground, Boots immediately ran off to build castles with some little boy in the sandbox. Lizzie wandered around alone with her hands deep in her jacket pockets and her eyes on the ground.

Gregor sat on a bench. He had walked a lot today and all of his injuries were hurting. Seeing the news had made him think. He was safe for the moment, here in the playground, but people all over the world were suffering, starving, fleeing, killing one another as they waged their wars. How much energy they put into harming one another. How little into saving. Would it ever change? What would it take to make it change? He thought of Luxa's hand pressed into Ripred's paw. That's what it would take. People rejecting war. Not one or two, but all of them. Saying it was an unacceptable way to solve their differences. By the look of things, the human race had a lot of evolving to do before that happened. Maybe it was impossible. But maybe it wasn't. Like Vikus said, nothing would happen unless you hoped it could. If you had hope, maybe you could find the way to make things change. Because if you thought about it, there were so many reasons to try.

One tugged on his jacket and lifted up her arms. "Hold me." Gregor pulled Boots up onto his lap and

snuggled her inside his jacket. She rested her head on his shoulder and studied his face. "You feel sad," she said.

"A little," said Gregor.

"You miss them," said Boots.

"Yeah, I do," Gregor said. "But I've still got you." He remembered all of the times he'd thought he had lost her, and tightened his grip around her.

"Here." Boots dug in her pocket and pulled out the little black plastic bat. Ares. She put it in his hand. "You can have this, Gregor."

"Thanks," he said. They leaned back and watched as the streetlights came on.

Suddenly Gregor smiled. "Hey, Boots," he said. "Hey. You can finally say my name."