While Lucien understood Alsantian through the magic of the gateway, Isola did not make sense, for she had lived in two different castles, and he had only lived in "The Mansion," a downtown brownstone run down by lonely outsiders and uncaring offworlders. Not that he wanted comprehension when she radiated an overwhelming fascination. Although her simple clothes were not only soiled from her toils in the Queen's gardens, but travel-stained, her speech was clean and uncluttered by contractions and possessives; although Loren and Michel both had light blonde hair, Isola's seemed not only lighter but blonder; although he had been looked at before, and smiled at before, she looked deeper and smiled longer.
This odd medley of innocent and worldly had neither eaten food with her hands nor any knowledge of how to swim, climb, or jump. While she had no aversion to walking or running, and bore under their sweaty hike without complaint, she gave a look of dismay when Lucien trotted into the woods to do his business, or tried to have a private conversation with the others. Lucien did not discourage Isola's stickiness, for on the occasions she had words with Conrad, he felt a pang of jealousy. While she always brushed off Conrad, and it was only a tiny pang of jealousy, it groaned disproportionately and surprisingly loud, like an grenade packed into a firecracker.
While he hadn't been able to forget the hug, he had to admit it wasn't a very nice hug, but a frantic, sweaty squeeze from one on the run, who then gushed for hours, as if they had known each other since birth, about her escape from an evil Queen. While she started out as too much to take, he became taken in by her attraction, she became too much to put his finger on, and soon he couldn't conceive of Lucien or life without Isola's "too much" in it. In his awkwardness and her indefinability, they had merged--somehow, Isola had always been there.
During the lulls of her nonstop monologue, Isola would flaunt her extensive book learning by naming the Alsantian plants and animals, which Lucien found more notable by virtue of their ominous disappearance; the huge trees called the Cyrabor dwindled from thick copses to sparser, withered trunks, and ground vines known as Trescadia thinned, giving way to a loose soil of chipped wood and stone.
While Gub turned to the other faeries for a chattering conversation, Lucien turned to Jgorga, careful to steer a glance in Isola's direction. "Will they help us get home?"
"If Gaona's home, then yes." The raccoon heaved a sigh, as if he meant to elaborate, but instead sunk into a profound, discomfited silence. As the silence stretched on, he periodically glanced at Lucien, as if he both dreaded and encouraged Lucien's next question.
"Is there a way to Earth there?"
"Why is that important?" Isola stepped between them, both absorbing Lucien's full attention and snubbing the raccoon. If Jgorga could have cared less, he did not show it, as he shrugged his forequarters and scampered into the bushes.
"Everything I know is on Earth."
"I'm not on Earth."
"Isola, we don't know each other. Not really."
While the former sentence was directed at Isola, he hung and shook his head in uttering the latter, as if he needed to perusade himself of its truth.
"Lucien, I've seen a day in your life. Many of the greatest friends can't say the same."
Lucien still could not believe or fathom the Albatron. It was like an artifact from The Wizard of Oz or The Lord of the Rings. It could never work in real life, he reasoned, and not for the first time, followed through on this rationalization, to wonder whether he was dreaming. "That thing's amazing, but it didn't and can't make us friends. It only made you a spy with greater knowledge of me than I have of you, and while I forgive it and you, our feelings are not the same."
"Feelings are never equal, Lucien."
"In friends they are."
"For you, perhaps," sniffed Isola. Despite her garden-stained clothes, she carried herself like a princess. Having not only a good model in her noble mother, but a bad example in Queen Suvani, there was an arrogant strain in Isola's tone and the note hit by her sniff, so that she sounded, for a moment, like a Disney villain.
"Only for me?"
"You're a nice boy, Lucien, but a peasant." As Isola's tone became strident, Lucien realized his talk of Earth had hurt her feelings. "Not only my mother, the Lady Fafahite, but my tutors and my eldest sister, have schooled me in the reality of my station. I will never marry or have friends. A Lady marries to seal a treaty, and her idle moments are for producing heirs to forge stronger alliances."
"I'm strong." Lucien realized what he was offering, blushed and added, "strong enough for your ally."
"Strength is overrated," said Isola. "There are better qualities for allies, friends..."; here she raised her nose again, but it was accented with a cute wrinkle that rippled to her dimples; "...and suitors."
"What do you mean..." Lucien stammered as he realized she took his unwitting suggestion as a serious one. "...w-we don't date that early on Earth."
"Date?"
"Court. Woo. Whatever you call it. Don't get me wrong," he smiled awkwardly, "you're very impressive."
"Impressive?" Conrad's sneer sliced like a sword. "That's not a compliment you give a girl. You're beauitiful, my lady." Conrad's cracking voice was first too deep, then way too high, as if he intended to mock Isola. While Lucien would not put it past him, Conrad was at that horrific age: puberty.
"I'm too young to be beautiful." Isola's cheeks colored as she grasped Lucien's hand. "Or to think of myself as something to please you. Lucien has the right idea. Whether in my castle or in the woods, friends are what I want."
"Anyways," said Conrad, as if his ears were impervious to sound, "I date." When he thumped his chest with the top of his fist, Lucien and Isola walked past.
"What is that?" said Lucien. The woods had come to a stark conclusion, with branches poking from one side back toward the forest, and the other side gnarled and slumping, from roots that were dilapidated, half-chewed, and on the verge of collapse in milling chips of wood, stone, and glinting soil.
"The Sargan Vos," smirked Jgorga. "It means..."
"I know what it means," snapped Conrad. "We speak Alsantian, remember?"
"Is it a kind of joke that Alsantians call it The Garden of Delight?" asked Lucien.
"No," said Isola. "As a boy, my father hunted valeuts here, and my grandmother—my mother's mother—had a summer cottage on the Kautan River. Ten years ago, the trees were packed thicker than the Luskveld, and if not so large, these woods were greener."
"What happened ten years ago?"
"The King died, and Queen Suvani being too young, her uncle came to power. The Regent opposed the old ways, declared there was only one Ruler of Alsantia, and laid down the first of many laws denying the Free People."
"So Alsantia isn't free anymore?" asked Conrad.
"The Free People are the talking animals, Conrad," said Jgorga. "And while we still hold ourselves to be free, the Regent said then, and Suvani says now, that the Free People are no people, with neither nation nor borders nor a language of our own, and as mimics owing our personhood to humans, we are only allowed what rights the Queen prescribes."
"Wait," said Lucien. "This is interesting, but how did it cause the destruction of this forest?"
Jgorga continued. "As there were no shortage of turncoats among us talking animals, the Regent drove a wedge between us, and our civil war was mirrored when the human lands rebelled against the excesses and injustices of the crown."
"But how..." persisted Lucien.
"Whereas even your world believes that a corrupt leader corrupts a nation, in Alsantia, an evil regime spawns wild, black magics to taint our world."
"Jgorga," said Lucien, "not why did this happen, but how?"
"While there were many grounds for this event, soon after the Regent's royal deviltry, the Ashflowers appeared."
At Lucien's baffled expression, Jgorga waved his hand in a gesture for him not to interrupt. "The Ashflowers are walking trees. They're about as intelligent as cows, if twenty times more dangerous.
"Do they eat people?" Conrad had a ghoulish look.
"They eat everything," said Isola. "My tutor said that it's not their appetite, which is fed only with flesh, but because of how they spread their kind. As Ashflowers only grow in loose soil, they create more of it by consuming trees, bushes, and stones, which they grind to chips with their monstrous digestion. So they eat flesh to grow their bodies, and trees and stones to grow new fields for Ashflowers."
Conrad said, "let me get this straight. You believe your president's bad decisions led to this bloom of mutant trees?"
Jgorga scoffed, "of course not. We have no president."
"You know what I'm asking."
The raccoon snorted. "While there is not what you would call cause and effect, they follow the arrow of fate."
"The arrow of fate? Where's it pointing now?"
"Around. Normally, we'd risk the Sargan Vos, but not with that troubling dark haze overhead."
After another flurried, high-pitched chatter, half their faerie escort bowed in mid-air then darted back to the Luskveld. Without stopping for explanation, Gob and the two remaining faeries led them in a leftward path around the blighted forest.
It took the better part of a day to circumvent the Sargan Vos. As the faeries chose paths hewing close to that wasteland, Lucien had many scary glimpses of the carnivorous trees and their nonstop appetite, which expanded their eerie, blasted desert by chomping. prying apart, and eating piecemeal the titanic trees of the surrounding Luskveld.
On the other side of the desert of mulch, normal life resumed, including a fertile and viny sliver of forest crawling with gnarled roots and ropy vines smothering trees so overgrown as to be knotted together in a tangled woodland with bushes, shrubs, and grasses in a tumult of undergrowth, and squirrels, chipmunks and birds watching from their niches and nests in the thicket.
Beyond this glutted refuge of the old woods, Alsantian life resumed, with a desolate farming village being the first sign of civilization, and the last holdover of the Garden of Delight being the second--a stern farmer, not only unafraid of Ashflowers, but as stubborn as his cart mule in disbelieving that monsters creeped toward his estate. Following the principles Suvani laid down respecting abandoned property, the optimistically greedy farmer had annexed his neightbors' farms, as well as the mill, brewery, and bakery. He bragged about his aquisitions and self-absorbed amusements for fifteen minutes before Jgorga cut him off with a polite apology and a curt avowal that the Ashflowers were coming for his puffed-up homestead.
Later that afternoon, having brushed through coarse sheaves of tall grass for hours, they transitioned to fields of wheat and rye. While some showed signs of neglect, with grains trodden underfoot, the majority was upkept and in good trim.
"Are they Alsantian?"
"Everything you see is Alsantia, Lucien," answered Isola.
"All the air and the clouds too?" asked Jgorga with such an air of guileless innocence that Lucien knew at once the raccoon had his hands in the deep water of misdirection.
"Who else would own them?" asked Isola.
"I thought Alsantians were a religious bunch," said the raccoon. "I guess I thought wrong."
"God above bestowed this gift, noble beast."
"Oh--I'm a noble beast. How flattering. Am I also protected by godly boundary lines?"
"Of course, Jgorga. And we are the grateful guardians of our animal friends."
"Did your mother or father teach you this, Isola?"
"I have not seen my mother in two years."
Isola crossed her arms, which is not so natural a thing to do when walking. The girl's painfully conspicuous lack of a brick wall to lean upon nonchalantly was very telling as she drew up her arms in this defensive posture, and when she slowed her pace in consequence, the boys and the raccoon followed suit, while the faeries flitted ahead.
Though crossing your arms while walking is not so natural a thing to do, Isola clutched herself as if bracing against a monstrous claw that designed to pluck her from sanity. She clenched until her face was pinched and whitened, and having withdrawn to a slower pace, the boys and raccoon followed suit, while the faeries flitted ahead. "Which you know, Jgorga."
"I know your mother, Isola. And I knew your father."
"Did my father not tell you such things?"
"If you mean anyone other than Queen Suvani put such ideas in your head, you learned your lying lessons very well."
"How dare you!"
"I dare because I'm Alsantian. The old ways are not only real, they're true, Isola."
"What did the old ways do for my father?"
"So you're doing things his murderer's way?"
"As I will never be Queen, my way doesn't matter."
"You might become a queen, if not the queen."
"Never speak of that again!" When Isola's face colored, it was less embarassment of the hidden arrangement Jgorga intimated than the growing sense that she had become ruder than her gentle upbringing could allow. "Forgive me, Jgorga. I number you among my best friends. But I will not go to Gaona."
Jgorga laughed. "Where did you think you were going? Did we not tell you our destination?"
"Jgorga, this is no road, but the fields of Ghulmarque. If I was bolder, from here I could travel anywhere in the realm. While many ways would be too grueling or deadly for me, my tutor wrote a text on Alsantian geography, and I know of safe paths to safer havens where the name Fafahite still meets with affinity. While family loyalty and past alliance have kept me with you, having grown to know Conrad, and conceived a loathing for any future in which he bore a part--or I bore a part of him"--here, Isola shuddered--"and, moreover, having the misfortune to give my heart to one who wants nothing in this world, more than once I thought of slipping into the Sargan Vos."
"I'm glad you didn't," said Lucien.
"I'm less glad." Across Conrad's face a livid scowl had washed, and now faded, as he added to mollify the others' rising fury, "but glad nonetheless."
"Be less glad, Conrad," said Isola, then turned to Lucien. "And I would feel better if you were less glad too, Lucien."
"We're all glad," said Jgorga. "Are you coming with us? You don't have to marry the prince, you know. His parents had hopes, but no expectations. I even agree that he's not much of a prince" (here Conrad grew more and more lumpish in his indignation) "not that a boy's worth should ever induce you to marry. Love follows the heart, and where there is no love..."
"Or no heart," muttered Conrad.
"...the heart dies of waiting," finished Jgorga. "His dad was your father's friend, and an honorable man. Not only will he not demand you to follow through on this betrothal, but he would never turn you away. And if he did, you could always stay with me."
"As I said," said Isola, "I've made up my mind. I'm not going to Gaona. I've already arrived at my destination."
Jgorga stopped in his tracks, and the faeries flitted excitedly.
"There's nothing for you in Ghulmarque."
"I know that. But the second leg of my journey begins here."
Lucien said, "who do you know here, Isola?"
"Only you, Lucien. You're coming with me."
"The only person I know in Ghulmarque is Conrad, and he's leaving with the raccoon. He isn't all bad, you know."
"I seem to have passed on my lying lessons, Jgorga."
"If it was just you and me, Isola," stammered Lucien, "I would go with you. But having come here from another world together, it makes sense for me to stay with Conrad."
"It's nonsense to me. I'm more of a 'feels right' person than a 'makes sense' person, Lucien. Doesn't coming with me feel right?"
"It does, Isola. But I can't."
"Don't think I'll be grateful if you stay here on my account," said Conrad. "Stay with her. I'll manage."
Jgorga drew himself into a furry shudder, then belted out, "no one's going anywhere! You have nowhere to go! I won't tell your mother, or your parents" (after gesturing to Isola, he pointed at Lucien, piercing him with the shocking realization that the raccoon knew his parents) "that you became beggars on the streets of Ghulmarque!" Having delivered himself of this volley of exclamation points, Jgorga panted with consternation, then grasped their hands in his small but wiry hands.
"This is only our stopover, Jgorga. I'm going with Lucien to Earth."
"How?!" In his furious annoyance, the raccoon stretched out this howling syllable until he seemed more wild than a talking animal.
"My tutor told me of something unusual in Ghulmarque, etched in chalk on a crag overlooking Olaalo. While I've never seen it, her description matches that of the gate you passed through, Lucien."
While Lucien had not only summed up his uneventful life in the Mansion, but told of his adventures on both the Earth and Alsantian sides of the gate, Isola had interjected at every opportunity to brag about the beauties and wonders of Alsantia—among them the Dragon Cliffs of Artagan; the Fairy Coves of Eleutia; the Clockwork Giants of Amerida; and, the Waterways of Kunla—and having assumed she wasn't paying attention, he was surprised to hear her make this connection.
Jgorga said, "I've seen those chalk figures, Isola. They're ancient folk art."
"You would say that, Jgorga. You want me to go to Gaona."
"I won't lie to you. I made promises to your mother. Once I even made vague promises to your father, rest his soul, a loose interpretation of which would demand that I carry you hogtied and piggyback while dog paddling to Gaona. But if you won't be persuaded, you're not my prisoner, Isola. I'll come back for you after I deliver Conrad."
"We won't be here, Jgorga. Look for us on Earth."
"When you tire of the ancient art, stay away from the Marquessa. If you don't go to the castle, you might be safe. While I don't know if I have any friends left in Ghulmarque, they'll know my name at the old fort. Ask for Dreumon. If he was passed on to a new station or promoted to the land of the dead, those who know him may help you."
"Hold on," said Lucien. "The Marquessa? She's the one who took our friends."
Conrad said, "You mean Chiyo is in Ghulmarque?"
"Maybe. Maybe not," said Jgorga. "She might have been sent to Queen Suvani."
"Why would the Queen want Chiyo?"
"You mean aside from being from another world? Why wouldn't she? Are you paying attention, Conrad? If we're all the children of important Alsantians, Chiyo could be a bargaining chip."
"Still," said Conrad. "What if they're all here?"
"It doesn't matter. You're not coming," said Isola.
"I'll go where I like," said Conrad. "But right now I'll follow the raccoon."
"What about Chiyo?" asked Lucien.
"If the gate is doubtful, it's more unlikely that she just so happens to be here, while I'm certain to see my parents and my inheritance by following the raccoon."
Lucien said, "Isola, are you doing this to bring me home to Earth?"
"Lucien, even if my father and brothers waited on the other side I'd be scared of stepping over to your world. While I like helping people, I'd never overcome that fear simply to bring you home, Lucien."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"I'm not one for soul-searching, Lucien."
"There must be a reason! Tell me, or I'm staying here."
"No you won't," said Isola.
"Why wouldn't I? You have no plan, not even a single fact, just the idea that your half-remembered memory lines up with mine."
"Here on Alsantia, fables are facts, and rumor runs into history."
"That's how it works on Earth, too, although the gossip is broadcast on TV." When Isola looked at Lucien curiously, he not only realized that it was futile to explain television, but had the crushing realization that Isola was right—if looking for the gate to Alsantia on Earth, where internet and television were plentiful, was difficult, it was impossible to find the gate to Earth on Alsantia, where you might quest after a wild goose chase by taking word as bond, fact, or deed.
That said, Isola's story was Lucien's only clue, and her certainty that it was his ticket home was infectious, and bred in him a wild hope.
"When we get to your world, Lucien, I'll tell you."
"I'll hold you to that."
"Are you really going?" asked Conrad indignantly. "From what Jgorga said, you'll just scratch around on a cliff, then dodge this evil Marquessa until the raccoon comes back. Even if you find a gate to Earth, what's waiting for you, Lucien?"
While he had wanted out of this magical world since his arrival, Lucien no longer knew why, and faltered for long moments as he thought of explaining himself to Conrad. "There are real adoption agencies, Conrad. I could get real parents."
"Not only is there only a slim chance that they'll keep you and Isola togather, but you just met. At Gaona, you don't need to take any chances. If my dad's a king, he'll be good to my friends."
"While the raccoon says this and that, we don't know if he's telling the truth. Nothing personal, Jgorga."
"None taken. I was wondering when one of you would get around to that point of view. In arguments, I always take the skeptical side." The raccoon sighed. "It won't take longer than a day to rule out the existence of this gate. We'll go with you."
When Isola's face fell at this pronouncement, Jgorga added, "only as an escort. And if there is a gate, Conrad, and you have second thoughts on going though, don't think I won't use all my powers of persuasion to ensure you do your duty. That's my duty."
Conrad said nothing, but Isola, who did not attempt to discourage the raccoon, seemed discouraged herself, as if she lost something by this new arrangement, when it was much like the old arrangement, only more secure.
"That's fine," she grumped, "but don't follow too close. Animals aren't welcome in Ghulmarque."
"Ghulmarque isn't welcome in Alsantia," said Jgorga sourly, "and nor is Alsantia herself welcome in Alsantia, being a false land superimposed over a true land. But I'm happy to watch over you from a distance, Isola. Heaven knows it's not the first time."
"Don't think I care to ask what that means," said Isola crossly, then led Lucien through pastures and crops, setting her briskest walking pace, which she maintained well past her realization that she was the weakest walker of the group, and the overbearing prince, the arrogant raccoon, and the fairies were only giving her the rope she wanted.
As Ghulmarqueans approached in an attitude of profound silence, Jgorga whistled to the fairies, who flitted over to nestle under the long fur of his neck and back.
The passersby seemed not only worried and angry, but wallowing in their flood of heavy feelings, which was demonstrated to be muddied with unrestrained spite toward their fellows when they passed a man and woman whose arms and legs were padlocked in wooden stocks, and who were slapped by jeering passersby.
While scornful whispers lashed these punished people, the rest of the thoroughfare was eerily silent, and even through open restaurant windows only the clatter of plates and glasses was heard, not the rowdy laughter of expectant or satisfied eaters. Jgorga attracted involuntary, fearful glances, then studied avoidance, as if they walked invisible lanes completely cut off from talking animals.
Ghulmarquean clothes were completely and conspicuously in order, as if to pass inspection later that day. Men were attired in pressed white or black collared shirts, gray or tan slacks, and shoes or boots polished to such an unearthly sheen that you might expect to see ghosts trapped in the reflection, and whether the women wore simple frocks or costly gowns, all were in an immaculate state of repair, with neither a patch nor even an off-color thread marking a mend.
The Ghulmarquean children's cruel anxieties were even more unnerving in miniature. The children were odd little parodies, dressed not for school or play, but just like the adults, as if meant to shadow their parents' careers, though they could not be said to have any occupation, not even fidgeting, as if they were born to unnatural poses. Two boys younger than Lucien sat on a porch swing, feet frozen in place, arms crossed, and their spark of child-like restlessness snuffed, so that the only signs of life in their eerie discipline were the roving eyes that tracked Lucien, Isola, and Conrad in envy as they passed down the street toward the likewise immaculate and disquieting castle, whose stones were so bleached it appeared built of bone, and which squatted like a skull, so that death seemed their destination.
Above this gleaming skeletal residence, rough banners seemed to dangle, though they only wagged mournfully and could not be said to fly.
Jgorga stopped, then turned with his paws raised as if to bar their path. "Forget everything. I'll dog paddle with all of you on my back if I have to."
"What are you doing?" said Isola. "If you were a talking elephant, you might present an inconvenience, but since you're only Jgorga, we'll walk around you." When the children veered right, he scurried with them, so that no matter which way they turned, they met the inflexible wall of raccoon. "This isn't funny."
""There's nothing here for you," said Jgorga. "We can still leave."
"We're not here to see the sights," said Isola. "This is the quickest route to the sea."
The raccoon scowled. "If you're determined to reach the cliffs, there's a safer path. Follow me."
Jgorga turned down an alley and waddled a few steps before turning to make sure the children were following.
"Are we skulking all the way there?" asked Isola.
"And how is this safer?" said Lucien. "I'd hate to disappoint the mugger who finds out I don't have any money."
"Isn't human vision better?" said the raccoon. "Didn't you see the castle?"
"Are you frightened, Jgorga?" asked Conrad. "Even if Ghulmarque is a gloomy place, with sad people and a spooky castle, why are you so grim?"
"You didn't see them hanging then."
Isola stepped in a puddle, stomped her feet dry, then glared at Jgorga. "I'm not moving until I know why their flag-flying has us scurrying in a back alley."
"Those weren't flags."
At the urgency in Jgorga's denial, Lucien's powerful memory creeped over the danglers swinging over the castle, only to recoil from the shock of his new interpretation. What he dismissed as mournful pennants were half-truths; while they were indeed mournful danglers, the full truth was that they were mournful peasants, hung at the Marquessa's whim on a wire strung over her castle grounds.
At Lucien's shudder, Isola shared a look of concern. "What is it, Lucien."
"Jgorga is right. This way is safer."
"Why would you take his side?"
"Don't ask, Isola. You don't want to know.'
Isola's brow and the freckled bridge of her nose wrinkled. "Don't think to hide anything from me, Lucien. I've seen more suffering than you will in your entire life, and I don't need protecting."
While Lucien felt an upwelling sadness at the undeniable correctness of this--for Isola had seen her father and brothers slain by the Queen's men--he did not relent, and held his tongue reluctantly, unwilling to compound his ignorance with any utterance at all. It was Jgorga who rescued him from his quagmire.
"Forgive me, my lady" spoke the raccoon with a sweet sadness Lucien would have liked to be able to muster, "while I know well of your troubles, it is hard for me to see young animals and wish them to know evil. They are not flags but unfortunates who fell into the Marquessa's disfavor, my lady."
While Isola shrunk into herself, her face grew a shade paler but no less proud. "It is you who must forgive me. You have always meant well. We will trust your safe passage, Jgorga."
Conrad's eyes darted first to Jgorga, then to Isola, and lastly to Lucien with a consternated look. "Am I missing something?"
"They were bodies, Conrad," Lucien said with a note of exasperation.
"You're joking." Conrad's laugh trailed off when Lucien answered it with a sad and serious look. "You're not joking! Jgorga, tell me he's joking."
"As you wish, your highness."
Conrad scoffed. "I wish to be back on Earth, where people aren't castle ornaments!"
"You're distraught, your highness, but things are different at Gaona."
While Conrad sunk into his usual moody scowl, his steps were frenzied, so that he often darted in the lead, and Jgorga loped ahead more than once to steer him back to the alley path. While the raccoon's back street route seemed a meandering maze to Lucien, without rhyme or reason, before an hour was up, the breeze smelled less like the foul garbage smearing the alley and more like salt water spray, and the puddles and smattering of grass poking through cobblestones leaked yellow trails of sand.
"Lucien, what if they're in the castle?" For a moment, Conrad's scowl faded, giving way to a worried look that Lucien found more distressing than anything, as it ran completely contrary to the older boy's selfish character.
"What if they are?"
"Shouldn't we do something?"
"What do you propose we do? Even if this is a fairy tale world, coming here doesn't make us fairy tale heroes, and even if we were the ones with the swords, arrows, and wands, we wouldn't know how to fight, shoot, or sling spells."
"Nor would I let you," said Jgorga.
"Who said anything about swinging swords?" asked Conrad. "Maybe they just need a door unlocked."
"We'd be thrown in the cage with them, Conrad." In his frustration, Lucien felt his breaths become shallower, as the thought of his friends suffering under the dead eyes of dangling bodies drove him past distraction to the frigid realization that Conrad was right, and escaping was somehow agreeing to their deaths. "Not only do you have no plan, but trying anything wouldn't be fair to Isola."
"Don't blame that on me!" Isola's volume raised so shrilly high that the shout resounded on the walls, shivered the facing alley windows, and set the raccoon aflutter as his head darted this way and that for any sign that they were heard or noticed.
"You just escaped!" Lucien shouted back, if a shade quieter. "If we drag you into a rescue, and you get captured with us, the Marquessa would send you back to the Queen!"
"Be reasonable," said Jgorga in a soothing tone, "no harm will befall your friends."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because your friend Michel is the Marchioness of Ghulmarque. The Marquessa's daughter. While your friends would never be safe if they had to trust to an evenhanded justice in this evil realm, they can trust the Marquessa, for the sake of her daughter, to show them a heavy-handed favoritism."
"What if you're wrong, Jgorga? Aito is my best friend, and I've known Michel, Akachi, and Chiyo my entire life."
"I'm not wrong, Lucien. Your friends have a greater destiny than they know, so if the Marquessa or the Marchioness tire of them, they will make valuable hostages."
"Michel won't tire of them! That's my friend!"
"Don't you think she'll change?"
"Why would she change?"
"Good and evil are the work of parents and tyrants."
Lucien recognized the Alsantian proverb from Worlds class. Although it came with a faraway echo, the words were crystal clear. "If you think she'll change to suit her mother, you don't know Michel."
"No one really knows a person, Lucien. We're friends with the people they are, not with the people they were or who they're going to be."
"What are you doing, Jgorga? A minute ago I didn't want to rescue anyone, but now I'm beginning to see things Conrad's way. Maybe we should."
"If that's what you want, Lucien, I'll help however I can." Isola's look of admiration was too much for Lucien. He did not deserve it, having fought his way to the right point of view by struggling with the contrary raccoon. And now that he stood on the moral high ground, he felt his smallness; how could he have believed he could help Isola? How could he hope to cross back to Earth through a pattern drawn in chalk? He had been fleeing not from danger, but from his intelligence. Nonetheless, when the clouds of indecision scudded away with the clouds of stupidity, Lucien knew, in that moment of clarified determination, that he must attempt to do the right thing, no matter who wielded the swords and wands, and whether he headed into possibilities or impossibilities.
"I do want it."
"I should eat you all," grumbled Jgorga. "At least then your deaths would be put to good use."
"Raccoons don't eat people, Jgorga," Conrad said with knowing arrogance.
"I'm a talking raccoon. I can eat my words if I want to." Jgorga relaxed his arched back--which had bulked in an unconscious attempt to obstruct the alley way--then huddled with the children. "Fortunately for you, I've planned my share of rescues."