The Dragon's Tooth

him.”

Cyrus blinked.

The girl laughed. “Don’t worry. I heard the real story, too. You actually called him a snot?”

“Um,” said Cyrus. “Yeah. I think so. He was your cousin?”

“Everyone is my cousin. And you were right. He is a snot. Well, I have to run to get some stitches out.” She tugged down the collar of her shirt, revealing a jagged and crudely sewn-up gash at the base of her neck. Cyrus stopped chewing. “A little run-in with a cave owl, and I’m not much of a seamstress.” She backed away. “Best of luck and all that. I hope you make it. Don’t always eat in the kitchen!” She strode toward the swinging kitchen door, ponytail bouncing as she went. One hand jumped, flicking Ben Sterling’s left ear bell as she passed.

“Who was that?” asked Cyrus when the door swung behind her.

“That,” said Nolan, “was Diana Boone. Youngest-ever woman in the O of B to achieve Explorer. She’s not even seventeen yet. Beat Amelia Earhart by one month.”

“I’m not sure about her,” said Antigone. “Wait. Amelia Earhart? You’re serious?”

“Who’s Amelia Earhart?” Cyrus asked.

Antigone slapped him without looking. She sighed. “I’m really confused. Cyrus might not mind. Confusion is one of his best friends. But I hate it. Acolytes and Keepers and Explorers? There should be some sort of, I don’t know, orientation.”

Nolan leaned over and tugged the Guidelines out of Cyrus’s pocket. “Everything you need is in here.” He folded back the front cover.

Still glancing at the kitchen door, Cyrus returned to twirling his noodles.

“Five ranks in the O of B.” Nolan’s breathing had leveled and his hands were barely twitching. The food had helped. “Acolyte, Journeyman, Explorer, Keeper, Sage. Each has its own privileges and chores. This morning, you would have just been accepted as Skelton’s heirs by becoming Acolytes. But Rhodes challenged, so now you have to become Journeymen before you inherit. If you don’t inherit, the Order gets everything.” He smiled at Cyrus. “Including those lovely keys. Rhodes made it even harder by applying 1914 standards—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Antigone. “We know.”

Cyrus looked at his sister, and then at Nolan. “Is that when the Order started? 1914? Wow. I guess Horace did say it was old.”

Nolan stared at him, his eyes searching. And then, for the first time, he laughed. And he was clearly out of practice. He wheezed. He sputtered. His paper skin flushed, and he grabbed at his welted neck in pain.

“What?” Cyrus muttered. “I mean, I know I’m hilarious and everything.…”

Nolan leaned forward, wiping tears from his cheeks. “The Order is old,” he said. “And not just by your American standards. Its seed was planted fifteen centuries ago, and like anything else that has survived for so long, it has seen some dark times.”

Cyrus’s chewing slowed.

Nolan shrugged. “There has been light, too, and plenty of heroes to the world’s benefit. But a fair share of villains as well. Through the centuries, the people of the Order have called themselves many foolish things — Knights of the Navigator, the League of Brother Explorers, and on and on. But only two names matter now. This is the Order of Brendan, and within the Order, there is Custodis Orbis—the Guardian Circle. Those are the people who oversee the Order and, at times, have overseen the world.”

“People like Rhodes,” Cyrus said.

“No,” said Nolan. “Nothing at all like Rhodes. Much wiser or much more foolish than Rhodes.” He winced and closed his eyes, rubbing his arm. Exhaling through gritted teeth, he collected himself.

Antigone winced with him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Nolan nodded, and his legs began to bounce. “I’ll back up. Sometime in the sixth century, Brendan the Navigator set out from Ireland in a big leather boat. He and sixty others reached this continent and sailed up what is now called the Hudson River, finally stopping here. They built some of the first — very small — structures of the Order right where we are now. Leaving some men behind, they sailed on for another seven years. Those sixty were the first Custodis Orbis.

“The Order of Brendan maintained harbors and holdings on every continent. Ashtown was one of the measliest, designed as a grim penal colony — a prison. The Order, in all their explorations, had begun to encounter things they could never defeat and could only hope to contain. At the far reaches of the known world, Ashtown was a dungeon for the most dangerous of those things. Here, the Sages explored death and how to bring it to the undying. Here, they collected and burned legions of vile relics — and, in some of the more foolish centuries, some of the greatest treasures man could ever hope to find. That is when Ashtown earned its name. Civilization has grown up around it, but Ashtown remains. And it still houses the most dangerous collections.

“The Order saw its boom before World War I — global membership was above one hundred thousand. Since the close of the Second World War, it has been well below ten. But the O of B still explores, discovers, and preserves as it sees fit. And if you know where to look, it can still tell you the world’s secrets — to historians, the worst kind of myths and legends; to scientists, rumors, impossibilities, and even nightmares.”

Leaning forward, Cyrus raised his eyebrows. “You’re saying a guy named Brendan discovered America?”

Nolan groaned. “Is that all you heard? No. There were entire civilizations here long before the arrival of Brendan’s sixty.” Nolan turned all the way around on his stool, propping his elbows against the table, watching the kitchen bustle. His fingers began to twitch. He clenched them into fists. “Of course, for many people here, the great mysteries are as normal as Sunday’s nap. The origin of the first pyramid, the death of the moon, the fire eyes of the leviathan, how to confine an incubus — they know these things like you know of Pilgrims and butterflies and baseball. They have always known them. Their parents and grandparents and one-eyed uncles are hanging in pictures on all the walls.” He half-smiled at the two of them. “Just like yours.”

A sharp whistle rang through the kitchen. Ben Sterling jerked his head toward the wall with the heat tunnel. The kitchen door banged open, and Cecil Rhodes stepped through, sharp nostrils flaring above his tiny mustache.

Nolan hopped off his stool. “Leave the food. Stand straight. Don’t run. Stay behind me.”

Cyrus and Antigone followed Nolan as he wove slowly through the traffic of cooks. Rhodes was tracking Sterling in the opposite direction, occasionally glancing around him.

Nolan reached the wall, lifted the grate, and turned around.

Antigone ducked in.

Cyrus ducked in.

Nolan and the grate followed. He pushed past them. “Keep up. We have to be quick.”

“Why?” Antigone asked.

“Because as long as Cecil Rhodes is in the kitchen, he can’t catch you anywhere else. Acolytes aren’t allowed in the hospital. Now you see Horace.”

The tunnel, long and straight at first, had become busy with noise. Fingers of golden light spread around the iron flowers on a dozen decorative grates. The dining hall was rowdy with silverware and laughter and conversation.

Cyrus squinted through the first grate. The hall was partitioned into sections with huge tapestried walls on wheels. He could see tuxedos and waiters. He could see a man in a jumpsuit dotted with oil stains. He saw Diana Boone throwing a roll at a boy at another table. Probably a cousin.

“Up,” Nolan’s voice echoed. “Let’s go, Cyrus. Climb.”

Straightening, Cyrus looked around for Nolan and his sister. He was alone in the tunnel, but a silent blizzard of dust was descending through the golden grate-sliced light.

Iron rungs stuck out of the wall. He couldn’t see anything above him, but he could hear breathing, and the occasional squeal and groan of metal.

He began to climb.

Ten feet up, he sneezed for the first time. Twenty feet up, he ducked his head and held his breath. Thirty feet up, he rammed his head into the back of Antigone’s legs and clutched the ladder while he fought a sneezing fit.

“Quiet, Rus-Rus,” she whispered. “Down, boy. Nolan said to wait here. He’s checking something.”

Cyrus sneezed again and one foot slipped free.