The Celestial Globe: The Kronos Chronicles: Book II by Marie Rutkoski Page A

you’re close to possessing both. And if you havethe Terrestrial Globe, no one else can use the power of the globes combined.”
    Novak considered this. He nodded. “I’ll send a letter to the prince.”
    “But mail travels slowly, and we cannot wait for the prince’s response! That could take a month or more. The Gypsies might be sailing from the harbor even as we speak. Let’s chase the
Pacolet
, capture it, and snatch the globe.”
    “Very well,” said Novak. “We’ll hunt the Sea-Gypsies down like brown foxes.” He stood. “Ready my ship.”

11
A Bargain
     

     
    A LLOW ME to explain what you are,” Dee had said.
    “You don’t know the first thing about me,” Petra replied hotly.
    “Do you know what my greatest skill is?” Dee asked. “Research. On November 17, 1584, at approximately four o’clock in the morning, a woman named Marjeta Kronos gave birth to twins. Am I correct?”
    “Why do you have to stick your nose in business that
isn’t yours
?” Petra bolted for the door, but the knob wouldn’t turn. “And why is every door in this house locked?”
    “Oh, I did that. I said that my greatest skill is research, but of course I possess several others. Being able to lock a door by merely thinking about it is just one of my talents, and one of the least impressive.”
    “People can only have
one
magical talent.” But then Petra reconsidered. “Though . . . you can scry. You made some kind of connection between our minds.
And
you can call upon spirits.”
    “So it would seem.”
    “You also killed the Gray Men.”
    “Yes,” he said, “though I did that through very skilled swordsmanship, not magic. I must be modest.”
    “And you can magically lock doors? None of that fits together.”
    “No, it doesn’t, my dear. Not if you truly believe that a person can inherit only one magical gift. I’m not saying it’s a bad rule to live by. But no rule is without exceptions. I am an exception. And so are you.”
    Petra found a chair and sank into it. “A chimera, right? Is a chimera some kind of . . . magical mixture, like Ariel was half dragonfly, half woman?”
    “Yes. When I was young, it became clear that I had powers most didn’t. But as I grew up and began to undergo training, it seemed obvious to everyone that I wasn’t like other children with magical abilities. I was an oddity.”
    “Imagine that,” Petra muttered.
    “No tutor my parents hired could pinpoint the nature of my talent. Was I a scryer? A shape-shifter? Could I see in the dark? Drink fire like water?”
    “What can you do, then?”
    “Oh, I am sure the details would bore you.”
    “Can you . . .” Petra stumbled over a question she needed and feared to ask. “Can you read minds?”
    “No.”
    “But the link between our minds—”
    “Is that, and nothing more. Through it, I can know your location. You could do the same with me, if you bothered to learn how. If I say something to you, using that link, it is not very different from communicating out loud. I cannot guess your secret thoughts. They are behind a closed door, and I do not have the gift to open it.”
    “You could be lying to me.”
    “You could trust that I am not.”
    His brown eyes held hers, and for such a muddy color, they were piercing. Petra looked away.
    Dee continued, “Naturally, when my daughters were born, I watched to see how they would develop. They turned out to be normal—well, ‘normal’ in the sense that they each have only one talent, like ninety-nine percent of the magical human population. Like your father, your dear friend Tomik Stakan, and the long-fingered Roma boy.”
    “I’m going to stop asking how you know these things.”
    “A wise decision. Because you won’t get any answers.”
    Petra remembered something. “Ariel called you a ‘deep-searcher.’ ”
    “Ah, you noticed. I do search deeply. I gained the habit when I traveled the world as a young man, looking for clues about my own abilities. I saw