Deep within the thick waves of my pain-fogged stupor, I smile.

Sometimes Orso’s rumbling voice echoes through the giant cavern and into my small cave as he tells his children stories of mice in a kingdom of cats, enchanted birds, and violent snakes. If I open my eyes, I can just make out a sliver of the main cavern, the Halls of the Dead. Gray mountains of sleeping Ghosts lie piled on top of one another: the Dead, sleeping in their bone-laced tomb deep beneath the city streets. The caverns hum with a low medley of snores and whispers, a broken lullaby that settles over my heavy heart.

Ettie is one of them now.

She is safe.

Still, the Tiger’s face flashes through my mind, his ceaseless, roaming gaze determined and hungry.

Within the Halls of the Dead he cannot touch her.

She is safe.

For now.

I close my eyes. I don’t open them for days.

PART THREE

The Bread Price

O blind and foolish! Thou hast untied the feet of Death, and he will follow thy trail till thou diest.

—The Jungle Book

THE TALE OF THE SIX LITTLE MICE

FROM STORIES OF THE MIRACLE COURT, BY THE DEAD LORD

Il était une fois … There was once a land so full to the brim with mice that they overflowed into every city and town.

They were busy little mice, growing crops and building all the fine things in the city, from the shining roads to the great houses.

At the heart of their country was a court of cats. Now, the cats were few in number, but they had the silkiest fur, and they walked with the most graceful step, and of course they knew they should be in charge of the whole land.

So the cats took everything, leaving the mice with little, and sometimes nothing at all. For the land belonged to the cats. And the houses and roads that the mice built belonged to the cats. The cats even sent the mice into battle for them.

The mice were hungry and poor. Their children died for want of bread, and although there was bread to be had, the cats had it all; they held great feasts at which they drank and ate until they could consume no more. They kept anything left over just in case they needed it later, and because they didn’t like to share.

Now, there were six brave little mice that thought, Why do our children starve when there’s food we’ve grown with our own hands? They spoke to one another first, and then to other mice. They spoke the truth about what is good, what is right, and what is just. And far and wide across the land, the mice listened. And those that listened asked them to go reason with the cats for their children’s sake.

The six little mice asked the cats if they could have a small amount of bread. The cats said there was no money for bread because of the war. But the mice knew that was a lie, because they had grown the grain themselves, and they had fought in battles and knew how much bread there should be. A great anger grew within them.