Rector heard a door open with the sticky suck of seals being broken, and Briar saying, “Ezekiel Anderson Wilkes?” … which couldn’t be good. If Rector knew one thing about other people’s parents, it was that hearing all three of your given names called in one breath was a sign of bad things to come.

“Mother! There you are. We’ve got to get down into the underground. Everybody has to go to Maynard’s.”

“And why is that?” she asked, sitting down beside the crouching captain. Her feet dangled out through the hatch, and Rector saw that her boots were not tied.

“Because Miss Angeline says so. We saw something real awful today, up by the north edge of the wall. We know how the rotters are getting out, and the animals are getting inside. Long story short, we’ve got intruders.”

Captain Cly and Briar Wilkes exchanged a worried glance. The captain scratched at the side of his head, where the mask seal was rubbing against his temple. “What were you kids doing out at the north end, anyway? I suppose Houjin was with you,” he muttered.

“Sure, he was with us—but so was the princess. We wouldn’t’ve gone out there alone, of course,” Zeke lied through his teeth.

“Angeline went with you?” Briar Wilkes reached down to tie her boots, and added, “That makes it a little better, I guess—I trust her to keep you out of … Come to think of it, I’m not so sure. She gets into plenty of trouble on her own, without you three tagging along.”

The captain made a feeble effort to reassure her. “Oh, she’ll keep ’em out of the worst of it, I expect. And they’re standing here in one piece now, aren’t they? Two of ’em, at any rate. Where’s Huey?”

Zeke answered. “The princess sent him down to Chinatown to spread the same news we’re telling you. There’s trouble cooking out at the north end of the wall, and the whole city needs to hear about it.”

Chapter 21

Twenty-one

Maynard’s Saloon was packed to the gills. Even Zeke admitted, with no small measure of awe, that he’d never seen so many people crammed inside it—and, for that matter, he wouldn’t have figured this many people would fit. But everyone had come. There were a number of men from Chinatown, and a smattering of people Rector didn’t recognize at all. He didn’t know where they’d come from, but a couple of them looked like airmen, maybe—and a couple others might’ve been miners or loggers from outside the walls.