Read The Celestial Globe: The Kronos Chronicles: Book II Online
Authors: Marie Rutkoski
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The Celestial Globe: The Kronos Chronicles: Book II
T
HE
C
ELESTIAL
G
LOBE
A
LSO BY
M
ARIE
R
UTKOSKI
The Cabinet of Wonders
M
ARIE
R
UTKOSKI
F
ARRAR
S
TRAUS
G
IROUX
N
EW
Y
ORK
Copyright © 2010 by Marie Rutkoski
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by D&M Publishers, Inc.
Printed in March 2010 in the United States of America
by RR Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia
Designed by Jay Colvin
First edition, 2010
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rutkoski, Marie.
The Celestial Globe / Marie Rutkoski.—1st ed.
p. cm. — (Kronos Chronicles ; bk. 2)
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Petra, her tin spider Astrophil, and their friends Neel and Tomik are surprised by revelations about Dee, Kit, and Petra’s father as they face Prince Rodolfo of Bohemia, who will do anything to possess a powerful object, the Celestial Globe.
ISBN: 978-0-374-31027-1
[1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Princes—Fiction. 3. Romanies—Fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.R935Cel 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2008035599
This book is dedicated to my rowsy sibs:
Aimee, Andy, and Jonathon
T
HE
C
ELESTIAL
G
LOBE
The Gray Men
S
OME DAYS
are just born bad. You know the type. The kind you want to sweep into your palm like spilled salt and toss over your left shoulder, hoping that if you don’t look back nothing worse will happen.
Petra Kronos snapped awake. Her heart thudded. The bedsheets were damp with sweat.
She turned her head to the left and looked out the window: it was foggy, wintry, dreary.
She turned her head to the right, and there was Astrophil. The tin spider was curled into a tiny, spiky ball. With a squeak, he bunched his shiny legs together, sprang them into the air one by one, and wriggled onto the tips of his legs. “Petra, is something wrong?”
“I had a bad dream.” Her pulse was still racing.
“Ah. Was it . . . relevant to the events at Salamander Castle?”
“No.” Petra didn’t want to think about what had happened more than a month ago. “Anyway, dreams don’t mean anything. They’re just empty pictures.”
“Was it,” said the spider gingerly, “related to John Dee?”
“No.”
Petra huffed with annoyance and got out of bed. Astrophil had the frustrating habit of pointing out exceptions to her
rules. She would claim something (dreams did not mean anything) and he would immediately provide a counterexample (John Dee).
“If you dreamed of him,” Astrophil persisted, “it might have been real. He could have been sending you a message. Your minds are connected.”
“Don’t remind me.” She shivered as she dressed.
“Do you remember what you dreamed?”
“No,” she lied. She pulled a necklace out from under her shirt. A small horseshoe swung from the thin leather cord. She flipped the horseshoe over and looked at the engraving. It was written in a language she didn’t understand, but she saw her name, and a friend’s. “Where do you think Neel is now? Do you think he’s still in Spain?”
There was a reproachful pause. Astrophil wasn’t fooled by her attempt to distract him. “I do not know.”
“Let’s go out to the forest. Before Father wakes up.”
“If you wish.”
She got down on her hands and knees, and rummaged under the bed. When she stood up, she held nothing. But her hands, though empty, moved oddly. Petra seemed to buckle an invisible object at her waist. She looked like an actor playing a pantomime.
Astrophil crept up her arm, and she smiled at him cheerfully.
But that was an act, too. Petra was troubled. She remembered her dream well enough. She had been angry—more than angry. She had been filled with a rage that was almost panic, almost despair. She had been pounding at a door. The room that trapped her was luxurious, with carved furniture and brocade fabrics. But that didn’t change the fact that she was in some sort of prison.