CHAPTER TWO

JACK RETURNED TO HIS CHAIR, Keeping his eyes the fireplace. He could feel the weight of the inverted underground tower above him, with its black stone walls and unedig levels filled with wood-aneled corridors. The kee had become his prison. The ministry of trackers, the youngest of England's secretive Elder Ministries-behind the Ministry of guilds, the Ministry of Secrets,and the ministry of dragons-had become home for his whole family, whether they liked it or not.

   "You don't look so good", said Sadie, watching as he eased himselfdown in the chair again.

  "I'm nervous. that's all."

   Sadie pulled her ankles u ito a cross-legged position beneath her dress and leaned her elbows on her knees, auburn hair flopping forward. She stared at jack as if she could see right through his skull and into his messed-up tracker brain.

"No. That's not it.

   Jack shot her a frown. "I've asked you not to do that."

   "yes."Jack did not stir.

   Sadie seemed unperturbed by contradiction between his answer and his actions. Her face remained as placid as ever. "Is the professor coming?" she asked, referring to Edward Tanner, the only remaining tracker of the eleventh generation. He want know as the professor simply because he was Jack's teacher and mentor. Long retired from the usual ministry work, the elderly tracker now maintained tenure as a history professor up at Cambridge.

"He's molding young minds tonight."

"What about Gwen?"

jack had known that question was coming. He sighed. "I don't think so."

''because shes mad at you?''

''No.''

''Because you're working with Ash now?''

''No.'' he gave a little shrug. ''Maybe.''

''Because Ash is a journey man quartermaster, ad Gwen is only a clerk?''

jack said nothing.

''But you're only a clerk.''

''Sadie.'' he have her a that's-enough glare and the room fell silent for several seconds. It never did.

''Soooo, why cant she go with you?''

jack rubbed his head. It hurt.Gwen hadn't shown up to see him off-twice in a row now. It wasn't his fault he couldn't study with her everyday,or eat with her, or do whatever Gwen wanted to do whenever Gwen wanted to do it. His dad needed him. couldn't she see that?

Jack slipped a hand into the pocket of his dad's leather jacket, the one he had taken as his own when he first found the armory and equipment locker in his dad's study. He wrapped his palm around a little red sphere with gold lattice-wrk, letting the silky pink coolness of the stone seep into his fingers. Feelings, sounds, smells-the all had a color adnd texture to him, a side effect to his crisscrossed tracker senses.

He closed hi eyes and released a long breath throughhisnose. That same sphere had given him a brief connection to his dad the year before, on the night he had rescued him and confronted the Clockmaker at the top of Big Ben. On his return to the keep, jack had found a tiny scrap of packing paper folded up o the sphere's place in the armory, marked with a curvy Z. So he had name d it zed. After that night, no matter how hard he tried, he had never been able to produced the connection with his dad. He kept the zed with him at all times anyway. It calmed him, helped him think ,helped him b the tracker everyone expected him to be. He couldn't say why. Maybe it gave him power. Maybe it gave him a little bit of his dad's tracker mojo. There were stranger artifacts with stranger abilities everywhere within the keep.

The pain Jack's head subsided, and he realized Sadie was standing over him. With the zed to settle him, he could see without opening his eyes-by the blue-gray whisper of her breathing and the tan, sandpapery shuffle of her feet. He looked up anyway, because he wanted her to see the annoyance in his expression.''what, Sadie?''

''they're waiting for you.'' she glanced over at the big shadowed door.''All of them.''

it was Sadie who finally opened the mahogany door, leaning her little body back into the pull, with jack standing reluctantly behind her. He wicked as a thrummingwhite light assaulted his QEDs, and a black murmur of whispers. It was noise, all of it. But jack cold still make out some of the words.

Tracker.

Section thirteen.

Freak.

Didn't they know he could hear them?

Jack left his sister in thelittle room and walked out onto a cobblestone lane. There were quiant cottage facades on either side. French, maybe. He couldn't tell yet. He crossed over to a broad semicircular platform set between to houses, and stepped up to a bronze rail to get a better look at what he was up against. Below him, level after level of arching bridges, step stairways, and narrow streets were interwoven to form a village stacked upon itself. English, he thought, scanning the flats and storefronts thant formed the circular periphery of every level. definitely English.what else? Every home ad store on the periphery was a mere facade-elaborate set dressings-but the eyes in the windows wer real enough.

Section thirteen.

Freak.

He Shook his head, pushing back a creeping pain that shouldn't have been there-not after a year of training. Gray mist swirled in the light above him and I the daarkness of the bottom below. The arena was so huge that it had its own weather system,gathering moisture in its upper and lower extremes. Sometimes, according to Gwen at least, it rained. jack had never seen it. Then again, this was only his second time to enter the crucible. The bronze hum rolling across his brain intensified and two quad-style QEDs descended out of the clouds. ble light glowed within round egie housings. Their cameras shifts to keep him in focus. Mrs. Hudson's voice, stern and cold, echoed from a unseen loudspeaker.

''Attention. The tracer has entered the arena. The hunt is on.''

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***