Nightingale by Deva Fagan

Author:Deva Fagan [Fagan, Deva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The grand gallery of the Royal Museum was an impressive room at any time of day, but it seemed even more overwhelming in the shadowed, early evening light. The vast open chamber was echoingly empty of any visitors except Jasper and me. It rose four stories tall, wrapped with ornately carved walkways that left the center open to display the museum’s collection of pyrosaur fossils. The enormous petrified bones of the ancient reptiles were wired into place, caught in fierce poses. There were even several hung from the lofty roof, soaring or swimming through the air with a strange, alien grace.

Jasper led me past a giant three-horned beast whose mouth came straight out of my nightmares to a smaller display at the very center of the room. Two display plinths stood there, each spotlit by an aetherlight.

“So, what did you want to show me?” I asked.

Jasper gestured to the larger of the two plinths, which held a giant red-tinged cauldron. “That.”

“You brought me here to show me a rusty old cook pot?”

“It’s not a cook pot.”

I frowned at the thing. It was roundish and made of metal. But if it was a cauldron, it was wrong side up, with the opening on the bottom. And there were two marks along the front that looked an awful lot like eye slits, above a mouthlike grate. I realized, finally, what it was.

“A helmet?”

“The Crimson Knight’s helmet,” said Jasper.

I let out a long breath. “It’s big enough to boil a watermelon.”

“You don’t boil watermelons,” answered Jasper.

“That’s not the point. He must have been gigantic.”

“Ten feet tall, according to the records that survived the Dark Days.”

I shuddered. “I can’t see how anyone ever stopped him.”

The sword bobbed up at that, pointing at me, then wiggling its cross guard like a proud young soldier, throwing back its shoulders to stand at attention.

That was right. It was the Nightingale who stopped him two centuries ago, after the knight turned on the Architect who’d made him and began a terrifying rampage through Gallant. That was what had sparked the first war with Saventry, when their mage-lords decided that aethercraft was too unnatural and dangerous to be tolerated so close to their borders.

“All right. So what’s it got to do with Dark Spectacles sabotaging the mines?” I asked.

Jasper’s lips pressed into a grim line. He pulled something from one pocket. It was the piece of metal he’d found in the mine.

“Notice anything?” he prompted, setting it on the display beside the helm.

I squinted. Then stared. Then shook my head, not wanting to believe it. “Just because they’re the same color doesn’t mean anything. Maybe lots of things from the Golden Age were made out of red steel.”

“No,” said Jasper. “I’ve checked all the records I can find. Only the Architect himself knew how to create red steel. And he only ever crafted one thing out of it: the Crimson Knight.”

“Right, and the Nightingale destroyed the knight, so that’s the end of that story.”

“It’s not so easy to destroy the works of the Architect,” said Jasper.

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