Saving Thanehaven by Catherine Jinks

Author:Catherine Jinks [Jinks, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60684-284-3
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2013-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Who was that?” Lorellina exclaims, from the bottom of the stairs. “Was that Rufus?”

“I—I’m not sure.” Noble can’t understand what he just heard. Rufus is nowhere to be seen, so where did his voice come from?

Unless he’s hiding behind a row of seats?

“If she’s not in here, she must be watching TV,” Rufus blares. It’s as if he’s shouting through a trumpet. He’s never sounded like this before.

“Where is he?” The princess speaks sharply. “Can you see him?”

“No.” Then something occurs to Noble. “I have to go. I’ll be back soon.”

He takes a step forward, letting the pale-blue door swing shut behind him. Another step gives him an angled view of the giant window to his left, which is busy with moving shapes and swirling colors.

“Shhh!” Rufus’s voice has become a fuzzy, crackling hiss, still loud but not piercing. “We’ll sneak up on her.…”

After taking three more steps, Noble finds himself staring up at Rufus’s face. It’s so big that it dwarfs Noble, who’s confused at how distorted it looks. But he quickly realizes that if he mounts the chair-covered slope opposite the screen, he’ll be able to see more.

This must be some kind of audience chamber, he thinks as he climbs toward a door at the top of the slope. Except that instead of looking at a king on a throne, the audience has to look at pictures.

Noble is hoping that these pictures might show him where Rufus actually is. But when he finally turns around, halfway up the carpeted staircase, he realizes that the Rufus in front of him—the one whose face is a hundred times bigger than normal—is also much younger than the one he spotted earlier, on the Kernel’s screen. I guess this isn’t my Rufus, Noble decides. It must be the boy who was in those photographs, only now he’s in a moving picture.

He watches the young Rufus turn away from him, bobbing and weaving. Rufus seems to be walking down some kind of hallway, which is painted white, with several doors leading off it. He keeps glancing over his shoulder with a grin, as if inviting Noble to enjoy a joke, though Noble can’t imagine what that joke might be.

Then the young Rufus reaches an open door, beyond which lies a large, sunlit room. He halts suddenly. Only when the picture stabilizes does Noble understand what’s been going on. All the flickering windows in the Kernel’s booth are like normal windows, fixed and motionless, but the giant window in the audience chamber is moving. It’s moving with the young Rufus, following him down a corridor, hurrying when he hurries, stopping when he stops. Noble begins to wonder if the window actually is a window. Or could it be the window in some sort of vehicle, like a van or a truck?

All at once, the young Rufus turns his head and whispers, “Here she is. She’s playing some stupid game.” Noble is shocked. Surely, the boy up there isn’t talking to him? As Rufus

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