The screaming started up again, and I realized the gate was preparing to roll shut. Leah’s name might open it again; it might not. I had no intention of finding out. I mounted up and pedaled inside as the gate began to rumble shut.
The rubber wheels whispered on the tiles, which had once been colorful but were now faded. Everything turning gray, I thought. Gray, or that sick shade of cloudy green. The butterflies, perhaps once colorful but now as gray as everything else, loomed over us as we passed beneath and between. Their bodies were intact, but the faces as well as the wings had been battered off. It made me think of videos I’d seen of ISIS destroying ancient statues, artifacts, and temples they considered blasphemous.
We came to a double arch in the shape of butterfly wings. Something had been written above it, but that too had been battered. All that remained were the letters LI. My first thought was LILIMAR, the name of the city, but it could have been GALLIEN.
Before going through the arch, I looked back to check on Radar. We had to be quiet, each of the people I’d met made that point in his or her own way, and I didn’t think that was going to be a problem with Rades. She was asleep again. Which was good in one way and worrisome in another.
The arch was damp and smelled of ancient decay. On the other side was a circular pool faced in lichen-encrusted stone. Perhaps once the water in that pool had been a cheerful blue. Perhaps once people had come here to sit on its stone coping, eating their midday meals while watching the Empisarian version of ducks or swans go gliding. Mothers might have held their children out so they could paddle their feet. Now there were no birds and no people. If there had been, they would have steered clear of that pool as if it were poison, because that’s what it looked like. The water was an opaque viscous green that appeared almost solid. The vapor arising from it was indeed mephitic, what I imagined the stench of a tomb stuffed with decaying bodies would smell like. Surrounding it was a curving walkway just barely big enough for the three-wheeler. On one of the tiles to the right were Mr. Bowditch’s initials. I started that way, then stopped and looked back, certain I’d heard something. The shuffle of a footstep, or maybe the whisper of a voice.
Pay no mind to voices you may hear, Claudia had said. Now I heard nothing and nothing moved in the shadows of the arch I’d come through.
I pedaled slowly along the rightside curve of the stinking pool. On the far side was another butterfly arch. As I neared it, a drop of rain fell on the back of my neck, then another. They began to dot the pool, making brief craters on its surface. As I looked, something black emerged from it, just for a second or two. Then it disappeared. I didn’t get a good look, but I’m pretty sure I saw the momentary gleam of teeth.
The rain began to come down harder. Soon it would be a torrent. Once in the shelter of the second arch, I dismounted and spread the blanket over my sleeping dog. Musty and moth-eaten or not, I was very glad I’d brought it.
8
Because I was ahead of schedule, I felt （hoped） that I could linger for awhile in the shelter of this arch, hoping the rain would let up. I didn’t want to take Rades out in it, even with the blanket to cover her. Only how long was awhile? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? And just how was I supposed to tell? I had become used to checking my phone for the time and wished bitterly for Mr. Bowditch’s watch. It came to me as I stared at the rain sheeting down on what looked like a deserted business street crammed with green-fronted shops that I had become too used to my phone, period. My dad had a saying about computer-driven gear: Let a man get used to walking on a crutch and he can’t walk without it.
The shops were on the far side of a dry channel. They looked to be the sort of places well-to-do people would visit, like an antique version of Rodeo Drive or the Oak Street District in Chicago. From where I was I could read one gold-plated （surely not solid gold） sign that read HIS MAJESTY’S BOOTERY. There were show windows from which the glass had been broken long ago. Many rains had driven the shards into the gutters. And in the middle of the street, curled like the body of a never-ending snake, was what had to be a trolley wire.
Something had been engraved on the paving just outside the arch where we were sheltering. I got on my knees for a close look. Most of it had been battered away, like the wings and faces of the butterflies, but when I ran my fingers over the beginning and the end, I thought I could make out GA and AD. The letters between might have been anything, but I thought maybe this main throughfare, which had been Kingdom Road outside the wall, became Gallien Road inside. Whatever it was, it led straight toward the high buildings and green towers of the central city. Three spires stood higher than the rest, their glassy pinnacles disappearing into the clouds. I didn’t know it was the royal palace any more than I knew the remains of the letters had once spelled out Gallien Road, but I thought it was very likely.