Kingdom Keepers VI(54)

“Empty,” Willa muttered from behind him. “They’re all up on deck for the inaugural.”

Philby tried not to sound surprised. “As expected.”

“You wish.”

“It makes sense they’d be given a few minutes to join the celebration.”

“Leaving us alone in here.”

“All the better.”

“You wouldn’t think that if you’d been here with Finn and me.”

Philby withheld comment.

They had a long way to go to reach the waiter entrance to the Royal Palace. The galley was divided into cooking and preparation areas for all the different aspects of a meal: main courses, salads, desserts, beverages, all connected by a waiter-collection area—an endlessly long stainless steel counter with warming shelves above and storage shelves below. Philby and Willa walked this pickup area atop spongy, slip-proof, black-rubber floor mats.

“It was at a place like this that we were attacked,” Willa said flatly.

“Yeah, thanks. Good to know,” Philby whispered back. His eyes zeroed in on all the knives, cleavers, and other weaponized kitchen gear.

They both stopped at once, frozen by the sound of…ruffling.

Philby pointed to their right: an area filled with five-foot-tall square carts, used for keeping salads fresh. Salad leaves did not make the sound they had just heard.

Willa waved her arms like a bird and mouthed, Diablo?

Philby’s mind worked like a precision instrument. His head was like the cockpit of an F-16. He was the Top Gun of brainiacs. The sound of the ruffling wings had barely stopped by the time he was moving at a run for a hanging rack of strainers. He climbed atop a prep table to reach them, grabbed two, and started back for Willa.

The raven took flight out of the cart area, appearing just to Willa’s left, a piece of lettuce clamped in its beak.

Philby launched one of the two giant strainers at Willa, who caught it one-handed and swiped the air like a lacrosse player, narrowly missing Diablo.

“He’ll tell Maleficent we’re here!” Philby said, leaping over the pickup counter and landing out in the line ahead of Willa. “Can’t…let…him.”

Diablo reversed directions at the sound of Philby’s voice and flew at him. He nicked Philby’s forehead with his beak before Philby could raise the strainer like a butterfly net. Blood trickled down into Philby’s eyebrow.

The raven’s feet latched onto Willa’s hair and pulled a clump loose, knocking Willa over backward; she cried out with pain. As she fell, she threw her strainer at the bird and, surprise of surprises, hit Diablo in the tail feathers. The bird’s flight faltered. It careened into a stainless steel post, fluttered, and fell to the floor.

Willa crawled quickly to her fallen strainer. Philby vaulted over her and slapped his strainer down to trap the crow. But one of Diablo’s black eyes caught a reflection of a polished spatula; the bird threw out its talons, clawed onto the pole, and flapped its way straight up, avoiding Philby’s trap.

Diablo screeched, and pecked at Philby’s face, tearing a gash in the boy’s nose.

Philby reacted instinctively, defending himself by raising his right forearm to protect his face and eyes while attacking with his left hand. He took hold of Diablo’s wing and yanked hard. The crow was hurled across to the preparation counter, crashing there like a plane in a failed landing.

Willa jumped up and slapped her strainer over the bird, trapping it. She used both hands to hold the strainer down atop the table.

Diablo bounced and fluttered and fought to be free, but it was no use.

“You okay?” she asked, not taking her eyes off her captive.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Philby answered, touching his wound.

She stole a glance in his direction. “OMG! You look…you’re bleeding.”

“Head wounds,” said the professor. “They bleed a lot. Looks worse than it is, I’m sure.”

Philby found a kitchen towel and mopped up his wounds.

“What do we do with this…thing?” Willa asked.

An angry Philby looked around. “You ever heard the term: eat crow?” His eyes were fixed on the rows of ovens.

“We can’t do that!”

“Says who?”

“Me,” said Willa. “No matter how much I hate the Overtakers, I’m never going to be reduced to their level.”

“They’d kill us in a heartbeat.”

“That’s what I’m saying: we have to rise above that.”

“Because?”

“I shouldn’t have to answer that.”

“We put him in one of the ovens,” Philby proposed, “but we don’t turn it on. If someone else happens to turn it on to preheat it…so be it.”