A Sliver of Stardust by Marissa Burt

bucket he had been using to feed his falcon.
    â€œYou think you three are the only Fiddler apprentices ever?” Mary’s eyes looked tight. “I’ve told you again and again, Jack, but you refuse to listen. Apprentices aren’t coddled here; they work hard for every scrap of knowledge they learn. I know you’re excited, but the Crooked House is not a vacation spot.”
    â€œMeaning?” Wren didn’t like the sound of that.
    â€œMeaning that you’d best be on your guard. Do only as I say.” Mary looked first into Wren’s face, then Simon’s, and finally Jack’s. Wren couldn’t tell what she was hoping to see. She counted her heartbeats, willing away the tiny pricks of fear that threatened to balloon into panic. It felt like an eternity, ending only with a strange shiver that rippled through her from the cold night air.
    â€œSpeak only when spoken to,” Mary said. “Answerrespectfully”—she gave Jack a pointed look—“and apprentices must always use the title ‘Fiddler.’ You will call me Fiddler Mary. Under no condition are you to approach a full Fiddler on your own.” She took a deep breath. “This first hour will be the hardest, and then we will see.”
    Wren looked at Simon, who was nodding thoughtfully. For once, she wished he had been taking notes—how were they supposed to remember all of that? Jack seemed to bristle with excitement, as though he hadn’t heard any of the threat underlying Mary’s words.
    Wren and the others followed Mary through the door and up winding stone steps that curled around on themselves, circling higher into the mountainside. Soon, the stairs beneath them turned slippery with moisture, and the walls on either side shone thick with water and sparkling veins. Mica, perhaps, or some kind of silver, but Wren didn’t stop to investigate. They walked single file, so there was little space for conversation. Instead, Wren watched Mary’s shoulders in front of her and heard Simon’s and Jack’s soft footfalls behind her. Mary was setting a quick pace.
    Up, up, up they went, until it felt like they were miles above where they’d started. Suddenly, Mary came to a stop, and Wren stumbled into her back witha muffled apology. They were standing on a small landing that opened out into a giant cavern. Mary’s tiny ball of light was lost in the iridescent glow of the space in front of them. The walls and ceiling looked as though they were made of blue ice, pulsing with some unseen energy, and their uneven surface gave the effect of a giant off-kilter crystal cathedral.
    The natural formation had obviously been modified by man-made improvements. The farther they walked, the more Wren saw evidence of synthetic alterations. The icy walls were coated with some kind of varnish and polished to a marble-like smoothness. The walkway under them was similarly finished except for places where boardwalks bridged particularly uneven stones. Staircases dotted the walls, climbing to upper levels marked by wooden balconies and green doors. But it wasn’t only this that made Wren want to stop and stare.
    Wren couldn’t tell if they’d walked into a science laboratory or a historical documentary. A woman in a long corseted dress passed by them, holding a lantern high in one hand and a thick stack of books balanced in the other. She nearly dropped both when she saw them approaching.
    â€œJane,” Mary said in a hard voice and breezed by, leaving the woman standing and staring after them.
    A man wearing a white lab coat and goggles pushed up over his forehead leaned against one wall, his face flickering in the light of a tablet.
    On the balcony above him, two men with their shirt sleeves rolled up were hunched over a table covered with papers, arguing about whether Darwin might have perceived stardust when he visited the Galapagos. They stopped short as they caught sight of