The Bronze King by Suzy McKee Charnas Page B

names on it, of course.
    â€œDon’t touch it,” Paavo said. “Go upstairs, ask questions.”
    Joel and I went. The lady in the change booth looked bored. No, she said, that wall had always been there. Was there one up at Ninety-sixth too? Sure. What was it for? Equipment, she said, and would we please get out of the way so people could buy their tokens?
    What equipment? She didn’t know.
    Who had the key? She didn’t know and if we didn’t get going she was going to call a transit cop.
    â€œOkay,” Paavo said, when we reported back to him. “We wait.”
    We waited for the next train to come and take away the six people on the platform. Nobody else came down. Paavo took his bow out of the violin case. He stepped up to the steel wall and rapped on it with the bow tip.
    From inside came a loud clanging in answer.
    In the tunnel behind us, where the next train should come from, I heard a kind of whispering, grumbling, shifting, shuffling noise, far off but getting closer. With it came a stronger smell, a nasty sour bite in the air.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Joel said nervously.
    Paavo took hold of the metal handle of the door and pulled,
    The door didn’t budge, but there came another tremendous, shivering clang from behind it, and the noises in the tunnel got louder and thicker with a high, edgy tone threading through them like a question asked in a scream. I was about to scream myself.
    â€œGo!” Paavo said, grabbing up the violin case, and we tore out of there and into the open air. “Don’t stop here,” he panted, “keep going!”
    We dodged across Central Park West against the light and flopped down on a bench next to the park wall.
    For a few minutes nobody said anything. Paavo put his bow back in Joel’s case. Then he said, “Anyplace around here for a cup of coffee?”
    The three of us ended up at a corner table in Lox Populi, where Paavo demolished two cream pastries and all the pickles in the little tub on the table. He must have had a metabolism wilder than mine, because even the way he ate, he wasn’t at all fat, just solid and sinewy. He sat hunched over the table with his hands wrapped around his coffee mug.
    He said, “Well, you got a good sniff of the kraken down there. Not so nice, eh?”
    â€œWas that what it was?” Joel shifted around uncomfortably, looking over his shoulder at the door. “It stunk. Well, what are we going to do?”
    â€œWe know where Jagiello is,” Paavo said.
    â€œThat was him?” Joel said. “Making all that clanging noise?”
    â€œThat was him, but he’s stuck in there,” Paavo said.
    â€œNow that you know exactly where he is, can you play him out?” I said.
    â€œNot without my own fiddle,” Paavo said. “And I don’t have time to build up another one. So that’s out.”
    â€œCan we get some help?” I said. I didn’t want to mention Sorcery Hall again in front of Joel. He was already horning in on my business more than I liked, though I was glad he’d been around when the Princes showed up.
    Paavo said, “I don’t think so. It’s up to us to get that damn blue door open for Jagiello.”
    It was funny hearing him swear just like any regular person, only more delicate, somehow. A lot of grown-ups have really foul mouths these days, even about little things.
    â€œHow do we do that?” Joel said. “The kraken was coming for us, right? It knew we were there?”
    â€œYah,” Paavo said. He stretched. “Okay, look. I got to go get some rest. We’re running out of time, though, and now that you’ve got the kraken’s scent and it’s got yours—well, be careful, you two. Tomorrow you come find me at Grant’s Tomb, all right? I want to do some patching there. The Princes wrote some bad words on it. They got it almost down to no power, and one way or another