Free The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver Page B

about the size of Liza’s palm. They looked like butterflies, except that they had the long, pointed beaks of hummingbirds, and they seemed to be made out of darkness and air.
    There was a rustling, as thousands of quiet voices spoke in unison.
    â€œRelease the rat and the human child,” the nocturni said, and their voices sounded like dry leaves tumbling over one another.
    â€œYou heard them,” the judge croaked out. “Release the defendants at once.”
    Liza found herself released. Instantly the nids began to withdraw. As they backed slowly and cautiously out of the court, they tittered anxiously, scanning the air above their heads and muttering various apologies at the floating, flitting shapes.
    â€œA mistake! A mistake! Happens to the best of us.”
    â€œNo intention to offend …”
    â€œA harmless little prank …”
    â€œVery sorry, of course, won’t happen again …”
    Soon Liza and Mirabella were left alone with the swirling black nocturni.
    â€œWell,” Mirabella sniffed. “Well.” She patted her wig, parts of which had become hopelessly tangled. “I hope you’re happy. I told you to stay away from the nids. And now they’ve taken my purse.... If it hadn’t been for the nocturni …”
    â€œThe what?” Liza turned a full circle, stunned, all the while keeping her eyes on the drifting shapes above their heads, like a dark snow.
    Mirabella muttered something that sounded to Liza like useless and humans and heads as empty as a beggar’s purse . At a normal volume, the rat said, “The nocturni.” She shot another reproachful glance over her shoulder at Liza. “Lucky they decided to speak up, or we’d no doubt be rotting to a pulp in the dungeons by now! Like forgotten bananas. Like turned cheese!”
    â€œAre they—are they dangerous?” Liza swallowed hard, thinking of the fearful way the nids had fled from them.
    Mirabella dropped her voice to a whisper. “ Very bad luck to displease the dream-bringers,” she murmured. “ Very bad luck. I once knew a badger … oh, but we won’t speak of him. Terrible, terrible. Spends his days counting socks at the troglod market … convinced that the nocturni are sending messages to him through the color patterns …”
    â€œDream-bringers …” Liza repeated. She didn’t know exactly what Mirabella meant, but she liked the sound of it. “There are so many of them.”
    â€œOne for every person in the world,” the rat replied.
    â€œNo.” This stopped Liza short. “It’s not possible.”
    The rat whirled around, clearly growing impatient. “Of course it’s possible,” Mirabella said. “It’s necessary . You didn’t think the nocturni would share, did you? There is a nocturna for every single person in the world! And each night the nocturni sip dreams from the River of Knowledge, and fly out into the world, and deliver them to their humans.”
    â€œSo …” Liza struggled to understand what Mirabella had just said. “So I have a nocturna of my own?”
    â€œYou, the bus driver, the grocery store clerk … The nocturni mate for eternity. Even after you die”—the rat’s voice dropped to a hush—“your nocturna will never take another human, not for all the length of time in the universe and beyond. Your nocturna is wedded to your soul. Some even say”—the rat paused again, chewing on her lower lip with her pointed front teeth, and coating them with lipstick in the process—“that it is the nocturni who carry souls into the Shadow World when we die, where they will watch over them and keep them safe forever. Some say that is nocturni’s ultimate purpose.”
    Liza shivered. The cavern was cold, and full of shifting light. The underworld, she thought, was strange and beautiful and frightening, like the