The Valorim are about to fall to a dark lord when they send a necklace containing their planet across the cosmos, hurtling past a trillion stars . . . all the way into the lunchbox of Tommy Pepper, sixth grader, of Plymouth, Mass.Mourning his late mother, Tommy doesn't notice much about the chain he found, but soon he is drawing the twin suns and humming the music of a hanorah. As Tommy absorbs the art and language of the Valorim, their enemies target him. When a creature begins ransacking Plymouth in search of the chain, Tommy learns he must protect his family from villains far worse than he's ever imagined. “Schmidt brings high heroic fantasy and contemporary realism together in this novel.”— Horn Book,  starred review “Spielberg, get ready for this boldly imagined outer-space offering.”— Kirkus “Schmidt, already a best-seller and award winner, should pick up even more fans with this crowd-pleasing fantasy.”— Booklist “Wonderfully strange. . . . This inventive and memorable story for readers ages 10-15 manages to mingle the quotidian and the movingly supernatural. It's funny, too.”— The Wall Street Journal "The balance of emotions is flawless."— Bulletin Gary D. Schmidt is the bestselling author of Orbiting Jupiter, The Labors of Hercules Beal ; Just Like That ; National Book Award finalist Okay for Now ; the Newbery Honor and Printz Honor Book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy ; the Newbery Honor Book The Wednesday Wars, and more. He is also contributor to and co-editor of the acclaimed short story collection A Little Bit Super, co-edited by Leah Henderson, and the co-author, along with Ron Koertge, of A Day at the Beach . He lives in rural Michigan. ONE The Last Days of the Valorim So the Valorim came to know that their last days were upon them. The Reced was doomed, and the Ethelim they had loved well and guarded long would fall under the sharp trunco of the faceless O’Mondim and the traitors who led them. The Valorim looked down from the high walls of the Reced and knew they would find no mercy in the dark fury of the O’Mondim massed below—none for all they had loved. Not a one of the Valorim did not weep for what would be lost forever. Not a one of the Ethelim did not fear what would come. But the Valorim would not yield, though day after day they watched the O’Mondim flash the gray metal of their trunco, though day after day they heard the O’Mondim pound at the barricaded gates of the Reced. But a First Sunrise finally came when the hearts of the Valorim began to beat with the rhythm of the battering rams, and by Second Sunrise, the gates could hold no more. The Valorim abandoned the Outer Court and fled into the Great Hall of the Reced, where the hanoraho had once sounded for the victories of the Valorim, and where there was none now left to play them. They barred the doors, and in the Great Hall, the sons of Brythelaf stayed with orluo drawn and held before them. The Valorim fell back into the inner courts, and then upward into the Council Room of the Ethelim, which held the Twelve Seats of the Reced. There did the ten daughters of Hild stand, while the last Elders of the Valorim were brought into the Tower, and the stout doors of the Tower closed and barricaded behind them—though none believed those doors would hold the tide of the faceless O’Mondim. And truly, when the O’Mondim found the Great Hall closed, their fury was renewed, and the last Elders heard the battering of the iron rams at the doors of the Great Hall, and the terrible groaning of the O’Mondim. Then spoke Ecthael, who had warned to no avail of the treachery of the Lord Mondus and the stirrings of the O’Mondim. "Now are the days of rancor ended. Now is the time of feuding over. Only these few remain of the Faithful Valorim, and when we have passed, who will stand by the Ethelim then? Who will guard the Twelve Seats? First Sunrise saw the blood of the O’Mondim spilled over the Reced steps, but Second Sunset will see our own. The Song is over. The Silence begins." Then spoke Brythelaf. He spoke words of anger. "Ever have you warned of the Silence," he said. "Ever have you spoken of unending woe." He faced the other Valorim. "I say this: It may be that our time is over. Perhaps the Silence that we beat back with the strength of our hearts at Brogum Sorg Cynna— there were gumena weardas!—perhaps that Silence may overwhelm us and the Ethelim we guard. It may be. But if it is to be, then let us take all our song, our story, our beloit, gliteloit, all we have made from our hearts, all we have brought against the Silence, and let us forge it together and send it out from us, so that the Art of the Valorim might still be heard and seen and known even when the Valorim are no longer. Then shall the Silence be defeated." A great cheer rose from the Valorim in the Tower, and from the ten daughters of Hild in the Council Room of the Ethelim, and from the sons of Brythelaf in the Great Hall, an