There was a small cough from behind her and Ellie dropped the egg, fumbled to catch it, then fell over in the attempt, crushing it beneath her thigh.
A tall, tanned girl with sleek hair stood over her, wearing the purple dress of a handmaiden.
‘Kate!’ Ellie said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m your assistant,’ said Kate, helping Ellie off the floor. ‘The Queen thought you might need an extra couple of arms, since you only have one of your own.’
Kate was immaculately clean, without the messy hair and smeared silver make-up from that day in the alley, though she had a terrible slouch that surely wasn’t befitting a handmaiden. Ellie felt a stab of annoyance, remembering how Kate had abandoned her in a cloud of smoke.
‘I don’t need an assistant,’ Ellie said, raising her chin with a petulant sniff. She wanted to fold both arms in front of her, but could only fold one, making the gesture less impressive. ‘I can manage fine, thank you.’
Kate’s smile broadened. She glanced around, picking up a jar of nails with a screw-on lid. ‘I’ll leave you to open this, then, shall I?’
Ellie scowled and took the jar with her good hand, wedging it into the nearest vice. She gave Kate a forced smile, then tried to unscrew the lid. She grimaced and strained. It didn’t come off.
Kate removed the jar from the vice, unscrewing the lid with a single twist. Ellie glowered at her.
‘I did warn you the Queen couldn’t be trusted,’ Kate said. ‘Now you’re going to be executed.’
‘Don’t sound too happy about it.’
Kate raised herself on to a workbench, sitting on her heels like someone in prayer. ‘Impressive that a little girl managed to get the attention of Loren Alexander, the Royal Court, and the Queen, all in one day. You’re already in one of Loren’s stupid newspapers.’
Kate picked up the axe, turning it over in her hands.
‘I’m not a “little girl”,’ Ellie said, snatching the axe from her. ‘I’m probably the same age as you. And the Queen’s not going to execute me, because I’m about to build an incredible machine that will really impress her.’
‘What machine?’
‘I haven’t figured that out yet,’ said Ellie, and Kate laughed. ‘Oh, I’m glad my execution is funny to you! You’re certainly much more cheerful than you were the other day,’ she added snidely, watching with satisfaction as Kate’s smile dropped. ‘Who was that family you were spying on, anyway?’
‘That’s royal business,’ said Kate. ‘And none of yours.’
Ellie could see she’d touched a nerve, and felt a reckless desire to keep digging. ‘Royal business? Why would the Queen send you to spy on people? She must have proper grown-up spies.’
Kate glared at her.
‘You weren’t supposed to be there at all, were you?’ said Ellie, pointing a wrench at her accusingly. ‘That’s why the Queen’s made you my assistant. As a punishment.’
Kate smirked. ‘Quite an imagination you have, Ellie Stonewall of Ingarth Island. Why don’t you put it to work inventing something.’ She studied Ellie a moment. ‘You don’t seem very afraid of being executed.’
Ellie spread out a piece of paper on a desk, dipping a quill in ink. ‘I’ve been threatened with death before.’
Kate nodded as if this made perfect sense, then hopped down from the workbench. ‘The Queen’s already got drawings, you know. Loads. By proper artists.’
‘This is a schematic,’ Ellie said, savouring Kate’s look of confusion. ‘A plan of what I’m going to build. You have to plan complex, ingenious, brilliant inventions extremely carefully.’
Kate blinked once, then peered expectantly at the blank paper. She looked at Ellie, then back at the paper. ‘Go on, then.’
‘I can’t concentrate with you watching!’
Kate grinned. ‘This isn’t a punishment, by the way. It’s a nice break from all the boring ceremonies I have to go to, with the Queen. Listening to people drone on and on …’ She looked Ellie up and down. ‘That coat is horrid … it’s like you’re wearing a dead animal.’
Ellie fiddled with the flap of one pocket. ‘It is a dead animal. Several – it’s made from sealskin.’
‘I meant a recently dead animal.’
Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, you look like … like a … like …’ She gave a frustrated growl.
Kate’s eyes widened in delight. ‘Maybe stick to inventing machines, not insults.’ She glanced down at the blank paper. ‘How do you know about machines, anyway?’
Ellie pulled the paper away from Kate. She wished the Queen had sent someone more helpful to be her helper.
‘My mum was an inventor,’ she said, and clutched her coat. ‘This was hers before she died.’
Kate took an abrupt step back, kicking a screwdriver with her heel and sending it clattering across the workshop. ‘Oh …’ she said. ‘Oh …’
‘What’s wrong?’ said Ellie.
Kate’s cheeks were tinged pink. She stared at the floor. ‘I was only joking. I’d never have said anything if I’d known it was your mum’s.’
Ellie felt a sudden need to comfort her. ‘It’s all right. I know it’s a ragged old thing, but it reminds me of her. And it’s very practical.’
‘It does have a lot of pockets,’ Kate said, with a tiny smile. She swallowed. ‘My mum’s dead too. I loved her dearly.’
Ellie picked up the screwdriver from the floor. ‘I loved mine too,’ she said.
They watched each other in silence, until Kate shuffled her feet. ‘Ellie, I’m sorry I made fun of your coat. I spend all my time in the palace, I forget sometimes how to talk to people.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Ellie. ‘Really.’
But Kate didn’t meet Ellie’s eye, tugging at her fingers instead, as if to check each one was still there. It was an odd habit, but it gave Ellie an idea.
‘I know what we’re going to make,’ she said.
Ellie began sketching, though it was slow work, since she wasn’t used to drawing right-handed. She was aware of Kate at her shoulder the whole time. She smelled of soap and lavender.
‘Um,’ said Ellie, as Kate’s breath whistled in her ear. ‘Why don’t you gather some materials?’
Kate nodded. ‘What do you need?’
So Ellie called out one thing after another as she drew, and Kate dashed about the workshop, eyes darting from tabletop to shelf to drawer.
‘Copper sheets!’ Ellie called, and Kate vaulted a bench like a ballerina, rolled across the floor, and rose with a bundle of shiny squares in her arms.
‘Copper sheets,’ she said, blowing a strand of hair from her face.
‘Um, thanks,’ said Ellie. ‘You don’t have to be so … acrobatic.’
Kate shrugged. ‘I know. But it’s fun,’ she said, though Ellie suspected she was just trying very hard to make it up to her.
Ellie looked at the finished schematic. The hand was supposed to work like a real one, with tendons made from wire, and skin made from the sheets of copper, cut and folded into segments.
Ellie spread the sheets out in front of her on one of the workbenches. Then, using a brush and black paint, she drew the shapes for the hand’s outer shell. She tried to cut the copper right-handed, but fumbled the scissors and dropped them, nearly impaling her foot.
‘Here, let me do that,’ said Kate. She took to the task with zeal, cutting out the shapes with the care of a master seamstress, leaving no jagged edges and never once going over the lines. Ellie put the skeleton of the hand together, joining the brass bones with tiny screws. When she looked up, she saw tears on Kate’s cheeks.
‘Did you cut yourself?’ Ellie asked.
‘What? Oh no, I’m fine.’ Kate hastily rubbed an arm across her face. ‘Almost finished.’
But Ellie wasn’t convinced. There was a distant look in Kate’s eyes, as if she was grappling with an inner darkness. Ellie considered herself something of an expert on the subject.
She picked up a small ste
el bolt, and flung it at Kate.
Kate looked up in surprise as it bounced off her forehead, her mouth opening in outrage.
‘Hey!’ she said, and Ellie threw another. This time, Kate caught it. She smiled wickedly, and threw it back, hitting Ellie’s shoulder. They began circling each other, hurling tiny metal bolts back and forth across the workshop. Kate was an incredible catch, plucking them out of mid-air. Ellie was less good at catching them, and indeed never caught one.
‘It’s not fair!’ she complained. ‘I only have one usable arm.’
Kate found Ellie’s inability to catch extremely funny, launching the little bolts in slow arcs, and watching in delight as Ellie flailed. Soon, Kate was slumped over a workbench, wheezing, her cheeks bright red.
‘What is so funny?’ Ellie scowled.
‘It’s …’ Kate paused to catch her breath. ‘The look on your face.’ She did an impression of some furious gargoyle. ‘It’s so determined. Then when I throw, you change to a startled rabbit, and just sort of … flap your hand about.’
Kate was overcome by a fresh attack of laughter, keeling over. Ellie frowned, but also felt a confusing joy in her chest.
‘Hey!’ said Kate, as she caught the empty matchbox Ellie threw at her head.
Ellie glanced at the clock, then the unfinished hand. ‘We should finish up. I don’t know when they’ll come to take me back to my prison.’
‘Yes, right.’ Kate looked at Ellie, and Ellie thought she saw something like pity in her eyes.
‘It is a very nice prison,’ Ellie added.
Kate gave her a sad smile. ‘Still a prison. Come on, let’s finish it together.’
So Ellie held the wires in place while Kate threaded them through the little hoops attached to the brass bones, with exacting care. They wound the wires round the tiny dials on the side of the wrist, which would control the movement of the fingers.
‘It’s perfect,’ Kate said, gasping as the fingers twitched.
The door opened, and a Warden strode in, grabbing Ellie by her bad arm. She yelped.
‘Be careful of her!’ Kate snapped, and the man’s grip softened.
‘Thanks,’ Ellie whispered. The Warden pulled her from the room, and Ellie stole a final glimpse at Kate before the door shut. She was carefully studying the metal hand, with an enchanted, faraway look.
The Warden stuffed Ellie back inside her prison, locking the door. A bowl of soup and bread had been left on the round mahogany dining table, and a bath had been filled. The air smelled richly of rose petals, and Ellie was pleased to see that the living suit of armour was gone. She realized she was still covered in the filth of the mine, and felt a hot embarrassment that Kate had seen her that way. She dipped a cloth in the bath, rubbing the worst of the dirt from her coat, then hung it over the balcony to dry, risking a glance below.
Her legs wobbled. The island spread out beneath her in the light of the setting sun, a shifting, breathing map. It was blurred at the edges where the froth of the sea met white beaches, grew darker with black soil and grey boulders, then turned colourful with rooftops of chalk blue, red and orange, like clusters of coral reef. Palm trees and shrubs burst from the wide spaces in between, and in the market squares the crowds appeared like constellations of swirling tea leaves. Ellie could almost see straight down the volcano on the southern coast.
Below her, the curving grey belly of the Ark was covered with strange, squat statues, studding its surface like barnacles on a whale. They had round, blank faces, the features worn away by centuries of wind and rain.
Ellie took a step back, afraid some mad impulse would take her over the edge. She wished she had wings, to swoop above the beautiful world beneath. Instead, she hungrily slurped down her dinner, and took an awkward bath, trying not to get her sling wet. Then she pulled on a nightdress she found in the wardrobe and climbed on to the huge bed, listening to the rhythmic chorus of seagulls, rising and falling in time with the waves …
Ellie woke to the sound of crumbling stone. A hinge creaked, and a shadow stood by the open balcony window. Ellie yelped and grabbed for the candlestick on her bedside table, afraid that Hargrath had found her. The shadow took three steps towards her, then crumpled to the floor.
Ellie peered over the edge of the bed, holding the candlestick above her in readiness. Moonlight fell on the figure. Ellie gasped.
It was Seth.
Leila’s Diary
4,761 days aboard the Revival
The Crone was sleeping, but I couldn’t, so I was watching the boy instead. I’ve decided his name is Varu – I got it from a song I heard some kids singing, about a boy who could turn into a dolphin. I put the bottle of elixir under his nose every few minutes, trying very hard not to punch him in the arm. I felt angry at him for making the Crone so tired, with his stupid mind that she couldn’t fix.
I was holding the elixir by his nose again when suddenly Varu wasn’t there and I was on my back somehow and the bottle was skidding across the floorboards and I could feel footsteps shuddering away from me. I flipped on to my front, grabbed the elixir and sprang after him. He was fleeing the garden, wearing only the grubby trousers the Crone had dressed him in.
I chased him through the corridors, hurling all the best curses I knew, and people came out of their cabin-houses to see what the fuss was. I raced up the rickety stairs on to the Sky Deck and the night air filled my lungs and the crashing waves filled my mind. The sea was so loud tonight.
Varu fell on his knees, howling, clutching his head like the noise of the waves was inside him too.
‘Shut up,’ I hissed, glancing around. There weren’t many people on deck, just a few groups of friends drinking wine, but they looked at us strangely. There were still rumours that the Enemy was onboard and I didn’t want anyone getting suspicious. ‘Be quiet, silly boy. Listen – my name’s Leila. Your name is Varu.’
‘That noise,’ he said. ‘That noise!’
‘It’s the sea,’ I said.
‘It’s everywhere!’
‘That’s because the world drowned, stupid. Now shut up or I’ll beat you into silence.’
The boy ran to the rail and stared in horror at the seething mountains of water three hundred feet below. I went to grab him but his hand shot out and clutched my wrist, twisting my arm behind my back. I can beat most boys at arm-wrestles but not this one.
‘Let me go!’
‘What are those screams?’ he cried. ‘There are people down there. They need help!’
‘They’re already dead, idiot. They drowned.’
‘No,’ Varu whispered, and I seized my moment and shoved the bottle of elixir under his nose. He snorted and let me go, stumbling about cross-eyed.
‘That’ll teach you to twist my arm.’
‘Wait …’ Varu squinted at me. ‘Your voice. I remember it. We used to ride the waves together. We used to hunt.’
I took a step back. ‘No,’ I said. ‘That was Blue Eyes.’
‘Yes, that was my name,’ he said. ‘We used to hunt beneath the sea for seals and sharks. You could hold your breath for so long, for a human. We were good friends, weren’t we?’
I found tears on my cheek and dashed them away.
Varu glanced around. ‘Where are they?’
‘I told you, they drowned.’
‘No, not them. Where are the others – where are my brothers and sisters?’
And he collapsed on his back and was asleep again.
The Boy Who Climbed the Ark
Ellie rolled Seth over with all the strength she could muster in her good arm.
‘Seth, are you okay? How did you get here?’
Seth opened one eye. ‘Climbed,’ he whispered.
‘Climbed!’ said Ellie, and looked at the balcony. ‘But we must be thirty storeys up! And the surface doesn’t look safe.’
‘One of the statues broke and fell when I was climbing,’ he said, in a distant voice. ‘It’s probably in a billion pieces.’
Ellie lifted
one of his hands. ‘Seth,’ she groaned: his palms were crisscrossed with cuts, like he’d been wrestling a tiger.
‘It took a thousand years to get here,’ he said dreamily. ‘I must be very old now.’
‘Old and foolish,’ she scolded. ‘These cuts will get infected. Hold on, I think I have some alcohol in my coat pockets.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t drink,’ Seth mumbled.
‘For your cuts!’
Ellie rushed to the balcony and rifled in her pockets, her legs wobbling again as she peered over the edge, down the moonlit curve of the Ark. She could see the ruined stump of the statue he’d broken, now just a pair of stubby legs. If Seth had fallen with it, he would certainly have died. What was he thinking?
Her eyes widened – he’d come to rescue her! He must have seen her coat on the balcony and climbed up here, thinking she was in trouble. A flood of warmth spread from her chest to her fingers and toes. She smiled, then noticed Seth’s eyes were both closed. ‘Seth?’
He leapt to his feet. ‘Leila!’ he cried, looking round the room. ‘She was right here.’ Seth rubbed his head. ‘Talking to me.’
‘You were having another vision.’ Ellie held the bottle of alcohol in her teeth and soaked a napkin from the dining table. ‘What happened?’
‘It felt so real. I could hear them,’ said Seth, flinching as Ellie dabbed at the cuts on his hands.
‘Who?’
He closed his eyes tightly. When he opened them again, they glistened. ‘The voices in the sea. The people. They were drowning.’
‘Seth, that all happened in the past. The Drowning was more than seven centuries ago.’
‘It felt like they were suffering now.’ He stared intently round the room, then noticed Ellie’s sling. ‘What happened?’ he said, patting the rest of her to check for injury, leaving a bloody smear of alcohol on her wrist. ‘Did they do that to your arm? I’ll kill them! Wait, why is it so … nice in here?’
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