Anna raised an eyebrow, then fished an apple from her pocket. ‘For what?’
‘Well . . . for some, uh –’ Ellie glanced around the floor for inspiration – ‘screwdriver . . . tips, and, um, apple . . . cogs.’
‘Okay,’ said Anna.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ Anna took a huge bite of her apple. ‘And then you can tell me where you’re keeping Seth.’
‘What?’ said Ellie.
‘Well, you’re blocking the door so I can’t come in, and you’re acting even weirder than usual.’
‘I’m tired, that’s all,’ said Ellie.
Anna peered over Ellie’s shoulder. She was taller than Ellie and barely had to stand on tiptoe.
‘Why’s there blood on the floor?’ she said.
Ellie turned in surprise. Anna used that moment to nip under her arm.
‘It’s everywhere!’ she cried, following the trail past the book pile, where she found the scrap of metal Seth had cut his foot on.
‘Anna, don’t,’ said Ellie, as Anna dropped to the floor and tried to inspect the soles of Ellie’s feet. ‘Get off!’
‘You didn’t cut yourself!’ said Anna.
‘It’s . . . paint.’
Anna scowled at her. ‘You think I can’t tell the difference between blood and paint?’ She rushed across the workshop, vaulting a pile of books. She looked at Ellie’s bedroom door, then back at Ellie.
‘Don’t go in there,’ said Ellie sternly. Anna shrank away from the door; she knew better than to try Ellie’s patience where her bedroom was concerned.
‘Is he in there?’ said Anna.
‘Who?’
Anna rolled her eyes. ‘Seth.’
‘No!’
‘But he is here?’
‘No!’
But without meaning to, Ellie’s gaze flickered to the basement door, and it was all Anna needed.
‘No, Anna, don’t go down there!’
But Anna rushed over, pausing only to frown at the floor. ‘Why’s there a puddle here?’ she said, wrinkling her nose. Carefully, she stepped over it and put her head inside the door.
‘Anna, listen,’ Ellie spluttered. ‘You can’t –’
‘So where is he then?’ said Anna, reappearing. Ellie stared at her in shock, then peered down the stairs into the cramped basement.
The mattress was empty.
‘But . . . where’s he gone?’ said Ellie, in a tiny voice.
‘So he was here?’ said Anna, but Ellie was already racing back into the workshop, checking under tables and behind bookcases. ‘But you said it wasn’t you that rescued him! You lied to me!’
‘I didn’t rescue him, he just showed up here last night and I let him sleep in the basement. He tricked me!’ she cried. ‘I can’t believe it, that little monster.’
‘Hmm, he probably hypnotized you or something,’ said Anna thoughtfully. ‘I bet the Vessel can do that.’
‘He’s not the Vessel,’ Ellie snapped. ‘Eugh, I’m such an idiot! Last night he said he was going to try and find the real Vessel. I bet that’s what he’s done.’
Anna rubbed her hands on her skirt to get rid of the apple juice. ‘Well, I guess that’s that, then. No more Seth. Have you had breakfast?’
‘No, we have to find him! Especially now I’ve interfered. What if he tells Hargrath that we helped him?’
‘We?’ said Anna, appalled. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘Exactly. You’re not turning me in to the Inquisition right now. That makes you an accomplice.’
‘I told you not to get involved in the first place,’ Anna said, crossing her arms. Ellie grabbed a tin of whale oil from the shelves and poured some of it into a lamp.
Anna screwed up her face. ‘It’s daytime, we don’t need a light.’
‘Shh,’ said Ellie. ‘I took some precautions before bed, in case Seth did decide to run off.’
She carried the lamp to a workbench, where she cleared aside a saw, a paint-splattered shirt and a sheep’s skull, until she found what she needed: a curved piece of violet-stained glass. She placed the glass over the oil lamp, then lit the lamp with a match, so it emitted a faint, purple-blue light. Anna watched her, perplexed.
‘Pretty clever, isn’t it?’ said Ellie.
‘I have no idea what you’re doing.’
‘I’ll show you. I have this special tincture – I think my mum invented it, or found it on one of the hunting islands. I think it’s called, uh . . .’
‘Just tell me what it does,’ Anna groaned.
‘It glows, but only under the right colour of light. I left a puddle of it outside the basement door last night, in case Seth decided to escape. I knew he wouldn’t try the front door, because of the guards, but . . .’
Ellie ran over to the basement door. She shone the lamp down, and a puddle of pale violet liquid appeared on the floor.
Anna frowned. ‘So?’
Ellie bit her lip in anticipation, and raised the lamp higher.
There, on the floorboards, were more blotches of pale violet, crossing the workshop, then climbing the ladder to the window, alternating from left to right on each rung.
‘Footsteps!’ Ellie explained delightedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet. ‘And they’ll lead us straight to Seth.’
Ellie thrust the lamp into Anna’s arms, then pulled on a jumper and trousers over her nightdress, grabbing her coat and yanking on a pair of boots. They clambered up on to the rooftop.
‘It’s too bright out here,’ said Anna, pointing the lamp down towards the slates, searching for more violet splotches.
‘Hold on,’ said Ellie, taking off her coat and using it to give them some shade. Purple footprints dotted across the rooftop, right to the edge. Ellie and Anna peered down into the street.
‘He jumped down?’ said Anna. ‘Maybe he fell,’ she added hopefully.
‘He’s actually quite athletic for a boy who lived inside a whale,’ said Ellie. ‘Come on.’
They picked up the trail of violet splotches in the street behind the workshop. The marks led them downhill, along several alleyways.
‘He’s heading for the sea,’ said Ellie, furrowing her brow. ‘Why?’
‘Maybe he’s looking for a whale to climb back into,’ said Anna.
As they followed the trail, the salty tang of the sea grew stronger, along with the reek of old seaweed. Round one corner, they found an old man praying frantically.
‘Oh Saints, grant us the wisdom to find the Vessel. Oh Saints, give us the strength to defeat the Enemy.’
He stopped at the sight of Ellie and Anna, watching them suspiciously as they hobbled by, bent double beneath Ellie’s coat.
In the next alleyway, a young girl was crying.
‘Don’t worry,’ her father said, hugging her close. ‘The Inquisitors will find him. They’ll find him, and kill him.’
‘You promise?’ the girl said tearfully.
Down another alleyway, an Inquisitor was knocking on someone’s door. A terrified young man answered, swallowed, then led the Inquisitor into his home. His neighbours watched from the windows above, gossiping darkly to each other.
Occasionally, Seth’s trail swerved sharply into an alcove, or behind a stack of fishy-smelling crates. Ellie pictured him ducking out of sight as people passed by. At least that meant he was being careful, she thought.
The footprints led them into an open market where people were hurrying briskly about their morning shop. Overhead, the ruined Clocktower of St Angelos poked above the rooftops. The tower had been smashed open from inside by the Enemy twenty-three years before, the last time it had manifested. Ellie noticed that people were lowering their gaze as they went by, to avoid looking at the broken clock face.
Further down, they passed a grey, gargoyle-covered building with boarded-up windows and a spike-crowned roof. Ellie had always thought it was abandoned, but now there was an ornate silver lock on its front door, which seemed wasted on an otherwise mouldy rui
n. As they approached, the doors crashed open, and Ellie pulled Anna aside as Hargrath stormed out, four Inquisitors scuttling in his wake.
City folk hurriedly darted from his path, but one old woman yelled at him from a side street. ‘You failed us!’ she cried. ‘You were supposed to keep us safe, and you failed us!’
Hargrath turned his head slowly, staring at the woman with cold, dead eyes. He began to march steadily towards her, and she turned and hurried into the alley.
When he was gone, Ellie and Anna crossed the street and picked up Seth’s trail again. The violet splotches were getting fainter, but they were still able to follow them along the cobbled road, down to where the Great Docks spilled out from the side of the City.
The docks were not nearly so old as the city they’d grown from. When the City had been built, long ago, the sea had been miles below. Now, hundreds of ships were moored to a collection of submerged towers and hollowed-out mansions. The City’s largest ship, the Righteous Archangel, was anchored within the ruins of a massive church. Smaller ships huddled round the outsides of the buildings, or else were moored along the strips of floating platforms that branched out to sea.
Masts and rigging rose up all around Ellie and Anna, and soon they were surrounded by the shouts of sailors and the creaking of elaborately decorated ships. The whale lords loved to outdo one another, and each ship had been ornamented in some way, with gold leaf or murals or carvings of ferocious sea creatures.
Ellie and Anna stepped uncertainly on to the wooden platforms that bobbed up and down with each movement of the waves. They slowed their pace, unsteadied by the motion, skirting the occasional gaps where the boards had rotted through.
‘Careful you don’t slip,’ Ellie warned.
Anna rolled her eyes. ‘I can look after myself, Ellie. I come down here all the time without you.’
There were sailors everywhere, their songs and their laughter ringing across the docks. They bounded easily from platform to platform, their soaking boots drenching the wood with salt water and washing away any chance Ellie had of picking up Seth’s trail. ‘This is no good,’ she said. ‘How are we going to find him now?’
They paused beside a robust ship being tied up against the dock. Sailors winched a long, heavy-looking bundle down from the deck. It was the length of three men, and as thick as a rowing boat, wrapped in a great swathe of canvas that tapered at one end. Ellie and Anna stared at it curiously.
Castion leapt from the rigging, his long red coat fluttering behind him like a cape. He began working his way down the canvas, stripping it aside in rough, sudden movements. A fin could be seen first, then a streak of charcoal grey and a dead black eye. He flung the canvas to the ground, revealing the colossal body of a great white shark.
Anna gasped. ‘Whoa, it’s huge!’ she said.
The shark lay slumped on one side, its thick, snarling gums curled round rows of pointed teeth. There was a deep gouge in its side.
His sailors all cheered, though Castion himself looked grim and distracted. As his men gathered round to shout his name, he cut them short with a chopping motion of his hand.
‘There’s nothing to be happy about today,’ he told them, pulling a knife from his belt and kneeling down at the side of the shark. ‘The Enemy walks among us.’
Ellie grabbed Anna by the arm and pulled her away, before Castion could notice them. They wandered around, scanning the docks for any sign of a slinking shadow.
‘Look!’ said Anna excitedly.
Ellie’s heart leapt into her throat. ‘What?’
‘Those sailors over there are so handsome.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Anna,’ Ellie groaned. ‘There are more important things to worry about!’
Anna sighed, mournfully watching the sailors. ‘I should have brought some flowers to give them.’
Ellie dragged Anna back on to dry land. She had almost given up hope of re-finding Seth’s trail, when she spotted a tiny smudge of purple on the stones by her feet.
‘I’ve found them!’ Ellie cried. The trail led them out of the Great Docks and along a narrow alley, before depositing them in the shadow of an immense, lopsided cathedral that had half-crumbled into the sea. Ellie felt a cold thrill of nerves in her chest.
‘What has he gone in there for?’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter – we can’t follow him,’ said Anna. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘It’s perfectly safe. It’s not like the Enemy’s still in there.’
It had probably been an impressive, awe-inspiring building once, but history had treated it poorly. Great gouges had been torn from its sides, and its roof was pockmarked with soot-ringed holes, as if geysers of fire had erupted from inside. A wooden notice stood by the dismal archway that served as its entrance.
THIS IS THE HALLOWED SITE UPON WHICH ST CELESTINA AND THE HOLY INQUISITION DEFEATED THE FIRST MANIFESTATION OF THE GREAT ENEMY: THE GOD WHO DROWNED THE GODS
NO ENTRY, EXCEPT ON INQUISITION BUSINESS
Ellie knew the sign was inaccurate – her mother had told her as much. There had been no Inquisition back then, just a gang of desperate survivors fleeing the Enemy’s destruction, and Celestina hadn’t been a saint yet, but a fearless woman with a fishing spear and perfect aim. Ellie told all this to Anna, and Anna let out a great yawn.
‘Stop showing off.’
Ellie crept inside, warily eyeing her surroundings. The Cathedral of St Celestina looked just as it must have done at the time of that first battle, seven hundred years before. Thick pillars rose to the rooftop, though two had fallen and now lay scattered in segments. The building sloped down, and the sea had spilled through the holes in the wall, drowning half the floor. A towering stained-glass window poked out of the water.
‘Ellie, I’m telling you, we shouldn’t be in here,’ said Anna.
‘Like you’ve never been in here before,’ said Ellie, pointing to a grey stone wall, where the words ANNA WAS HERE were drawn in red chalk.
‘That could have been any Anna. It’s a very common name.’
‘If you’re frightened, you can stand by the entrance and check no one’s coming.’
But Anna just scowled. They crept onwards, following the line of fading purple marks that led down to the water. They couldn’t see Seth anywhere. They passed a cluster of tall statues of robed men and women, three of which had been smashed aside, resting against the far wall of the cathedral in many pieces, leaving just the legs and feet behind. Four times Ellie and Anna passed the strange shadow of a figure on the walls, like a large charcoal drawing, spread up the stone with its arms flung wide. Elsewhere they saw deep scratches in the stone, as if human fingernails had raked through the rock like it were butter.
Ellie found it hard to conceive that the Enemy had actually stood in this place – not in its Vessel but its actual, physical form – destroying both the cathedral and the people who’d fought against it, until at last a fishing spear was hurled straight at its head. She shivered. Anna was standing very close to her, her hand hovering by the sleeve of Ellie’s coat.
Ellie inspected the floor. The splotches were barely visible now, just tiny flecks of purple, no bigger than a raindrop. She followed them round a pillar that had survived the Enemy’s attack. The purple dots vanished into the water.
‘He’s gone into the sea,’ Ellie said, astonished.
‘No,’ said Anna, in a hollow voice. ‘He’s up there.’
Ellie looked up, then took a step back.
Seth was fifteen feet above them, perched on top of a disfigured church organ that rose straight out of the sea, a tangled mess of brass pipes topped with gold angels. He was crouched among the angels like a cat preparing to pounce, glaring at the sea beneath him.
‘What is he doing?’ Ellie whispered, as she and Anna watched from the cover of a fallen pillar. She wasn’t sure why she was whispering, exactly, only it felt somehow that they had intruded on something private. The cathedral was silent save for the quiet lapping of
the sea against the stone. That became a quiet rumble.
Then a much louder one.
The sea began to bubble, almost as if it were boiling. Anna clutched Ellie’s arm.
Seth was staring at the sea with such intensity, his knuckles pale as they gripped the organ pipes. Tentatively, he raised one hand. The sea rippled, and began to rise – a column of water breaking from the surface. Seth’s fingers trembled, his eyes wide. Ellie gasped – Seth was drawing the water towards him, until it nearly touched his hand.
‘How . . .’ Ellie whispered. ‘How is he doing that?’
‘What do you want from me?’ Seth yelled suddenly. ‘Get out of my head!’
He was shaking with fury, a vein throbbing on his brow. The sea thrashed, then rose up all at once in a huge wave, crashing down against the church organ. Ellie leapt forward to help, only when the sea washed away, Seth was nowhere to be seen.
‘Seth!’ Ellie cried, rushing to the water’s edge.
‘Did you see that?’ said Anna. ‘He is the Vessel.’
But it had seemed to Ellie more like the sea had attacked Seth, like an unruly dog biting its master. ‘Help me find him!’ she yelled. She dug in her coat pockets for the pair of special glasses she’d made for seeing underwater, slammed them on her face, then flung off her coat. She jumped into the water.
Seth was lying below the surface. He was unconscious, draped across the rubble of the shattered cathedral floor.
Something was moving on his skin.
For a moment, Ellie thought it was the shadows from the dappling sunlight breaking through the roof. Then she realized it was inside him – dark blue shapes swirling up and down his bare arms and on his chest where his shirt had ripped open. Ellie put an arm round Seth’s neck, and another round his back, pushing off towards the surface.
‘Thanks for helping,’ Ellie said to Anna, dragging Seth on to the dry stone.
‘He’s dangerous,’ said Anna, staring in horror at the blue swirls on Seth’s skin. ‘I don’t think you should touch him.’
‘He’s not dangerous,’ Ellie said.
As she spoke Seth came to life, gasping for air and smacking Ellie in the face with a flailing hand.
Orphans of the Tide Page 7