‘Um, maybe we should take a break,’ said Ellie nervously. ‘Here, you should eat something.’ She grabbed an apple from a workbench and tossed it to him.
Ellie got the feeling he wanted to be alone and wandered over to the far side of the workshop. Here, thousands of pieces of paper had been stuck, one on top of another, until nothing of the wall underneath was visible. She stared at a drawing she’d sketched the day before – a diagram of a humpback whale, with a boy inside it.
Seth finished his apple and came to join her. He seemed calmer now – the water in the tub was silent. He leaned over to inspect the drawing. ‘Is that supposed to be me?’
‘Yes,’ said Ellie.
He frowned. ‘Why is my head so big?’
Ellie huffed. ‘It’s a study of a whale’s digestive system. I’m trying to figure out –’
‘How I survived inside a whale,’ Seth finished, his eyes scanning the drawing. ‘Why?’
‘What do you mean why?’ she said. ‘Because it’s a mystery! It seems impossible, but you managed it, so it must be possible.’
‘But it doesn’t help us catch the Vessel, or figure out who I am.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s still interesting. I am an inventor, you know.’
‘I thought you just fixed your mum’s broken stuff.’
Ellie bristled. ‘Fixing things is hard! And I do make new things. Like the net-cannon, or that cherry-picker over there. It gets cherries down from high-up branches,’ she said, puffing out her chest.
‘But I haven’t seen any trees on this island –’
‘And we need to figure out who you are,’ said Ellie, cutting him off. ‘If we know how you survived, we might be able to work out how you got in that whale in the first place.’ She pulled the drawing from the wall to show him more closely. ‘I’m fairly sure I dragged you out of the whale’s stomach. Now, human stomachs are full of acid, and you certainly wouldn’t want to live in one. But I think a whale’s stomach is more like a cow’s – Seth?’
Seth was staring quizzically at a yellowed piece of paper, that had been hidden beneath the drawing of the whale.
Ellie felt an icy stab in her chest. ‘Seth?’ she repeated. But he kept staring.
It was a drawing of a girl and a boy in a rowing boat, out at sea. Though it was easy to tell that the girl was Ellie, with her long, messy hair and her nose that curved a little to one side, it was harder to say who the boy was.
‘Who’s that?’ said Seth, pointing at the boy.
‘Oh.’ Ellie’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘That’s my brother.’
‘Why doesn’t he have a face?’ said Seth. ‘Why is it left blank?’
Ellie felt a chill run up her spine. ‘Because . . . because I can’t remember it,’ she said. It was only partly a lie.
‘I didn’t know you have a brother,’ said Seth.
Ellie let out a deep breath. ‘Had,’ she said, in a small voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Seth. He stared at his feet for a long while. ‘I wish I could remember my brothers and sisters too.’
‘I know,’ said Ellie.
Seth closed his eyes. ‘I feel like, if I could remember them, I’d feel warm again. Like nothing could hurt me, because they wouldn’t let it . . .’ He trailed off, then shrugged. ‘Do you feel that, when you think of your brother?’
Ellie realized there was a tear on her cheek and angrily wiped it away. She tried to visualize that day in the boat, when they’d gone out fishing together. But immediately a terrible, painful cold filled her body.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel warm. I don’t feel that at all.’
‘Did you not get on?’
‘Of course we got on,’ said Ellie, feeling her temper flare. ‘He was my little brother. Only . . .’ She stared at the drawing, and the blank-faced boy with his fishing rod. ‘I was supposed to keep him safe. And I didn’t.’
From the Diary of Claude Hestermeyer
I have begun locking my office door at all times, terrified that someone might come in and find this journal, or some piece of evidence I’ve overlooked. My door closes on its own, thanks to one of those clever door-closers of Hannah Lancaster’s invention, and locks by itself too. Once, when my life was less fraught with peril, my door was always propped open, so my students felt free to speak to me whenever they wished. Now, I hide myself away, and ignore anyone who comes knocking.
Not that many do. I am much more irritable these days, and ever since I asked the Enemy to get that money, I have been tired and withdrawn. Even holding a conversation is difficult, so my office has become like a sanctuary to me. Or a prison.
On Tuesday, I returned after lunch and saw that my door was ajar. I looked down, and saw something unusual propping it open:
A dried-up grey starfish.
I frowned, wondering what in the world this might mean. Then I jerked upright as the door opened fully. It was one of the servants, a freckle-faced young man called Thomas. He must have seen that my door was open, and assumed that meant I wanted the room cleaned. He bowed slightly, then walked past me, striding briskly along the corridor.
I watched him go, then shot into my office, locking the door behind me.
‘You’re not going to like this,’ said the Enemy, who was draped in his usual armchair.
I followed his gaze. Icy water trickled down my chest.
There, sitting on my desk in full view, was a large pile of gold coins.
The Orphanage
The orphanage was home to thirty-two children, at Ellie’s last count. This was no great number, and most of the bedrooms were unfilled; there hadn’t been any terrible storms since the Evercreech Hurricane, and the Enemy hadn’t walked the City in twenty-three years.
It was a cosy place, with low ceilings and a long, winding corridor that branched off to the bedrooms, the baths, the games room, the art room and the kitchens. It smelled of cotton blankets and woodsmoke and was always much warmer than the workshop. The matrons even kept Ellie’s old bedroom free, just in case, though she never went in there.
As Ellie hurried down the corridor, a frustrated, tired-eyed matron rushed past her, pursuing a tiny boy.
‘Ian, Edward says you licked him – is that true?’
The boy turned, his nose wrinkling. ‘Eugh, why would I lick him? He tastes horrible.’
Ellie found Anna in the games room, patting the head of a little girl with frizzy hair and tears in her eyes. As Ellie watched, Anna hugged the girl, whispering something in her ear. The little girl laughed, and Anna gently pointed her at the door and she skipped eagerly from the room, rubbing her tears away.
Then Anna saw Ellie, and the smile dropped from her face. She slumped down in an armchair, picked up a bowl of dried figs, and propped her feet on a stool, looking for all the world like a queen in her throne.
The younger orphans lay about on the floor, rolling dice and accusing one another of cheating. The games room was home to some of Ellie’s earliest inventions – an ocean of mechanical whales, sharks, dolphins and fish hung from the ceiling, each one made from many segments of polished steel so that they glittered in the firelight. A cabinet held stacks of different board games that Ellie had made, each one based on an idea of her brother’s. She watched a red-headed brother and sister sitting by the fire, playing a game of ‘Kill the Kraken’. Ellie remembered it well – each player took control of a ship, and had to do battle with a mighty, many-tentacled sea monster that moved across a clockwork board. The boy laughed in triumph as his sister’s ship was swallowed up by the monster. They fell about giggling and play-fighting, and Ellie had to look away.
She picked her way through the room, careful not to tread on any small toys or small children. Anna didn’t look at her, but put a fig in her mouth, chewing it with intensity.
‘Why didn’t you come over this morning?’ said Ellie.
Anna threw a second fig into her mouth.
‘I could really use your help – Mr Mayhew’s flood-drainer
isn’t working again. He says he’s got jellyfish in his kitchen.’
Anna tossed a third fig into her mouth. A tiny freckled boy sidled up to Ellie, his eyes wide and pleading, clutching a silver, mechanical toy puppy. He wound it up and placed it on the floor, where it staggered dismally in a circle then fell over. Ellie picked it up, pulled a screwdriver from her pocket and prodded exploratively at the puppy’s cogs. The boy watched approvingly.
‘I can’t fix the flood-drainer by myself,’ she told Anna. ‘I need a –’ She nearly said ‘second pair of hands’ then thought better of it. ‘I need your expertise.’
Anna swallowed loudly. ‘Why don’t you ask your new friend to help you?’
Ellie glanced nervously at the other orphans. ‘He can’t be coming round the City with me,’ she whispered. ‘I have to protect him.’
Anna’s eyes bulged. ‘Protect him? You . . . He . . .’ she spluttered. She looked at the other orphans, who were all now listening in to their argument. Anna snatched a clockwork mouse from the floor, winding it up. ‘A penny to whoever catches this!’ she announced, then flung the mouse across the room.
There was an immediate eruption of noise – every orphan gave chase to the speeding mouse as it darted beneath chairs and tables. It was like being in the middle of a flock of demented seagulls. Ellie dropped the mechanical puppy on Anna’s chair and went to cover her ears, only Anna grabbed Ellie by both arms and pulled her close. She took a great, gulping breath. ‘You don’t care about saving Seth’s life,’ she hissed. ‘And you don’t care that he might be the Vessel! He’s just another puzzle for you to solve, so you can prove how clever you are.’ She picked up the mechanical puppy and thrust it at her.
Ellie flinched, her eyes prickling. ‘That’s not true,’ she said.
The noise died down as a round-faced girl put the mouse proudly back in Anna’s open palm, and was rewarded with a single bronze coin. Anna fixed Ellie with a deathly stare. ‘You don’t even care that you’re putting everyone in danger,’ she whispered.
Ellie picked up her screwdriver. ‘So you’re not going to help me, then?’ she said, her throat hurting. ‘In the workshop?’
‘Not while he’s there.’
‘But I already proved that he’s not, well, that. Look – just come over and . . . I’ll let you have the rifle in the library?’
Anna ground her teeth. There was a scuffling at the door, and Fry and Ibnet staggered into the room, wrapped up together in what seemed like a cuddle, but was, on closer inspection, a headlock. Ellie watched them curiously, until the tiny freckled boy at Ellie’s side climbed up her arm and tugged on her ear, pointing at the puppy. Ellie continued fixing it.
‘They’re mine, I want to show her!’ said Ibnet, his voice muffled by Fry’s arm.
‘I found them!’ Fry protested, raising a large brown-stained pillowcase in her other hand.
‘I did most of the work,’ said Ibnet, trying and failing to wriggle free of Fry’s grip. Both their faces were grubby, their trouser cuffs caked with dried dirt.
‘Oh, what do you know, paint-eater?’ said Fry.
‘I told you, I wasn’t eating the paint,’ said Ibnet. ‘The brush just fell in my mouth.’
Anna pulled the pair apart. ‘Fry, Ibnet, be quiet. Let’s see what you found.’
Fry eagerly untied the grubby pillowcase, and a hundred grimy trinkets clattered to the floor. Ellie glanced down at them. It was a favourite pastime of the orphans to go down to the Flats at low tide, hunting for treasure. The Flats were a wide expanse of submerged rooftops off the east coast of the City. When the tide went down, it left all sorts of curiosities poking from chimneys and gutters. Mostly old shoes and discarded tobacco pipes, but once in a generation, a lucky orphan might chance across some ancient relic dating from before the Drowning, and their name would become part of orphanage legend.
Fry held up a thin piece of wood with a round bit on the end. ‘This was a mirror belonging to an ancient prince,’ she boasted.
‘It’s a hairbrush,’ sneered Ibnet. ‘The bristles have fallen out. Anna, look at this watch I found.’
He held up a golden pocket watch on a glittering chain.
‘You didn’t find that,’ Fry spat. ‘I stole it from that rich old . . .’ Her voice trailed off as Anna raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, um, oh hi, Ellie, I didn’t see you there! Say, can we have a go in that underwater boat of yours?’
‘Yeah, I want to go under the sea!’ said Ibnet. ‘Think of the treasure!’
Ellie opened her mouth to say no but Anna spoke over her. ‘Why don’t you leave these things with me to go through while you two get cleaned up? Before the matrons see you.’
Fry and Ibnet nodded eagerly, then scarpered from the room. Ellie put her screwdriver away, wound up the mechanical puppy, and placed it on the floor, where it trotted in a perfect straight line. The little freckled boy clapped in delight, and Anna nodded at him encouragingly. She turned her face to Ellie, and her expression dropped.
‘If you keep him,’ said Anna, turning over the clockwork mouse in her hand, ‘you’re putting the orphans in danger, just so you can show off.’
‘I told you, no one is in danger.’ Ellie pressed her fingers into her palms. ‘I’d never put you or the orphans in harm’s way. I just need to fix this for him – and I’m sure I can fix it, if only I could –’
Anna’s face twisted. ‘TWO PENNIES THIS TIME!’ she bellowed, and hurled the wind-up mouse at the floor again.
The orphans burst into a new round of squealing, even louder than before. Ellie growled in frustration and marched out of the games room, sidestepping a matron as she rushed to see what the racket was.
Ellie kicked a stuffed seal toy on the floor. She wanted to shout and rage and punch things. She steadied herself against a door, and it was a moment before she realized which door it was. Her breath caught.
There was a whale carved into the wood and, above it, two little stick figures sitting in a rowing boat. A girl and a boy.
Ellie reached out her hand, her fingers trembling over the doorknob. But then her chest tightened, and flooded with ice water. She pulled her hand away and hurried out of the orphanage.
The Threat
Anna didn’t show up to the workshop at all for the next few days, so Ellie went about her duties alone, criss-crossing the City to fix drainage pumps and whalebone saws and fish-gutting machines. But she was distracted and tired, and it was showing in her work – twice she’d had to go back to mend a device she’d failed to fix properly the day before.
The mood in the City didn’t help calm her nerves. Three days earlier she’d seen a fight break out when a wealthy merchant was accused of sheltering the Vessel in his wine cellar. The merchant and his accuser had wrestled each other to the ground in broad daylight, until an Inquisitor arrived and arrested both men.
To make matters worse, Seth was constantly pestering her with questions. Sometimes they were overly personal:
‘What happened to your parents?’
Ellie grumpily stripped the outer casing from a harpoon gun. ‘My mum died of a wasting sickness when I was eight. I never knew my father – he was some playwright. He died when I was one. I’d rather not talk about it.’
Sometimes they were about Anna:
‘So is she your assistant or something?’
Ellie carefully inserted a lens into a telescope. ‘Don’t let her hear you say that if you want to live. She just helps me with my work now and then. She’s my best friend.’
‘Oh,’ said Seth. ‘Then why’s she not talking to you?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
Other times they were about the City, or the Enemy, or the Inquisition. But especially, they were about Finn:
‘So where does he live?’
‘Oh, the other side of the City. Forget about him – he’s really not that interesting.’
‘But he went to all that effort to save my life, just to show off? What if he’d been caught?�
�
‘He’s very arrogant. Look, I’d rather –’
‘Not talk about it,’ Seth grumbled. ‘Yes, I know.’
~
Ellie tossed and turned that night. Her mind was a swirling mess – the same dark thoughts churning endlessly. With a huff, she threw off her clammy sheets and crept from her bedroom, trailing a blanket after her.
The workshop was ghostly in the twilight, a sea of glinting metal and half-hidden shapes. Ellie tiptoed across the floorboards in her nightdress, towards the giant mound of books in the middle of the room. She stooped to pick one up.
A History of Executions, the title said.
She winced and threw the book aside, then hunted around until she found one more to her liking. She stared at the cover. It was some sort of storybook.
Ellie flicked through its pages. It was mostly text, but there were several illustrations. One showed the hero standing tall at the prow of a ship, a spear raised in his hands. She was certain the book had belonged to her brother – he’d been obsessed with the sea, and everything in it. The walls of their bedroom in the orphanage had been covered with drawings of sea creatures, though she struggled now to remember what they’d looked like. Ellie searched the pages for anything her brother might have left, like a doodle in the margins, but found nothing.
She sighed and closed the book carefully, then returned to her task, clearing a wide space on the floor. Next, she collected a stack of books, wedging them under her chin and carrying them over to the space she’d made. She built a wall of books that came up to her knees, as long as she was tall. Then she built another, parallel to the first, with enough room in between for her to sit in.
She connected the two long book-walls with a shorter one, making a rectangle with only three sides, then completed the shape by adding a pointed end to the rectangle from two more short walls of books, like an arrowhead. Finally, she added a pile of three large books inside, forming a seat, and then three more to form another. She nodded, pleased with her handiwork, then climbed in and sat down on one of the seats. She stared at the other.
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