Ellie heard it. Somewhere nearby, something was hissing.
She ran towards the crates, kicking one aside and overturning another. ‘Where is it?’ she cried. ‘Where’s the fuse?’
‘Ellie, what’s wrong?’ said Seth.
‘Now it will just be you and me again,’ said Finn. ‘I’d say that’s worth celebrating. And what better way to celebrate than –’
Ellie ran towards Seth and pulled him down to the rooftop just as a huge series of thunderous explosions rocketed upward. A hundred fireworks detonated at once from inside the crates, blasting wood in all directions, burning missiles corkscrewing into the air. Finn vanished amid the smoke.
Yells and shouts came from below, barely audible beneath the scream of the fireworks. Seth got to his feet.
‘What have you done?’ Seth yelled at Ellie at the top of his lungs. ‘The whole City will see us now! We need to get down!’
Ellie’s vision swam with blinking lights. The tower was covered in a blanket of smoke, smelling of scorched almonds and acid. Little sparks still fluttered in the crates, doing purple loop-the-loops. She rushed to the edge of the tower. Below, five Inquisitors were heading for the steps. If they went down that way, they’d be caught. But what other way was there? It was a hundred-foot drop from the roof to the cobbles.
‘Seth!’ she yelled. She could hardly hear herself over the ringing in her ears. ‘We’re going to have to jump.’
Seth stared at her in disbelief. ‘What?’
‘Trust me, all right? This will work.’
They held one another’s gaze.
‘Ellie, I know you’re clever,’ he said, ‘but even you can’t trick death.’
‘Watch me,’ said Ellie. ‘Now come on!’
The last of the fireworks spat and fizzled. One whooshed past Ellie’s ear; she smelled her own hair burning.
Heavy footsteps echoed up the stairwell. ‘Here! The Vessel is up here!’
Seth took hold of Ellie’s hand.
They stepped to the edge.
And jumped.
From the Diary of Claude Hestermeyer
Last night we had the Feast of St Emery. Nearly every scholar was there, young and old. The good silver cutlery was in use, making the three long dining tables glitter like fish scales in the candlelight. The Casket of St Emery had been brought out and placed in the centre of the hall – a large, beautifully carved trunk the size of a rowing boat.
I sat by myself. It was my own fault – I’d become sullen and moody, and the other scholars were wary of me. I don’t think they suspected me of stealing the gold, though. Since the young servant, Thomas, had disappeared at the same time as the money, everyone assumed that he had stolen it. I was immensely relieved, though worried about what the Enemy had done to him.
‘You promise you didn’t kill him?’ I whispered into my wine glass, so nobody would see me talking to myself.
‘Of course,’ said the Enemy, taking the seat opposite me. ‘I have to fulfil your wish to the letter. “Hide him somewhere”, you said. So that’s what I did.’
I met the eye of one of the other scholars across the hall and forced the warmest smile I could manage. He’d been a good friend of Peter’s, and had helped us with the manuscript we’d been working on before Peter died: a collection of old legends and myths from the early years of the City. He looked away without smiling back.
‘You’ve made them all hate me,’ I said. I was so tired these days, and barely aware of what was happening around me a lot of the time.
‘You’ve done that yourself,’ said the Enemy. ‘You shouldn’t have helped my father.’
‘I had to – those moneylenders would have killed him.’
The Enemy smiled. ‘That’s not why you did it. You felt guilty.’
‘Now just you listen –’
But I was cut off by a sudden knocking, loud and insistent. The other scholars looked around, startled.
‘Whatever is that racket?’ one said.
The master held up his hand and everyone quietened down. In the silence, it was clear where the noise was coming from:
The Casket of St Emery.
Two of the younger scholars went to investigate. They undid the locks that sealed the lid of the casket shut, and flung it open.
A young man burst out, gasping for air. I recognized him at once.
It was Thomas.
Before the Drowning of the World
Seth and Ellie held hands as the rest of the world rushed up to meet them.
The street was a tiny sliver of cobblestones below. The wind howled in Ellie’s ears. Her stomach churned. The street was not so tiny any more.
Save us, she thought. Save us from the fall.
Their feet met resistance, and Ellie’s body seized up. She felt one single moment of terror – it hadn’t worked!
But it wasn’t hard cobblestones they’d hit. Beneath them, something sagged and split.
They dropped like stones through wet paper.
And were caught a second time. Again, the surface tore and, above her, Ellie saw the ragged remains of the first sheet of canvas that had broken their fall. They fell again, and again, and each time her heart exploded in her chest.
The final layer of canvas did not tear. They bounced off it gently and toppled on to their backs. Above them were four punctured circles of canvas, letting in a trickle of sunlight from the street above. They’d fallen through a perfectly round hole in the street, into a narrow tunnel. It looked like part of the sewers.
Ellie’s body felt weak, her mind empty. She lay motionless, until a sharp sting of fear forced her to get up. She stepped in a puddle of brown silt, which she hoped wasn’t sewage. Seth leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
‘What just happened?’ he said. ‘I don’t understand – you said there weren’t any entrances to the sewers near the tower.’
‘I made this hole,’ she said, lying quickly. Seawater dripped from her hair.
‘You made this?’
‘In case I ever had to jump from that tower,’ she said. ‘I put a bomb under the cobbles and, um, I blew it up while we were falling.’
Seth narrowed his eyes. ‘That doesn’t make any sense, how could you –’
‘Look, we need to go before the Inquisitors find this,’ said Ellie, pointing at the hole above them. It was as wide as a church door, torn straight out of the cobbled street. She pulled Seth with her along the narrow, slimy tunnel.
‘But why did those fireworks go off?’ said Seth.
‘Um, I mean . . . uh . . .’
‘Ellie, I can tell you’re lying. This has all been Finn’s work, hasn’t it? Why are you trying to protect him?’
‘Look, I’ll explain everything when we get back to the workshop, all right?’ she said, hoping to buy herself more time. Seth looked unconvinced. ‘But hey!’ she cried, happy to change the subject. ‘You did it! You controlled the sea! It was so incredible, Seth.’
Seth frowned, rubbing the back of his head. ‘It didn’t feel incredible. I think it nearly killed me. I couldn’t focus. All I felt was that . . . anger. I thought I was completely alone, drowning. Until I saw you.’
He stared at her, and Ellie shuffled her feet, feeling her cheeks go slightly hot. ‘Oh, well, I’m glad the flash-bang got your attention.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Come on, we should go.’
She fished a small metal box from her pocket and removed a match, drawing it sharply against the wall. Sparks leapt from the end, soaking the tunnel with a flickering orange light. She led the way, the sound of rushing water not far ahead.
‘We’ll be able to take the sewers back,’ Ellie said, pulling a compass from her pocket and squinting at it. ‘My second workshop isn’t far from here, and I know the way from there to Orphanage Street.’
‘You have a second workshop?’ said Seth, as they descended a set of slippery stairs.
Ellie nodded. ‘It’s hidden in an abandoned ruin, right next to the sea. Anna and I built it la
st year so I could start working on my underwater boat. It’s a boat that can go underwater,’ she explained.
‘Yes, I figured that out.’
Navigating the sewers was no simple task – they were not, in most places, supposed to be navigated. They were a meandering labyrinth of stone and rusted metal, crafted together from the ruins of storm drains and long-abandoned streets. Only in certain tunnels were there walkways alongside the sewage flow. Even then, they often had to hunch over. The stench of sewage was everywhere, and Ellie felt like it would linger forever, not just in her clothes but in her hair and on her skin.
After many long minutes they entered a chamber much larger than those before it. Ellie lit a fresh match, holding it up to reveal their surroundings.
‘This looks more like a crypt than a sewer,’ said Seth.
‘It is a crypt,’ said Ellie. Sewage water passed disrespectfully between worn old tombs, their bases thick with moss. ‘These people all died before the Great Drowning. The sewers were built around them.’
At the far side of the crypt they found an old toolbox, a beaten copper helmet, and a tattered, mouldy jumper. Inside the toolbox, to their relief, was a rusted oil lamp, which Ellie filled with whale oil from a flask in her pocket. They did not stick around to wonder what had happened to the toolbox’s owner.
They carried onwards, through what must have once been a wealthy family’s mansion. Before the Drowning, there had been so many people that they had built streets on top of streets, so that many ended up buried and forgotten. Ellie and Seth climbed giant marble staircases and hurried through dank-smelling wine cellars. Once, they stumbled upon the bones of a killer whale, scattered on the floor with no clue as to how they’d got there. Minutes later, Seth pointed out a vast mural on the wall. They were inside what looked like an old church.
‘What’s that?’ he said.
Ellie held up the lamp, washing the gloom from the mural. At its centre was a gigantic, shaggy wolf, lying dead in the snow. It was old, its dark coat grizzled and its teeth worn and broken. Its mouth was wide open.
And from inside, a glowing woman emerged.
A hundred other people and animals had gathered round, seemingly to greet the woman: humans dressed in furs and feathers, bears and eagles and snakes and goats, bowing before her. The woman had a golden halo around her head, and among the people and animals there were others with halos too.
‘Why do some of them have halos and others don’t?’ Seth asked.
‘I . . . I don’t know,’ said Ellie.
She leaned in close, admiring the delicate brushstrokes of the woman’s face. The paint was faded, seemingly ancient, yet the intense, passionate look in her eyes and her slight smile had survived the centuries intact.
‘This must be from before the Drowning,’ said Ellie. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in a church before. There are paintings of the saints where they have halos, but why would an animal have one?’
She inspected a grey horse with a black mane and a glittering halo of gold leaf. Then something clattered in the far distance, echoing through the tunnel.
‘Come on,’ Ellie whispered. ‘We should keep going.’
But Seth kept looking back at the mural until it was sucked up again by the gloom, his eyes full of wonder.
Soon, the sewers became cramped passageways that climbed up and up. They heard water dripping in unseen places.
‘Your second workshop’s not actually in the sewers, is it?’ Seth asked cautiously.
‘Of course it is! I mean – it is in the sewers, but there’s no sewage running through it,’ she added, seeing Seth’s look of horror. ‘It doesn’t smell or anything.’
Seth looked unconvinced. They hurried along a more spacious tunnel where there was a slight, fresh breeze. They could hear the crashing of waves against stone. Finally, Ellie led Seth through a rusted metal door, and they were dazzled by a dim haze of daylight reflecting off the sea.
They’d emerged into a small, gloomy ruin that smelled strongly of salt and seaweed, but was fresher by far than the sewers. It had a high limestone ceiling from which long stalactites descended, and one of the walls had crumbled away completely, the floor falling sharply into the sea beneath. To one side were four workbenches surrounded by heaps of tools and scrap metal. It looked like someone had emptied a small portion of Ellie’s workshop inside a dilapidated building, and made no effort to rearrange the result.
‘I can tell you’ve been here before,’ said Seth.
Ellie scowled at him, then collapsed against a rock. Her damp clothes still clung to her body, but she was too exhausted to care. She watched as Seth explored the workshop. He paused to look out to sea, then glanced below.
On a low stone quay, propped up on large wooden trestles, was a clunky, inelegant contraption, about the size of a horse-drawn cart. It looked like a very large turtle, made from leather and metal, with a massive propeller on its front and a large rudder extending from its back.
‘That’s the underwater boat,’ Seth said. ‘Does it work?’
‘No.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘It sinks.’
Seth’s shoulders dropped.
‘Well I am trying to fix it,’ said Ellie crossly. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little busy trying to figure out how to keep you safe.’
Ellie frowned at the underwater boat a little longer. She had first had the idea to build it when her brother was still alive, so that she could show him the sea. But like so many of her machines, it lay discarded and broken. How many times had she promised Anna that she’d fix it?
Anna!
In the chaos of their escape from the Oystery, Ellie had forgotten all about her. She had to get back to Orphanage Street, to make sure she was okay.
‘We need to go,’ she said, picking herself off the ground. Then she noticed Seth inspecting a cupboard that was over-stuffed to the point the wood had buckled. He reached for the latch.
‘Seth, don’t!’ she cried.
The doors burst open and a hundred things cascaded to the floor.
‘Oops,’ said Seth. ‘You’re so messy. Sorry, I didn’t think –’
‘Clearly,’ Ellie snapped, kneeling to gather it all up, her cheeks reddening. She grabbed a framed self-portrait of her mother, a teddy bear and – her breath caught – a blanket that had belonged to her brother. She hurriedly stuffed them back in the cupboard.
‘You forgot this,’ said Seth, picking up a slim book that had landed beside him.
‘Give that to me, please,’ Ellie said, her voice strangled.
Seth frowned at it, running his fingers over the lettering on the spine. ‘I’ve heard this name before,’ he said. ‘The Inquisitors mentioned it when they had me in the Keep.’
‘It’s really boring. You don’t want to read it. Why don’t you try one of these instead?’ Ellie went to grab a book from a workbench.
‘But who was he?’
Seth held up the book, revealing the title:
THE DIARY OF
CLAUDE HESTERMEYER
Ellie felt a hot coal roll around in her stomach. ‘Honestly, it’s really not –’
‘Ellie.’
She sighed. ‘All right. Claude Hestermeyer was the Vessel. The last one to be found. Twenty-three years ago the Enemy broke out of him, and tore off Hargrath’s arm.’
A Visit from Hargrath
It took them an hour to get back to Orphanage Street, winding through the underground tunnels. Seth read Hestermeyer’s diary by the dim lamplight, while Ellie strained to see the dial of her compass. He seemed to have much better eyesight than she did.
‘Why do you have his diary?’ Seth asked.
‘What?’ said Ellie distractedly. ‘Oh, that’s not the original. After Hestermeyer died, some of his colleagues at the university had a handful of copies printed. When the Inquisitors found out, they confiscated almost all of them, because they thought they were the work of the Enemy itself
. They must have missed my mum’s copy, though – I found it a few years ago, in among all the books she left to me.’
‘Have you read it?’
‘Of course,’ said Ellie, swallowing. ‘Many times.’
At last they came to a mouldy staircase, leading up to a rusty iron door that opened into the basement of Ellie’s workshop. The floorboards were rattling; someone was banging furiously at the front door.
‘That must be Anna!’ Ellie said eagerly. She motioned for Seth to hang back in case it wasn’t, or in case there was someone else with her. She hurried to the door, pulled it aside, and Anna burst in, red-faced and breathless.
‘Ellie! You’re okay!’ she said, hugging her tightly. Like Ellie’s clothes, hers were still damp, and she had taken off her shoes and socks. Her nose wrinkled. ‘Eugh, you smell terrible.’
‘We’ve been in the sewers,’ said Ellie, as Seth crept from his hiding place.
‘YOU!’ Anna cried, marching towards Seth. He watched warily as she stalked towards him, then looked all the more surprised when she hugged him.
‘You saved us, you freak!’ she cried happily. ‘Eugh, you smell terrible too. So what happened? You . . .’ Her smile wavered. ‘You ran off.’
‘I went to rescue Seth,’ said Ellie. ‘He’d got himself cornered by an Inquisitor.’
‘Oh,’ said Anna, chewing her lip. ‘I could have helped.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘It was too dangerous,’ she said.
‘Oh. Okay,’ said Anna glumly. ‘So . . . how did that fire start?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Ellie lied.
Anna scratched her head. ‘But you were yelling something at me back at the Oystery. About not being safe. You knew something was about to happen.’
Ellie stared at Anna a moment too long. ‘I didn’t. I . . .’
Anna let out a big sigh. ‘Why won’t you tell me?’
Ellie was unnerved by the gentleness in Anna’s voice. It was like she was trying very hard not to shout, or cry. Her cheeks had gone pink.
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