“Eat,” the cat said approvingly. She bounded onto Ember’s pillow and began washing her face, as if they were back in Ember’s room at Chesterfield.
“Father will be worried about you,” Ember scolded. Lionel St. George doted on the white cat. He allowed her to sleep on his favorite chair and jump on his desk, even though she overturned the inkwell and got black paw prints everywhere. If Puff sat on his lap in the evening, Lionel generally refrained from moving until she was finished. Ember had often marveled at how the most renowned Stormancer in the Empire had, in truth, less power than a small, spoiled cat.
“Now now now,” Puff muttered through her purrs. Ember buried her face in the cat’s fur. Eventually, soothed by Puff’s familiar snores, she drifted into an uneasy sleep, haunted by the glowing eyes of dragons that circled in the darkness.
Ember could barely concentrate during school the next day. Madame Rousseau had to call on her three times before Ember could provide the correct answer to her question (the date of Captain Robert Scott’s expedition to the South Pole). At one point, Madame Rousseau asked in a dignified voice if Ember had decided to write her next essay about the carpet, as she kept staring at it. The Doll Twins snickered. They had been keeping to themselves lately, and Moss had reported, with a shy glance at Ember, that Baxter, the boy, had not once tried to stick his head in a textbook. Ember ignored them—they were the least of her worries right now.
The Winterglass Hunt was tomorrow.
Ember felt lightheaded. Her stomach was so twisted up that she hadn’t been able to eat breakfast. A small, elaborately folded piece of paper landed in her lap, and she jumped. Confused, she looked up at the ceiling.
Someone sighed. Ember turned to find Nisha watching her. She held her usual thermos of hot chocolate in her hand—the paper, Ember realized, had a small smudge of brown on it. Nisha carried hot chocolate with her almost everywhere. She had declared it the world’s most Scientifically perfect food.
Nisha mimed unfolding the paper.
Puzzled, Ember did. On it was written: The library. Five o’clock.
She suppressed a groan and glanced back at the other girl, whose expression was uncharacteristically serious. She raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well?”
Fortunately, Ember was spared the need to reply. Madame Rousseau hit Nisha with a tricky algebra question, which she answered with ease, though she couldn’t have been paying attention. Ember turned back to the blackboard and pretended to be fascinated by the equations.
She slipped out the door during the second it took Nisha to pull on her coat. The Winterglass Hunt was tomorrow, and she still hadn’t figured out a proper plan. She sneaked past her aunt, too, who was in the storage hexagon gesticulating wildly at her assistants. Once she reached her room, Ember breathed a sigh of relief. Being around people all day was exhausting.
She froze in horror. Puff lay on her side on the rug, her tufted paws wrapped around a small object she was cheerfully muttering threats at.
“Oh, Puff, no!” Ember cried.
“Mine!” the cat wailed as Ember pried Montgomery from her claws. “Mine mine mine mine mine—”
Ember hurried the poor doorknob over to the light to examine its injuries. They weren’t severe, but the keyhole was scratched, and the stem had gnaw marks all over it.
“I’m sorry, Montgomery,” Ember said, and meant it. “I promise that I’ll fix you up. Please calm down.”
The doorknob would do no such thing. Ember had never seen it so furious—not only did Montgomery attempt to roll out of her hands, but it refused to be packed into her bag, shaking itself vigorously when Ember tried.
“Please,” Ember said, half in tears after a dozen failed attempts. She couldn’t leave the doorknob behind—it was her way back to her father, and Chesterfield, and she would need it in case of an emergency. “You have to come with me tomorrow—”
The doorknob, at its wits’ end, gave a mighty shake, flying into the air and whomping her in the face. Puff caterwauled with delight as her forbidden quarry tumbled to the ground, and then Ember was wrestling with both of them—the muttering, murderous cat and the slippery doorknob, which seemed to have decided that it would sooner die inflicting injury on its enemies than allow such an insult to its dignity to stand. Occupied as she was, Ember did not at first hear the knocking on her door, which grew more insistent as the fight progressed.
“Ember?” came a muffled voice. “Are you all right?”
“Die!” Puff yowled with horrible glee, sinking her teeth into the doorknob.
There was a startled silence from the other side of the door. “What?”
The cat let out an evil wail of triumph. “Quiet!” Ember snapped. She managed to seize Puff by the scruff of her neck, lifting her hissing and spitting into the air. The doorknob rolled exhaustedly under the bed to nurse its wounds. Ember marched to the door and threw it open, then flung the cat into the corridor—past Moss, who stood outside, gaping. With a hiss, Puff scampered off into the shadows.
“By the Sciences! What on earth was all that?”
Ember shoved her scratched hands into her pockets. “Ah—just the cat.”
Moss was staring at her face. Ember realized that she likely had a black eye from where the doorknob had struck her.
“She’s a very naughty cat,” she added.
“I didn’t know that you had a cat,” Moss said slowly. “Pets aren’t allowed at the Firefly.”
“Well, you know cats.” Ember was increasingly desperate to change the subject. “If there’s a rule, they’ll break it. Did you want something?”
Moss seemed about to argue further, but Ember gave him her best blank stare, and he shook his head, his face solemn. His hair was tangled with leaves as usual, and there was dirt under his fingernails, as if he’d been scrabbling around in garden soil. He looked at Ember’s half-packed bag. She hastily stepped in front of it.
“Would you come with me?” he said.
Ember, silently cursing her inability to lie her way out of things, followed him to a room at the opposite end of the hall. It was the same size as hers, only it held a bunk bed. Hanging on the wall was a chalkboard covered in mathematical equations. In one corner was a sketch of a lion. It was beautifully done, but faded with age. Whoever had written out the equations had carefully gone around it.
“Is this your room?” Ember said.
“Nisha’s,” Moss said. “She used to share it with her sister.”
That explained the bunk beds. Though Ember found it strange that both were made up and piled with stuffed animals, as if the room was still occupied by two girls. She recognized several of Nisha’s ribbons tied to the headboard of the lower bunk. On the wall beside the upper bunk was a row of sketches, done in the same hand as the lion on the chalkboard. They were slightly yellowed, their corners crinkled with age.
“Would you like to sit down?” Moss said in a formal voice, gesturing awkwardly to a chair.
“Thank you, no,” Ember said, equally awkward and formal. They gazed at the floor like two dinner guests who had run out of small talk. Ember thought of asking about the made-up bunk beds, but decided against it. Both Nisha and Moss changed the subject whenever Nisha’s sister came up, though Moss had told her, quietly, how she had died: from a cold contracted after a field trip with her parents, which had turned out to be pneumonia. Ember wondered what it would be like to know someone who had died—while her birth parents were dead, she couldn’t remember them. She wondered if it was better or worse that way.
“Nisha said you ignored her note,” Moss said suddenly, in a rush. “She didn’t think you would talk to her, so I decided to come myself. I came to say that you can’t do this.”
Ember blinked. “What?”
“Join the hunt,” Moss said. “You just can’t. Those dragons aren’t hurting anyone, and I don’t want to see them killed just so some toff can have his pocket watch jeweled.”
“I—” Ember was stunned. “How did you—”
“I heard you talking to Sir Abraham,” Moss said. “Professor Maylie sent me out to collect seaweed—she uses it as fertilizer. Didn’t you see me?”
“I—yes, but . . .” Moss had been at least fifty feet away. How could he have heard what she had said to Sir Abraham? But before she could puzzle over it, Moss rushed on.
“Tell me you’re not actually planning to join the hunt.” He was speaking faster and faster. “All the Scientists are against it. Even Professor Maylie says it’s inhumane, and she doesn’t have many opinions that don’t relate to flowers or photosynthesis—”
“You don’t understand,” Ember said, alarmed. She had never heard Moss utter this many words all at once—it was as if they were bursting out of him, like water from a dam.
“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “I thought we were friends. That means you should listen to me. Are you doing this to impress Prince Gideon? Or is it—”
Ember grabbed his arm. She didn’t know what else to do to make him stop talking. Moss’s skin was disconcertingly cool, and he flinched under Ember’s warm hand. She quickly released him, feeling as if she’d touched a stone.
“Prince Gideon is a clod. I couldn’t care less about impressing him. As for the rest of it,” Ember added quickly, in case he decided to get going again, “I didn’t know we were friends. I didn’t agree to that.”
Moss looked perplexed. “You don’t agree to be friends with someone,” he said. “You’ve been my friend since you saved me from Baxter.”
Ember didn’t know what to say to this. “Moss, did you tell anyone that I was thinking about joining the Winterglass Hunt?”
“Just Nisha. And she—”
“You can’t tell anyone else.” Ember’s voice was low and fierce. “My aunt will never let me go.”
Moss’s mouth twisted. “But—”
“I’m not joining the hunt to kill dragons,” she interrupted. “I’m going to sabotage it.”
“To sabotage it?”
“Yes.” Determination stirred within her. “I want to make sure it goes so badly that no hunter in his right mind will want to come back.”
Moss stared. “Are you—will they let you join?”
“As long as you’re of noble blood, and at least twelve, you can join,” Ember said. She folded her arms and gave him a stubborn look. “My father’s a baron, and I’m twelve. So I’m joining. My aunt won’t stop me, and neither will you.”
Moss was silent for so long that Ember wondered if he’d been struck dumb. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face.
“That’s brilliant,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
This was the last thing Ember had expected him to say. “To do?”
“I’m good with plants,” Moss said. “Really good. Maybe that can be useful. I know all the ones you can eat—and the ones you can’t.” A sly note entered his voice.
Ember’s mouth fell open. “I don’t want to poison anyone!”
“Not poison. But I could give someone a nasty stomachache. Can you imagine all those tough hunters setting out on the ice, bows drawn, and then suddenly all they can think about is finding a bathroom?” He laughed. “And you know Nisha’s good at math, right? I mean, really good. She can do trigonometry in her head! I’m sure that can be useful somehow.”
Ember was flummoxed. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that Nisha and Moss would want to help her. In truth, she hadn’t really thought about them at all.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea. Surely your parents wouldn’t be very happy about it.”
She realized her mistake a second too late. Moss’s face flushed, and he looked at the ground.
“I mean . . .” She felt as if the words were twisting up inside her. Finally she said, “I’m sorry. I forgot that you don’t have parents.”
Moss forced a smile, but it was too bitter to count. “Maybe I do,” he said. “But wherever they are, they don’t know about any of this, do they?”
“It’s kind of you to offer to help,” Ember said. “The thing is, I don’t—”
“Hang on!” Moss said, his expression lightening again. “If we’re going to talk strategy, we need Nisha here. She’s like a general!”
Ember, who had watched Nisha command the construction of an architecturally sound, twelve-foot-high snow fort, was aware of this. “I—”
But a second later, Nisha was there, having been lurking in the corridor the whole time. “I heard everything!” she declared. “Oh, this is so exciting, Ember! I have so many ideas!”
“Already?” Ember said faintly. She was beginning to feel that things were spiraling out of control.
“Of course! Have you considered speed and distance equations, for example?” she said, brushing a purple ribbon aside. “And the weight of the sleds divided by the number of dogs and their maximum payload? If we can alter those ratios even a little—not enough for the hunters to notice, of course—the dogs will be too tired to pull the sleds after a day or two!”
Moss hooted with laughter. “Leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere with a bad case of the trots!”
They were both laughing. Ember burst out, somewhat desperately, “But you can’t come with me! It just won’t work!”
Moss and Nisha stopped laughing, and an awkward silence fell.
“But you need us,” Moss said, exchanging looks with Nisha. “You need a second.”
“A second?”
“Yes—every hunter has one. Someone to prepare your food and set up your tent and organize your supplies. Were you going to do all that by yourself? While single-handedly sabotaging the hunt?”
“I—I never thought about that,” Ember said. Now that she had, the prospect alarmed her. She had no idea how to set up a tent, and she had never cooked anything in her life. All her meals at Chesterfield were prepared by servants. Her father often joked that he was so terrible at cooking he could burn water, and Ember had formed the impression that it was a rare and difficult art, like playing the violin or locating a horn-toed tree frog in the Amazon. She suddenly realized the magnitude of what she had been planning to do, and how unprepared she was. She flushed, thinking of her pack back in her room, into which she had thrown a few sweaters, and not much else.
Nisha was nodding. “And it makes sense for you to bring both of us, because after all, Moss and I are only half the size of the other seconds.”
“Are you sure seconds aren’t supposed to be . . . well, adults?”
“I’m almost an adult!” Nisha stuck her fingers in her hair and draped it floppily atop her head. “There. Don’t I look eighteen at least?”
Ember shook her head despairingly. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourselves into.”
“I’ve gone camping with Professor Maylie,” Moss said. “She buries seeds out on the glacier and then studies which ones survive the winter.”
“And I can cook!” Nisha said. “Well, sort of. I’ve never done it, but I’ve watched my mother. She and Aditi used to cook together.” She fell silent.
“I know how to travel in Antarctica,” Moss promised. “I’ll help Professor Maylie pack her gear.”
And with that, Ember was out of arguments. She felt faintly stunned. Apart from her father, and now Aunt Myra, she had never heard anyone speak of dragons favorably. For a moment, her vision swam. She felt an unfamiliar sort of pleasure listening to Nisha and Moss invent increasingly outlandish ways to sabotage the Winterglass Hunt, particularly as they were clearly deferring to her, seeming eager to see which ideas she approved of. It was all extremely strange, though not exactly bad.
“Nisha?” There was a quiet knock on the door, and then a thin, bespectacled man pushed it open. He looked quite a lot like Nisha. “Your mother’s looking for you.”
“Why?” Nisha’s voice was more impatient than seemed necessary—the man was so soft-spoken that Ember couldn’t imagine him offending anybody. “What have I done n
ow?”
The man gave her a mild look that Nisha returned with a glare. He sighed. “Nothing, honey. But you said you were interested in seeing the canyon. Your mother’s given her team the day off, so she has time to—”
“I wanted to go to the canyon last week,” Nisha interrupted. “With Moss and Professor Maylie. I don’t want to go now. Ember and I have plans.”
“Ember?” The man adjusted his glasses, as if he’d only just noticed she was there.
Nisha sighed. “Ember, this is my father, Professor Singh.”
“Hello, Ember,” the man said gravely. He shook her hand, as if she were an adult. “Your aunt talks about you often. It’s a pleasure to meet another child with an interest in Science.”
“We’re going to do our homework in the library,” Nisha said. She added pointedly, “Unless that’s not allowed?”
Her father gave Ember a wan smile. “That’s fine, honey. I’ll let your mother know.”
He went out as quietly as he had come. The door barely clicked.
Ember expected Nisha to offer an explanation, but she carried right on as if her father had never been there. “So how are we going to do this? How about we brainstorm?” Her face lit up. “I’ll be the notetaker!”
“All right, look,” Ember said. “It’s all well and good to come up with ideas, but we can’t properly plan anything until we know what we’re dealing with. I don’t even know where the hunters are going.”
“I’ll talk to Madame Rousseau,” Nisha volunteered. “She’s friendly with the prince’s steward—I bet he knows everything.”
“Good,” Ember said, nodding. “Now, Moss, you said you’ve gone camping with Professor Maylie. Do you think you could borrow her supplies without her noticing?”
The boy nodded. “She keeps everything in one of the storage sheds.”
Nisha was bouncing up and down, ribbons dancing. “This is so exciting!”
Ember wasn’t sure about that. But as the three of them went to the library, chattering together in hushed voices, she was surprised to realize that the panicky fear she had felt only an hour ago had shrunk to the quietest of murmurs.
Ember and the Ice Dragons Page 10