Wundersmith, The Calling of Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend

  “Like what?”

  “Look—roller derby on Friday afternoon, with Linda.”

  Thaddea looked doubtful. “What’s so cool about Linda?”

  “She plays roller derby, for starters. And bass guitar. And she’s a centaur, that’s pretty cool. Oh, and look—you and Morrigan have a workshop in Magnificat care with Dr. Bramble on Tues— oh. No.” She frowned and took out a pen to draw a line through the class. “Sorry, I need to update this. Poor old Dr. Bramble’s Magnificub has gone missing. She’s distraught.”

  “Missing?” said Morrigan, looking up from her own timetable.

  “Mmm. She swears it was stolen, but I’m pretty sure it did a runner… I mean, Magnificats as a species are known for their independent streak. The poor thing was probably sick of being cooped up.” Miss Cheery nudged Thaddea, who was looking sulky. “Don’t worry, I’ll find you something else just as interesting. I promise.”

  Morrigan frowned. This was the third disappearance she’d heard about that week. Cassiel, Paximus Luck, and now the Magnificub.

  “Miss,” Francis piped up. “What’s this class—Recognizing Mesmerism?”

  “I’ve got that one too,” said Anah. “Wednesday morning.”

  Morrigan checked; she had the same class.

  “So do I,” said Thaddea.

  “And me,” added Mahir. “Eight o’clock.”

  “Ah,” said the conductor. “Yeah. The Elders think this’ll be a useful skill for all of you to learn, since you have a mesmerist in your unit.”

  Cadence’s head shot up. She scowled and gave a little huff of indignation, but Miss Cheery ignored this, her expression calm and neutral.

  Hawthorne looked bewildered. “We’ve got a what?”

  “A mesmerist.”

  “Huh.” He frowned. “Do we?”

  “Yup,” said Miss Cheery, as patiently as ever but with the tiniest hint of a sigh. “Cadence Blackburn is a mesmerist. She’s sitting right next to you.”

  Hawthorne turned to Cadence and gave a little start of surprise. “Oh. Blimey.”

  “Yeah, exactly,” said Miss Cheery. “A course in recognizing mesmerism is required for all of you, to help you remember your new friend, and so that you know what to look for when Cadence is putting her excellent knack to use.”

  “But, miss,” said Cadence, looking appalled, “how am I supposed to mesmerize them if—”

  “That’s just the point, Cadence,” said Miss Cheery gently. “You’re not supposed to use your knack against your unit. Sisters and brothers, remember? Loyal for life?”

  “I said I’d be loyal, I didn’t say I’d never mesmerize anyone! How come they all get to use their knacks just as they like but I can’t?”

  “That’s not true. Arch isn’t allowed to pickpocket any of you. Francis isn’t allowed to make you sob into your soup. You’ve all sworn an oath.”

  Cadence gave her a calculating look. “Since I’ve sworn an oath, why do you have to teach them how to recognize mesmerism? If you trust Arch not to pickpocket anyone, why don’t you trust that I won’t mesmerize them?”

  Miss Cheery glanced down, looking as if she thought Cadence had a point. She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I understand your frustration, Cadence. No, really—I do. But mesmerism and pickpocketing are two very different knacks, with very different potential for consequences. Some of the patrons thought—”

  “That I couldn’t be trusted,” Cadence finished for her, eyes blazing. “That I’m a mesmerist, so that makes me a criminal. Typical.”

  Morrigan thought back to the Show Trial, when a film of Cadence’s various mesmerist exploits had, in fact, shown her vandalizing public property and handcuffing a police officer with the officer’s own handcuffs. Morrigan raised an eyebrow at Hawthorne but didn’t say anything.

  “Nobody thinks you’re a criminal, Cadence. I promise. They’re just being extra cautious.”

  But Cadence didn’t look at all placated. Morrigan thought she’d been off with them all morning. Earlier at Station 919, Morrigan and her fellow graysleeves had all been desperate to know what was on Sub-Six, Sub-Seven, and Sub-Eight, but when Morrigan asked, Cadence refused to even acknowledge the question. That said, Lambeth had done the same when Thaddea questioned her, so perhaps they’d been instructed not to say anything.

  As soon as the Hometrain doors opened Cadence stormed off, over the footbridge and out of the station. The other scholars lingered on the platform, seeming to forget about Cadence again, chatting amiably, still comparing timetables.

  “What have you got this morning?” Hawthorne asked Morrigan.

  “Mindfulness and Meditation,” Morrigan read aloud, “on Sub-Four. Then Stealth, Evasion, and Concealment on Sub-Five after lunch.”

  “I’ve got that this afternoon too,” said Hawthorne. “Look—Stealth, Evasion, and Concealment. I’m not sure I need that class, though. I mean, who do you know that’s stealthier than me?”

  Morrigan tilted her head. “Shall I list them?”

  “CONDUCTOR CHEERY!”

  A cutting cry heralded the arrival of Ms. Dearborn. The Scholar Mistress was stalking toward their carriage, clutching a piece of paper tightly in her fist. Hawthorne, Morrigan, and a few of the other scholars stopped in their tracks. There was something about Dearborn’s voice that made it impossible not to.

  Miss Cheery stuck her head out of the carriage door. “Scholar Mistress.” She smiled uncertainly. “Morning. How can I help?”

  Dearborn scowled at her, a deep frown knotting her forehead. “We need to discuss this.” She tossed the piece of paper at Miss Cheery, who scrambled to catch it.

  “Morrigan’s timetable,” she observed. Morrigan froze at the mention of her name. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “Quite a few things, yes.” Dearborn snatched the timetable back from Miss Cheery with a sneer. “Almost all of them, in fact. Mindfulness and Meditation with Cadel Clary? No.” She took out a pen and drew a line through the class with a theatrical swipe. “Self-Defense Through Unarmed Combat? I think not.” Swipe. “Treasure Diving for Beginners? Stealth, Evasion, and Concealment? No and no. What exactly are you trying to turn this girl into?” she hissed. “A weapon of mass destruction?”

  Morrigan frowned. She’d thought all her classes sounded relatively tame, compared to some of the other scholars’ timetables. On Anah’s she’d spotted a master class called How to Stop a Human Heart (Temporarily), and Cadence would be taking several rather alarmingly titled workshops that included Identifying Arsenic, The Art of Interrogation, Amateur Surveillance Techniques, and Bomb-Defusing Basics.

  “What’s wrong with Mindfulness and Meditation?” Miss Cheery asked.

  “The girl is a Wun—” Dearborn caught herself, looking over her shoulder before continuing in a whisper, “The girl is a Wundersmith, Miss Cheery. Is that what we want, a mindful Wundersmith who could use her very mindful mind to mindfully send us all to an early grave?”

  Morrigan almost laughed out loud at the idea that she could meditate the Scholar Mistress to death. Hawthorne had less self-control and had to cough to cover up his snort.

  Miss Cheery didn’t seem to find it so funny. Morrigan saw a stormy expression flash across her face, but the conductor took a moment to compose herself before speaking. “What classes would you like Morrigan to take, Scholar Mistress?”

  “I’ve amended the timetable,” Dearborn said shortly, handing her a second piece of paper. “See that you implement the changes immediately.” She turned to go and was nearly at the footbridge when Miss Cheery called out.

  “Scholar Mistress—I think you’ve made a mistake. This timetable only has one class on it.”

  Dearborn stared back at her. “I don’t make mistakes, Miss Cheery. Good day.”

  As soon as the Scholar Mistress marched away, Morrigan and Hawthorne hurried back aboard Hometrain, peeking over Miss Cheery’s shoulder to see what had caused her look of dismay.

  “History
of Heinous Wundrous Acts with Professor Hemingway Q. Onstald.” Morrigan was confused, and sorely disappointed. “Is that… is that it? Just that one class? Every day?”

  “Apparently,” said Miss Cheery in a voice tight with controlled emotion. “I’ve never heard of it before, so it must be a new class they created just for you. How very… exciting!”

  But Morrigan wasn’t fooled.

  Miss Cheery gave her an anxious smile. “Better go on now, or you’ll be late.”

  Hemingway Q. Onstald was more human than tortoise, but he was still a lot tortoise.

  Morrigan knew that in Wunimal circles, the professor would be considered a Wunimal Minor—meaning that he had more humanoid characteristics than unnimal (unlike the almost entirely bullish Elder Saga, an obvious Wunimal Major). Living at the Hotel Deucalion had given her a solid education in Wunimal etiquette. They often hosted Wunimal guests, and both Jupiter and Kedgeree had made sure Morrigan understood the difference between Wunimals and unnimals. Wunimals were sentient, self-aware, intelligent creatures capable of complexities such as language, invention, and artistic expression, just like humans. Unnimals were not.

  Morrigan had also learned the proper way to address them—that a Wunimal bear, for instance, was not referred to as a bear (which would be highly insulting), but a bearwun. To confuse a bear with a bearwun was an enormous and near-unforgivable faux pas. Morrigan knew this because she had accidentally done so and it had taken mountains of apologies, charm, and complimentary picnic baskets for Jupiter and Kedgeree to appease their valued bearwun guest. (Her “bearwun, get one free” joke didn’t go down very well either.)

  Fenestra, on the other hand, was technically neither Wunimal nor unnimal. Morrigan had asked her about it, and Fen had replied scathingly, “Would you ask a human if they were a Wunimal? Would you ask a centaur if they were an unnimal? No. I’m a Magnificat. End of.” Fen had accepted Morrigan’s bewildered apology, but only after replacing the feathers in her pillow with a collection of hair pulled from every shower drain in the hotel.

  It was hard to ignore the enormous domed carapace on Onstald’s back, or his leathery greenish-gray skin, or the fact that at the end of his trousers there were round, scaly, soft-padded tortoise feet where one might expect a smart pair of brogues to be.

  The rest of him, though, was quite ordinary. His head was mostly skin, with a few strands of white hair poking up here and there, and his tiny, pale green, pink-rimmed eyes squinted as if he desperately needed glasses. He wore formal black academic robes over an old-fashioned suit, complete with a plaid bow tie and a mismatched waistcoat bearing stains down the front.

  His classroom in the Humanities Department on Sub-Four was just the sort of place you’d expect a part-man, part-tortoise to spend his days teaching (if, Morrigan thought, she’d ever taken the time to consider such a thing before now). There were rows of wooden desks, of course, with straight-backed chairs, and the walls were lined with bookshelves filled to bursting with serious-looking clothbound volumes. But beneath it all, where there ought to have been floorboards, there was instead cool, grassy ground, and one corner of the room was taken up entirely by a pond.

  Professor Onstald was perched on a stool by the blackboard when Morrigan entered his classroom. He peered at her over his nose and indicated a desk in the front row, heaving long, slow, deep breaths that rattled in his chest. Morrigan sat, and waited.

  “You,” he finally said, ponderously, pausing for breath before continuing, “you are the girl the Elders say is… a Wundersmith.”

  He didn’t have any teeth at all and his wrinkled, gummy lips seemed to collapse into his mouth like a sinkhole. Tiny bits of spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth. Morrigan wrinkled her nose, trying not to imagine the spit flying off and hitting her in the face.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning back as a precaution. “That’s me.”

  She was surprised at the question. She’d thought only the Scholar Mistresses and Miss Cheery were supposed to know about her… little problem.

  He frowned down at her. “Yes… Professor.”

  “Yes, Professor.”

  “Hmm.” He nodded, gazing into the middle distance.

  For some time after that, he said nothing. Morrigan started to wonder if he’d forgotten where he was. She was just about to clear her throat when he took a great wheezing breath and looked back at her. “And do you… understand… what that means?”

  “Not really,” Morrigan admitted, then added hastily, “Professor.”

  “You have heard of… the last living… Wundersmith, I… presume?”

  “Ezra Squall?”

  Professor Onstald nodded, a tiny little bobbing nod that went on for some time, almost like he’d lost control of his head and was waiting for it to stop. “What do you… know of… him?”

  Morrigan sighed quietly. “I know that he’s the evilest man who ever lived and everyone hates him.”

  “Correct,” said Professor Onstald in a heavy voice. His eyes drooped a little; Morrigan thought he might fall asleep. There was also the possibility that she might fall asleep. “That is correct. And do you know… why… he was the… evilest—”

  “Because he was a man who became a monster,” Morrigan interrupted. She didn’t wish to be rude, but she also couldn’t bear to wait for him any longer. “A man who made monsters of his own.” She was quoting what Kedgeree had told her about Ezra Squall the year before, and she tried to make her voice dispassionate, but couldn’t quite manage it.

  The truth was, no matter what Jupiter said, no matter how much he insisted that being a Wundersmith didn’t mean being evil, Morrigan found it hard to shake the thought that somewhere, deep down, she was just like Ezra Squall. Hadn’t Squall told her as much? Hadn’t he looked into her eyes, and smiled, and been pleased? I see you, Morrigan Crow. There is black ice at the heart of you.

  “And because of the Courage Square Massacre,” Morrigan added as an afterthought. “When he killed the people who tried to stop him from taking over Nevermoor.”

  Professor Onstald nodded again, drawing another rattling breath. “That is… correct. But… that is not… all.”

  The professor stood up from his stool painfully slowly, and Morrigan winced as she heard his bones groan and creak. He shuffled inch by inch across the dusty classroom and, approximately ten years later, arrived at the bookshelves on the far wall. He lifted from the shelves such an enormous tome that it looked like it might fall to the ground and take the old tortoisewun with it. Morrigan leapt up from her chair to help him, and together they carried it to a desk and dropped it down with a great oof, a cloud of dust puffing out from its pages.

  The professor wiped away a thick coat of dust from the cover with the sleeve of his academic robe. Morrigan squinted at the old-fashioned writing.

  “An abridged history,” Morrigan read aloud. “What does that mean?”

  “It means… edited. Abbreviated. Shortened. The full… history… would undoubtedly fill several dozen… more volumes.”

  Morrigan raised her eyebrows at this, silently thanking her lucky stars that he had only bothered to write an abridged version.

  “I have been… instructed… to oversee your thorough… education… on the history of your… predecessors.” Onstald paused here, coughing from all the dust, and it turned into such a dreadful fit that for a moment Morrigan was afraid she might have to report to the Scholar Mistress that her teacher had died ten minutes into their first lesson. Eventually, however, he got his lungs under control and continued. “So that you have a full and… unflinching grasp… of the dangers and… disasters… Wundersmiths present to… us all.”

  Morrigan’s heart sank. This was what she’d be learning? All about the many terrible things Ezra Squall had done?

  How tedious.

  She already knew he was a monster. Why did she need a book about his many evil exploits?

  Professor Onstald tapped the cover of the colossal book with his fingertips. “
You will… read… chapters one to… three… for the rest of… your lesson.” He checked his fob watch. “You have… three… hours.”

  While he tottered—slowly, slowly—from the room, Morrigan stared miserably at the cover of An Abridged History of the Wundrous Acts Spectrum for some time before at last, with a sigh, she opened it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Chronicling the misdeeds of the First-Line Wundersmith, Brilliance Amadeo, her predecessor the Wundersmith Deng Li, his predecessor the Wundersmith Christobel Fallon-Dunham, her predecessor the…

  “Who are these people?” Morrigan called out to Professor Onstald just as he reached the door.

  “Hmm?”

  Jupiter had told her that there were other Wundersmiths. But she’d never really thought about any of them as actual people. It was quite enough to worry about one known Wundersmith. “It’s just… well, where’s Brilliance Amadeo now? Is she still—”

  “She’s dead.”

  A dull weight dropped into Morrigan’s stomach.

  “Your kind are… all… dead,” continued Professor Onstald. “And if they’re… not”—he blinked his watery eyes at her and took a long, rasping breath—“they should be.”

  Morrigan hadn’t thought she could feel worse about being a Wundersmith, but she was wrong. Professor Onstald’s book read on like a laundry list of everything that “her kind” had done wrong for the past several hundred years. It wasn’t just that Squall himself was evil. It wasn’t just that a Wundersmith’s powers were threatening by their very nature. Not according to Professor Onstald.

  His book painted a most unflattering picture of a succession of selfish, destructive, and power-mad people whose pleasure-seeking lifestyles were propped up by the royal family and the government and funded by taxing the poor. For centuries, Wundersmiths had lived on the coin of ordinary Nevermoorians and repaid them, according to Onstald’s book, with miseries and injustices both great and small.

  At their best, Wundersmiths were self-indulgent eccentrics, abusing their positions of privilege by creating Wundrous vanity projects that inconvenienced many and benefited few. Like Decima Kokoro, who’d demanded public funds and resources to create a Wundrous skyscraper made entirely of water—an expensive and hazardous folly that resulted in several people drowning before it was shut down. Or Odbuoy Jemmity, who’d demolished an entire block of houses in a poverty-stricken borough to build an adventure park, which upon completion he named after himself and never allowed anyone inside.