Last year, there had been reports of disturbances on the Gossamer—the invisible, intangible web of energy that tied together everything in the whole realm, living and dead. Ezra Squall had been locked out of Nevermoor for more than a hundred years—kept at bay by police, military forces, and sorcery of all kinds, and, more than anything, by the powerful magic of Nevermoor itself. But he’d found a way to visit undetected, by using the Gossamer Line, a highly dangerous, top secret mode of travel that allowed him to leave his body behind in the Republic while he wandered—free and incorporeal—all over the city from which he was exiled.
It was impossible to stop him from using the Gossamer Line, because it didn’t technically exist. At least, not in the physical realm.
With a shudder, Morrigan wondered where Squall was now, and what he was doing, and if—when—he would visit her on the Gossamer again.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CHARLTON FIVE
Neheran dunas flor.”
Arch frowned in concentration, letting beef stew dribble from his spoon back into his dish. “Nehelans doonaz—”
“Neherrrrrran,” Mahir corrected him, rolling his Rs. “Neheran dunas flor.”
“Neherrrran dunas florrrr,” repeated Morrigan. She tried to copy Mahir’s fluid pronunciation but sounded a bit like she was gargling mud instead. The rest of the unit were also rolling their Rs around their table in the dining hall, with varying success. Morrigan thought Thaddea’s attempt sounded the closest. “Neherrran dunas florrrr.”
“Good.” Mahir gave Morrigan a little nod as he reached for a bread roll. “Well, not good, but better than Arch.” They all laughed at that, even Arch himself.
It had taken weeks, but Unit 919 had gradually begun to thaw toward Morrigan. Or at least, they’d stopped greeting her on the platform each morning with looks of profoundest dread. Anah no longer squeaked in fright every time Morrigan sat near her on Hometrain. Francis had asked her to taste-test a batch of his strawberry tarts for quality control—a task she took to with great enthusiasm. One bite brought on the specific sensation of bittersweet late-summer nostalgia… which sent Francis straight back to the test kitchen, as he’d actually been aiming for the carefree abandon of a midsummer music festival.
Even bad-tempered Thaddea had offered once to kick an older boy in the shins when he’d loudly called Morrigan “the Knackless One” on the steps outside Proudfoot House. Morrigan strongly suspected that Thaddea would enjoy any excuse to kick someone in the shins, but nonetheless… Morrigan was beginning to feel that she might indeed have, if not eight brothers and sisters, at least eight friends.
When she’d expressed a passing interest in learning Serendese, Mahir had insisted on teaching them all a few key phrases over lunch.
“Neheran dunas flor!” Hawthorne called out to an older scholar passing by with a wave of his hand. The girl merely looked perplexed.
“Nice,” said Mahir, smirking. “You said that perfectly.”
Hawthorne looked pleased with himself as he took a big mouthful of milk. “Whassit mean?”
Mahir grinned, glancing conspiratorially at Morrigan. “You have a bum for a face.”
Hawthorne snorted milk and it dribbled down his chin as the others erupted into laughter. “Serious?”
Mahir shrugged. “It’s my favorite romance language.”
This defrosting of unit relations made life at Wunsoc infinitely more bearable for Morrigan, even though Ms. Dearborn had continued to reject every single one of Miss Cheery’s suggested additions to her class timetable. At least Morrigan still had Decoding Nevermoor to look forward to on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—especially since, as it turned out, she was excellent at it. Almost every lesson, Mildmay had cause to proclaim her genius. Morrigan strongly suspected that the eye-rolling of most of her unit had turned from openly mocking to sort of… begrudgingly respectful? Maybe that was her imagination, but they did often ask for her help in class, which gave her a feeling she’d never really had before. At last she’d found something she was good at, something that made her special—and it had nothing to do with being cursed, and nothing to do with being a Wundersmith.
All in all, things were going better than Morrigan could have hoped.
Until the morning when the note arrived.
“We should take it to the Elders.”
“Can’t you read? It clearly says—”
“I KNOW what it says, but I still think we should—”
“We are NOT telling the Elders.”
“Who died and made you the king of this unit?”
Morrigan had emerged from her mystery door onto Station 919 to find the rest of her unit gathered in a tight scrum, peering down at a piece of paper—except Lambeth, who stood a little apart as usual.
“Oh, I’m glad you’ve finally remembered we’re a UNIT, Thaddea.” That was Hawthorne’s voice. He snatched the note from Mahir’s hand. “If you think for a second I’m going to let any of you—”
“What’s going on?” asked Morrigan.
As one, their eight faces turned to her, expressions ranging from forehead-wrinkled worry to blazing anger. Hawthorne merely looked grim, and he stepped forward to silently hand her the note.
Morrigan read.
We know the terrible truth about Unit 919.
We have a list of demands.
If you want your secret to stay a secret,
you’ll await our instructions.
Don’t tell a soul.
If you do, we’ll know.
And we’ll tell the whole Society.
“The terrible truth about…?” She turned from one distressed face to the next. Lambeth looked particularly agitated, and Morrigan wondered if it was because of the note, or if she was tuning in to something bad about to happen. “What does that—”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” snapped Thaddea. “It’s talking about you. The truth about you being a Wundersmith. We’re being blackmailed, because of you.”
“Shut up, Thaddea,” growled Hawthorne.
“Who sent it?” asked Morrigan. “Where did you find it?”
“It was sitting here on the platform,” he told her. “Anah found it.”
Anah was trembling. “Thaddea’s right. We ought to tell the Elders,” she said. “Or Miss Cheery! She’ll know what to do.”
“But who could have left this on our platform?” said Morrigan, frowning. “I thought only our Hometrain could come here.”
“Who cares how it got here?” said Francis. He paced the platform, his light brown skin sporting a faintly sweaty sheen. “How did they find out about you? If the rest of the Society finds out, we’ll be expelled, remember? My aunt will kill me if I get expelled. My whole family is in the Society. Both sides! Four generations on Dad’s side, seven on Mum’s.”
“Calm down, Francis,” said Hawthorne.
“You don’t understand! My great-grandmother was Elder Omowunmi Akinfenwa! Fitzwilliams and Akinfenwas practically worship the Wundrous Society. I can’t get kicked out.”
Thaddea shook her head. “We won’t get kicked out if someone else tells everyone. It’s not our problem, Francis. I say whoever they are, they can knock themselves out. Let them tell. Maybe they’ll get found out, then they’ll be the ones who are expelled.”
“Yeah, but we’re the only ones who are supposed to know,” Mahir pointed out. “If it gets leaked, we could still get the blame.”
Morrigan stared at the wall across the train tracks. She wasn’t thinking about getting expelled. She was thinking about how it would feel to have the whole Society know she was a Wundersmith. Right now, people were curious about her, and perhaps a bit suspicious. But if they knew the truth… it would be just like being cursed again. Everyone hating her. Everyone fearing her. It would be as if she’d never left Jackalfax at all.
An old, familiar panic unfurled in the pit of her stomach, like a bear waking from hibernation. Heat rose in her chest.
Thaddea snatched the note back fr
om Hawthorne. “This note proves it’s not our fault, though! I’m taking it to the Elders. I don’t care what you—OW!”
In a flash, the note burned up in her hand, and the ashes fluttered to the ground.
“How—how did they do that?” Thaddea put her burned fingers in her mouth. Her eyes darted around the station, looking for whoever had magically sent the letter up in flames. No one was there.
Morrigan swallowed. She could almost taste the ash, right at the back of her throat.
“Well… that solves that problem,” Hawthorne said uneasily.
Thaddea scowled. “We can still—”
“We are NOT throwing Morrigan under the bus.”
“Yeah you have to say that, you’re her friend.”
Hawthorne made a strangled noise of outrage. “We’re ALL supposed to be friends! We’re supposed to be a unit. Sisters and brothers, remember? We’re supposed to be a FAMILY.”
“I never asked to have a WUNDERSMITH in my family!” snarled Thaddea.
“Stop,” said a calm, low voice from somewhere near the back of the group. They all turned to Cadence in surprise. Once again, it was as if they hadn’t known she was there. “We’re not telling the Elders. We’re going to keep this to ourselves for now. Wait and see what happens.”
“Stop mesmering us!” Thaddea protested, a slight note of panic in her voice.
Cadence scoffed. “I’m not mesmerizing you, you moron, I’m telling you what to do—there’s a difference. If I wanted to mesmerize you, you wouldn’t even know it. Those stupid classes obviously haven’t taught you anything.” A distant rumbling sounded. The platform began to vibrate ever so slightly and a light from the tunnel announced the arrival of their Hometrain. “We don’t even know what these people want yet. Let’s just wait for the next note. Then we’ll decide what to do. Agreed?”
One by one, the scholars all nodded—even Thaddea, who looked as if that simple act of concession were torture.
The train screeched to a halt and Miss Cheery stuck her head out, beckoning them inside. Morrigan hung back.
“Um,” she said to Cadence, suddenly feeling awkward, “thanks for that.”
Cadence shrugged. “Don’t thank me yet. I’m just waiting to see what the next note says.”
When the others departed Proudfoot Station for their first lessons, Morrigan lingered awhile, watching the morning trains come and go across the platforms. She puzzled over the note. Who could possibly know she was a Wundersmith? Had someone from 919 betrayed her already? Or one of their patrons? Morrigan thought immediately of Baz Charlton, and Francis’s aunt Hester, who had so vehemently opposed Morrigan’s admission to the Society. Could one of them have let it slip, or… or could they have written the note?
Surely not, Morrigan thought. Surely even odious Baz Charlton wasn’t that stupid. Would either of them risk being exiled from Wunsoc, just so they could get a bunch of junior scholars to give in to whatever was on their list of demands? Baz and Hester didn’t want to blackmail her—they wanted her gone.
Morrigan took a deep breath and left the station, starting down the woodland path to Proudfoot House. With an hour to kill before her dreaded Heinous History lesson (Professor Onstald always needed much longer to get to his classroom than the other teachers), perhaps she could spend the extra time on Sub-Three, studying the Living Map. The idea gave her a cheerful boost, and she walked a little faster.
“Oi. You! Knackless! Come back here!”
Morrigan’s good mood evaporated as she paused and turned around. There was a small knot of older scholars following her along the path. Three boys, two girls. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”
“Were you talking to me?” mimicked one of the girls. She was tall with long, stringy hair on which someone had done an appalling green dye job. Her head looked like it was covered in moss. She caught up to where Morrigan was, her friends close behind. “Yes, half-wit. Do you see anyone else here without a knack?”
“I have a knack,” Morrigan said. “It’s just—”
“Classified, yeah,” said one of the boys, coming to stand over Morrigan. He must be a fourth-or fifth-year, she thought—he was so big and broad-shouldered he could have blocked out the sun. “We know. Our conductor said we’re not allowed to ask about it. So we’re not asking. You’re going to tell us.”
Morrigan looked at him blankly. “But I can’t tell you. It’s classified. That means—”
“We know what it means,” said the green-haired girl. “We also know you’re an illegal. Smuggled in from the Republic.”
Morrigan steeled herself. “No I’m not, I’m from—”
“You should know, nobody likes liars around here,” spat the girl, “and nobody likes secrets. Not among scholars. We’re meant to stick together, aren’t we? So you’d best show us your knack. Now. Or would you like to see mine first?” Her mouth split into a malicious grin. She took five spiky steel throwing stars from her pockets, holding them between her fingers like little silvery claws.
“Um, no, thank you,” Morrigan said, swallowing as she turned around, walking faster toward Proudfoot House.
The other girl—short, pinch-faced, and, unlike her four graysleeve companions, wearing a shirt of Arcane white—jumped in front to block her way, laughing. “Go on, Heloise.”
Morrigan felt herself lifted into the air by her arms and pinned against a tree trunk at the edge of the path, the broad-shouldered boy on one side and the surprisingly strong Arcane girl on the other. She struggled against them, trying to pull herself free, to no avail.
“Let go of me!” she demanded.
“Or what? Are you gonna call for your conductor to come and save you?” Heloise made an exaggerated pout. “Go on then, if you’re such a baby, go and call—”
“MISS CHEERY!” shouted Morrigan, who was not at all above calling for her conductor, no matter what they thought of her. “HELP—”
But a sweaty hand clamped tight over her mouth, muffling her cry. Heloise lifted one hand in the air, balancing the sharp point of a star precariously on her forefinger, showing off. “You might want to stay still for this.”
Her friends laughed. Morrigan squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She heard—and felt—a small whoosh of air and a dull thud as the first star found its mark right next to her head.
She cracked open one eye and saw a gleam of silver barely an inch to her left, and Heloise lining up her next shot. Morrigan’s breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her heart was racing.
“My Alfie here reckons you’re a shapeshifter,” said Heloise, looking up adoringly at the boy with the enormous shoulders. “But I don’t. Alice Frankenreiter in 915 is a shapeshifter, and they never kept that a secret.” Whoosh, thud. Morrigan flinched as the second star landed terrifyingly close to her right ear. “But maybe he’s right. Only one way to find out.” Whoosh, thud. Star number three pinned the sleeve of Morrigan’s coat to the tree trunk. “Go on then. Shift if you’re shifty.”
“She ain’t a shifter,” said the second boy, a weedy thing with the beginnings of a fluffy moustache loitering sadly on his top lip. “She’s a witch, innit.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Heloise, throwing her fourth star up in the air and catching it by the tip. “You’ve got two witches in your unit, you numbskull. Are their knacks classified?”
“Oh,” said the boy, looking crestfallen. “Nah.”
“Shut up, Carl,” said Alfie the bruiser. “Heloise, hurry up and throw, will you, I’ve got to get to—” Whoosh, thud. “Oi! Watch your aim, that one nearly hit me.”
“I meant it to, sweetie,” said Heloise with a saccharine smile. She ran a finger along the edge of her fifth and final star, snarling at Morrigan, “Come on. This is boring. Do something. Show us your knack.” Whoosh—
No thud.
Eyes shut tight, Morrigan felt a rush of blood to her head, and a rush of something more urgent than blood, something angry. It felt like the tide going out all at once, like she was being emptied
and then suddenly, in a searing flash of heat somewhere in the back of her skull, filled back up again all the way to the top. She was a dam overflowing. About to burst.
She opened her eyes.
Five steel throwing stars in the air. Five scholars frozen.
Morrigan could feel her own fear and fury pooling in the air around her, beading like condensation on a glass, heavy with the weight of the terrible thing that was about to happen.
Each scholar reached out with one stiff arm, as if unable to stop themselves, their movements jerky and unnatural, like puppets on a string. Each hand plucked a star from the air, and turned it on its owner. Each gleaming silvery spike drew closer, irresistibly closer, to a face contorted in horror and confusion.
“No,” whispered Morrigan, unable to move. “NO! Put them down. Stop it! STOP.”
Five bodies were drawn up in the air as if sucked into a vacuum, then dropped simultaneously to the woodland path. Limp as rag dolls. Throwing stars clattering harmlessly to the ground beside them.
“Morrigan!” came a shout from somewhere near the station. Miss Cheery was racing down the track, followed closely by two conductors, who went straight to help Horrible Heloise and her friends up from the ground.
“What happened here?” demanded one of the other conductors. He was glaring right at Morrigan, clearly expecting an answer from her. But Morrigan had no words. She shook her head, her mouth hanging open.
“Are you all right?” Miss Cheery asked her quietly.
“Is she all right?” said the man. “She’s not the one sprawled on the ground, Marina!”
“Oi, wait a second,” said Miss Cheery indignantly. “Don’t you go blaming my scholar for this when you don’t have a clue what’s happened. What are those things doing all over the place, Toby? It’s your scholar who’s the star-thrower, isn’t it? And anyone with a weapon-based knack is only meant to use their weapons inside a classroom.”
Toby glared at Miss Cheery and reluctantly said, “Heloise, why are your stars out?”
Wundersmith, The Calling of Morrigan Crow Page 12