But for once, Morrigan wasn’t thinking about her chances in the trials.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat felt like it was closing up.
The man in the painting smiled tranquilly. His ash-brown hair was slicked back, his old-fashioned suit immaculate and unmistakably expensive. The dark eyes, the skin so pale it was nearly translucent, the thin pink smile and angular features, they were all exactly as she’d last seen them. And that scar, the thin white line that cut one eyebrow clean in half… she knew that scar. She knew this man.
It was Mr. Jones.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DISAPPEARING ACT
The white blanket of snow over Nevermoor turned to miserable gray slush in the days after Christmas. Rain battered the windows of the Hotel Deucalion and jolliness quickly turned to postholiday gloom, every hour of which brought Morrigan closer to the day she had been dreading all year long—the Show Trial.
But, unbelievably, the Show Trial was only her second-biggest problem now.
Morrigan had spent an agonizing two days since Christmas working up the courage to tell Jupiter what she’d learned about Ezra Squall and Mr. Jones. Every time she’d gone to knock on his office door, the picture of Squall clutched in her white-knuckled fist, her nerve had utterly failed her.
She desperately wanted to tell him. But how? What could she possibly say? Guess what, Jupiter? The evilest man who ever lived thought I’d make a great evil apprentice. Oh, and he’s been visiting me in Nevermoor for months. Oh, and I put the whole city in danger because I didn’t want to tell you.
More than anything, Morrigan wanted to talk to Hawthorne. Just when she thought the awful truth was going to bubble up and burst out of her like molten lava, her friend returned from the Highlands at last.
“Are you sure?” he said, squinting at the picture, a note of desperate hope in his voice. “It could be his grandfather?”
Exasperated, Morrigan groaned and rolled her eyes for approximately the hundredth time that afternoon. She’d barely slept a wink and was now wearing a groove in her bedroom floor from pacing back and forth (the bedroom seemed amused by this and kept stretching the walls farther apart so she had to walk longer distances each time).
“I’m telling you—it’s him. It’s the exact same man. He’s got the same scar, the same freckle above his lip, the same exact nose, the same everything. If this isn’t Mr. Jones, I’m not Morrigan Crow.”
“But why would he pretend to be his own assistant?”
“Maybe because he hasn’t aged a single day since this portrait was painted almost a hundred years ago.” Morrigan shoved the print an inch from his nose. “Look. You saw him on Hallowmas—just look.”
Hawthorne pursed his lips, pulling the picture back and squinting at it. He took a long, deep breath and finally nodded reluctantly. “It’s him. Has to be. That scar—”
“Exactly.”
He frowned. “But Dame Chanda said—”
“—that he’s banned from the Free State, I know,” Morrigan interrupted. “And Kedgeree said the city keeps him out with ancient magic.”
“Exactly. Plus, what about all those people guarding the borders? The Sky Force, the Royal Sorcery Council, the Magicians’ League, and all that? Nobody could get past all of them, not even the Wundersmith.”
Morrigan dropped into the armchair, hugging a cushion to her chest. “But Mr. Jones—Squall—he was here, Hawthorne. I saw him. We both saw him. It doesn’t make any sense.”
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the rain pelt against the glass. It was nearing dusk.
Hawthorne sighed. “I have to go. I promised Dad I’d be home before dark. Show Trial’s tomorrow—don’t forget,” he added, half joking. As if either of them could forget their final trial for the Society. As if Morrigan could forget the day she’d been having nightmares about for months.
Hawthorne watched his friend for a long, solemn moment. “Morrigan, I think it’s time to—”
“I know,” she said quietly, turning to face the gloom outside her window. “I have to tell Jupiter.”
Morrigan knocked tentatively on the door to Jupiter’s study.
“What?” grumbled a voice that certainly didn’t belong to her patron. She pushed the door open to find Fenestra stretched out on a rug in front of the fireplace. The Magnificat yawned broadly and fixed her sleepy yellow eyes on Morrigan. “What do you want?”
“Where is he? I need to see him. It’s urgent.”
“Who?”
“Jupiter,” said Morrigan, not bothering to hide her annoyance.
“Not here.”
“Yes, I can see that.” She gestured to his empty study. “Where is he, the Smoking Parlor? The dining room? Fen, this is important.”
“He’s not. Here. He’s not at the hotel.”
“He—what?”
“He left.”
Morrigan’s heart leapt into her throat. “Left to go where?”
A shrug. A lick of her paw. “No idea.”
“When will he be back?”
“Didn’t say.”
“But—but it’s the last trial tomorrow,” Morrigan said, her voice pitching upward. “He’ll be back before then, won’t he?”
Fenestra rolled over and clawed at the rug, then rubbed her ears languorously.
Morrigan was suddenly terrified. When Jupiter left the Deucalion he was sometimes gone for hours, or sometimes for days, or sometimes for weeks at a time. Morrigan never knew when he’d be back, nobody ever knew, and the thought that he might not return in time for the Show Trial filled her with icy dread.
He’d promised her. He’d promised.
Just like he promised to take you to the Nevermoor Bazaar, said a little voice in the back of her head. And look how that turned out.
But this was different, Morrigan told herself. This was her trial. The big one—the one he’d sworn he’d take care of, the one he’d said she didn’t have to even think about. She’d done her very best not to think about it, but now what? She couldn’t do it on her own. She didn’t even know what her talent was supposed to be.
“Fenestra, please!” she yelled, and the cat turned to glare at her. “What’s he doing, where did he go?”
“He said he had something important to do. That’s all I know.”
Morrigan’s heart sank. More important than being there for the most important day of her life? More important than keeping his promise?
She felt wrong-footed. Seized by the sudden terror of her predicament, she entirely forgot why she’d been looking for him in the first place.
She was on her own. She would have to do her Show Trial without him. She was on her own.
Morrigan slumped down into one of the leather armchairs by the fire. Her whole body felt as if it were made of lead.
Fenestra stood up suddenly and appeared above Morrigan’s armchair, bringing her enormous squashed furry face down to the girl’s eye level. “Did he say he’d be here for your trial?”
Tears pricked Morrigan’s eyes. “Yes, but—”
“Did he tell you he’d take care of it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did he promise you everything would be all right?”
A few hot tears spilled down Morrigan’s face. “Yes, but—”
“That settles it, then.” With a placid blink of her huge amber eyes, Fen nodded once. “He’ll be here for your trial. He’ll take care of it. Everything will be all right.”
Morrigan sniffled and wiped her nose with her shirtsleeve. She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. “How do you know that?”
“He’s my friend. I know my friend.”
Fenestra was silent for a while, and Morrigan thought she’d fallen asleep standing up. Then she felt something warm, wet, and sandpapery lick the entire right side of her face. She sniffled again, and Fen’s big gray head rubbed her shoulder affectionately.
“Thanks, Fen,” Morrigan said quietly. She heard Fenestra padding softly to the door. �
�Fen?”
“Mmm?”
“Your saliva smells like sardines.”
“Yeah, well. I’m a cat.”
“Now my face smells like sardines.”
“I don’t care. I’m a cat.”
“Night, Fen.”
“Good night, Morrigan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SHOW TRIAL
Ooh, fairy floss,” said Hawthorne, waving over a uniformed Trollosseum worker selling treats. “Want some? I’ve got Christmas money from my granny.”
Morrigan shook her head. There was only so much room in her stomach, and at present the entire space was taken up by nerves, nausea, and the growing certainty that today was going to be the most humiliating day of her life. “Aren’t you nervous?”
Hawthorne shrugged as he tore off a huge strip of fairy floss with his teeth. “A bit. I s’pose. I’m not doing any new tricks today, though. Nan thought I should stick with my best ones. I just wish I could pick which dragon I’m riding.”
“Won’t you be riding your own?”
Hawthorne gave a short, sharp laugh. “My own dragon? Are you mental? I don’t have my own dragon. Whose parents can afford to buy them a dragon?” He licked remnants of sticky pink spun sugar from his fingers. “I ride one of the Junior Dragonriding League’s featherweights when I’m doing tricks. Usually either Flies Effortlessly Like a Discarded Sweet Wrapper on the Back of the Wind, or Glimmers in the Sun Like an Oil Slick on the Ocean. Oil Slick is definitely the best trained, but Sweet Wrapper’s much braver. She’s good at pulling out of steep dives.”
“Why can’t you use one of them?”
“You know what the Society’s like.” Morrigan didn’t bother to remind him that, no, being from the Republic, she didn’t. “They think their dragons are better than the League’s dragons. Nan says it’s best not to argue. I hope they don’t give me a highland breed, though—they’re so bulky, I can never turn them properly. Ooh, look—it’s starting.”
Finally, thought Morrigan as she watched the Elders enter the Trollosseum. A cheer rose from the stands. Elder Quinn held her hand up for silence and spoke into a microphone.
“Welcome,” she said, her voice booming from the speakers, “to the final trial for Unit 919 of the Wundrous Society.”
Another cheer. Morrigan’s ears rang. The stadium was packed with not only the remaining candidates but also their patrons, other Society members who’d come to scope out the new talent, and of course friends and family. Hawthorne’s parents were up in the stands somewhere, as was Jack, who’d come home for the weekend specially to support Morrigan—which she found surprising and, actually, quite touching. There was an air of festivity in the Trollosseum, as if this were a normal day out and they were about to watch two trolls bash each other’s skulls in.
“Welcome, esteemed members of the Society. Welcome, patrons. But most of all welcome to our candidates, the seventy-five brave young souls who have come so far, accomplished so much, and made my fellow Elders and me so very, very proud.
“Candidates, when you arrived today you each were randomly assigned a number to determine the order of your trials. A Society official will come to collect you from your seats in groups of five. Be prepared to move quickly when your number is called, and follow the official down to the gate, where your patron will meet you and escort you into the arena.”
“Yeah, if I’m lucky,” Morrigan muttered, and Hawthorne snorted, smiling at her sympathetically. He would be eleventh in the trials today, but Morrigan had been assigned number seventy-three… which at first she’d been unhappy with, as it meant a long, nervous wait ahead. But as Hawthorne pointed out, the later she was on, the more time Jupiter would have to get there.
“If, after your trial,” continued Elder Quinn, “you have earned a place in the top nine candidates, your name will appear on the leaderboard. If not, well… we will wish you all the best for your future, somewhere else. Good luck, girls and boys. Let us begin.”
The first candidate to enter the arena was Dinah Kilburn of Dusty Junction. Before she began, her patron fussed about arranging chairs, tables, and ladders in haphazard towers to create a sort of makeshift jungle gym.
Dinah was amazing. An agile climber, an extraordinary acrobat, and, Morrigan was shocked to discover—
“A monkey?”
Hawthorne laughed and then looked around guiltily. “Morrigan. You can’t call her that. She’s not an actual monkey. She just has a tail.”
Dinah swung neatly from one tower to another, balancing on top or hanging upside down by her tail, and finished with a perfect landing. But the Elders took only a minute to reach their decision, waving her out of the Trollosseum without adding her name to the leaderboard. Dinah looked crushed.
“Ooh,” said Hawthorne, cringing. “Tough start.”
Morrigan was flummoxed. Exactly what were the Elders looking for? What sort of person did they consider Wundrous Society material? She thought of the only Society members she knew—Jupiter, whose obscure knack was for seeing things nobody else could. Dame Chanda Kali, award-winning opera singer and gatherer of small woodland animals. When they were eleven years old, were they even more remarkable than Dinah Kilburn, the extraordinary monkey-tailed acrobat? Or was there something else the Elders were looking for, some other indefinable quality that made the perfect Wundrous Society member?
The performances only went downhill from there.
None of the next four candidates—a landscape painter, a hurdler, an illusionist, and a boy who played the ukulele—ranked in the top nine. When they brought forward the second group of candidates, there were still no names on the leaderboard.
In fact, nobody ranked at all until the ninth candidate, Shepherd Jones—a boy who claimed he could speak to dogs. He performed an incredible series of tricks with a dozen canines, big and small. He barked commands to them and the crowd cheered as the dogs jumped through hoops, walked backward on their hind legs, and danced with each other. The Elders remained skeptical, however.
“Send one of the dogs over to me,” commanded Elder Quinn. Shepherd barked at a blue cattle dog and it ran up into the stands to Elder Quinn, who showed it the contents of her handbag and sent it back to him. “Now tell me what the dog saw.”
Shepherd knelt down to have a short conversation with the dog. “A coin purse, a ham sandwich, an umbrella, a lipstick, a rolled-up newspaper, readin’ glasses, and a pencil.” The dog barked once more. “Oh, and a piece of cheese.”
Elder Quinn nodded, and the audience applauded.
The dog barked twice. Shepherd glanced up at Elder Quinn shyly. “Er—he says can he have the ham sandwich, please?”
Elder Quinn beamed and tossed the sandwich down to Shepherd. “Here, he can have the cheese too.”
The cattle dog whined a little and barked three times. Shepherd’s face turned red. “I ain’t tellin’ ’em that,” he said quietly.
“What did he say, boy?” asked Elder Wong.
Shepherd Jones ruffled his hair, looking at the ground. “He says cheese makes him constipated.”
Shepherd Jones was the first candidate added to the leaderboard, and the audience applauded as his name appeared on the big screens at either end of the Trollosseum.
The tenth candidate, however—a girl called Milladore West, who made three extraordinary hats in eleven minutes and presented one to each of the Elders—was not awarded a place.
Next it was Hawthorne’s turn. Morrigan wished him luck as he was ushered down to the arena with the next group of five. He was dressed head to toe in soft brown leather, and as Nan Dawson introduced him (“Hawthorne Swift of Nevermoor!”), Hawthorne fastened his shin guards, wrist guards, and helmet. The audience gasped as a Wundrous Society dragon handler led in a twenty-foot-tall dragon with iridescent green scales and a long, jewel-bright tail.
Morrigan had seen pictures of dragons, of course. (They were considered both a Class A Dangerous Apex Predator and a Plague Proportions Pest in th
e Republic, and the Dangerous Wildlife Eradication Force often made headlines in culling season. Either for successfully destroying a nest or for having their faces burned off.) But nothing compared to seeing the real thing. Hawthorne had offered several times to sneak her into a dragon stable under cover of night, since he wasn’t allowed to invite her to training sessions. But Jupiter had said no, he’d prefer Morrigan kept all four of her original limbs, thanks.
The dragon emitted steaming-hot air in great bursts from slit-like nostrils as it swung its head from left to right. The crowd leaned back in their seats.
Hawthorne seemed entirely unfazed by his proximity to an ancient reptile that could burn him to a crisp if it sneezed the wrong way. He took a few minutes to acquaint himself with the animal, allowing it to get comfortable with his presence and patting its flank gently but firmly. The dragon watched him closely through one fiery orange eye.
Hawthorne walked around it in a circle, trailing his palm over the dragon’s rough hide so that it knew where he was and wouldn’t get skittish. Morrigan had seen a stable hand at Crow Manor do the same thing with her father’s carriage horses. The Elders leaned forward, watching this interaction very closely. Elder Wong looked especially impressed and kept nudging Elder Quinn and whispering in her ear.
Hawthorne took a large piece of raw meat from the Wundrous Society handler and fed it to the dragon, patting it more roughly now on the neck until finally—without hesitation—he took a running leap and climbed up into the saddle that had been fitted between the dragon’s shoulder blades. He snapped the leather reins and lurched forward in his seat as the enormous green reptile beat its wings and took off into the air.
The Trials of Morrigan Crow Page 25