They found their way to the Finance Department. Again, there seemed to be glitches. Walking through a city with a Princess, for instance, even one disguised in sunglasses and tattered coat. Also, getting up to the second level of the Finance Department.
Shelby solved the problems by sitting the Princess in a bus shelter, handing her a newspaper and telling her to wait. Then she blew up a trash can on the street outside the Finance Department.
As alarms blared, everybody streamed out of the building, including the W.S.U. guards. Keira and Shelby slipped inside. They found the office. Keira found the crack. She returned with a woman, also wearing sunglasses. A large floppy hat shaded her face.
‘Your Majesty,’ Keira said politely.
The woman straightened. ‘Not a word.’
‘No problem,’ Keira agreed.
*
On the flight to Nature Strip, Keira and Shelby were elated. They’d bought doughnuts to celebrate their success. The Queen and Princess shared these, huddled in silence at the back of the plane.
‘Blowing things up is my favourite thing to do,’ Shelby told Keira.
‘I thought that was flying.’
‘No. Blowing things up. Flying’s good, though.’
Keira used her ring to contact Gabe and give him the news. Gabe reported back that Princess Ko had arrived safely, along with Sergio and Samuel. They were now eating pancakes, he said.
‘Only one more Royal to go,’ Keira said after Gabe had signed off.
They flew in silence for a while.
Shelby spoke suddenly. ‘When we all go to the Sugarloaf Dam, you never swim.’
Keira raised her eyebrows. ‘No.’
‘We might have stopped calling you Sophy sooner,’ Shelby said, ‘if you’d swum. A lot of ways, it feels like you think you’re better than us, and that’s one. The way you sit up on the bank and just watch.’
Keira adjusted her headset. ‘I can’t swim,’ she said.
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Not much call for swimming in Jagged Edge.’
Shelby laughed. ‘For crying out loud,’ she said.
*
In Nature Strip, they left the Queen and Princess in the plane, and walked along the dirt roads of McCabe Town. It was dark now and the streets were almost empty. They passed pubs and bars, and heard music and voices, but nobody seemed to notice them. They practised their Nature Strip accents as they walked. They both laughed.
At the Cast Iron Restaurant, three guards were smoking cigarettes on the front porch. Shelby told them she was opening a new eatery down the street, and offering free pastries tonight. The guards ate the profiteroles and passed out.
Keira went into the restaurant. She found the crack in a corridor at the back of the dining room. The corridor ran past the counter, the kitchen and the restrooms to a back door with a frosted-glass window.
She bumped her knee against a low table. A stack of folded cloth napkins, and a single menu: CAST IRON RESTAURANT—Finest Eating Establishment in McCabe Town Nature Strip.
The restaurant must have been closed a while, but it still smelled of woodsmoke, grilled salmon and rain. Outside, wild beasts chittered.
She reached out and began to untangle. Her hands moved along the knotted light, taking one gnarl at a time. It was an easy one.
The back door of the restaurant swung open. Shelby’s head appeared, along with a rush of sound.
‘You nearly done?’ she called out. ‘Something’s going on.’
‘What is that, a storm?’ Keira called back.
‘Choppers. Sky’s full of them.’
‘I’m almost done.’ Keira looked back at the crack, and stopped.
It was knotted again.
She stared.
Who knew that could happen if you looked away?
‘Two minutes!’ she called to Shelby, and the door thudded closed again. She untangled as fast as she could. The knots were tighter than they’d been. Her neck was tensing.
She took a breath. She pulled on a thread. It slipped out of place and unwound. She smiled and carried on to the next. A rush of light caught her eye. She looked sideways. The tangles were back.
The door burst open again and this time it sounded like a hurricane out there. Shelby’s hair was blowing sideways.
‘They’re landing,’ she shouted. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘Wait,’ Keira yelled back. ‘Give me a . . .’
She turned to the start of the crack, unthreaded the first knot and then, as she watched, it reknotted itself and pulled tight.
Outside, the choppers roared. For a third time, the door opened. Shelby was shouting but Keira couldn’t hear the words.
Her hands raced along the crack, untangling, unknotting, and just as quickly, the crack reknotted itself, lines of light circling and sliding into place.
A hand landed on Keira’s arm. It was Shelby, beside her now, screaming in her ear.
‘They’re right outside!’
Keira looked at the crack. It was gnarled with tangles, more and more forming as she watched.
Shelby was dragging her. She gave up. They ran outside into a blast of spotlights and machinery. They swerved into the woods behind the restaurant. They ran at a crouch, splashing through mud and pushing through bushes. The Queen and Princess watched as they clambered aboard the plane, panting hugely.
Nobody spoke. Shelby switched on the magnetos, primed the fuel pump, and hit the starter. The plane took off.
They hadn’t got Prince Chyba.
8
Elliot was frying garlic.
Across the kitchen, Chime shaped minced beef, piling clumps onto a plate. They worked silently. It was late and they were exhausted.
All day, the compound had thrummed with activity, and streams of newcomers had arrived, hungry.
The garlic hissed. Elliot added chopped onions. He was feeling reflective. News can zig and zag its mood through a place, he was thinking. This morning, there’d been a sort of confused amazement everywhere, about the escape of Princess Ko. Around lunch-time, gloom had crawled up and down the corridors. A source had reported that the Queen and Princess Jupiter were back from the World. Almost immediately the gloom had been shot through with panic—they’ll try to bring Prince Chyba back next!—and then a frenzy as everyone rushed to stop that happening.
So now the place was all about jubilation. The rescue of Prince Chyba, heir to the throne, had been thwarted. Only just, apparently, which made the party happier: better to win the game as the final seconds ticked away.
Elliot tipped a can of tomatoes into the pan, and as he watched them slide, it came back to him complete: a memory of another celebration.
It was at the Lake of Spells, in a tent. The R.Y.A. had spent three days fishing, day and night: Princess Ko, bossy and cranky; Keira, weird and sneering; Samuel, eager and hopeless; Sergio, a frolicsome lamb. Their personalities had clattered up against each other, but they’d stayed awake through an ice-cold night, fighting a Monster, dragging on pondweed, and caught themselves a Locator Spell—nearly lost it when Samuel dropped it, and then Samuel nearly lost it with remorse.
Elliot closed his eyes and there he was in the tent, the little Spell on Ko’s palm, the maps of the World spread around them.
Cellian, 17. Someone had scribbled that on a slip of paper. The Spell had given them a street address in Boise, Idaho. That’s Prince Chyba done! That’s Prince Chyba! someone had shouted, probably Samuel, and Elliot recalled now how those words ran pleasure down his spine.
We’ve got Chyba!
Something was catching at Elliot now. He stirred the tomatoes. The kitchen door opened.
The Assistant leaned in, eyes bright.
‘You,’ he said to Elliot. ‘Is it true?’ He stepped in, letting the door slam behind him.
‘Is what true?’
‘You want to join the Hostiles.’
The noise in the corridors carried on. Elliot looked across at Chime. She
was filling a pot with water.
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘Look at me,’ the Assistant said, and he swung himself up onto a bench. At once, the Assistant’s face turned pink and his hair damp in the heat.
Elliot picked up the plate of meatballs. He tumbled these into the pan. Then he looked at the Assistant.
But it bothered him, not to focus on the meatballs.
‘Hostiles betrayed your father and killed your uncle.’ The Assistant enunciated each word. ‘Why would you join us?’
Elliot considered. He figured he should recite one of Chime’s speeches about democracy. Or run through her list of tyrannical monarchs.
‘Ah,’ he said, deciding on the truth instead. ‘That’s it exactly. Hostiles did that to my family cause they believed so much in the Hostile cause. They believed because the cause is right. Which is the fault of the Royal Family. So, when you come down to it, it’s the Royals that betrayed my dad and killed my uncle, not the Hostiles.’
The Assistant smiled. ‘Shake my hand,’ he said.
Elliot looked around for a cloth to wipe away the tomato sauce, but the Assistant grabbed his hand, then embraced him.
‘Welcome,’ he said, studying Elliot with that admiring gaze. ‘I knew all along that you were special.’
‘And yet you tried to have me killed by Greys,’ Elliot said evenly.
The Assistant shook his head, as if Elliot had surpassed himself. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Now, listen.’ He ran his hands through his hair. A thin line of tomato sauce was transferred to his forehead. ‘We know where the Royals are. Our source has got word to us. We know where the King has been hiding, where Princess Ko is now, and where the Queen and Princess Jupiter are currently heading. Do you want to hear where?’
‘Sure,’ Elliot agreed.
‘A little town in the province of the Farms.’
Elliot waited.
‘Bonfire, the Farms.’
Elliot had picked up the spatula. It slipped. He caught it. ‘No chance.’
‘This is why I’m talking to you. Elliot, you are now the most important person in this compound. The Royal Family—minus Chyba!—are hiding in your town. Will you help us bring them down?’
Elliot stared.
‘The Royals. Bring down the Royals, not your town. You could be vital: you have inside knowledge. Think about it overnight and let me know tomorrow.’
‘Nothing will happen to my town, or my family or friends?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘And we’re not hurting the Royal Family?’
‘Just ending their reign.’
Elliot shrugged. ‘Then I don’t need to think. Of course I’ll help.’
The Assistant looked up at the steam-filled air. He strode from the room, smiling.
1
Aperson who can plan a lesson about poems and dreams is not a person with a tumour in her brain.
Madeleine was winding this sentence around her mind like a scarf. At the same time, she was half-listening to Jack.
‘He had fits of rage and melancholy,’ Jack said, ‘and a musical laugh.’
‘Did he?’ Holly asked.
Madeleine looked at her mother.
‘He did,’ Jack agreed.
There was a pause.
‘Go on,’ Holly said.
It was Friday morning and Jack was telling them about Byron.
‘Remember?’ he had said, as he walked into Madeleine and Holly’s flat. ‘You told me to figure out why I’m obsessed with him?’
Holly held her smile. Madeleine watched her mother. Did she remember?
‘It was the day we did that lesson at Waterstones,’ Belle reminded her, following Jack into the flat and pausing between two armchairs. Belle could never choose where to sit. ‘The lesson about poetry and dreams?’ She looked at Holly and an expression crossed her face, as if she’d just been slapped. She blinked fast and recovered. She chose a chair angled away from Holly.
That was when Madeleine had reached for a sentence—A person who can plan a lesson about poems and dreams is not a person with a tumour in her brain—and used it to muffle her thoughts.
‘Which,’ Jack continued, ‘I think I also have. A musical laugh. Here’s what, I’ll laugh and you see if you can sing along with it.’
‘Why don’t you tell us more about Byron first?’ Holly smiled.
Madeleine dropped the sentence and grabbed at her mother’s wry smile. A person who is wry is not a person with a tumour.
‘He was also insane,’ Jack went on, ‘which is where Byron and I part company. On account of, I am sane.’
‘Are you?’ Holly asked, still smiling.
It was not a wry smile. It was a neurological malfunction. Holly had not stopped smiling, Madeleine realised, since yesterday.
Yesterday, Madeleine had read her mother’s design essay. Then she had checked through all Holly’s papers and emails.
Some were garbled like the essay, some made sense. Each time she found the former, she stacked it into a pile. When she found the latter, she felt beautiful relief and stopped searching for a moment.
Eventually, she woke her mother and handed her the first set of papers.
That was when the smile had begun. As Holly read through her own notes, she had smirked. The smile had grown, turned upside down, broadened.
Eventually, Holly had let the papers fall.
‘I see your point,’ she’d said. ‘Maybe we should call Doctor Mustafo.’
Her mother remembered her specialist’s name! She recognised that there was an issue! These seemed like excellent signs.
Maybe, Madeleine had thought, it was just that the tumour had left tiny traces behind, or echoes. But the echoes were fading. The more Holly wrote nonsense, the more she used up the fragments. Soon these would dwindle into nothing.
Doctor Mustafo had returned Holly’s call within half an hour. An appointment had been set up for consultation and scans.
And now, here they were, listening to Jack discuss Byron.
‘At school,’ Jack went on, ‘he sprinkled gunpowder on the floors, ripped down window grates, and shot at the cook’s hat. When he was older, he’d have parties where he made everyone drink from a skull filled with burgundy. Once, he was on a ship and he sulked for days, then suddenly he got all this champagne, opened it, handed out pistols and told everyone to shoot at the bottle tops.’
A new idea was forming in Madeleine’s mind. She looked at it with careful interest. Byron was mad. So was her own mother. It was healthy, occasional madness! Endearing, poetic madness! Nothing to do with a tumour.
She tried this as a new muffler—it’s just insanity!—but it wasn’t quite as soft or comforting.
‘As you probably know,’ Jack continued, ‘Byron had sex appeal to burn. This is the bit where he and I get back on track as soul brothers. One of his girlfriends was named Caroline, and she said that she never forgot the first time he kissed her. This was in a carriage. He drew her to him like a magnet. That’s a quote. Another time, he turned up at a hotel, thought the chambermaid was hot, and he fell upon her like a thunderbolt. That’s another quote.’
‘That’s disturbing,’ Belle reflected. ‘Falling on the chambermaid like a thunderbolt. It’s not sexy, Jack, it’s assault.’
‘Or maybe he tripped?’ Holly put in.
‘Well,’ Jack said, ‘I disagree.’ He consulted his notes again. ‘Turns out, if you go around falling on people like thunderbolts you end up having kids. And Byron had three. Or anyway three that we know about.’
Madeleine focused.
‘The first one was a boy,’ Jack said. ‘Nobody’s clear, but they think Byron got a maid pregnant. He wrote a poem for the kid, and gave the maid some cash, but that’s it.’
‘A poem by Byron,’ Belle remarked. ‘That’s not to be sneezed at.’
Jack looked doubtful. ‘If I ever have a son,’ he said, ‘I plan to do more than write a poem for him. At the very least, we’ll kick a ball around.�
��
‘Good for you,’ Holly beamed. Madeleine’s eyes flickered to her mother.
‘The second child was a girl named Ada. We already know about her, on account of that project Belle did. She grew up to invent computer programming. Byron was married to Ada’s mother, but he was a demon to her, so she left him, taking the kid, and he never had anything to do with her again.’
Belle stared at the ceiling. ‘Who was the third child?’
‘Okay, there’s an eighteen-year-old girl named Claire—she happened to be the stepsister of Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, but that’s another story. Anyhow, Claire and Byron had a thing and Claire got pregnant. Byron went off chasing other people, and Claire had the baby on her own. She named her Alba, but Byron decided to change that to Allegra.’
‘Allegra’s a nice name,’ Holly said.
‘It doesn’t explain why Madeleine hasn’t baked muffins today,’ Belle said moodily. ‘I feel like one.’
‘It also doesn’t explain,’ Madeleine said, ‘why Byron thinks he can change the baby’s name when he’s not even there.’
‘It doesn’t,’ murmured Holly. All three turned to her. She was drifting. She snapped back into place. ‘What happened to Allegra, Jack?’
‘Well, in those days, the dads got to name their kids,’ Jack said. ‘So that’s why he changed it. Also, dads got to raise the kids, so Claire handed the little girl over. Byron stuck her in a convent when she was four. He had to, apparently, because . . .’ Jack flipped through his notes. ‘Because she was obstinate as a mule and ravenous as a vulture. That’s Byron’s words. Anyhow, Claire hears that her little girl’s in a convent and she’s, like, you wot? She says, Give her back to me then! But Byron says no. Meanwhile, the little girl’s writing Byron letters asking him to visit. My Dear Papa, it being faire time I should so much like a visit from my Papa, she wrote. And, will you please your Allegra who loves you so.’
‘He’d better have visited,’ Belle said.
‘He did not visit,’ Jack said. ‘He was busy.’
‘Busy doing what?’
‘Sleeping late then going to a field where he put silver coins into forked sticks and shot at them.’
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