The Hatmakers

by Tamzin Merchant

  Sam looked hungry, but not for food.

  Cordelia scooped up a handful of the purling starlight and blew it over him. He was suddenly wrapped in a swirl of eddying lights, tiny as pinpricks yet bright as Polaris. The light settled around him, on his shoulders and ears and the tip of his nose.

  “See?” she said, smiling at the look of starry-eyed enchantment on Sam’s face.

  Goose sneezed and looked sideways at Sam. But then Cordelia scooped out another handful and blew it over Goose.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed as a thousand bright crumbs of starlight whirled around him.

  Cook coughed softly and Cordelia blew some over Cook too.

  “My giddy aunt!” she cried, trying to catch the shining specks as they danced over her.

  Cordelia threw a handful up into the air and let the dazzling starlight spiral down around herself.

  There was a generous sprinkle left in the bowl. She tipped it all over the Peace Hat and it was suddenly star-garbed and glimmering.

  The four makers of the hat stood back to admire their work. A feeling of deep peacefulness came over them, sweeping through the air like wings bringing good news.

  “We’ve done it,” Cordelia whispered. “We’ve done it together. We’ve Made the Peace Hat.”

  CHAPTER 30

  THE WIDE GATES SWUNG OPEN AND THE Hatmaker carriage sailed into the palace courtyard. Alone inside it, Cordelia hugged the hatbox, feeling rattly right down to her bones.

  She stroked the crinkled lid of the hatbox. It had saved her from the sea when she was a baby. She hoped it would help her save her family now.

  A frilly red footman opened the door to the carriage. Cordelia poked her head out and saw twenty silver-and-black soldiers lined up outside the palace doors. Her heart gave a thud, like a warning drum.

  She climbed out, still holding the hatbox against her chest. The soldiers all stood to attention. She was relieved that none of them seemed to be about to arrest her.

  Cordelia looked up at Jones in the driver’s seat. He winked down at her.

  “I have come to deliver the Peace Hat to the princess,” Cordelia said to the footman.

  The footman reached to take the hatbox from her, but she held onto it.

  “A Hatmaker always carries the hat,” she told him, trying to sound as commanding as her aunt. “And this hat must be hand-delivered to Her Royal Highness.”

  At the word “Hatmaker,” one of the silver-and-black soldiers twitched, but the footman nodded to two guards and they pushed open the golden palace doors. Tummy as fluttery as if she had swallowed a dozen Waltz Moths, Cordelia walked inside.

  “I’ll be waiting right here, Miss Dilly!” Jones called after her.

  The palace was quiet and empty. The footman led her quickly along the dim corridors. There were no jeweled ladies or adorned courtiers waiting to gaze at the hatbox. All the way to the throne room Cordelia only glimpsed one maid, who scurried out of sight. Royal portraits frowned down from every wall.

  She whispered to herself: Remember what you are made of, Cordelia Hatmaker!

  Before the doors to the throne room, ten guards glinted. They peeled apart as the footman approached. He opened the doors and bowed Cordelia inside.

  The throne room was chilly and cavernous. At the far end of the vast space, Cordelia could see a small figure sitting in a golden chair, swamped by a heavy red robe.

  Cordelia walked forward. It seemed to take a very long time to get closer to the throne.

  Princess Georgina’s feet did not reach the floor and her face was as pale as the ice-white collar around her neck. Behind her, a wall of silver-and-black guards stood stone-faced and staring.

  Cordelia bowed. She wished the satin bow on top of the hatbox would stop jiggling every time she shivered.

  “Your Highness,” she said, glad her voice came out strong. “I have come to deliver the Peace Hat to you, faithfully fulfilling the command you gave to the Hatmaker family.”

  “Oh, excellent!” the princess cried, her pale face perking up. “I have been so anxious for the Peace Clothes to arrive. Yours is the first!”

  She shed her heavy robe like an old snakeskin and jumped to her feet.

  Cordelia tried to hide her surprise as the princess hurried forward, eager-eyed, and took the hatbox out of her hands. She tugged the ribbon loose and took the lid off the box.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, lifting the magnificent hat. “It is a marvelous creation! You Hatmakers are all so clever.”

  The princess admired the hat from different angles and Cordelia watched tensely. Her Highness seemed pleased. She raised the hat over her head and Cordelia, unable to wait a second longer, burst out, “Please can I have my family back?”

  The princess paused, the hat hovering. She frowned at Cordelia. “Back from where?”

  “From the Tower! All the Makers were taken there!” she said, forgetting to call the princess “Your Highness.” “When you had them arrested.”

  “Arrested?” the princess repeated, seeming confused.

  “Yes! This morning, the soldiers came and …” Cordelia felt her nose prickle hot. She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to cry.

  With a BANG, the doors at the end of the vast room slammed open and a voice rang out: “Princess! DO NOT PUT ON THE HAT!”

  CHAPTER 31

  CORDELIA SWUNG AROUND. LORD WITLOOF was striding toward her, the frilly footman bustling along behind him.

  “That child is the French assassin!” Lord Witloof pointed a red finger at her, his rings winking gold.

  “I am not a French assassin!” Cordelia spluttered. “I’m a Hatmaker!”

  Lord Witloof clapped at the guards. One of them leaped out of line and had his armored hands around Cordelia’s shoulders in a second.

  “Honestly, Your Highness, I’m not trying to hurt you!” Cordelia cried.

  “That hat is dangerous, Princess,” Lord Witloof said loudly. “My sources tell me it is concealing a Croakstone. You would drop dead the moment the brim touched your head.”

  There was a thud as the Peace Hat fell to the floor.

  “A Croakstone?” Cordelia repeated. “No! It’s the Peace Hat you asked for!” She struggled in the steel grip of the guard.

  But the princess was backing away from the hat in horror.

  “All the Peace Clothes have been delivered by the Makers already, Your Highness,” Lord Witloof said smoothly. “The real Peace Hat is, even now, being loaded into the second-best royal coach to be taken to the coast and safely placed on the royal galleon in time for your peace talks tomorrow. Along with the real Peace Boots, Watch, Cloak, and Gloves.”

  He smiled at the princess in a reassuring way as Cordelia scrunched up her face in confusion.

  “How lucky I arrived in time to stop you from putting on this deadly impostor hat,” Lord Witloof went on, poking the Peace Hat with his foot.

  That was when Cordelia saw the buckles flashing on Lord Witloof’s boots.

  That was the moment she realized.

  The buckles were not MM at all.

  They were WW.

  She had seen them upside down!

  “You!” Cordelia gasped, staring up into Lord Witloof’s glinting eyes. “It was you!”

  Her head was hot and her hands were cold and her heart hammered furiously in her chest. She struggled as the guard wrenched her arms behind her back.

  “Whatever is the matter, child?” the princess asked.

  Lord Witloof’s gaze roved over Cordelia’s outraged face.

  “She is the French assassin, Princess. Remember, as I keep telling you: you are in terrible danger at all times.”

  “She can’t be the assassin,” the princess said. “She was right beside me when the shot rang out at the theater. She couldn’t have fired it.”

  “Of course I didn’t—” Cordelia began.

  “I have many years of experience in these matters,” Lord Witloof interrupted. “And you know very little.”


  The princess blinked.

  “Take this assassin to the Tower,” Lord Witloof ordered.

  “NO!” Cordelia shrieked. “I’m not an assassin! I’m a Hatmaker!”

  But she was being hauled away down the long room, the princess’s concerned face shrinking to a pale blob in the vast gloom. Cordelia tripped as she was dragged backward and her feet slid along the polished floor. She could not fight the impossible strength of the guard. She was almost at the door when—

  “STOP!” Princess Georgina called.

  The guard obeyed, and Cordelia staggered to her feet. Princess Georgina was hurrying toward them, Lord Witloof’s mouth a black O of annoyance as he stomped after her.

  “Is there a Croakstone hidden in that hat?” the princess asked Cordelia.

  “Of course not!” Cordelia replied. “I’ll put it on myself, if you like, to prove it.”

  The princess clicked her fingers and a guard gingerly picked up the Peace Hat by the edge of its brim, dropped it quickly into the hatbox and brought it over to them.

  “Georgina, we are wasting time!” Lord Witloof bristled at her shoulder, pulling his glass watch out of his pocket. It ticked irritably. Cordelia recognized the watch at once; she remembered the delicate blue butterfly that decorated the case.

  She was appalled: inside the watch, the beautiful butterfly twitched its wings—it was alive.

  “We must set off for the coast very shortly! Probert, go and order that the royal carriage be prepared. We must leave within the hour, Your Highness, if we are to arrive at the coast by dawn.”

  “Release the child,” the princess commanded.

  The guard let Cordelia go and she felt hope sing through her.

  “WHAT?” Witloof bawled. “NO! Seize that child!”

  Cordelia skipped out of the guard’s reach, dodging behind the princess’s wide skirts.

  “Your Highness, I think there’s something strange going on!” she gasped.

  “I think you’re right, Miss Hatmaker,” the princess replied.

  “This is ridiculous!” Lord Witloof thundered, trying to take the princess by the arm.

  But she shook him off and snapped her fingers. The guard stopped chasing Cordelia around the royal skirts and jumped to attention. Lord Witloof’s heavy breathing frayed the silence as the princess turned solemnly to Cordelia.

  “Miss Hatmaker, what has happened to your family?”

  “The soldiers came this morning …” Cordelia whispered. She glanced at the two sharp Ws on Lord Witloof’s boots, flashing as he tapped his feet with impatience. “I think Lord Witloof is—”

  “What is this impostor saying?” Lord Witloof interrupted.

  The princess turned to look the lord in the face.

  “She is saying that her family have been arrested by soldiers of the Crown, Witloof,” she said. “Which is strange, since only you and I have the power to give those orders.”

  Lord Witloof clapped his hand to his chest, in shock or indignation, Cordelia could not tell.

  “As I have told you before,” he blustered, “spies will say anything to confuse and discombobulate you. Do not make the mistake of believing the vile lies this child is telling you!”

  “Guard,” the princess said calmly. “Please escort Lord Wit—”

  In a flash as quick as a snake striking, Lord Witloof pulled his hand out of his jacket—and, with a flick of his wrist, a small crown was glinting on the princess’s head.

  “Oh!” she gasped, as though a bucket of icy water had been tipped over her.

  Cordelia stared in horror. The crown was made of twisting tentacles of glass that knotted together across the princess’s pale forehead. It was an ugly, deformed thing—somehow warped when it should have been beautiful.

  Cordelia knew she should do something—anything—but she was paralyzed, staring at the sinuous glass that encircled the princess’s head.

  And Her Highness’s frightened eyes—run—seemed to be sinking under water—run—and all Cordelia could think—run—were thoughts of despair.

  “Cordelia—run!” the princess whispered with the last of her strength.

  Her words snapped Cordelia out of her daze—just as Lord Witloof lunged for her. Cordelia spun away, snatched the hatbox out of the guard’s hands and then she was hurtling toward the doors.

  “CATCH THAT CHILD!” Lord Witloof roared.

  CHAPTER 32

  BEHIND CORDELIA, A DOZEN GUARDS CLATTERED into action. She skidded into the doors, wrenched them open, and found herself surrounded by the soldiers guarding the other side.

  Fortunately for Cordelia, their heavy uniforms made it difficult for them to move quickly. She was through the black forest of their legs before any of them could grab her.

  A shout went up—the hunt had begun! She felt the tip of her hair sing through the steel-clad hand of one guard as she hared down the corridor, clutching the Peace Hat—safe in its hatbox—to her chest. She put on a burst of speed, legs already burning. Darting around the corner, desperately trying to remember the way back to the front doors—left, right, right and left again—Cordelia dodged between a looming duke and a loitering scullery maid.

  Ignoring their shrieks, she bolted past a frowning portrait of a king with a forked beard, a painting of a cross-eyed queen, and a golden statue of frolicking fauns. With blood thundering in her ears—or was that the sound of the guards closing in like storm clouds behind her?—she charged down a gloomy corridor and swerved around three maids carrying armfuls of laundry. They threw up their hands in surprise and snow-white linen flurried around them.

  “Blimey! A Hatmaker!” the youngest maid exclaimed.

  Cordelia skidded through a thick drift of sheets toward the front doors and—three heartbeats from freedom—felt her stomach plummet. A wave of guards surged toward her from the corridor on her left. She whipped around to see a dozen soldiers swarming behind her.

  Trapped, she backed away.

  The youngest laundry maid tumbled forward—Cordelia glimpsed her face. It was the maid she always waved to when the Hatmakers visited the palace.

  “I’ve got a way out for you, miss!” the maid whispered, throwing a bedsheet over her head.

  The last thing Cordelia saw was a grinning guard reaching his metal hand out toward her, before the world turned white.

  “This way,” came a hiss, quick, in her ear.

  Cordelia was bundled against the wall. Then the wall was not there.

  With a creak and a thud, she was flat on her back—the maid had pushed her through a secret hatch! Framed in the square of light above her, an astonished guard was left holding the sheet.

  “Go!” the maid cried.

  Still clutching the hatbox, Cordelia scrambled backward as fast as she could, into the dark.

  She slithered down a slope and her head cracked against stone. Stars exploded behind her eyes like a great map of the night sky. She scrabbled to her knees, feeling the smooth walls of the passage with her fingers. To her left and right was cold stone—a dead end!

  “No!” she moaned, pummeling the wall in despair.

  She felt a flash of cold under her palm. She fumbled in the darkness and her hand closed over a metal lever jutting out from the wall. She pulled. The lever did not budge.

  Cordelia hauled the lever with both hands.

  “Come on!” she cried.

  With a sudden judder, the lever inched down. A crack of light appeared as a massive stone panel moved in the wall. It grazed her knuckles but Cordelia kept pushing, and the lever moved another inch. Fresh air breezed through the widening crack, and Cordelia glimpsed the palace courtyard.

  Somewhere in the dark behind her, the guards were closing in with deafening crashes of armor.

  Her ears scraped between the slabs of stone. Her head was out! She twisted her shoulders and slipped like a fish through the crack in the palace wall, tugging the hatbox out after her.

  And she was running across the courtyard, whistling loud as a
sailor for Jones and the carriage.

  Outside the palace doors stood twenty more soldiers. Their heads snapped around at Cordelia’s whistle and they clanked into action, but Jones was faster. Shaking the reins, he spurred his horses into a canter.

  “THE GATE!” Cordelia cried, veering toward it as the carriage arced behind her across the courtyard.

  The girl ran—and the carriage rumbled—and the soldiers charged after it.

  “STOP HER!” a guard bellowed.

  Two sentries tumbled out from their little hut and began to push the gates shut.

  Cordelia felt the carriage thundering closer across the cobbles. The gap between the golden gates was growing smaller and smaller.

  “MISS CORDELIA!” Jones shouted.

  Cordelia felt her feet leave the ground, legs kicking the air, as Jones grabbed her by the collar and hoisted her onto the seat beside him. She held on, knuckles white. He grabbed the hatbox before it tumbled over the side. The gates were almost closed—

  “Hang on to your hat, miss!”

  They heard metal screeching on wood, but Jones yah’ed the horses onward and the carriage scraped through the gates, rocking on its wheels.

  The next moment they were lurching along London’s streets, the furious shouts fading behind them, fainter and fainter.

  CHAPTER 33

  CORDELIA’S HEART WAS STILL HAMMERING WHEN Jones slowed the carriage at the front door of Hatmaker House.

  Goose, Sam, and Cook were there, hustling her inside, peppering her with questions.

  “Did something go wrong?”

  “Ya still got the Peace Hat!”

  “Why’s your dress torn to tatters, Dilly?”

  Cordelia held up her hand and they all stopped talking.

  “They’re coming—the soldiers—to arrest me. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  A collective gasp and then uproar: