‘But is that the true explanation? Perhaps, here in the sanctum of Scholars’ Island, this great nursery of the mind –’ he gave a pointed look over his spectacles at the grim-faced soldiers who lined the back of the lecture hall – ‘as students of human nature, we may ask ourselves: would our rulers really develop so many expensive new weapons unless they hoped to use them? And: how long will it take them to use those weapons on their own citizens, if we dare protest a future filled with endless imperial expansion and war?
‘So we return to the question of last week’s lecture: what is the nature of true power? Different philosophers have defined it differently across the ages, but every one of them has agreed: power only exists when wielded over other people.’
An ominous clanking sounded behind me. It was the noise of twelve armed soldiers stepping forward all at once and drawing their swords. Gulping, I twisted around and found their captain glaring down the slanted aisle at Gert van Heidecker, one big, gloved hand raised in unmistakeable warning.
But the world’s most famous philosopher stuck up his small chin in defiance as he continued, holding the captain’s gaze fiercely. ‘Thus, I submit this week’s great questions: what is the difference between a rightful king and a tyrant? And when, exactly, are a ruler’s citizens allowed to stand up and cry out as a nation, “We reject your authority over us”?’
Oh no. My jaw dropped open.
This wasn’t just philosophy any more. It was revolution.
‘Gert van Heidecker!’ The captain’s voice rang out through the lecture hall. ‘I arrest you in the name of the throne!’
Shouts broke out across the room, desks overturned, and my outspoken goblin neighbour was proved right: these students had come prepared underneath their plain robes. An awful lot of them had brought weapons … and some of them were unbelievably disgusting.
‘Ewww!’ A stinking projectile whizzed past my face, and I ducked only just in time. More and more of them flew through the air all around me, like a nightmarish shower of muck. They might have been aimed at the soldiers who were marching down the aisle, but that didn’t stop something sticky from landing on my cap.
‘Ugh!’ I shook my head frantically, throwing my arms up as a shield. This was not what I’d expected from my first philosophy lecture!
Maybe I didn’t want to go to university after all.
My guards’ swords snicked free as they leaped to their feet beside me, but there was nothing they could do against the rain of stink.
I would have cowered underneath the long desk, but it had already been shoved over by a group of students on the far end, while the goblin girls and kobold on the bench beside me shared out their stashed sweets among themselves and shouted sarcastic commentary on the action, their feet swinging casually.
‘Come on, you can do better than that!’
‘Aim for their heads, dummy!’
I slid off the bench to huddle on to the floor with my arms thrown over my head. But then I heard something worse: the clang of swords.
Real fighting had begun.
‘That’s enough!’ The captain’s bellow rose over all the yells and confusion. ‘Bar the doors! Everyone in this room is now under arrest!’
Oh no. Nausea roiled through my belly.
This couldn’t be happening!
When the awful king and queen of Valmarna realised that I’d been a part of this … I curled forward into a rocking ball of panic.
When the news of my arrest broke in all the newspapers – !
‘Right!’ the goblin beside me said cheerfully. ‘That’s our cue, girls. Come on!’
A strong green hand closed around my arm and yanked.
I stumbled to my feet, thoughts whirling, as I met the goblin girl’s fierce grin. ‘What? What?’
‘Unhand the p–! Unhand her!’ Konrad bellowed.
‘Oh, certainly! Be my guest.’ Rolling her eyes, she let go of me. ‘If you want to go to prison with all the rest of them –’
I grabbed her robed arm without a second thought. ‘What are you – ?’
‘Shh!’ She nodded firmly at my guards. ‘Now grab her shoulders!’
Their large, warm hands closed around me, anchoring me in place as the world spun around me in a haze of stinking rain and surreality.
This had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be my life.
‘Hurry up then!’ snapped the tiny, blue-eyed kobold, tapping one bare foot impatiently. Beyond her, the other two goblin girls were chatting happily to each other as they held the kobold’s thin shoulders, looking perfectly at ease and utterly oblivious to the chaos tearing the room apart around us. ‘What are you waiting for, a signed invitation? Honestly! Humans.’
Shaking her head in exasperation, the kobold closed one small, blue-nailed, white hand over my goblin girl’s broad shoulder, completing the chain of connection along both of our combined groups …
And together, all seven of us vanished.
CHAPTER 9
I could never have explained how I ended up tumbling down a set of dark, creaking stairs into an underground coffee house, ten minutes later, as part of a jostling, noisy group made up of three outrageous green goblin girls, two stunned-speechless human guards and one extraordinarily vain little kobold … without a single word of protest.
I didn’t even try to get away!
It was completely inexplicable.
We weren’t invisible any more – we didn’t need to be. All the chaos was taking place in the Philosophy Building, while the rest of Scholars’ Island was untouched – and the goblins’ coffee house was well hidden beneath the massive, ivy-covered university library, which had looked so grand and noble in my earlier tour of the island. I’d never imagined, in my first admiring walk around that building, that there was a secret trapdoor hidden beneath a large boulder nearby – or that when you tapped on that door with just the right kind of knock, it would swing open to reveal a set of mossy stairs leading down to the wildest place I’d ever been.
It was a good thing I wasn’t Princess Sofia right now, because she would never in a million years be allowed to visit anywhere so loud or dirty … and it was absolutely fascinating!
Faintly glowing blue-and-green moss covered the damp stone walls of the secret coffee house, which was lit only dimly by a dozen or so fat candles guttering on the makeshift tables. I had to squint to peer through the shadows around me – but then most of the creatures here didn’t need candles anyway.
Who knew so many goblins were making merry beneath Scholars’ Island? I spotted at least two dozen scattered across the cavernous room in student-blue robes and caps, their green hands wrapped around massive clay bowls of steaming hot coffee as they argued and shouted with laughter. They weren’t the only creatures here. Three tiny kobolds sat at a nearby table, strange blue sparks flickering around their long, skinny, white fingers as they wolfed down sugar-coated buns that smelt enticingly like cinnamon. And in the far corner, hidden in the deepest shadows, I could just make out a strangely shaped, hulking statue … wait.
‘Is that a troll?’ I blurted.
The goblin girls stopped talking to stare at me. Then they burst into shrieks of laughter.
‘You should see your face!’ My neighbour wrapped one strong arm around my waist with a companionable squeeze that made me jerk with surprise. ‘Don’t worry. Old Abjörn’s been asleep for thirty years so far. I don’t think he’s going to wake up now just because he smells a few humans!’
‘He doesn’t eat humans anyway,’ said the prissy goblin girl beside her. ‘Or at least, I think that’s what I heard.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Or was it just that it’s been a long time since he ate them, since he’s been asleep?’
‘Either way!’ The goblin girl beside me pulled me along by my waist all the way to the closest low table – a collection of three wooden crates haphazardly stuck together.
I didn’t dare glance at my guards as I let her nudge me down on to one of the fat cushions that surr
ounded the makeshift table. My skin was still tingling from the shock of being touched like that by anyone – with such familiarity and ease, as if I were a huggable sort of person. Apart from that one brief, suffocating hug from my father just before I’d been bundled into the flying carriage, no one except for last night’s cat had touched me with affection for as long as I could remember.
It had felt … well, actually …
Of course it was a shocking imposition. If I were Princess Sofia of Drachenheim, I would never dream of allowing it!
And yet, somehow, I didn’t feel offended at all, not even when the other goblin girls and the kobold crowded so close around me that the sleeves of our robes brushed together across the table. I tucked up my legs on my cushion with shameless impropriety, folded down the heavy skirts of my dress to make room for the others and looked eagerly to the squat counter in the far corner of the room, where a couple of fast-moving goblins were taking orders.
‘The best coffee you’ll ever find,’ said my neighbour. ‘So much better than that slop the humans serve above ground!’
‘Do they have any hot chocolate?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Chocolate?’ She let out another ear-jangling shriek of laughter. ‘Who do you think we are? Royalty?’
Oops. I should have remembered that chocolate was an expensive luxury for most people. ‘I just …’ I jerked my chin up defensively. ‘I’m not from here,’ I muttered.
‘Well, obviously!’ She dug one pointy elbow into my side, making me gasp with shock. ‘You should have seen me when I first got here. Straight from the mountains, I was – almost as far north as the ice giants’ palace! It must’ve been at least a month before I stopped gaping at everything like a cave worm.’
‘You still do, Talvikki.’ On her other side, the kobold smirked. ‘The only difference is, nowadays, every time you gape, that ridiculous peppermint sweet falls out of your mouth!’
‘Ha!’ Talvikki popped the sweet out of her mouth and flung it directly at the kobold’s face.
I jerked back instinctively, ready to run.
But the kobold girl was laughing too, as she snatched the sweet from the air. ‘Mmm. Yummy!’ Her shockingly vivid blue eyes flicked up to my two guards, who were still hovering warily behind me. ‘If you two aren’t planning to sit down, why don’t you go ahead and order for all of us?’
‘Order?’ Konrad’s pale eyes widened in the candlelight. ‘From them?’
His gaze darted towards the counter, where the two goblin owners leaped back and forth, scrambling up and down shelves with careless ease. They grabbed and flung cups and plates, drinks and cakes with astonishing, inhuman speed.
‘Here,’ I said, and dug out the purse that Lena had insisted I bring with me. ‘I’ll pay for everyone.’
They had rescued us from arrest after all. The thought of my narrow escape made me sag with relief as I smiled at the strange company I’d somehow fallen into.
‘Order anything you like,’ I told them all firmly. ‘I know what I want – that kind of rolled-up bun that smells like cinnamon!’
It turned out to be called a cinnamon roll, which made sense, and it tasted even better than it smelt. Curled-up layers of pastry, sugar and cinnamon melted into my tongue, and I relaxed more and more on to my cushion until I was following the goblins’ lead and sprawling for the first time in my life. My deportment tutor would have been horrified, but I ignored every rule of behaviour I’d ever learned as my companions’ chatter washed happily over me.
The goblin girl with the peppermint sweet – the one who’d hugged me – was Talvikki. The prissy goblin girl, who took such nervous, proper care over everything, was Berrit. The third, who’d been in Villenne the longest and drawled every word as if she were exhausted, was Hannalena, and the kobold was Fedolia.
I absorbed every word and every name as if they were lessons I might be tested on at any moment – but I had never enjoyed my tutoring this much before.
‘This can’t be normal, can it?’ I finally asked, as they argued over how many points Gert van Heidecker ought to be awarded for his personal resistance to the soldiers. ‘I mean, most university lectures aren’t like that one, are they?’
Hannalena cocked one thick green eyebrow. ‘Only the really good ones.’
I shook my head at her impatiently as the other girls sniggered. ‘But … Gert van Heidecker! He’s so respected. He’s certainly never published anything so … so –’
‘Radical?’ Berrit suggested helpfully.
‘Treasonous?’ muttered Jurgen.
Konrad nodded vigorously in agreement.
‘I never read anything like that in his printed lectures,’ I said firmly.
‘You think anyone would dare print lectures like that one?’ Talvikki bumped one shoulder companionably against mine. ‘How naive are you, Sofi? They’d be in prison with him if they had!’
I’d adjusted so much by then, I barely even noticed the familiarity of her gesture, or the way I’d somehow acquired a nickname for the first time in my life. ‘So he’s been saying these things for years?’ How could I not have known that?
Hiding in my bedroom had kept me safe. But it had also kept me ignorant, and that was unacceptable.
‘He wasn’t always that fiery,’ Hannalena conceded. ‘He always had subversive tendencies, but he wasn’t one of the real revolutionary firebrands – you know, the ones crying, “Down with kings and monarchies forever!”’
She waved her fist and the other goblin girls gave mocking cheers.
I swallowed uncomfortably, and my guards shifted behind me.
‘But the Diamond Exhibition’s really worked him up lately. It’s not all farming tools and plans for new settlements in the icy north, you know. All those claims splashed about in the newspapers –’ Hannalena flicked one wide green hand dismissively – ‘saying those fabulous new weapons are sooo undefeatable, they could even take down a dragon or an ice giant. Of course they could smash any human uprisings!’
‘Ha!’ Talvikki chomped down hard on her peppermint sweet. It cracked.
‘But nothing could take down a dragon,’ I told them.
‘An ice giant could,’ Hannalena said flatly.
Studious Berrit narrowed her eyes in speculation. ‘Fedolia? What odds would you give a really big dragon in that fight? Say, if it were a really fierce one.’
‘No odds,’ said Fedolia, and licked cinnamon sugar off her glittering blue fingernails with her long, pointed tongue. A silver necklace hung around her neck, its bulky pendant hidden underneath her student robe, and she plucked at the chain absently with her free hand as she finished. ‘They wouldn’t last two minutes.’
‘Is that a joke?’ I stared at all of them, caught off balance.
Ice giants were only a problem in the far north, so I’d never had to study them back home in Drachenheim. Still, even the magic-filled fairies of Elfenwald and an army of human battle mages couldn’t defeat an adult dragon. How could anything else ever manage it?
‘Oh, Sofi.’ Talvikki shook her head at me. ‘You do have an awful lot to learn. But don’t worry …’ She wrapped a protective arm around my shoulder. ‘You have us to show you around now! Aren’t you glad?’
Behind me, Konrad let out a groan of horror.
Talvikki’s sharp teeth shone in a startlingly sweet smile …
And I found myself smiling back at her with more ease than I’d felt in years.
‘I can’t wait,’ I said sincerely.
From: Sofia of Drachenheim
85 Svëavagan
The Cat’s Room
Villenne
To: Jasper
The Hoard
The Cavern
Dragon Mountain
Dear Jasper,
You wouldn’t believe everything I’ve seen since we arrived. I feel terrible that I haven’t taken the time to write any of it down for you until now!
Somehow, I never seem to have time for writing in the daytime any more, and by t
he evenings I’m exhausted. I didn’t even know I could walk so far in a day! If only you really could be here to explore with me. You would love it! And now that I’m not in the palace, there’s no one to stop me going anywhere I like. Unfortunately, now that I’m trying to stay awake to write it out for you at last, the cat keeps walking all over my –
Oops.
Well, there’s another smudge! So you can tell exactly what the cat’s been up to, can’t you?
(I’m sharing a room with a cat while I’m here. Lena and Anja think he must have been someone’s pet once, because he is so friendly and so fond of petting. He’s a stray, but he’s adopted me as his chief cuddler while we’re here, which I understand is a great honour.)
I have explained to him that an open bottle of ink is not a stepping stone, but he has very little common sense. Lena says cats rarely do.
(Anja says that’s why she likes them. Ulrike only sniffed very loudly, to make it perfectly clear that she thinks I have no common sense either.)
Right now, though, he is purring and butting his head against my chin, and he isn’t likely to stop until I finally give in and lie down to cuddle him to sleep in the bed – and the truth is, I am tired.
But I hope that you’re well! I’m sending you the latest volumes of Gert van Heidecker’s lectures along with this letter. They arrived here a few days after we did, but I haven’t had a chance to read them yet – and I doubt that I will for some time. So I’ll let you have the pleasure of reading them first.
(And then I’ll tell you all about his arrest! I was right there, watching it happen.)
Your friend,
Sofia
CHAPTER 10
Ulrike might not have believed it, but apparently I did have some common sense left after all. As Talvikki nudged me towards the deep, sparkling seawater two weeks after we’d first met, I dug my feet into the rickety wooden jetty and resisted her with all my might.
‘I just don’t think –’
‘Oh, Sofi!’ Letting go of me, she threw out her arms in exasperation. ‘Have you regretted any of our adventures so far?’
The Princess Who Flew with Dragons Page 5