I’M DREAMING IN DRACONIC AGAIN.
The long, intricate sentences come to me more easily in sleep than when I’m awake and, just before I open my eyes, my mind settles on one word.
Mengkhenyass.
What does it mean?
I roll over, the haze of sleep lifting quickly as sunlight streams in through the sash windows. On the floor, tangled in a pile of blankets, my cousin Marquis snores. His father spent the night talking with Mama and Dad again, whispering about strikes and protests and dragonfire. Marquis’s presence on my bedroom floor is becoming a regular occurrence.
The clatter of pots and pans rings from the kitchen below and I swing my legs off the bed as realisation settles in my stomach. The Chancellor of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics is coming for dinner. Here in my parents’ house.
Tonight.
I’ve been waiting for this day for weeks – no, months. Dr Rita Hollingsworth is coming to see Mama to discuss her theory on dragon dialects, but it will be my chance to impress and – I almost don’t dare hope – secure a summer apprenticeship in the Academy’s translation department.
‘Marquis!’ I throw a cushion at my cousin’s head. ‘Wake up.’
Marquis grunts into his pillow. ‘For God’s sake, Viv. I thought we were sleeping in.’
‘Too much to do,’ I reply. ‘I have to be at the bookbinder shop by ten.’
I pull on my dressing gown and cross the room to the desk, where my professor’s letter of recommendation lies crisp and smooth. The door opens with a bang and Ursa bursts in, fully dressed. Marquis groans as she tramples over him and presses her rosebud lips to his ear.
‘Cousin?’ she whispers loudly. ‘Are you awake?’
‘He is now, little bear.’ I laugh and open my arms to her. She’s soft and warm and smells of milk and honey. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ Ursa replies, her eyes growing wide. ‘It’s a secret place.’
‘A secret place?’ Marquis sits up, a devilish grin on his face. ‘That’s my favourite kind.’
Ursa giggles and lets me untangle her hair, which is caught in the fraying ribbon that holds her class pass.
I turn the ribbon over in my hand and swear.
‘Ursa!’ I say. ‘You should have asked Mama to replace this by now. Youknownot to risk losing your pass.’
I reach for my own pass, strung on a black velvet ribbon, and slip it round my neck. The thought of Ursa being stopped without her class pass fills me with dread. Those two words –Second Class– are the difference between having something and having nothing.
My sister just frowns and points a finger at the wall behind my desk. It’s decorated with paper clippings: sketches by Marquis of the different dragon species, my acceptance letter to the University of London and a watercolour painting. I brace myself for the question Ursa asks most days.
‘Where is Sophie?’
I turn reluctantly towards the painting, trying to ignore the sudden longing that floods through me. My own grinning face stares back at me and, beside it, the face of my dearest, oldest friend.
‘I’ve already told you,’ I say, cupping Ursa’s face in my hands. ‘She’s gone away.’
I haven’t seen Sophie since the summer, since she failed the Examination and was demoted to Third Class. In the space of a few weeks, she was forced to give up on our dream of attending university together and move away from her family’s home in Marylebone to a halfway house in a Third Class quarter. I shudder at the memory of results day. Sophie’s weak cry, the way she sank to the ground like a deflating balloon, the grim face of her father as he stooped to read the paper in her hand.
The guilt rises like a tidal wave, knocking the breath from my chest.
‘Sophie’s Third Class now, Ursa,’ Marquis says, glancing at me nervously.
I rip the painting from the wall.
‘Ursa!’ Mama’s voice calls up the stairs. ‘I’m waiting for you, sweetheart.’
Ursa darts from the room without a backward glance, and a few seconds later the front door slams. I drop the painting into the wastepaper bin and pull a lace blouse and trousers from my wardrobe.
