Dialect A: Muirgen and Rhydderch
Dialect B: Soresten and Addax.
Echolocation can heal, grow and kill. Without it, eggs cannot hatch.
No.
I draw a line through the last two sentences. That’s a secret I won’t give Wyvernmire. I’m not going to let her experimenton innocent dragonlings, no matter how good it might be for the war effort.
But if you don’t tell Atlas those eggs will never hatch, he’ll fail his category.
Dread fills my stomach and I feel a sudden yearning for his touch. How must he be feeling, locked up in isolation with nothing to do but relive Dodie’s last moments? I think of the tenderness with which he fastened the wooden swallow round my neck, the tears on his face as I held him last night. For all his rebelliousness, Atlas is gentle and good. Will Bletchley Park break him, like it broke Dodie?
I stare back down at my writing and a hot feeling comes over me. The skin on the back of my neck begins to prickle. I’ve done it, I realise. This is the progress Wyvernmire asked for. Three months was never enough, but thanks to me we know that the key to deciphering echolocation is to learn its dialects.
And I’ve already started doing that.
When the shift is over, I walk through the empty hallways. Bletchley seems quieter than usual and I wonder where all the Guardians are.
‘Marquis?’
He’s sitting on one of the tables in the dimly lit seminar room we were brought to when we first arrived.
‘What are you doing in the dark all alone?’
He gives me a solemn look. ‘Ravensloe didn’t like you two standing up to him. And Knott keeps threatening Karim with demotion forlack of contribution. He’s too petrified to share any of his ideas, especially now heknows what will happen to me if he wins.’
‘You told him you’re facing the death penalty?’
‘I wish I never had,’ Marquis says miserably.
‘Something happened today—’
‘I’ve got to tell you something, Viv.’
We both speak at the same time.
Marquis swivels round to face me. I’m about to tell him that I’ve done it. The thing I was brought here to do. I’ve cracked the code, or at least uncovered the key to learning echolocation. He pauses, studying my face, and I realise he looks afraid.
‘What?’ I say quietly. ‘Oh God. What have you done?’
‘I can’t do this any more,’ he says, his voice barely a whisper.
‘Do what?’ I say. ‘Build planes?’
‘I can’t work for Wyvernmire. I can’t be on her side.’
‘Marquis, what do you mean? You’re not on a side. You’re here to save our parents.’
‘I am on a side, and so are you! We’ve got to stop acting like we have no responsibility in this. I’m here building planes for the woman who is threatening to execute our parents. The woman who would rather go to war than change the corrupt Peace Agreement. Who had Dodie killed!’
‘Ravensloehad Dodie killed,’ I say.
But suddenly all I can think of is what Chumana said to me.
You are on the wrong side of history, human girl.
‘What if this whole thing is bigger than saving our family?’ Marquis says. ‘What if we can save themandhelp the rebels win?’
