Goosebumps rise on my arms. The swallows werelinguists? I’ve never heard that version of the legend before. Atlas smiles, holding the door open for me, and when I walk past him into the library I catch that scent again – peppermint and tobacco.
The library is small and dark and cluttered. There’s only one window and no one has bothered to lift its blackout blind. We set to work lighting the gas lamps and when I turn round I see books piled up on the floor, bursting from the shelves and stuffed into alcoves in the walls. There’s an upstairs section, accessible by a ladder, and I spot a small, round table and a few chairs up there. The air smells of damp paper.
‘What are you looking for?’ Atlas asks.
‘A book on the Scottish Isles,’ I say, peering closer at the spines of the books.
‘The Scottish Isles? Why?’
There’s a piece of paper tacked to the wall. I scan it until I find what I’m looking for:
Geography – Upper Level
I step on to the ladder. ‘I just think it will be a good place to begin.’
Atlas is right behind me, climbing off the ladder and into the upper section just after I do.
‘Do you always do more work than is required?’ He smiles at me, his mouth twitching.
‘Yes,’ I say without smiling back. ‘I like to get a head start.’
‘But I thought you were translating,’ Atlas says. ‘Why do you need a book on the Scottish Isles for that?’
I ignore him and peer up at the wall. It’s covered in old maps, framed and mounted in neat rows. My eyes follow the lines that represent islands, the quick pencil marks indicating mountains and rivers, until I see an expanse of land with nothing but three words in the middle.
‘Here be dragons,’ I read out loud.
‘They say some cartographers were too afraid to chart certain territories.’ Atlas comes up behind me. ‘Whenever they came across an unexplored area, they simply marked a warning on the maps they were drawing. It means they don’t know what’s there, but there are most definitely dragons.’
‘How do you know that?’ I say.
He grins. ‘How do you not?’
I turn away and run my hand along the books on the geography shelves. I’m surprised to see they’re arranged by country. After the Travel Ban was imposed, many libraries removed the books that focused on foreign countries and replaced them with texts about Britannia instead. But now I’m seeing spines with titles likeCapital Cities of the WorldandDragon Diaspora in Paris and its Environs. This must besomeone’s private collection. I wonder who lived at Bletchley before the government requisitioned it. I find the section on Britannia and kneel to look at the lowest books.
Britannia, a Kingdom by the Sea.
British Territories: A Tale of Two Species.
The Book of Welsh Estuaries.
A Brief History of the Beginnings of Scotland.
The Viking Isles.
The Hebrides: Exploring Scotland’s Islands.
My hand stops. I pull out the last book and bring it to the table. While I flick through the pages, I watch Atlas out of the corner of my eye. He’s engrossed in the politics section, his lips moving silently as he reads. His white collar is still poking out from beneath his uniform. Why does he insist on keeping his own clothes?
Something catches my eye on page 265.
The Hebrides comprise more than forty islands extending in an arc off the Atlantic west coast of Scotland. However, most of these islands are uninhabited. The Small Isles, which include Canna, Sanday, Rùm, Eigg and Muck, used to be home to humans and dragons alike. Rùm has been used as a hatching ground for British dragons since the twelfth century, but officially became dragon-only territory upon the signing of the Peace Agreement in 1866. Dragons claim that hatching season is disturbedby human activity, therefore plane routes are no longer directed across the islands. When the Peace Agreement was signed, the government requisitioned the neighbouring islands of Eigg and Canna for official purposes. A total of 360 inhabitants were moved to the mainland.
If Eigg and Canna are government-owned, then whatever Dr Seymour has to do with them must have been sanctioned by Ravensloe. But how are those places linked to dragon echolocation?
Rùm has been used as a hatching ground for British dragons since the twelfth century.
I imagine a grassy island covered in dragon nests, eggs the size of bowling balls sheltered by leathery wings.
