‘Does anyone else intend to attempt murder tonight?’ Serena sighs as she plucks a cigarette from Gideon’s breast pocket.
The room is quiet except for his sobbing.
‘In that case, I suggest we all go back to bed.’
Nobody moves.
‘Go!’ she shrieks.
Dodie and Sophie spring towards the dormitory and I wonder if Serena’s drunk or just disturbed by tonight’s events. She eyes me lazily as she lights her cigarette, then follows.
‘You’ll sleep here,’ Marquis snarls at Gideon, pointing to the rug.
Atlas moves closer to me. ‘Lock your door,’ he whispers in my ear as we walk out into the hallway. ‘And take this.’ He slips Katherine’s knife into my hand.
‘The girls aren’t going to hurt me,’ I protest, but he grips my elbow urgently.
‘No?’ he says. He eyes Katherine through the doorway to the girls’ dormitory as she climbs into bed. ‘Then why did she sleep with a weapon? I bet she’s got more stashed somewhere.’
‘Like she said,’ I say as I spin round to face him, ‘self-defence. At least she had the sense to realise she might be in danger.’
Atlas glares at me. ‘Maybe that only occurred to her because she plans on committing the same crime she wants to protect herself against.’
‘And where were you, might I ask?’ I whisper, my hand on the doorknob.
‘Visiting the chapel,’ he says quickly.
There’s a chapel at Bletchley?
I reach up on tiptoes as if I’m about to kiss him, and he doesn’t pull away.
My lips brush against his ear. ‘Lying is a sin,Father.’
I lock the door on his stunned face and sleep with the knife beneath my pillow.
IN MY DREAMS, GUARDIANS OF Peace pull Ursa from Mama’s embrace as she begs a cognac-drinking dragon to read her research proposal. Atlas presses me against a giant egg, his lips on mine. ‘Hollingsworth said I’ll pass my Examination if I kiss you,’ he whispers. Hands slide round my neck and when I look up, the face hovering above me is Sophie’s.
I wake with a start. The siren is droning and Katherine lets out a disgruntled groan. I sit up and feel for the knife under my pillow. It’s still there, and we’re all still alive.
Silver linings.
I dress quickly and traipse across the frozen forest floor to the glasshouse alone, glancing over my shoulder every few minutes. The wind is picking up, moving the treetops and blowing my hair round my face.
‘Morning, Soresten,’ I say to the Sand Dragon on guard outside the glasshouse.
He bows his head in response. ‘Good morning, recruit.’
He’s a warm tawny colour with a long snout and fine-tendrilled whiskers. His eyes are set so wide apart I’m not exactly sure where he’s looking. I think of the book I was reading before I found my invitation to the ball, then glance around. No one else is out here.
‘Soresten, do you mind me asking where you come from?’
The dragon blinks. ‘Lyme Regis,’ he replies. ‘I was hatched on the Blue Lias rocks in 1813.’
Lyme Regis is on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, where hundreds of dragon fossils are found each year.
‘And Addax,’ I say hesitantly. ‘She’s also a Sand Dragon, isn’t she? Does she come from there, too?’
‘Of course,’ Soresten replies. His voice is gentle, almost soft. ‘Our mother hatched her several years later, but on Rùm that time, as there is less human disturbance there.’
