‘Vivien, a Guardian of Peace just delivered this for you,’ Dr Seymour says. ‘He claims to have come all the way from London.’
I see Sophie flinch at the mention of home. Dr Seymour glances nervously at Ralph and hands me a parcel. I peer at the words stamped on the back and almost recoil in shock:
Academy forDraconicLinguistics
Did Hollingsworth grant my request?
‘Recruits are forbidden from using the postal system, as you well know!’ Ralph spits.
‘But this was sent by car—’
He snatches the parcel from me and tears it open as everyone stares.
‘Dolores, I’ll be reporting you for enabling disobedience in your recruits.’
Dr Seymour pales. Beneath the parcel wrapping is a thick pile of bound papers.
‘This has been sent to me by Dr Hollingsworth, the Chancellor of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics, to help me with my research,’ I say calmly. ‘Special permission was granted by Prime Minister Wyvernmire, who needed our work in the glasshouse completed yesterday. You can check with her, of course, but I’m notsure she’d appreciate your meddling.’
If Ralph sees through my lie, he doesn’t show it. He flicks through Mama’s research proposal before handing it back to me, visibly annoyed that there’s nothing to suggest that I should be excluded from the DDAD on the spot. Dr Seymour gives me a perplexed glance. I’ll explain things to her later, when Ralph isn’t around.
Gideon has buried his face in his hands. What will happen to him if I decipher echolocation before he does? I don’t want to think about it and I can’t afford to. But part of me still hopes that if I can give Wyvernmire the so-calledcodeshe desperately wants, maybe I’ll be able to negotiate everyone’s release.
I look down at the research paper in my hands.
‘The Evolution of Dragon Tongues: A Case for Familial Dialects.’
My heart flutters as I race through the abstract, hearing Mama’s voice in the words she has written. Every thought is carefully presented and meticulously backed up with a study or a citation, and for a second it feels like she’s with me. It would be evident to anyone reading this that the author genuinely cares about the welfare of dragons and their place in society. The realisation hits me like a ton of bricks. Whatever reason Mama had for joining the rebels, it must have been a good one.
When Gideon goes out for a cigarette break, I listen to some of yesterday’s recordings. All this time, we’ve been adding calls to the indexing system as if they belong to one single language, when in reality they could belong to any one ofthe family dialects that exist. Soresten used the more simple, universal echolocation calls to talk to Muirgen, but a family dialect to talk to his sister Addax. But why would Soresten go through the trouble of speaking in dialect to Addax if she, too, understands the universal echolocation language he used with Muirgen?
I already know the answer to that question. It’s the same reason I speak to Mama in Bulgarian, and not English. Because it’s the language I know her through, the one we learned to love each other in. To speak to her in a different one would feel wrong. I lean back in my chair. If I can prove my theory that Muirgen and Rhydderch speak a version of echolocation different from the one Soresten and Addax speak, then I’ll be able to take my breakthrough to Wyvernmire.
Dr Seymour steps outside with Ralph, and I hear her threatening to make a formal complaint if he doesn’t let her do her job. Katherine is tapping her fingers nervously on the table, watching me with tired, bloodshot eyes. I do my best to give her a reassuring smile as Sophie appears beside me.
‘You’re on speaking terms with the Chancellor of the Academy?’ she hisses.
‘I ran into her at the ball,’ I reply.
‘See?’ Katherine tells Sophie darkly. ‘I told you.’
Sophie frowns.
‘Told her what?’ I say.
‘That you’re cheating.’ I’m surprised at the venom in Katherine’s usually cheerful voice. ‘You’re using your Second Class status to grovel for help.’
I raise an eyebrow and put the headphones on. ‘That’sridiculous,’ I say as clicks fill my ears.
I check the loquisonus machine, surprised. I haven’t selected a recording yet, but the calls are definitely playing. That means they’re happening now. I glance up through the roof, but there’s no sign of a dragon in the patches of the sky I can see through the tree branches. Maybe it’s Soresten communicating with the dragon due to take over his shift. I write down the calls I can identify, scrawling them across a page of the logbook as they come. It seems to be just one dragon, speaking alone and receiving no response. Some of the calls I don’t recognise and I have to reach for the index cards to see if they’ve previously been recorded. I take notes as fast as I can as the calls become quicker and more erratic, writing down any possible translations.
Pitch-type3 (girl)
Pitch-type4 (female)
Trill-type15 (human)
UKNOWN CALL
