Chumana steps off the ledge and into the air. I gasp as she swoops low, her wings barely fitting between the rows of buildings, then lifts with such a force that the bushes lining the street bow in her wake. I go back to the blankets on the floor and pull them aside. Hidden beneath them are five more pamphlets. I slide them into my satchel. Tomorrow, I’ll show them to Hollingsworth. She’ll be angry at first, but they’ll make her realise how dedicated I am to the rebel cause. They’ll make her realise that I’m ready to go to Canna. I tuck them inside my satchel, then blow out the lamp and lie down.
The wind blows humid across the room, threatening to pull my covers away. I burrow down the way I used to do as a child in my bed, back when I slept on cotton sheets instead of floorboards. But I’m not frightened in the sugar house. I know I’m safer here than anywhere else in London. When Chumana and I first took up residence, both still wounded from the Battle of Bletchley, my body reacted to every creak and groan. Atlas’s voice haunted my dreams and looking at Chumana, so bloody and beaten, was an unbearable reminder of how I felt. We kept to opposite sides of the building, me freezing beneath my damp blankets, until one night the floor beneath me shook and a hot wing dropped over my body.
‘You can’t sleep like this forever,’ I had hissed bitterly into the dark. ‘I’ll just be an inconvenience to you.’
‘You’ll inconvenience me more if you’re dead,’ came the reply.
I lie still, listening to the sound of my own beating heart and the distant swish of wings outside. I wait for Chumana to return, for her presence to banish the thoughts that slip back into my mind every time I’m alone, those that remind me that the war still isn’t won, that my parents are still imprisoned and that Atlas is still dead.
Dragon Chief of State . . . how will Britannia ever escape this mess?
I clutch the swallow around my neck and think of the pamphlets again. All I want is to make up for my mistakes: betraying Sophie, believing lies about the Third Class, taking so long to join the rebels. All I want is to live out the second chance Chumana promised me, to honour Atlas’s memory byhelping the Coalition. But writing about dragon tongues isn’t going to achieve that. I remember what Chumana called me earlier and cringe.
The Swallow?
What would the rebels think if they knew the Swallow is hiding in a house in London while they fight dragons? And now Goranov is leading the country and Slavidraneishá is the only dragon tongue allowed. I bury my face into a cushion and scream. I have to dosomething.
Something dark slips into the sugar house as my eyes grow heavy, a desolation I haven’t felt this keenly since Atlas died. Working for Hollingsworth – having a purpose – has been the only thing keeping it at bay. But now I let it flood the empty space around me, licking up the wooden beams like a cold, shadowy flame. Atlas’s face appears in front of me, blood droplets spattered across his white collar. I see a silver revolver. Smoke. A motorcar hurtling through the trees.
The terrible memories engulf my dreams and I hear myself cry out just as a scaly warmth settles beside me.
There is the soft whoosh of flames.
A bird flies through my mind and scatters the nightmares, light trailing from its forked tail.
When I wake, Chumana is asleep beside me and smoky tendrils are spiralling above the cold barrel fire. The pink sunrise falls across the blankets and my heart jolts. I’ve overslept. I throw on my clothes as the morning light grows brighter. Hollingsworth will be furious with me for travelling after daybreak. Chumana snores as I step over her tail and rundown the metal stairs. My despair at yesterday’s events has formed a tight knot in my stomach that won’t go away and I keep my head down as I come out of the Tube station and walk towards Claridge House. As long as I continue to play my role as Penelope Hollingsworth convincingly, surely the Chancellor will forgive my lateness.
I falter as I almost tread on a white sheet of paper, then spot more littered across the pavement ahead. It’s only when a woman stoops to pick one up that I realise what they are. My pamphlets, scattered across several quarters. Chumana did well.
A man in a suit walks past, his coat looped over his arm and a pamphlet pressed to his nose. I feel my heart flutter. Guardians are collecting them into canvas sacks, but the people who walk by them have already picked up their copies and are reading, too. A Guardian tries to snatch one from an elderly man who lets out an angry sigh. ‘Is it illegal to read now, too?’
Two girls in traditional Bulgarian dress gather pamphlets from the ground, giggling together. They remind me of characters from a Bulgarian storybook of Mama’s. She translated it into English for me when I was small, setting the stories in London instead of Sofia. With Mama’s copy lost and all the books in Bulgaria burned, the original Bulgarian stories are surely lost forever.
‘This is England!’ a man leers at the girls as they talk. ‘So speak English, or go home!’
One of the girls opens her mouth to retort, but a Bolgorith lands on a nearby rooftop and they both scurry away. I pullmy scarf over my hair as I cross the road. Has Wyvernmire forgotten that a portion of the British population is made up of Bulgarian refugees and their children, survivors of the Massacre of Bulgaria? These are the Bolgoriths that murdered Mama’s family:myfamily. For all I know, the dragon that just landed could have burned my grandmother alive.
I walk past a building whose front wall has been blown apart, bricks scattered across the street. Inside, a registrar is officiating a wedding, the bride’s white veil billowing in the open air. A high-pitched squeal makes me look away. On the corner of Grosvenor Square, a crowd is gathering. Guardians and civilians line the street, smoke rising above their heads. I freeze as the squeal sounds again and before I know it I’m heading towards the crowd. A dragonling, no bigger than a Yorkshire terrier, is flapping around on the pavement. Its blue scales glint in the sunlight, drawing attention to its twisted talon. It stumbles as a Guardian prods it with his baton and black smoke streams from its nostrils, a sign of distress. My mouth turns dry. Like the people around me, my instinct is to look up. The dragonling’s parent must be nearby. As the Guardian prods the dragonling again and his colleagues laugh, some of the people hurry away. Anger bubbles beneath my skin. The dragonling will die of shock if they don’t kill it first. I take a step towards them, my satchel full of pamphlets banging heavily on my thigh. The knot in my stomach pulls taut, begging for release. This is my chance to dosomething.
The dragonling cries out pitifully.
‘Leave it alone!’ I shout.
Faces turn towards me and a couple of the helmetedGuardians reach for their batons. The Guardian prodding the dragonling does it again, and this time it curls up into a ball on the pavement, eyes closed and tail quivering. I spring forward and snatch the baton from the Guardian’s hand.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he shouts.
They all move towards me simultaneously, but their angry yells are muffled as an ear-splitting roar fills the air. My hands reach instinctively to protect my head as people scream. I dart for the cover of a nearby doorway, only for the Guardian to pull me backwards by the hood of my mackintosh.
‘Let go of me!’ I scream as fire licks along the street.
He drags me beneath an arch that leads into a private courtyard just as a Western Drake swoops low and catches the dragonling in her talons. She deposits it into the gaping pouch in her underbelly, then breathes another stream of fire that engulfs every human being on the opposite side of the road. I gasp as hot air fills my lungs and the Guardian beside me chokes, my hood still twisted in his fist. Bullets deflect off the dragon’s scales as Guardians shoot helplessly and more flames rain down, the loud crackle of burning motorcars blocking out the screams.
‘This is your fault,’ I spit at the Guardian. ‘You provoked her.’
I try to escape his grasp but my satchel catches on a rusty hook sticking out of the wall. There’s a ripping sound, and then the pamphlets spill out on to the cobblestones. The Guardian looks down at them, then back at me. Horror pricks my skin.
‘You’re a rebel,’ he barks. ‘Who are you working for?’
