We do as she asks and she hesitates for a moment before lowering her bow.
Two more girls appear behind her and when she nods at them, they run along the clifftop. Moments later they’rewalking across the sand, beckoning to us.
‘I don’t like this,’ Gideon says quietly. ‘Too easy.’
We follow the girls, who remain a safe distance ahead, to the far side of Sanday where the low tide has pulled back to reveal a semi-circular bay, invisible from Canna. Standing in it, weapons raised high, are at least twenty girls.
‘Told you,’ Gideon says.
The youngest wear tattered dresses or long trousers held up by braces, but the older ones are swathed in sheepskin. Their weapons aren’t handmade like Jasper’s. Instead they carry crossbows, revolvers and what looks like the rifles used by the Guardians of Peace. But that isn’t what shocks me.
It’s the dracovols.
The miniature dragons are everywhere, perched on the girls’ shoulders, nesting in the cliffs around us and circling in the air in a way that makes them look like birds. The girl with the crossbow comes forward. She’s about my age, with tangled golden hair and a sheepskin cloak that reveals long, brown limbs and bare feet. A purple dracovol chirrups on her shoulder. There’s something ethereal about her, about all of them. With their flowing hair and hard faces, they look like something out of a Greek painting.
‘Ruth?’ I ask the girl. ‘I’m Vivien Featherswallow.’
She glares at me. ‘Jasper sent you?’
I nod. She considers me for a moment, then strokes the tiny head of the dracovol.
‘Yes, I’m Ruth. What do you want?’
‘We thought it might be more fun to hang around here rather than with Jasper’s dreary lot,’ Marquis says with a grin.‘We heard you’re a murderer.’
I glare at him.
‘Only in self-defence, of course,’ he adds hurriedly.
Ruth doesn’t reply, but a small smile plays on her lips.
‘That’snotwhy we’re here,’ I say. ‘We’re looking for the—’
‘Hebridean Wyverns,’ Marquis says, leaning against the cliff. ‘We’re wondering if you know where we might find them? And then we’ll be on our merry way.’
I shake my head in despair and Serena lets out a long sigh. Marquis raises his arms above his head and Ruth’s smile disappears. She reaches for her crossbow, and the other girls are just as quick as she is.
‘Steady on,’ he says, pulling a loaf of bread from his pack. He holds it out to the girls. ‘A gift. Doesn’t look like you have much wheat growing around here.’
Ruth reaches out slowly, takes the bread, sniffs it. She hands it to someone behind her and soon the loaf is being passed around like a trophy.
‘Only you can come in,’ Ruth says, pointing to me and Serena.
I resist the urge to give Marquis a smug smile.
‘In?’ Marquis says politely.
Ruth glances back at the cliff face that braces against the sea and I glimpse an entrance in the wet stone, a small crack just wide enough for a person to fit through. Marquis bows, causing several girls to giggle, then pulls a cigarette out from behind his ear and lights it. Atlas takes a seat on a rock as Gideon stares out to sea and mutters something about women.
‘You can help us, then?’ I ask Ruth. ‘With the wyverns?’
She gives me a cool look. ‘Might.’
I follow her into the bay with Serena, leaving the boys behind.
‘Might?’ Serena says. ‘I’ve had enough cryptic messages to last a lifetime, haven’t you?’
I smirk. Ruth leads us through the gap in the rock. It’s dark and wet, the passage so narrow that it feels like the walls are closing in on us. I keep as near to Ruth as I can as water submerges my feet. There’s a faint fluttering in the air above me and I muffle a shriek as a long tail tickles the top of my head.
