‘The closer we get to any tunnels, the louder the alarm will sound,’ I lie.
I know the sound will grow louder as we approach the tunnels because the wyverns are echolocating there. Then I turn and lead him away again, down the dune in the direction of the sea, where there are no wyverns.
‘The noise is quieter here,’ Abelio murmurs.
I nod, counting my luck. If there had been a dragon flying over the water, the sound of their echolocation would have come through the headphones and what I’ve just told Abelio wouldn’t have made sense.
‘It is odd,’ he murmurs, ‘that the tunnels sound like the strings of a musical instrument.
How does the machine work?’
‘I didn’t invent it,’ I say slowly.
My heart races. What can I make up on the spot? I need Abelio to believe that I have some knowledge to offer him, so that he will allow me to stay long enough to figure out how the wyverns can help the rebels win the war. My eyes dart to more of the amber-coloured crystals in the grass. ‘But I think it has something to do with . . . the presence of minerals in the earth, which are closer to the surface where tunnels have been made.’
I am a better liar in Cannair than I am in English.
Two dragons swoop across the sky and I see Abelio startle. The noise in the headphones is changing. I stumble back in the direction of the cave, but I can tell by his expression as he follows me that he’s noticed.
‘Why did the noise start again back there, if there are no tunnels?’
I shake my head. ‘It started again because we came back this way,’ I say, gesturing to accompany my stilted speech.
I watch as the dragons fly over us. Slowly, Abelio reaches for the loquisonus machine and carries it back to the spot where we were standing a moment ago. With the dragons overhead gone, it is no longer detecting their echolocation and I let out a small sigh of relief. His lower jaw quivers, revealing small, sharp teeth. Does he know I’m lying?
‘Perhaps,’ he says slowly, ‘the machine was detecting old tunnels in the cliffs. In the past, when our passageways have been discovered, we were forced to fill in the entrances and abandon them.’
My head spins as I grasp at his words, mentally translating at a snail’s pace. ‘That must be it,’ I reply.
‘Fascinating,’ he says with a wide-lipped smile.
‘What use might you have for a tunnel detector?’ I ask him tentatively. ‘If you made the tunnels, then surely you know where each is located.’
‘It is always useful to know which weapons one’s enemy might have in their arsenal,’ he replies.
‘And your enemy is who, exactly?’
‘We have lived underground since the British government came looking for Patrick Clawtail. We lost many of our own in the fight to protect him. After that, we decided to keep to ourselves.’
‘This is the only tunnel detector known to exist,’ I say. ‘So you don’t have to worry about—’
‘I thought you said Britannia was at war,’ he interrupts.
‘It is.’
‘Then what makes you think the same government that attacked us once before won’t have more machines like this one at its disposal?’
‘What makes you think Britannia’s government is interested in detecting wyvern tunnels?’ I reply.
I’m pleased with my quick retort. Perhaps mastering Cannair won’t be so hard, after all. Andperhapsthis is the information I need. Perhaps Abelio is about to tell me what Hollingsworth didn’t.
‘Because we shielded a rebel the government wanted,’ he murmurs. ‘And now it seems we are doing so again.’
His blue tongue hisses between his teeth.
‘So you know from first-hand experience how ruthless Britannia’s government is,’ I say. ‘The Peace Agreement was corrupt, allowing dragons to feed on human children abandoned on Canna after the people here were forced from their homes. And now that same government is trying to ban any languages that aren’t English or the Slavidraneishá of the Bulgarian Bolgoriths. Languages like your beautiful Cannair.’
‘Prohibit a language they do not even know?’ Abelio hisses. ‘Shielding our wyvernlings from such ignorance, from such cultural decline, is paramount. Do you see why we live the way we live? Why your mere presence is unnerving?’ His eyes flash. ‘You are a link between us and the terrible government you speak of, girl with the golden machine. After you have used ourfasgadh, I am not sorry to have to ask you . . .’
