I take another sip. ‘A few times. She doesn’t understand the importance of dragon tongues. She doesn’t even speak any.’
George’s eyes light up. ‘Do you?’
‘A few,’ I say with a shrug.
He grins. ‘So you reallyareHollingsworth’s niece.’
The champagne has created a pleasant glow that suffuses my whole body and I suddenly feel braver, more convincing. I’m an undercover rebel having a conversation at a First Class party and nobody has looked at me twice. Except George. I glance up at him through my eyelashes.
‘Of course I am,’ I say sweetly. ‘Do you speak any languages?’
‘Some French. My favourite word isdépaysement.’
‘What does it mean?’ Hyacinth asks, appearing at my shoulder.
‘To be disoriented, in a homesick sort of way,’ I reply. ‘But it’s more intense than that. I can’t think of an Englishword that quite captures it. Translated literally, it meansout of country.’
‘Like alienated, or adrift?’ Hyacinth says.
‘Almost,’ I reply eagerly. ‘But not quite.’
‘The word’s untranslatable, then?’
I shake my head. ‘Nothing’s untranslatable. Just let me think . . .’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ says the boy providing Hyacinth’s cigarettes. I think his name is Stephen. ‘Not in light of the new Babel Decree article.’
What is he talking about?
‘It’s going to be announced in the morning. My brother’s a Guardian, he told me all about it,’ Stephen says. ‘Making Slavidraneishá Britannia’s national dragon tongue? The language of the Bulgarian dragons? What’s the PM playing at? English and Wyrmerian are the languages of the Empire, not some Slavic babble.’
I freeze.
Slavidraneishá is the new national dragon tongue? That can’t be true. I would know, Hollingsworth would have told me.
George lays a hand on my arm. ‘Are you all right? You’ve gone rather pale.’
I nod hurriedly.
‘This is news to you, too?’ he asks gently.
‘No,’ I almost snap. I meet his gaze and force a smile. ‘But the rest of you aren’t supposed to know.’ I nod towards Stephen. ‘If his brother knows what’s going on in the Chancellor’s office, then what’s to say the rebels don’t?’
‘That’s what comes from having a woman Prime Minister, I suppose,’ Stephen drawls.
I open my mouth, then close it again as Hyacinth slaps his arm. He grins and plants a kiss on her cheek before she can stop him.
George tops up my glass. ‘Stephen here thinks Wyvernmire should be impeached. Thinks she’s unfit to rule, that her Bulgarian alliance and Babel Decree are proof of it.’
‘The majority of the First Class support the Babel Decree,’ I say.
Don’t they?
Stephen gives me an icy glare. ‘We’re notalldragon haters.’
‘Of course not,’ I say quickly. ‘But the First Class are the ones who put Wyvernmire in power in the first place. They are –’ I pause and correct myself – ‘weare the reason Britannia is now ruled by language restrictions, even though its linguistic diversity is centuries old.’
‘My father says we’re all collaborators now,’ Stephen replies.
