Gideon nods as Aodahn scurries across the room to retrieve a pile of papers, then lowers his voice. ‘I think he’s going to drive me mad.’
‘Gideon, speaker of tongues, is a dedicated teacher,’ Aodahn exclaims. ‘Look at all the words he has taught me!’
He gestures to a list of vocabulary, his long talon dripping with ink.
‘Aodahn, would you help me with something?’ I ask.
Gideon gives me a look of grateful relief.
‘The wordbrotnacroì. What does it mean?’
Aodahn pauses thoughtfully. ‘It is like . . . a heartbreak, but stronger than that. It is irremediable, a heart that is not simply broken, but broken forever.’ He lets out a surprised yelp that makes me jump. ‘It is like Gideon, speaker of tongues taught me with the French wordAdieu! It does not only mean goodbye, but goodbye forever. A definitive farewell.’
I’m nodding. Explained like that, it makes sense. I’ve deciphered a word that doesn’t even appear in Clawtail’s journal and the sensation it gives me takes me straight back to the glasshouse. I can almost smell the citrus freshness of Dr Seymour’s plants around me. It’s the feeling of not just translating a language, but recording it for the first time. When I look up at Aodahn again, his huge eyes are shining.
‘Patrick Clawtail showed the same enthusiasm for Cannair as you, Vivien Featherswallow. But it only brought us closer to our own forever farewell.’
Aodahn stirs the pot that sits in the fire with a wooden spoon the length of my arm. Then he ladles the liquid into three earthenware cups so large that I have to hold mine in both hands. It’s a hot, savoury broth, coating my tongue and warming my body.
‘Abelio talks as though he is closed to any form of interaction with humans, but that can’t be true, can it, if he was letting Clawtail learn Cannair with the aim of promoting it?’
‘Abelio has changed since Patrick died. Now, his priority is protecting Cannair from outside influence, preserving its pure, undiluted form.’
‘No language is pure,’ I reply. ‘It’s a living thing, changed by those who speak it and other languages it comes into contact with. If Patrick had been given the chance to share Cannair with other humans, he would have passed on mispronunciations, tiny mistakes. It’s inevitable.’
Aodahn buries his snout into the cup and slurps the broth. ‘Patrick had an almost perfect mastery of Cannair. And his little daughter spoke it as if she were born to the Hebridean Wyverns.’
‘But he never finished translating it,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen the journal. He stopped recording the language two years after he joined you.’
Aodahn sets his cup down, his milky eyes swimming again. ‘Cannair is a complex language, dear one.’
‘You knew Clawtail well,’ I say softly. ‘Perhaps better than we think?’
Slowly, Aodahn goes to a shelf.
‘This is all I have left of Patrick,’ he says, unwrapping a piece of cloth and bringing it to the fire.
Gideon and I peer closer at a gold ring, wound in a piece of yellow thread. It’s tiny in Aodahn’s talons.
‘A wedding band?’ Gideon said.
Aodahn nods. ‘We wrap our dead in tweed before we burn them, to preserve their memory. But we never found Patrick’s body, so this is the best I could do.’ He sniffs, a puff of black smoke escaping his nostrils. ‘The other is with his wife, no doubt.’
I think of Clawtail’s journal, seeing the careful handwriting in my mind. Back in London he was just a piece of history, a faceless figure unknown to everyone but Hollingsworth and me. But now, he’s Aodahn’s friend.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I say.
Aodahn places the ring back on the shelf and I know I have to take advantage of the moment to ask him what he knows.
‘Some humans claim that the Hebridean Wyverns could help them win the war against the government,’ I say slowly. ‘The government that killed Patrick. Do you know how that might be?’
Aodahn blinks. ‘If they have weapons like they did before, then there are too few of us wyverns to withstand an attack.’
I catch Gideon’s eye as Aodahn shakes his head. ‘I am afraid that the humans are mistaken. Be it by teeth or by talon, the wyverns cannot help you.’
Our own cave is quiet during the hours that the others are busy with the wyverns. Atlas is teaching about how the dragon industry of metallurgy influenced the British rebel movement and Marquis is shadowing one of the healers. I sit by the ever-burning fire, turning Cannair words over in my mind. So far, the three months I spent studying the language have done me little good. If what Aodahn said is true then Abelio considers my learning Cannair a dilution, a weakening of the language rather than a respectful attempt to master it. He’s made it clear that he has no interest in the war, which makes our presence here pointless. In fact, I suspect that his fascination with the loquisonus machine is the only reason he is tolerating our request for shelter at all.
I pull my jumper off in the sweltering heat of the cave. Perhaps we should call this mission off and return to the rebels on Eigg, then get word to Hollingsworth that the war will have to be won without the wyverns. I try to imagine the look on her face when I tell her I’ve failed and my skin crawls. Surely she has a Plan B? I look up as Atlas walks in, tucking his notebook into the pocket of his jacket.
