He pulls away.
‘What is it?’ I ask, stinging from the rejection.
‘Nothing,’ he says, his eyes on his paper. ‘I’m just trying to concentrate.’
I feel my heart flutter unpleasantly. ‘Is this because I didn’t agree with your plan to listen to the wyverns’ echolocation?’
‘Of course not,’ he replies, still avoiding my gaze.
‘You’ve been acting like a spoilt brat lately!’ I burst out furiously. ‘Admit to that at least.’
Atlas doesn’t reply.
Is your secret mission bothering you?I want to say.
I bristle with anger, yet I’m still hungry for his touch, just a hand on my back or whisper in my ear, a sign that there’s no bad feelings between us. But the past couple of days he’s barely looked at me, and last night he didn’t come into our cave until I was asleep. I wonder if he somehow knows that I read his diary. I glance around the cave, desperate to show him that I have something – anything – better to do. Cindra isstanding beneath one of the memory tapestries, watching me. This is the third time I’ve caught her staring, her tail coiled around the books at her feet, her talons snapping in . . . what? Trepidation? Anticipation? I glance at Atlas again, but he’s busy scrawling something across the page.
‘If you’re not doing anything,’ he says without looking up, ‘could you take a look at my notes on Bolgorith battle weaknesses? There’s a paragraph on family bonds that needs editing.’
The boredom and sense of uselessness smoulder gently, then combust.
‘I’m not your bloody secretary,’ I snap.
I stand up and cross the cave to Cindra.
‘Cindra,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Is there something you want from me?’
I hear a clicking sound in her chest and expect anger, but she nods. Her eyes dart to the entrance, then back to me. ‘But not here.’ She gestures towards the left-hand passageway, which leads away past our sleeping cave and the pool entrance. I glance back at Atlas, who hasn’t looked up, then follow Cindra out of the Amber Court. We walk quietly past more wyvern chambers and I hear running water. Cindra doesn’t speak until we reach a small waterfall, crashing down from somewhere high up in the rock. The noise echoes so loudly that I can barely hear her talk.
‘Cindra?’ I say in Cannair. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘No, Vivien Featherswallow,’ she replies in English. ‘Everything is not okay.’
I reel in shock. ‘You speak English?’
‘Yes,’ she hisses in reply. ‘But Abelio mustnotknow.’
‘Why?’
She lets out a tutting noise. ‘Because he believes it, and everything it stands for, will contaminate Cannair, and the wyvern way of life, and our . . . concealment.’
I think of Aodahn’s English names for the different wyvern caves.
‘You don’t agree with it, then?’ I say carefully. ‘With the living underground?’
‘Abelio laments that the wyverns harbour a strong interest in humans and claims that it began when Clawtail walked among us. But he is wrong. It is since he made us live away from the rest of the world that we have come to covet human ways.’ She growls.
‘The wyverns didn’t always make art, then?’ I say. ‘But what about your tapestries, your tweed?’
‘Wyverns have always been creatures of comfort and creation and ceremony. They are things wedo, in the same way that bees build hives. But since we have lived underground, unable to fly except for the purpose of hunting, our minds no longer travel. Our souls are tethered. Our art forms have changed. Weaving can still be practised underground, but glass-blowing, flame-throwing, cloud-spinning . . . these are all but lost to us.’ Cindra casts a glance back down the empty passageway. ‘And so we have found solace in other pursuits, such as the consumption of human literature. This is why the wyverns sculpt human figures, write about humans, speak like humans. A bird will mimic human singing if caged for too long. Abelio is well-intentioned but misguided. In seeking topreserve our traditions and language, he fails to see that it is the sharing of them that would keep them alive.’
‘If you were to come out of concealment, dragons and humans would witness the waulking of the tweed, see the memory tapestries, hear Cannair.’
Cindra is nodding. ‘Some of us, those who lived before Clawtail, speak other tongues, too. We are not all monolingual.’
‘You’re the one who asked Clawtail to translate Cannair!’ I say.
Her eyes gleam. ‘Yes. And now I am asking you to continue Patrick’s legacy by translating Cannair into English so that it can be recognised by your Academy as a dragon tongue.’ She pauses. ‘As things stand, if the Hebridean Wyverns were to perish, then Cannair would die with us.’
