Ruth shakes her head as she begins to row. ‘I ’ent in thebusiness of letting innocent kids die, although I haven’t decided about that Roy yet.’
‘Let Sargo have him,’ I whisper through chattering teeth.
Ruth grins. She looks at Atlas, then points to the dracovol. ‘I found this fellow on the other side of the island. He ’ent one of ours.’
On the other side of the island?
‘But Ruth, aren’t you banished?’
‘He’s been looking for you,’ she tells Atlas.
For a moment I think she must be joking, but then I see Atlas’s face. He freezes, his cheeks red.
‘Me?’ he says, his voice tinny and forced.
Then I see it. The slip of paper clasped in the dracovol’s left talon.
‘He was carrying this,’ Ruth says.
She opens her palm to reveal a small piece of green wool fabric, the same material that Atlas’s Coalition-issued uniform is made from. I remember the square cut from the inside of his jacket pocket. The dracovol jostles its leg and slowly Atlas’s eyes come to meet mine. He takes the folded paper. His surname is scrawled on the front in a looping handwriting I recognise.
My heart sinks.
‘Open it,’ I tell him. ‘And read it to me.’
K.
I know you will do everything it takes to ensure we succeed. By the time you reach me, I am sure minds will have been changed. I am waiting where the sketches are.
H
He looks up, his eyes smarting with shame.
‘H,’ I say coldly. ‘Not . . .theH?’
His silence tells me all I need to know. As the girls row in silence, casting curious glances between us, I let the shock settle. Atlas is communicating with Hollingsworth. All this time, we were trying to figure out what she wanted us to ask of the wyverns and if the rebels had a back-up plan . . . and he never once said he could reach her. He knew she hadn’t been arrested or tortured, but he let us believe she might have been. Cool realisation dawns on me.
Who else would have ordered him on a secret mission?
‘I take it shedoeswant to use the wyvern echolocation to fight the Bolgoriths?’ I say to him. ‘That’s all you’ve been able to talk about these past few days.’
‘Viv,’ Atlas says miserably. ‘If you come with me to Canna House, she’ll—’
‘Canna House?’ I erupt. ‘Hollingsworth is on the island? What was the point of going for Chumana, if the answers to our questions are waiting in the bay?’
‘She wants to see you,’ Atlas says. ‘And all this will be explained. You think you’ve failed in your mission, Viv, but you haven’t. Not yet.’
‘My plan to translate Cannair to convince the wyverns to help us was doomed from the start,’ I say. ‘So if we can’t win without them, then—’
‘Come with me to see her,’ Atlas says. ‘Please!’
He clutches the crumpled piece of paper to his chest and for a moment I think he might cry.
‘Otherwise . . .’
His fists clench as he swallows the rest of his words. I frown, alarm building in the pit of my stomach.
‘Otherwise what, Atlas?’
