CHAPTER TWELVE
THE DRAGONS ARE STANDING SIDE by side, watching me as I walk towards them. My body is already stiff with cold and I plunge my free hand into my pocket. The blue and purple scales of the dragons’ hides are difficult to see in the dark, and if it wasn’t for their size they would blend into the shadows.
‘I don’t recall summoning a translator,’ Rhydderch growls as I approach.
I stop a few feet away and wonder how to begin.
‘I don’t believe you should be out at this hour,’ Muirgen says, licking her lips. ‘Shouldn’t you be in the glasshouse? I’ve seen you run in and out so often during my patrols with Soresten and Addax that we’ve started to believe Ravensloe has you working on something that might actually help us win the war.’
Both dragons laugh – a low, guttural sound – and I fake a smile. So the dragon I saw with Soresten and Muirgen in the field the other day was Addax.
‘I’ve come to ask you a question.’ My voice comes out quieter than I intended.
The dragons’ huge yellow eyes stare at me and I see the movement of a tail in the dark.
‘Go on,’ Rhydderch says.
‘The Bulgarian dragon that landed here,’ I say. ‘Borislav.’
‘Yes?’
‘Why did you need a translator to understand him?’
‘You already know this,’ Muirgen says lazily. ‘We do not speak the dragon tongues of the East—’
‘But don’t dragons have other ways of talking to each other?’ I interrupt.
Muirgen cocks her head, her eyes unblinking.
It is crucial that none of the dragons guarding Bletchley Park learn of the codebreaking going on inside the glasshouse.
Dr Seymour would kill me if she knew I was here. But if we want to crack the code in three months then surely she must realise that we can’t keep playing this guessing game. I have to ask the question I came here to ask.
‘Can you communicate using a … sixth sense? One that humans don’t have?’
A field mouse scurries across my shoe and, before I can recoil, Muirgen skewers it on the end of a long black claw. She lifts it to her face and watches as it jerks several times, then dies. She swallows it whole.
‘What exactly are you referring to?’
‘Something a dragon told me about a long time ago,’ I lie. ‘He said that dragons can speak to each other in a … in a sort of code.’ I try to look innocent. ‘Is that right?’
A low growling sound comes from Rhydderch’s chest. Black smoke is rising from Muirgen’s nostrils and, as she takes a step closer to me, the moon illuminates the spikes along her back.
‘A code?’ she purrs. ‘Is that what you think it is?’
‘Quiet, Muirgen,’ Rhydderch snaps. He bares his teeth at me. ‘What has your Prime Minister been telling you?’
‘Nothing,’ I say quickly. ‘I told you, it was a dragon. Was he telling the truth? Can dragons read each other’s minds?’
‘How dare you come here seeking knowledge that is not yours to possess,’ Muirgen snarls.
‘I’m a translator,’ I say calmly, even as my body grows hot with fear. ‘Of course I’m interested in knowing all the ways dragons can communicate—’
‘The Koinamens belongs to dragons and dragons alone!’ Muirgen roars.
She rears backwards and stamps her two front feet on the ground. The impact sends me flying and I wince as I land on my bad arm six feet away. I scramble to my feet, ignoring the burning pain in my wrist.
‘Please,’ I say, glancing back towards the manor house. ‘You’ll wake everyone up. I just want to know why you and Borislav didn’t speak the same … Koinamens.’
‘The dragon who told you of it betrayed his own kind,’ Rhydderch says. ‘It is a mystery that must remain among dragons.’
His tail flicks in Muirgen’s direction and she takes a step backwards. They’re communicating, I realise.
They’re talking in echolocation.
‘But why?’ I ask. ‘Why must it stay a mystery?’
‘It is sacred,’ Muirgen hisses. ‘It is the only thing we dragons have that you humans cannot take for your own.’
Sacred? As far as I know, dragons don’t have a religion. What could be sacred about a language?
‘Are there different types of Koinamens?’ I say. ‘Different … sequences?’
‘I’m about to skin this human alive, Rhydderch—’
Muirgen thrusts her huge head towards me, but Rhydderch snaps at her face. She roars in pain and I stumble backwards. Rhydderch brings his head close to mine, so close that I can see a line of downy fur on his snout.
‘You are making the surviving Peace Agreement very difficult to uphold,’ he snarls. ‘I suggest you leave, before I let my sister murder you.’
I nod. They have no intention of telling me anything. I take a few steps backwards, edging away slowly, then stop. Rhydderch turns towards Muirgen and brings his snout close to hers. Blood is dripping from a wound made by his teeth, just beneath her left eye. The two dragons remain motionless and then slowly the wound begins to shrink. I squint in the moonlight. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? The edges of the wound are pulling together like a thread sewing two corners of a cloth, and suddenly there’s only a spot of blood where the injury was.
‘How did you do that?’ I ask Muirgen.
I run through everything Marquis has ever told me about dragon anatomy, but I can’t remember anything about self-healing wounds.
‘The Koinamens is sacred,’ Muirgen repeats. ‘Never ask about it again.’
I shrink back into the darkness and hurry across the field, my heart thumping in my chest. Did Rhydderch just heal Muirgen using echolocation?
I have a horrible feeling in my stomach.
I’ve learned nothing about echolocation except that dragons call it the Koinamens and consider it sacred. But neither of those two pieces of information will get me any closer to deciphering it. I reach the garden and glance up at Bletchley Manor. It’s still and silent and almost invisible in the dark.
I think of the things considered sacred to humans. Knowledge, religious texts, traditions. Those have all definitely been used as weapons by weak and power-hungry humans, but most dragons are neither of those things. Perhaps they view the Koinamens the same way humans see nature, or children, or love. Sacred not for what it can do but for what it is , with a deeper, more intrinsic meaning than anything we can hope to understand. The kind of sacredness that must never be corrupted or abused. Perhaps it’s something instinctive, something that’s a part of the dragons’ common identity.
A twig snaps behind me.
I freeze and turn my head towards the forest. Someone is walking through it, leaves and frost crunching underfoot. The figure of a man emerges from between the trees and crosses the lawn towards me.
My breath catches in my throat. What if it’s Ralph? The man hesitates when he sees me, then walks faster. It’s too late to hide now. I cradle my broken arm against me and wait.
‘Featherswallow?’
‘Atlas?’
‘What are you doing out here?’
I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘What are you doing? I thought you were in isolation.’
Atlas catches my hand and pulls me into the shadow of the house. He pockets a string of prayer beads, a tiny cross dangling from the end.
‘They let me out a few hours ago,’ he says.
‘So … why were you in the forest?’
There’s nothing out there except for trees and the glasshouse.
He smirks in the moonlight. ‘Why were you in the fields?’
Shit.
He lowers his voice. ‘How about we agree not to discuss what the other was doing outside in the middle of the night?’
I nod, then shiver. The freezing air fills my open coat, which is still draped awkwardly across my shoulders and sling. Atlas has noticed it and for a second he eyes the thin material of my nightdress against my thigh. Then he pulls the coat round me and fastens the buttons.
I stare at his hands, which are covered in red cuts, and at the shadow of a bruise across his cheekbone.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For what you did.’
Atlas shakes his head. ‘Nothing to be proud of.’
‘You were just trying to stop him—’
‘I broke the man’s nose,’ Atlas says.
‘You did him a favour, then.’
Atlas grins and we both burst into laughter.
‘Shh!’ he says, pushing me into the bushes. ‘I think Ravensloe’s window is somewhere around here.’
I’m suddenly very aware of his hands on my waist.
‘What did they do to you in isolation?’ I whisper.
We’re standing between two bushes, our backs to the wall of the house. The moon has disappeared behind a cloud and it’s so dark I can’t see Atlas’s face.
‘Questioned me, reprimanded me, left me there for a while,’ he says quietly. ‘Apparently, Lumens negotiated my release.’
I nod. ‘You’ll have to be on your best behaviour from now on. No more saving me from Ralph.’
His hand finds mine in the dark.
‘We should go in,’ I say, although that’s the last thing I want to do. ‘You could do with some sleep.’
Atlas is rummaging inside his jacket pocket. ‘All I need is ice, a whisky and a good confessor.’
‘Confessor?’
A flame springs to life between us and Atlas’s face is illuminated by a fizzing matchstick.
‘For my sins,’ he says with a grin.
‘Can’t you just confess your sins to yourself or something?’ I say.
A cockerel crows somewhere far away. It must be nearly dawn.
‘That’s not how it works, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘And I’m not a priest yet anyway, remember?’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Priest-in-training.’
We’re grinning again.
‘Speaking of sins,’ he says casually, ‘why do you hate yourself so much for yours?’
‘What?’
Atlas shrugs. ‘You would rather let Ralph break your bones than give him the satisfaction of forcing words out of your mouth, and I admire you for it. But he told you that you deserved it, and it seemed like you agreed. You went limp just before he broke your arm. You let him do it. And you let Sophie talk to you like you’re—’
‘She’s just angry with me,’ I say.
And rightfully so.
‘Yes, well, whatever you two argued about, it seems to me like you’re beating yourself up for it a lot.’
‘So?’ I say. ‘When you do something wrong, isn’t it normal to punish yourself for it?’
‘To spend your whole life punishing yourself for something you can never take back?’ Atlas shakes his head. ‘No way.’
‘What makes you think I’m going to spend my whole life doing it?’
‘Marquis told me it’s been six months since you and Sophie argued.’
Marquis has been talking about me behind my back? With Atlas?
‘He had no right—’
‘I asked him,’ Atlas says quickly. He has the decency to look apologetic. ‘I was curious, but he didn’t give me any details.’
I can’t decide whether to be flattered or annoyed.
‘Can’t you just forgive each other?’ he says. ‘Forgive yourselves?’
He smiles. I find the whole situation – receiving unsolicited advice from a boy who just risked demotion by beating up a Guardian – strangely hilarious.
‘Well, maybe that’s possible for you,’ I say, eyeing his ever-present collar. ‘But some things are unforgivable.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Atlas says. All trace of his smile has disappeared. ‘Nothing is unforgivable. Not if you’re truly sorry.’
‘So you’re saying that people can go around committing horrible crimes, just for them to be forgotten when they say they’re sorry?’
‘Yes, that’s about the gist of it.’
I snort. ‘In that case, I could murder you right now and get away with it, as long as I sit in a little box and apologise afterwards?’
‘ Would you be sorry, though?’ he says, grinning again. ‘It looks like you really want to kill me right now.’
I glare at him. ‘ You’re a bloody saint when you’re not punching people,’ I say. ‘What I did to get here, what I did to Sophie, it’s all so much worse.’
Why am I telling him this?
‘She’d never forgive me if she knew the whole story. She’d be so hurt that she’d hate me forever – and I wouldn’t blame her.’
Tears prick my eyes and suddenly I want to scream. This is none of Atlas’s business and yet here I am, revealing the innermost details of my past.
He just shrugs. ‘That’s her right. She doesn’t have to forgive you, and you can’t make her. But you can’t hate you forever. Otherwise, how will you ever learn from your mistakes?’
‘Learn?’
‘My mum says it’s never too late to change.’
‘Mine says we must live with the consequences of our actions.’
Atlas nods slowly. ‘Sounds like we have a different understanding of what sorry means.’
Of course we have. We’re chalk and cheese. A Third Class boy and a Second Class girl. A priest and a criminal.
The match dies and I speak into the dark.
‘Sometimes, Atlas, sorry just isn’t good enough.’