CHAPTER NINETEEN
BY THE TIME I GET back to Bletchley Park my hands are numb with cold. All I want is to curl up by the fire and fall asleep, but instead I take the loquisonus machine to the glasshouse. Dr Seymour is in there, her head in a book. She snaps it closed when I walk in.
‘Where have you been? Soresten said you’d taken the loquisonus machine for maintenance.’ She lets out an outraged laugh. ‘Do you have any idea of the risk you posed to the programme today? I’ve covered for you once, Vivien, but I won’t do it again—’
‘It’s me who’s covering for you currently,’ I say.
Dr Seymour takes a step backwards. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I know you’re a spy,’ I say. ‘That’s where I’ve been today. With one of your colleagues .’
I spit out the last word and Dr Seymour pales.
‘Chumana?’
I nod.
She closes her eyes. ‘It’s true. The Coalition must have sent Chumana after they received my last message—’
‘What was in the message?’ I say coldly. ‘The exact location of Bletchley Park?’
‘Don’t be silly. They already know that,’ Dr Seymour replies. She looks up at the trees around us. ‘I told them that you were making too much progress, despite the fact that you’re trying to hide it from me, and that you’ll soon be speaking echolocation yourself.’
I falter in surprise. ‘So you told them to send Chumana to see if she could convince me to stop?’ I say, trying to hide my shock. ‘How do you even know her?’
‘Your encounter with the criminal dragon at the University of London didn’t exactly go unnoticed by the DDAD or the rebels,’ Dr Seymour says. ‘And, when you freed her, she joined the Coalition.’
‘But … if you agree with Chumana that humans shouldn’t know how to speak echolocation, why did you invent the loquisonus machine?’
‘I invented it before I knew the damage it could cause,’ she says. ‘And I bitterly regret it.’
‘Yet you teach us about echolocation every day.’
‘I have to have a realistic cover,’ Dr Seymour says.
‘A cover so you can spy on us,’ I retort. ‘No wonder we hardly ever pick up rebel calls – they know not to fly over here! And, now they know where we’re located, they could attack at any minute—’
‘They’ve known where we are for months,’ Dr Seymour says. ‘They won’t attack, not yet.’
‘Not yet?’ I choke. ‘If the rebels know where we are, why didn’t they try to get to Wyvernmire when she was here on the night of the ball?’
‘Contrary to what you’ve been told, the Coalition’s goal isn’t war, Vivien. It’s change.’ Dr Seymour gives me a sad look. ‘Are you going to report me?’
Am I going to report her? If I hand Dr Seymour over to Ravensloe, she’ll be arrested. The rebels might take that as a sign to attack and then all hell will break loose. I’ve made the most progress anyone has so far with echolocation, and all that’s left to do now is to explain to Wyvernmire that it’s not a code but a language with dialects, dialects that will need to be learned. It may not be the news she was expecting, but it’s the progress she asked for. And then I’ll be out of here, back with Ursa and my parents – and maybe, just maybe, everyone else will be released, too.
My eyes linger on the cupboard where I found the dracovol mail. Dr Seymour used it to communicate with the rebels, but she also lent it to me to find out where Ursa was. Who is this woman?
‘I know what’s on Canna, thanks to Lord Rushby,’ I say. ‘But what’s on Eigg?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Dr Seymour replies.
Something important, then.
‘If the rebel dragons know Bletchley Park is trying to decipher echolocation, why don’t they just tell Queen Ignacia, to turn her against Wyvernmire?’
‘Because we don’t want a bigger war than we already have.’ Dr Seymour pauses. ‘Why did you need your mother’s research?’
‘Echolocation isn’t just one singular language,’ I say. ‘But you already knew that, didn’t you?’
‘But your mother, she—’
‘She’s a dragon anthropologist,’ I say. ‘She discovered that dragon tongues have dialects that aren’t regional, but familial.’
Dr Seymour leans closer. ‘Familial?’
‘Each dragon family or group speaks its own dialect. I think echolocation is the same.’ I pause. ‘Surely you know this, Dr Seymour? Surely the Coalition’s dragons have told you?’
‘They won’t discuss echolocation with humans, not even their fellow rebels. And they’re right not to. Human nature is fickle. We change sides like we change our clothes. What you said about familial dialects … it reminds me of whale pods. Each pod has its own distinct calls; that’s how they’re able to differentiate between their own members and those of other pods.’
How can Dr Seymour be so knowledgeable and yet …
‘You’re risking everything,’ I say. ‘Your career, your research, your life. I heard Ralph the other day. Do you really want to give him the satisfaction of seeing you fired and arrested?’
‘I’m risking it all for the people I love,’ Dr Seymour says fiercely. ‘For the Third Class, for the dragons we’re losing touch with. For my child.’ Her hands settle on her stomach and I feel my eyes grow wide. ‘I want them to grow up in a world that is equal. I want to repair the damage I caused. I was working at the Foreign Office in International Dragon Relations when Ravensloe invited me and my machines to Bletchley. And I accepted because I knew that I could undo some of my mistakes from the inside. The loquisonus machines—’
‘Are incredible,’ I say softly.
‘They’re dangerous,’ Dr Seymour says, her voice hardening. ‘There’s a reason we don’t possess the same capabilities as dragons, Vivien. We are far too evil to merit them.’
‘But think of the progress – a whole new language just waiting to be deciphered. It’s the discovery of the century.’
‘But think of the cost. Did Chumana not tell you? Do you not understand why it’s so crucial to the dragons—’
‘I understand,’ I say. ‘And if my parents weren’t at Highfall then maybe …’ I shake my head. ‘It will take Wyvernmire years to learn echolocation before she can master it anyway. Maybe, by that time, someone else will be in government. Maybe the rebels will have won the war.’
I don’t care any more as long as I can go home.
Dr Seymour shakes her head bitterly, her hand still resting on her stomach.
‘Wyvernmire is one secret short of making dragons subservient to humans,’ she says. ‘What do you think happened in Bulgaria? That the dragons massacred an entire population for no reason?’
My heart sinks. ‘The Bulgarian government discovered echolocation?’
Dr Seymour nods and looks at the loquisonus still on my shoulder. ‘What we thought we discovered during the war was already known to Dr Todorov, thanks to a machine that harnessed the piezoelectric effect of quartz crystals. It was a primitive device, far less developed than its successor – my own loquisonus machine. But it was a beginning. He called it reading the dragons’ thoughts. The Bulgarian humans forced dragons into fighting rings, kidnapped their young and used echolocation to experiment on them. They did terrible things.’
‘So … all this time you’ve been pretending to know less about dragon echolocation than you do? You knew, from the start, what it is?’
‘Yes,’ Dr Seymour says. ‘I’ve always known it’s a language, one the dragons clearly value deeply.’
I stare at the loquisonus machine. All along I thought it was the key to saving my family and finding Ursa, but I’ve been taken for a fool. ‘So we’ve just been wasting time,’ I say bitterly, ‘learning a language you already know—’
‘No, Vivien,’ Dr Seymour says. ‘You forget that I am no translator. The deciphering of echolocation, the meaning of each call, the existence of these dialects … that was all you.’
‘And the previous team?’ I say. ‘Did you recruit them just to sabotage their efforts? Where are they now, Dr Seymour?’
She has the decency to hang her head in shame.
‘The reperisonus wires weren’t accidentally broken,’ I continue. ‘You cut them. All this time, you’ve been trying to stop us from learning the very thing you’ve been teaching us.’
‘I have,’ Dr Seymour admits. ‘When you suggested that the dracovol was speaking to its eggs through echolocation, I was terrified. Terrified that I could no longer stop you from deciphering it, when you were realising things it took me years to understand. Terrified that you’d give the information to Dodie or Atlas, who might in turn give Professor Lumens the key to hatching dragon eggs. You were too fast for me to keep up with. It’s near impossible to sabotage the work of a skilled translator when one barely speaks the language they’re translating.’
‘So the previous recruits … what happened to them?’
‘They were simply sent back to the places I recruited them from.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ I say softly.
Dr Seymour’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I had to keep my position as an informant here. The alternative was—’
I shake my head. I don’t want to hear any more. I just want to go home.
‘You should understand why I have to give the translated echolocation to Wyvernmire,’ I say. ‘You have something too precious to lose, too—’
‘Your mother’s entire family was murdered in Bulgaria, weren’t they?’
I nod.
‘If Wyvernmire learns to speak echolocation, the dragons of Britannia will rise up,’ Dr Seymour says. ‘History will repeat itself.’ She gives me a hard, cold stare. ‘And then we’ll both lose what we love.’
*
At dinner, Marquis greets me with a glare.
‘Where have you been all afternoon?’ he says urgently. ‘Dr Seymour said you were getting a machine serviced? You weren’t in the workshops, so—’
‘Thought you’d spend the afternoon trying to crack the code, did you?’ Katherine says. She sits down opposite me, her face hardened with malice. ‘You weren’t getting the loquisonus serviced, you were just hoarding it for yourself, and Dr Seymour covered for you. We all know she wants you to win the category. She—’
‘I had Knott fix one of the dials on it,’ I lie. ‘And then …’
Better to take the fall for something I didn’t do rather than tell everyone I left Bletchley Park with a rebel dragon.
‘And then I used it to listen to some of the patrol dragons.’
‘So Katherine’s right,’ Sophie says coldly. ‘You wanted it for yourself, despite having had all morning to use it.’
Karim passes her a plate of pie, but she doesn’t move.
‘Typical Viv,’ she says slowly. ‘Always intent on winning, no matter the cost to everyone else.’
My face burns. I can’t deny it. Instead, I pick up my fork and begin eating.
Katherine lets out a forced laugh. ‘From what I’ve heard, it’s not the first time you’ve betrayed your own.’
What’s that supposed to mean?
She glares at me. ‘Maybe Gideon was right—’
‘That’s enough!’ Marquis snaps.
I can sense Atlas staring at me, but I don’t look at him. Now he thinks I stole the loquisonus machine to get ahead of everyone else, when just this morning we were talking about what Wyvernmire will do once she has the code. The room is silent except for the sound of our cutlery scraping against the china plates. Owen is standing by the door as usual, and I see him watching us with a frown. He’s counting us. On the mantelpiece, the radio drones the news.
‘ The British Army suffered yet more losses this morning in an ambush that a rebel battalion seemed ominously prepared for. Now over to John Seymour, wartime correspondent. John, how is it possible that the rebels seem to know the government’s every move? ’
I take a sip of water and wonder how many spies like Dr Seymour are hidden within the military.
‘Where did you run off to earlier?’ Atlas whispers.
Both of his hands are bandaged and smell suspiciously of marigold balm.
‘I wish everyone would just stop asking me where I’ve been,’ I snap.
‘Has anyone seen Dodie?’ Karim says.
Atlas tears his eyes away from my face. ‘I saw her about an hour ago. She said she was going for a walk.’
‘She’s never late,’ Karim says. ‘Maybe we should look for—’
An ear-splitting siren fills the air. I raise my hands to my ears as a light, so bright it shines through the blackouts, begins to flash. Atlas and I both run to the window and wrench away the curtain.
‘Oi, you can’t do that!’ Owen says.
Outside, Guardians are running across the courtyard towards the entrance gates, shouting to each other. A dragon circles above, but the sky is too black to make out who. Then I see it, the thing causing the chaos – a figure scaling the tall fence. Guardians run towards it, and the figure is almost at the top when—
BANG .
The figure sways for a moment, still clinging to the fence. Then it falls backwards into the dark.
‘Fuck,’ Marquis says, standing up. ‘Was that a gunshot?’
Serena pushes Owen out of the way as we run into the entrance hall, but the front doors are barred by more Guardians. Suddenly they burst open. A Guardian strides through with someone in his arms – long red hair, a uniform and a pair of smashed glasses crooked on her nose …
The Guardian lays the broken body on the ground and Sophie lets out a scream, sinking to the floor.
‘Atlas?’ I say, my voice catching in my throat.
He takes my hand, pushes the others out of the way until we’re standing at the front. Horror erupts from the pit of my stomach.
Lying in the middle of the hallway, blood blooming at her breast, is Dodie.