Chapter 1 #2
She’s invited me several times already, ignoring my protests (‘It’s after curfew’) and my excuses (‘I can’t leave my roommate, she gets lonely’).
Her insistence is mildly annoying and the invitation goes against every rule in the how-to-be-an-undercover-rebel book, but part of me is glad that Hyacinth wants me around.
She’s been a good friend to me these past three months.
Of course I can’t attend the party. What if somebody recognises me?
The journal of Patrick Clawtail, Oxford Fellow of Celtic Languages and dragon enthusiast, lies open on the desk where I left it yesterday.
Hollingsworth gave it to me when I started working for her, right after Marquis landed our plane on Eigg.
I only spent a few days on the island that houses the Coalition Headquarters before Hollingsworth sent for me.
Leaving my cousin and my sister, Ursa, behind was almost as hard as losing Atlas.
The journal details Clawtail’s interactions with the Hebridean Wyverns over the course of four years, ending abruptly in June 1866 when he was executed by the government for ‘inciting unrest between humans and dragons’.
It’s made of black leather and written in faded ink.
Random clippings – a feather, a tuft of fur and a leaf that is still green but has long since lost any odour – are dispersed between daily entries, descriptions of the island and recordings of the Hebridean Wyverns’ complex language, which Clawtail named Cànan-Channaigh – Scottish Gaelic for ‘language of Canna’.
He coined an English word for their language, too: Cannair.
I have managed to grasp its basic grammatical rules, but Clawtail fills several pages with his attempts to convey the meaning of many complicated words, so many that I lose myself in them.
It seems he eventually gave up on the task.
The later pages of the journal are entirely dedicated to the wyverns’ culture and customs, with not a single reference to language.
It doesn’t give me much to work with.
Clawtail and his family were supposedly the last people to lay eyes on the wyverns before they retreated further inland when the government came for the Clawtails and while his journal begins with enthusiasm at being able to study the wyverns’ tongue, it ends with a hurried, unfinished entry.
A voice behind me says, ‘Tensions between humans and dragons in Britannia were on the verge of explosion when that was written.’
Hollingsworth has appeared silently in the doorway, her eyes on the journal.
‘Clawtail had a history of campaigning for the recognition of Celtic languages such as Scots, Scottish Gaelic and Norn, and he began doing the same for dragon tongues,’ she continues.
‘He sent his written recordings of Cannair to several universities by dracovol, thinking the wyvern protection would keep him and his family safe, but the government decided that his highlighting of individual heritages was intended to create division and therefore a threat to British unity. They executed him for treason on Canna just as the corrupt Peace Agreement was signed.’
I nod, trying to ignore the creeping feeling of annoyance. She’s already told me all this. Clawtail was the first person ever to study dragon tongues. He was an anomaly.
‘You, with your uncanny ability to learn languages at an impressive speed, can learn Cannair. That’s why you are the face of the rebellion, Vivien. Because you will be the one to go to the wyverns and request an alliance. They are our only hope of winning this war.’
You’ve already told me that, too, I glower silently. And yet here I am, still in London, still ignorant as to why these wyverns are so important.
I cannot send you to the wyverns until the wyverns have been found, Hollingsworth tells me every time I ask why I can’t go to Canna now.
I can’t wait to be there, to rally the wyverns to the cause and to see Wyvernmire’s face as the rebels bring her and her Bulgarian Bolgoriths down. She’s the reason for the suffering of the Third Class, for the segregation of humans and dragons, for this war that has already killed hundreds.
She’s the reason Atlas is dead.
Hollingsworth hands me a sheet of paper.
It’s my latest translation for the Academy – I do a few each day just in case a wartime inspector ever asks to see Penelope Hollingsworth’s work.
It’s a statement in Drageoir sent over from France, condemning Wyvernmire’s alliance with the Bulgarian dragons.
Hollingsworth has taken a red pen to it, scratching out and underlining words.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ I say.
‘Your translation is too literal, Vivien.’ She pats her silver, corkscrew coils. ‘You can hardly expect it to be approved.’
‘Too literal?’ I stare at her corrections.
The Dragons of the French Third Republic are incensed disappointed by the British alliance with the immoral controversial dragons of Bulgaria.
‘But . . . you’ve changed the meaning,’ I say. ‘You’ve mistranslated the statement.’
‘I have interpreted it differently to you, which is a translator’s right.’
I scan her face for a trace of humour, any indication that she might be testing me.
‘It’s a translator’s duty to translate in context, to give the words the meaning intended by the source language, or at least get as close to it as we can,’ I tell her. ‘The Academy is obligated to translate and publish any communications that come in from foreign dragons.’
‘You forget the Academy is currently being run by Wyvernmire’s government,’ Hollingsworth says sharply. ‘Her definition of duty is not the same as yours.’
I throw the paper down. ‘So you’re going to let this pass?’
‘If I want to maintain my persona, I must,’ Hollingsworth replies.
She walks back to her desk and sits down, her eyes lingering on the sketch of me. ‘Language is a weapon, Vivien. Wyvernmire is using it and you will too, soon. In fact, it may be the last weapon the rebels have.’
‘When are you going to send me to Canna?’ I ask. ‘I’ve learned the wyvern tongue as best I can. Have the rebels found them yet?’
Hollingsworth takes a sip of her tea and grimaces.
‘Cold,’ she mutters.
She rifles through a stack of papers, ignoring my question. I feel my neck flush with anger. Has she forgotten what she told me when she brought me here? Your linguistic capabilities are the best chance the Coalition has.
I turn back to the journal. My years of studying, my languages, my translations have all been building up to this. To making contact with the Hebridean Wyverns and saving Britannia. Atlas believed that my languages are a way I’m called to love and Dad once told me that they would save me.
So what is Hollingsworth waiting for?
She expects me to work for the Coalition yet treats me like a child.
My eyes fall on Hyacinth’s note and I wonder if my black skirt and jumper would pass as party clothes.
If it’s a rebel Hollingsworth wants, a rebel she shall get.