Chapter 3 #2
I clutch the swallow around my neck and think of the pamphlets again.
All I want is to make up for my mistakes: betraying Sophie, believing lies about the Third Class, taking so long to join the rebels.
All I want is to live out the second chance Chumana promised me, to honour Atlas’s memory by helping the Coalition.
But writing about dragon tongues isn’t going to achieve that.
I remember what Chumana called me earlier and cringe.
The Swallow?
What would the rebels think if they knew the Swallow is hiding in a house in London while they fight dragons? And now Goranov is leading the country and Slavidraneishá is the only dragon tongue allowed. I bury my face into a cushion and scream. I have to do something.
Something dark slips into the sugar house as my eyes grow heavy, a desolation I haven’t felt this keenly since Atlas died.
Working for Hollingsworth – having a purpose – has been the only thing keeping it at bay.
But now I let it flood the empty space around me, licking up the wooden beams like a cold, shadowy flame.
Atlas’s face appears in front of me, blood droplets spattered across his white collar.
I see a silver revolver. Smoke. A motorcar hurtling through the trees.
The terrible memories engulf my dreams and I hear myself cry out just as a scaly warmth settles beside me.
There is the soft whoosh of flames.
A bird flies through my mind and scatters the nightmares, light trailing from its forked tail.
When I wake, Chumana is asleep beside me and smoky tendrils are spiralling above the cold barrel fire.
The pink sunrise falls across the blankets and my heart jolts.
I’ve overslept. I throw on my clothes as the morning light grows brighter.
Hollingsworth will be furious with me for travelling after daybreak.
Chumana snores as I step over her tail and run down the metal stairs.
My despair at yesterday’s events has formed a tight knot in my stomach that won’t go away and I keep my head down as I come out of the Tube station and walk towards Claridge House.
As long as I continue to play my role as Penelope Hollingsworth convincingly, surely the Chancellor will forgive my lateness.
I falter as I almost tread on a white sheet of paper, then spot more littered across the pavement ahead. It’s only when a woman stoops to pick one up that I realise what they are. My pamphlets, scattered across several quarters. Chumana did well.
A man in a suit walks past, his coat looped over his arm and a pamphlet pressed to his nose.
I feel my heart flutter. Guardians are collecting them into canvas sacks, but the people who walk by them have already picked up their copies and are reading, too.
A Guardian tries to snatch one from an elderly man who lets out an angry sigh. ‘Is it illegal to read now, too?’
Two girls in traditional Bulgarian dress gather pamphlets from the ground, giggling together.
They remind me of characters from a Bulgarian storybook of Mama’s.
She translated it into English for me when I was small, setting the stories in London instead of Sofia.
With Mama’s copy lost and all the books in Bulgaria burned, the original Bulgarian stories are surely lost forever.
‘This is England!’ a man leers at the girls as they talk. ‘So speak English, or go home!’
One of the girls opens her mouth to retort, but a Bolgorith lands on a nearby rooftop and they both scurry away.
I pull my scarf over my hair as I cross the road.
Has Wyvernmire forgotten that a portion of the British population is made up of Bulgarian refugees and their children, survivors of the Massacre of Bulgaria?
These are the Bolgoriths that murdered Mama’s family: my family.
For all I know, the dragon that just landed could have burned my grandmother alive.
I walk past a building whose front wall has been blown apart, bricks scattered across the street.
Inside, a registrar is officiating a wedding, the bride’s white veil billowing in the open air.
A high-pitched squeal makes me look away.
On the corner of Grosvenor Square, a crowd is gathering.
Guardians and civilians line the street, smoke rising above their heads.
I freeze as the squeal sounds again and before I know it I’m heading towards the crowd.
A dragonling, no bigger than a Yorkshire terrier, is flapping around on the pavement.
Its blue scales glint in the sunlight, drawing attention to its twisted talon.
It stumbles as a Guardian prods it with his baton and black smoke streams from its nostrils, a sign of distress.
My mouth turns dry. Like the people around me, my instinct is to look up.
The dragonling’s parent must be nearby. As the Guardian prods the dragonling again and his colleagues laugh, some of the people hurry away.
Anger bubbles beneath my skin. The dragonling will die of shock if they don’t kill it first. I take a step towards them, my satchel full of pamphlets banging heavily on my thigh.
The knot in my stomach pulls taut, begging for release. This is my chance to do something.
The dragonling cries out pitifully.
‘Leave it alone!’ I shout.
Faces turn towards me and a couple of the helmeted Guardians reach for their batons. The Guardian prodding the dragonling does it again, and this time it curls up into a ball on the pavement, eyes closed and tail quivering. I spring forward and snatch the baton from the Guardian’s hand.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he shouts.
They all move towards me simultaneously, but their angry yells are muffled as an ear-splitting roar fills the air. My hands reach instinctively to protect my head as people scream. I dart for the cover of a nearby doorway, only for the Guardian to pull me backwards by the hood of my mackintosh.
‘Let go of me!’ I scream as fire licks along the street.
He drags me beneath an arch that leads into a private courtyard just as a Western Drake swoops low and catches the dragonling in her talons.
She deposits it into the gaping pouch in her underbelly, then breathes another stream of fire that engulfs every human being on the opposite side of the road.
I gasp as hot air fills my lungs and the Guardian beside me chokes, my hood still twisted in his fist. Bullets deflect off the dragon’s scales as Guardians shoot helplessly and more flames rain down, the loud crackle of burning motorcars blocking out the screams.
‘This is your fault,’ I spit at the Guardian. ‘You provoked her.’
I try to escape his grasp but my satchel catches on a rusty hook sticking out of the wall. There’s a ripping sound, and then the pamphlets spill out on to the cobblestones. The Guardian looks down at them, then back at me. Horror pricks my skin.
‘You’re a rebel,’ he barks. ‘Who are you working for?’
‘No one!’ I say into the black visor. ‘I was—’
A siren whirrs – the attack alarm. Any minute now the street will fill with people running to the bomb shelters we used back in the first war. The Guardian pushes me against the wall. Familiar screeches sound in the air.
A Bulgarian patrol is descending.
The archway above us shakes, dust falling on to our heads, and a leg the width of a tree trunk appears in the entrance. The black talons are encrusted with blood and dirt. Slowly, the Western Drake lowers her head until her face is level with us.
I don’t have time to think. I just speak.
‘I tried to save your child,’ I tell her in Wyrmerian. ‘Please, warn my friend that I’m being arrested. She’s a rebel Bolgorith living in the sugar house on Sweet Street. She’ll tell my boss that—’
The Guardian rams his hands over my mouth so hard that I taste blood between my teeth.
The ground vibrates as several dragons land and the Western Drake lets out a hiss.
Her eye winks once. Then her giant legs move out of view and I hear the whoosh of wings as she launches into the air with a warning cry.
‘What did you say to her?’ the Guardian shouts.
I twist in his grip and bite down on to his hand until he screams.
‘The Bolgoriths will kill her anyway,’ he spits. ‘And her deformed offspring.’
He kicks my legs out from under me and pain radiates through my spine as he cuffs my hands.
He pushes me out on to the street, which is teeming with fire engines and Bulgarian dragons.
The park on Grosvenor Square is on fire, the trees awash with flames that send a greenish smoke spiralling into the air.
Opposite, hoses are being used to douse the Academy in water, to prevent it catching alight.
My stomach drops. What have I done? One look at my class pass and the Guardian will have Hollingsworth arrested for harbouring a rebel niece.
And if he finds out who I really am, it won’t take long to work out that Hollingsworth is with the Coalition, too.
Dread fills me as a motorcar slows beside us, clanging noisily as it drives over a drain cover.
The Guardian leans inwards to speak to the driver, his hand still tight on my arm.
My fingers reach for my class pass beneath my jumper and tug until the delicate chain breaks.
Then I toss the whole thing down the drain.
The Guardian wrenches the car door open and pushes me into the back seat.
‘Identification?’ he says, holding out his hand.
‘I have none,’ I say brazenly. ‘I’m a rebel, remember?’
He doesn’t move, and with his visor covering his face it’s impossible to tell what he’s going to do next. Then he slams the door shut. ‘Croydon Airfield,’ he orders.