Epilogue
MY HAND GRIPS THE RIBBON OF Marquis’s class pass so tightly that the velvet edges cut into my skin.
It dropped from his pocket as Goranov snatched him, landing softly on the deck like a whispered goodbye.
Perhaps he kept it all this time as a reminder of the life we left behind.
A reminder of what he was fighting for. I step off the boat and on to the London Docklands, my body still feeling the rocking of the waves.
It has been three days of silence, three days of replaying the scene in my mind as Atlas tried to coax me to eat, to sleep.
Goranov won’t make it to Bulgaria, Hollingsworth says.
Daria is already out looking for him, along with a dozen rebel dragons.
But if the Regal Vasil is coming to Britannia to collect his new blood perfumer, I might never see my cousin again.
The port is chaos, newspaper sellers shouting about a general election and people calling the names of missing family members.
Telegraph boys on bicycles and children carrying gas masks swerve between colossal dragons.
They’re everywhere, dragons of various species, perched on every rooftop and on every street corner.
Trucks are parked up on the road, full of foreign soldiers exchanging cigarettes with the rebels getting off the boats.
I hear English and Dutch, French and German, Italian and Spanish. So many countries have come to our aid.
Atlas squeezes my hand as we walk past them, towards the hotel where Ursa is waiting. I should be excited, but all I feel is dread. How am I going to tell her that Marquis is gone?
I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, my bloodstained boots striking the flagstone street as I fight to stay upright.
Will Ursa even recognise me? I’m thinner than when she last saw me, with short hair and innumerable cuts and bruises.
And my love for her is different, shaped by our separation.
It’s a fragile, wounded, possessive love.
The same goes for Marquis. The Viv I am in this moment, standing in a war-torn London with nothing left of her cousin but a velvet ribbon, would stare down the fiercest Bolgorith before she loses him.
Some things never change.
We pass by a half-demolished theatre hall, only the separate stone entrances for humans and dragons still standing.
The dragon entrance is marked in Wyrmerian.
I think of the love of dragon tongues that I shared with Clawtail.
My languages will always be a tiny part of every version of myself I’ll ever be.
And my mind is already racing in an attempt to decide how I might use them to get Marquis back, despite promising myself that I’d give it all up.
Because if anyone can save him, it’s me.
While we await the election of a new Prime Minister, most of the British population, and our foreign allies, will defer to Hollingsworth.
She can access every resource we could need to find Marquis: Scotland Yard’s special investigators, the Army and Royal Navy, the Academy, and all our dragon power.
And if I have to play the role of Hollingsworth’s Swallow one last time to sway her hand, then so be it.
I know nothing about who I truly am, except for who I love. But while I try on and shed countless different skins, I’ll remember what Chumana told me.
This is not the first time Vivien Featherswallow has remade herself.
And it won’t be the last.
Atlas pushes open the door to the Feodora Royal Hotel and ushers me into the busy lobby. I see her immediately: a little girl in a yellow coat with a braid hanging down her back.
A radio crackles to life on a nearby table. ‘This is London. Bulgarian Bolgoriths have been sighted on the coastline. All soldiers to report for duty. All civilians to take shelter immediately.’
Outside, the attack siren sounds.
‘Little bear?’ I breathe.
Ursa turns around.