Page 5 of A Language of Dragons

ST PANCRAS STATION IS CHAOS. The sharp November air slips its frozen hands inside my coat and I shiver. The Guardians let me wash and change into new clothes before climbing into the same type of motorcar that took my parents away. I pull at the jumper and the too-small skirt, trying not to think about who they might have belonged to before. Marquis, I was told, will be following in a separate car. But as I watch people running to catch trains, pulling groaning suitcases and crying children, I see no sign of my cousin.

‘Britannia is at war once more!’

The newspaper seller has parked his stall in front of the ticket office, where a man with a trolley, holding a cello and several other instruments, is gesticulating urgently. The vendor’s voice echoes through the station as a train pulls up in a gush of steam. It’s small and old and blue. Something tells me I won’t be needing a ticket.

‘Are you sure this is the right one?’ I ask the Guardian closest to me.

He nods, the visor of his helmet hiding his face, and pushes me towards the train. I peer through the window at the empty seats, then step onboard. My escorts remain on the platform. My coat, the only thing I was allowed to keep, still smells of dragonsmoke. I find a carriage and sit in a window seat as my stomach fills with dread.

Marquis isn’t here. I should have known, shouldn’t I? As if the Prime Minister would bargain with a seventeen-year-old criminal. I blink away hot tears – I won’t cry with the Guardians watching me. A newspaper is stuffed down the side of my seat and I pull it out, flicking past the Selfridges’ adverts for ladies’ mackintoshes on the front page.

PEACE AGREEMENT TO BE UPHELD: A WAR ON REBELS BEGINS, says the first headline.

A war on rebels.

I think back to my parents’ many late-night conversations. All this time, they must have been discussing secret meetings or attacks or whatever it is rebels discuss. How could they do that to me, to Marquis, to Ursa? I read the rest of the headlines, trying to calm my breathing.

LONDON ATTACKED BY HUMAN-DRAGON COALITION IN COUP D’éTAT

FROM PROTEST TO PUTSCH – brITANNIA’S FIRST INTERSPECIES PARTY DECLARES WAR

MASS brEAKOUT FROM GRANGER’S PRISON

I tap my foot nervously against the floor. It’s no wonder Rita Hollingsworth refused to publish Mama’s latest papers if the government knew she was a rebel. But the idea of the Academy discouraging the learning of dragon tongues sounds extreme – surely Hollingsworth doesn’t agree with that? I screw the paper into a ball and toss it to the floor. The train shudders suddenly, pulling away from the station. I throw myself at the window.

‘My cousin!’ I shout at the Guardians. ‘He’s not here!’

A burst of flames hits the platform.

I flinch and stumble backwards, hitting my knee on the arm of the seat. The Guardians turn, lifting their guns skywards, as a dragon crashes through the glass roof of the station. People flee in every direction, their screams almost inaudible amid the sound of smashing glass and screeching iron. The dragon’s belly, a violent purple, skims the platform as its spiked tail sends a stone pillar crumbling. It turns its head towards the luggage office, its hexagonal scales glistening as though forged from metal, and the horns beneath its chin impale a porter’s trolley and lift it into the air. The last thing I see as the train drives through the raining shards is the Guardians who escorted me engulfed in flames.

The door to the carriage opens with a bang and I spin round.

Standing in the doorway, his hair tangled and a bruising cut beneath his eye, is Marquis. I burst into tears. Marquis almost falls across the carriage to get to me and then I am breathing in the sweet, familiar smell of home.

‘All right?’ he says gruffly, as if we’re merely meeting for a lecture. And then, ‘How the fuck did you get me out of there, Viv?’

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ I say quietly as we break apart. ‘I thought she lied to me.’

‘Who?’

‘Wyvernmire.’

‘You met Wyvernmire?’

I nod. We sit down, and for a moment we just stare out at the tall grey buildings flashing by as the train leaves London.

‘What happened out there?’ Marquis says.

‘A dragon attacked the station,’ I reply. ‘Set fire to the platform. I think the Guardians escorting me were killed.’

‘Good riddance,’ Marquis mutters.

I shudder and point to the cut on his face. ‘Did they do that to you?’

‘Yes, and the next thing I knew they were telling me my cousin had negotiated my release.’ He runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Viv, can you please tell me what the bloody hell is going on?’

I tell him everything, from leaving Ursa with Sophie’s parents to the meeting with Wyvernmire. He replies with a string of foul language.

‘You cut a detonator out of the library dragon?’

‘I did worse than that,’ I croak. ‘I started a war.’

Marquis smiles. ‘ You started a war?’

‘What Chumana did – what I helped her do – was a direct breach of the Peace Agreement,’ I say. ‘The rebels saw it as some sort of green light, and now there’s a civil war, and it’s all my fault.’

Marquis pulls a bag of tobacco out of his boot.

‘The rebels have been planning a coup for months,’ he says, reaching for a rolling paper. ‘We all knew it was coming. You’ve read the papers – you’ve even seen one of their protests for yourself.’

The dead Third Class girl’s face flashes before my eyes.

‘But the dragonfire on Downing Street was the tipping point. Wyvernmire said so—’

‘Sounds like she’s trying to get you to blame yourself,’ Marquis says, rolling a cigarette between his fingers. ‘When really she knew just as much as the next person that this war was coming.’

‘The only reason we still have a Peace Agreement is because she didn’t order her army to retaliate,’ I say bitterly. ‘What I did … it could have created a war between species.’

‘Seems to me you’re giving yourself credit for something much bigger than you are.’

I frown. ‘I don’t want any credit for this,’ I say. ‘I want nothing to do with the rebels.’

We fall silent as my words land heavy in the space between us.

‘Did you know?’ I say, looking my cousin in the eye. ‘About our parents?’

Marquis breathes smoke out through his teeth. ‘Don’t be stupid. Did you?’

‘No.’ My lip trembles and I bite it to keep it still.

‘How long have they been part of it, do you think?’ I say.

‘The rebellion? From what I’ve read, the coalition between rebel humans and rebel dragons is fairly new. And, knowing your mama, it was the dragons that got her involved.’

‘But why would they be part of it at all?’ I say. ‘Their lives were perfectly fine, good even—’

‘I don’t think it was about their lives,’ Marquis says. ‘It’s about the lives of the Third Class, about the injustices done to dragons on behalf of the Peace Agreement—’

‘Injustices?’ I reply. ‘What are you talking about? The dragons agreed to the Peace Agreement. That and the Class System have both worked fine for years.’

‘It’s not all good, though, is it?’

I look at him expectantly.

‘The restriction of movement for starters,’ Marquis says.

I roll my eyes. ‘The Travel Ban exists to stop overcrowding.’

‘If it had existed back when the Massacre of Bulgaria happened, your mama would be dead and you wouldn’t be here,’ Marquis replies.

I close my eyes, remembering how the Guardian called Mama a Bulgarian leech. My cousin is right about that.

‘And it doesn’t seem fair that there are things we can do, places we can go, that the Third Class can’t.’

I was twelve when I saw a girl being physically removed from the public library because she was Third Class. They searched her, emptying her pockets of pages ripped from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol . I was shocked by her vandalism, but even more so by her determination to access literature. The Class System feeds ambition, Uncle Thomas explained later. Would the girl have wanted to read that book so desperately if she’d been allowed to? Would I be such a good student if, like Dad said, I didn’t have the threat of the Third Class hanging over my head?

‘Doesn’t it bother you that you’re learning dragon tongues in a country that keeps interaction between humans and dragons to the bare minimum?’ Marquis says.

‘We do interact with dragons,’ I say indignantly. ‘We walk past the nest on top of the British Library every day, and there’s that silver dragon who counts money at the bank …’ I pause, trying to remember her name. ‘Sheba.’

‘And how many times have you spoken to Sheba?’ Marquis replies coolly. ‘They say that before the Peace Agreement there were dragons everywhere. And, up until a couple of decades ago, they were still treated as humans’ equals. My dad told me that he and my mother were friends with some of them. With dragons, Viv!’

I stare out at the cow fields flashing by. Marquis’s mother, my Aunt Florence, died when he was born. Her family is from North Carolina, where human babies and dragonlings share nests. Marquis has only been to see them once, before the Travel Ban.

He blows smoke out of the tiny sliding window. ‘All I’m saying is that the Peace Agreement and the Class System might not be as wonderful as you think they are.’

‘I’ve heard the rumours,’ I say, thinking of the hushed conversations about secret clauses and a rigged voting system I’ve heard on campus. ‘And, quite frankly, I’m surprised you’ve let the fear-mongering get to you.’

‘And I’m not surprised to hear you call something fear-mongering just because you don’t understand it,’ Marquis retorts.

I turn away, seething. What is happening to my family? First my dad, now Marquis.

‘Prime Minister Wyvernmire and Queen Ignacia will win this war,’ I say. ‘And the rebels – our parents – will pay for it with their lives.’

‘Not if we earn them a fresh start,’ Marquis says quietly. ‘That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We do the job, give the government what they want and go home.’

Home. Marquis is right. The faster I do the job, the faster I’ll return to a normal life, a life where my parents aren’t rebels. I imagine myself back in my bedroom, being awoken by Ursa jumping on the bed. I let my mind wander through Fitzrovia, across the square beneath my window, overflowing with its colourful mix of artists and immigrants and intellectuals. I sit in the university library full of books, study on the lawn with Marquis, climb the steps to the Bank of London and ask to talk with Sheba …

Marquis shakes me awake. ‘We’re here.’

The train has come to a stop in the pale afternoon light. I rub the sleep from my eyes and peer out of the window. The platform is tiny, built in the shadow of a single broad oak tree with a ticket office the size of a telephone box. The sign reads

B letchley R ailway S tation .

‘Bletchley?’ I say.

Marquis shrugs. ‘Never heard of it.’

A Guardian is waiting on the platform, holding his helmet under his arm. I’ve never seen one without a helmet before. I follow Marquis off the train.

‘Vivien and Marquis Featherswallow?’ the man says. His accent is Irish and strangely comforting.

‘Yes,’ we both reply together.

‘Grand. I’m Guardian 601. Real name Owen.’

I’ve never known a Guardian’s name before.

He gestures towards the road and my heart sinks at the sight of yet another sleek Guardian motorcar.

‘Weren’t sure what time you’d be here,’ Owen says, climbing into the driver’s seat. ‘You lot have been arriving non-stop since dawn. Government’s stepping it up a notch now the war’s started.’

With that, he falls quiet, and an awkward silence creeps over the car. We drive through a plain town with brick buildings and a deserted playing field. A line of people are gathered outside a greengrocer’s and a woman is pushing a pram past a blackened shop that was likely to have been destroyed during the Great War and never rebuilt. This must be a Third Class quarter.

The roads give way to tree-lined lanes, and a lake appears, dark blue beneath the low sun. Beyond it are more trees and a field and, behind that, a manor house. It’s built of red brick with tall iron entrance gates that open mechanically. Behind them, a small army of Guardians of Peace parts to let the motorcar through.

‘Quite the welcome party you’ve got,’ Owen says quietly and I wonder what he’s been told about us.

The motorcar comes to a stop in the manor’s white gravel courtyard. I lean over Marquis to stare up at the building. It’s grand, that’s for certain, but there is something hotchpotch about it, with its cathedral-style porches and Gothic stone lions standing alongside glass sunrooms and suburban bay windows. Its different architectural styles rage against each other – Mama would call it vulgar. But, basked in the soft sunlight, it looks reassuringly unpretentious.

I step out of the car. Owen leads the way up the steps and into an entrance hall with a domed roof. Two oak staircases run up either side of the room and on to a wide raised landing above.

‘You’re expected in the West Wing,’ Owen says, leading us down a corridor on the left.

We stop in front of a closed door and Owen raps loudly. There’s a shuffling noise and then the door creaks open to reveal a large man in a deep purple suit. His eyes bulge as he looks at us and he lifts a pudgy hand to stroke his short beard.

‘Ah, Vivien and Marquis,’ he says. ‘We were waiting.’

I recognise his voice from the radio, too. This man is Deputy Prime Minister Ravensloe. We walk into what looks like an unused university seminar room, everything in it covered in a thick layer of dust and gloom. Blackout curtains have been drawn across the windows and the white daylight presses at their edges, threatening to burst inside. Several people, all about my age, are sitting at desks like students. They stare at us, unsmiling, and I suddenly wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Do they know why I’m here? Do they know what I’ve done?

‘Please, take your seats,’ Ravensloe says pleasantly. ‘Our class is almost complete.’

I choose an empty seat between two boys. The first is tall and broad, and glares angrily at me when I look at him. The second has high cheekbones and black skin that shines against the white collar round his neck. He’s sitting upright and alert, as if he’s about to take an exam. When I slip into the seat next to him, I catch the scent of peppermint and tobacco. Marquis sits a few seats to the right in the row ahead.

Ravensloe is standing by a desk at the front of the room, an armed Guardian behind him.

‘Look at you all,’ Ravensloe says, his piglike eyes gleaming. ‘Class of 1923.’

Nobody speaks and the Deputy Prime Minister shuffles some paperwork. ‘Straight down to business it is,’ he says. ‘Welcome, all of you, to the DDAD.’

A hand shoots up. It belongs to a girl with long fiery red hair and glasses.

‘Please, sir,’ she says, ‘what does DDAD stand for?’

Ravensloe gives her a patronising smile, as if the question is a stupid one. I feel a wave of revulsion for him.

‘Let me rephrase that for you, young lady,’ he replies. ‘Welcome, all of you, to the Department for the Defence Against Dragons.’

The door opens with a bang and two more Guardians march in. Between them is a girl with singed clothes, her blonde hair streaked with dirt.

‘Here’s the last one, sir.’

My heart flutters as I take in the familiar light-footed gait and the red string round the girl’s wrist. I feel the blood drain from my face. The girl looks up.

I stare, my whole body erupting in goosebumps.

Our eyes meet and the girl’s bottom lip trembles.

‘Excellent,’ Ravensloe says. ‘Class, let me introduce you to our last recruit. Her name is—’

‘Sophie,’ the girl says. ‘My name is Sophie.’