Page 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Lintel-Hopping

‘Lottie?’ Morrigan whispered. The door clicked shut, somebody flipped a switch, and the room was flooded with light. ‘Louis! How did you get in here? ’

‘Up you get!’ said Lottie. ‘We’re going lintel-hopping.’

‘Put this on, it’s cold outside.’ Louis tossed a coat to Morrigan from across the room, wincing when it hit her in the face. ‘Sorry.’

She snatched it away, scowling. ‘You’re going lentil- what ?’

‘ We ,’ Lottie repeated, with a circular gesture that included Morrigan, ‘are going lintel -hopping. Aren’t you lucky?’

Morrigan scrambled to her feet, squinting at them as her eyes adjusted to the light. ‘Did you break in ?’

‘No!’ said Lottie, giggling. ‘Although, yes, technically.’

‘If I scream right now, the whole house will wake up.’

Lottie blinked at her. ‘Well … don’t .’

‘Morrigan, listen,’ Louis said in an urgent whisper. ‘We’ve been trying to talk to you ever since the wedding. We know you’ve been avoiding us.’

‘And we know why,’ added Lottie.

‘Everything hit the fan after the wedding,’ Louis went on. ‘We went straight home after … you know, after what happened … and we told our parents about Dario—’

‘—and then we told them again, because Father was still half asleep and Mummy never listens the first time,’ said Lottie, rolling her eyes.

‘—and they were shocked , obviously. And since we had their full attention for once, Lottie decided to tell them every single detail of our night … including a rave review of the fascinating new friend we’d made—’

‘He means you,’ Lottie clarified unnecessarily.

‘—and suddenly out of nowhere , our father had a conniption! He got angry and weird and warned us to stay away from you, but refused to explain why.’

‘So, obviously we ignored him,’ said Lottie, ‘and tried to talk to you every chance we got.’

‘But you kept disappearing whenever we came near you, and Father still wouldn’t tell us anything, so we had no choice but to do our own finding out.’ He took a big breath. ‘And we did. We found out … a lot of things.’

‘Louis read the newspapers ,’ Lottie told her, wide-eyed, as if announcing her brother had performed open-heart surgery on a child in need.

‘We didn’t know about any of that Concerned Citizens stuff,’ said Louis, with a look of disgust. ‘You have to believe us, Morrigan.’

‘Do I?’ asked Morrigan, unimpressed. ‘I have to believe you had no idea your dad’s been trying to make life miserable for every Wunimal in Nevermoor? And that he spreads lies about me and wants to get me kicked out of the Free State?’

‘Well … no, I don’t suppose you have to,’ Louis conceded. ‘But—’

‘We know how ridiculous it sounds,’ Lottie interrupted her brother. ‘But Father doesn’t tell us anything! We knew that politics was a little hobby of his, but I promise we didn’t know about the Concerned Citizens, or about the Hollowpox protests, or any of it. Not until after the wedding.’

‘Once we’d done all our investigating, of course we confronted Father,’ Louis said fiercely. ‘We told him – unequivocally, point blank, in no uncertain terms – that he must stop all this Concerned Citizens nonsense, and leave the Wunimals alone, and take back everything he ever said about you, and write a heartfelt apology.’

Morrigan stared at them. ‘And?’

The twins looked at each other and sighed, flopping in defeated unison onto a chaise longue near the foot of the bed.

‘And … when he’d finally stopped laughing,’ Louis muttered, scowling at the memory, ‘he told us his political activities were none of our business. And that we were to stop reading newspapers and asking questions. And that if we ever try to befriend you or speak with you or go anywhere near you again, Lottie will be sent to Mrs Milford’s Corrective School for Rebellious and Wayward Daughters of the Nobility—’

‘—and Louis will go to Brigham Boys College for the Encouragement of Energetic But Malleable Future Leaders.’ Lottie grasped her brother’s hand for just a moment, looking genuinely distressed. ‘In the Fifth Pocket.’

‘Oh.’ Morrigan frowned. ‘So, you …’

‘Immediately doubled our efforts to speak to you, obviously.’ Louis put out his hands, palms up. ‘Morrigan. We can’t help who our father is. But we’ve been desperately trying to see you so we can tell you how sorry we are, and that we don’t agree with any of his stupid Concerned Citizens nonsense . Please don’t think we’re like them.’

‘No, you mustn’t!’ Lottie beseeched her. ‘We’ve never been concerned about anything in our whole lives. Honest. ’

Morrigan looked from one to the other, trying to keep her face impassive while her feelings untangled.

Louis was right about one thing, she thought. They couldn’t help who their father was. Nobody knew that better than Morrigan Crow.

‘Right,’ she said, reaching for a pair of boots. ‘What’s this lintel-hopping thing?’

Not like she was going to get any sleep now, anyway.

There was a moment after Morrigan’s first hop – just a scant handful of seconds – when she was certain Louis and Lottie St James had murdered her.

A moment when she was weightless, suspended in a great black field of nothing, unable to see or hear or smell, quite certain she’d just fallen for a heinously clever trick by the scheming children of her enemy.

Then it was over, and she was stumbling through a doorway into a moonlit conservatory full of towering tropical plants, and the schemers in question were waiting for her with welcoming grins.

‘Thought you might be dead for a second, didn’t you?’ said Lottie.

‘A bit.’

Louis nodded sagely. ‘We all did, the first time. Should have warned you, sorry.’

‘Where are we?’ Morrigan turned on the spot and was surprised to find only glass behind her. ‘Wait, what happened to—’

‘We’re in Carrington House,’ said Louis. ‘And the doorway’s gone, I’m afraid. Can’t go back the way we came; lintel-hopping is a one-way trip. Follow me!’

They tiptoed down hallways lined with portraits of various Lords and Ladies Carrington from history, up four sweeping staircases, through lavishly decorated chambers and finally into a narrow attic room that contained a door with no handle.

Above the door – on what Louis and Lottie called the lintel – was a small cast-iron sculpture of a hand.

‘Do you want to go first this time?’ Louis asked her.

Morrigan did not want to go first, but she also didn’t want to admit that she didn’t want to go first, so she gritted her teeth and went first.

Using her grip on the cast-iron hand to lever herself through the doorframe, Morrigan swung into the void with much more confidence than she felt, and let go. Seven suspended seconds of stomach-churning doubt later, she landed inside what appeared to be a large wooden boat shelter. Half a dozen glossy green boats with the carved heads and curling tails of chameleons bobbed in the water. The air smelled of salt and varnished wood. She was soon joined by Lottie, then Louis.

‘Where are we now?’ she asked.

Louis took a slightly battered map of the Silver District from his back pocket, unfolding it on top of an overturned kayak to show her.

‘Rakoto House,’ he said, pointing to a spot on the map. ‘And once we sneak into Lalaina Rakoto’s third walk-in closet on the second floor of the main house, we’ll take the out-lintel all the way over’ – he tapped one of the little islands opposite the Paramour Pleasure Gardens, in the Greater Circle – ‘here. Straight to the McAlisters’ in-lintel, which is in their wine cellar.’ He turned to grin at Morrigan. ‘Shall we?’

They spent the next half-hour hopping from lintel to lintel, sneaking through people’s houses while they slept. It was simultaneously the creepiest, most illegal thing Morrigan had ever done in her life, and the most fun she’d had in the Silver District so far. The twins’ cheerful company somehow made serial breaking-and-entering seem more like a silly, harmless adventure than a crime.

Mostly they were like thieves in the night, hardly daring to breathe let alone speak. But in some houses – such as the Playfairs’, who were wintering in the Highlands with their full household staff – they could move and talk freely, and Morrigan could ask the questions bubbling in her brain.

‘How many houses have you broken into?’

‘About half the Silver District, we think,’ Louis said. ‘And we’re always adding more to the map. But it’s not really breaking in. All we’re doing is opening a door.’

‘And each house is just a link in the chain,’ explained Lottie. ‘A stepping stone to where we’re actually going.’

‘Which is … ?’

The twins shared a bright-eyed grin and said, in unison, ‘Outside.’

Morrigan tried not to look unimpressed. ‘You can’t go outside at home?’

‘No, we mean outside outside,’ said Louis with a superior chuckle. ‘As in, outside the Silver Gates. Outside in Nevermoor .’

‘But you’re not locked in, surely?’ asked Morrigan.

Lottie made a thoughtful humming sound. ‘Not technically, no. Obviously there are trips to the Trollosseum and the opera and so on … with supervision .’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And Louis goes to school outside the district, at least. But I’m at Dev Ladies’ on the Splendid Canal, so if I couldn’t go lintel-hopping I’d never get outside the gates without an adult chaperone – not until I come of age, and who knows when that will be! Mother and Father are refusing to announce our debut birthday.’

Morrigan frowned. ‘Debut birthday?’

‘Yes, it’s a whole thing,’ sighed Louis. ‘When your family decides you’re mature enough to have a say in household things, and go about town on your own, and vote in the Silver Assembly, so they throw you a big party and add your name to the family plaque.’

Morrigan didn’t need to ask what he meant by ‘family plaque’. Every front door of every house in the Silver District had a shiny plaque with a list of every adult who lived there and who bore the family name. The Darling House plaque had six: Lady Mallory Darling, Lady Margot Darling, Lady Miriam Darling, Lady Modestine Darling, Lady Winifred Darling and Mr Tobias Darling. Morrigan had visited enough homes in the district by now to know that you could tell a family’s power and influence by the size of the plaque on their door. The Mahapatras had twenty-six names on theirs, and the Babatundes well over thirty, and it was no coincidence that their parties were the most well-attended, their friendship the most sought-after and their heads of house the most revered in the district.

‘Most people debut on their sixteenth birthday, but not always. Zara’s younger than us by a whole year and she’s debuting next summer, on her fifteenth … as she’s constantly reminding me,’ Lottie muttered, scowling. ‘The way Father’s been carrying on lately, we’ll probably be waiting until our seventeenth .’

Louis gave a wry smile. ‘If we get arrested again, we’ll be waiting until we’re a hundred.’

‘ Again? ’ Morrigan’s eyes widened. ‘How many times have you been arrested?’

‘Three or four,’ Louis admitted. ‘There are houses we try to avoid these days. Lady Fortescue has practically supernatural hearing and she loves an excuse to call the Silk.’

‘I think Louis gets us arrested on purpose sometimes, because he doesn’t want to debut,’ said Lottie. ‘He’s afraid of growing up.’

‘That’s not true!’ Louis protested, looking slightly sheepish. ‘And I’m not afraid . I just don’t want to lose the lintel chain. The thing is, Morrigan, once you’ve had your debut, the chain thinks you’re an adult and it won’t let you go lintel-hopping anymore. The doors won’t open for you, and after a while you can’t see them, and soon you can’t even remember them. Our cousin Penny Choi took us lintel-hopping for the first time when we were twelve, on Hallowmas. She debuted a month later, and by Christmas she’d forgotten everything.’

Louis looked positively morose at the thought, but Morrigan suddenly tingled with excitement. She was remembering something Squall had said in their lesson that day. Kokoro’s waterfall gate … Jemmity’s lintel chain. The twins were talking about a Wundrous Act, and they didn’t even realise it.

‘Yes, but Penny didn’t need the lintel chain after her debut birthday,’ said Lottie, oozing exasperation. ‘That’s the whole point – now she can leave the district whenever she wants! Think about all that lovely freedom . Don’t you want to go to concerts and things without sneaking around?’

‘I could take or leave the concerts,’ Louis admitted. ‘The sneaking around’s the bit I like.’

Morrigan lost count, but they must have crept through a dozen houses before finally leaving the Silver District via a lintel hidden in the back of a walk-in freezer at Ceresoli’s , a fancy restaurant on the Splendid Canal. They were met on the other side with a rush of cool night air and a cacophony of squawking, chirping sounds inside the Nevermoor Zoo penguin exhibit.

Morrigan had never seen real penguins before. She could have sat and watched them waddling across the ice in their little tuxedoes all night, but the twins had other plans.

Two lintels later they reached their ultimate destination: a grubby, disused pub, complete with faded dartboard, sticky carpets, a dusty bar that reeked of stale beer, and a three-legged pool table with one corner propped up on crates. Homemade bunting strung across the bar read: TOP SECRET HEADQUARTERS OF THE LINTEL-HOPPERS CLUB .

‘Our new home!’ announced Louis. ‘Just found it a few weeks ago. Isn’t it perfect?’

‘Perfect,’ agreed Morrigan, although that wasn’t quite the adjective she’d have chosen. Underwhelming, maybe. Smelly , certainly.

‘The chain’s always growing and changing – adding new lintels like this one, taking some away,’ Louis explained. ‘So we have to keep updating the map. Sometimes a house falls off the chain completely – usually because some grown-up unknowingly moves a heavy piece of furniture in front of it or something. If there’s nobody of lintel-hopping age in the house to move it back and clear the way, or we can’t sneak in and do it ourselves, the closed lintel eventually disappears and another one grows somewhere else in the house.’

‘How long does that take?’ asked Morrigan.

‘A few weeks, or months. Sometimes longer. We’ve been waiting for Beauregard House to rejoin the chain for almost two years now, and the detours to get around it are really annoying,’ said Louis, looking disgruntled. ‘That’s the house the Vulture bought … which is why people call him the Vulture.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s a big swooping bird of prey, isn’t he? Circling the aristocracy, waiting to pick off the stragglers.’ Louis hunched his shoulders and flapped his arms menacingly, then ruined the effect by giggling. ‘That’s what everyone thinks, anyway. They’re all terrified of him because he’s not even from the Silver District but he somehow bought his way into the Greater Circle when the Beauregards got into … financial trouble .’ He mouthed the last two words as if they were too embarrassing – or too dangerous – to speak aloud. ‘Our cousin Penny says there’s no legal way for the Silver Council to get rid of him.’

‘So, now one of the twelve most powerful houses in the district belongs to some guy who doesn’t even know how to dress for the opera, and the old people simply can’t bear it,’ added Lottie, grinning with delight.

‘We think the lintel chain doesn’t like him much, either,’ said Louis. ‘Or maybe it just doesn’t like how empty Beauregard House is now.’

The pub seemed less of a headquarters and more of a thoroughfare. While the twins were showing her around, several other Silverborn teenagers trickled in and out, arriving via the in-lintel and leaving through a front door half hanging off its hinges. They acknowledged Louis and Lottie – and even Morrigan – with nods and waves, but everyone seemed occupied with their own evening plans.

‘Don’t your friends mind that you’ve shown me the top secret headquarters?’

Louis shrugged. ‘Every kid from the Silver District has to learn about lintel-hopping! It’s tradition.’

‘I’m not technically from the Silver District.’

‘That’s what Barty said, so we took a vote,’ said Lottie. ‘And it was unanimous! Everyone agrees you’ll make an excellent lintel-hopper. Except Barty.’ The busted pub door was flung open at that moment, banging loudly against the wall, and an excited teenage boy ran inside. ‘Speak of the idiot. Hello, Barty! Where’ve you come from, somewhere boring?’

But Barty was pointing frantically out the door and struggling to catch his breath. ‘We saw – Tolu and me – we saw it, the thing under – IT’S BACK! COME ON, HURRY!’

Then he pelted outside again, and Morrigan, Louis and Lottie had no choice but to follow.

A familiar sour, salty smell hit Morrigan’s nostrils, and she heard the faint rhythmic lapping of water. There was no light except the moon, illuminating a row of broken-down old boats moored to a pier with fraying ropes and rusty chains, and a boardwalk lined with empty shops and broken streetlamps. Some shadowy corner of Morrigan’s memory lit up.

‘Your headquarters is in Eldritch Moorings ?’ she said, but nobody heard her over Barty and Tolu’s excited shouting.

‘THERE!’ Tolu pointed to a spot in the water right next to a fishing boat with its paint peeling off. ‘It was right there ! We just saw a flash of it, like last time, but it was definitely a giant squid. I’m telling you, man, I saw a tentacle! It was HUGE.’

‘Sure it wasn’t your huge imagination?’ suggested Louis, sounding amused.

‘It’s not a squid , Tolu, you prat!’ said Barty. ‘It’s a giant carp . I should know, my uncle caught one in Loch Logan two summers ago. Let’s see if any of these boats still have fishing gear! Hundred kred says I can reel it in.’

‘Hundred kred says one of them drowns,’ murmured Lottie, as the two boys clambered onto the half-rotten deck of a boat. She held out a hand for her brother to shake. ‘My money’s on Barty.’

Louis tutted. ‘I’m not betting on someone’s death, Lot.’

‘Just a little drown. Not to death. Fifty kred?’

‘Fine.’ He shook her hand. ‘Morrigan, you in?’

But Morrigan was distracted, connecting a lot of dots very quickly. A memory once occluded by the Hush now resurfaced: a group of costumed teenagers stumbling through an old pub door, giggling and squealing at the water’s edge. She’d been arguing with Squall at the time. She turned to face Louis. ‘That was you in the silver jacket! You and Lottie and the others were here, on Hallowmas night. You came through that door and said … you said, Eldritch! Put it on the map .’

‘I TOLD YOU!’ Louis sang to Lottie, punching the air triumphantly. His sister puffed out her cheeks in a sigh. ‘I knew it was you, Morrigan. Lottie didn’t believe me at the wedding, when I said I recognised you.’

Morrigan blinked. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I was going to say something, but then you didn’t say anything, so I figured you’d forgotten because … you know,’ he finished awkwardly.

‘What?’

It was hard to see in the moonlight, but Morrigan thought he was blushing. ‘Well … you’re in the Wundrous Society, aren’t you! You probably go on a million different middle-of-the-night adventures every week and I didn’t want to look like a dork by making it a big deal …’

‘You are making it a big deal,’ Lottie pointed out, ‘and you do look like a dork.’

The grin Louis gave her was extremely smug. ‘Yes, but I’m a dork who was right , which is— BARTHOLOMEW, WHAT ARE YOU DOING ?’

Tolu was doubled over with laughter watching Barty shimmy his way up the wooden mast, while the old fishing boat rocked ominously. Louis, Lottie and Morrigan ran across the boardwalk towards them.

‘Dare me to jump in?’ Barty leaned back, legs hugging the mast but holding it with only one hand.

‘NO!’ said Louis and Morrigan, as Tolu cried, ‘YES!’ through peals of laughter.

‘That would be a VERY BAD IDEA, Barty! You both need to get off that boat and back onto the boardwalk, RIGHT NOW,’ Morrigan shouted. Barty scowled and rolled his eyes at her, then went back to climbing the mast. ‘ Listen to me! That thing in the water isn’t a squid OR a carp. It’s much more dangerous—’

‘JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!’ Tolu began chanting. Barty was almost at the top of the mast.

Morrigan winced and turned to Lottie and Louis. ‘You’ve got to make them stop. If he falls in—’

She was interrupted by the monstrous body of the Guiltghast breaking the surface of the water, a great kinetic force, rising high into the air like a breaching whale. The moonlight reflected in its glistening flesh and enormous eyes, and the tendrils were thrown back in a mesmerising movement like a mermaid throwing back its hair.

It was beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful.

The jellyfish-like body was even bigger than Morrigan had imagined – easily the size of two boats. As it arced downwards it seemed to stretch its tentacles even further, thwacking the hull of the boat as it landed with a gargantuan SPLASH that rocked the entire harbour.

The vessel keeled sharply on its side. Morrigan heard a bone-chilling cry as Barty was thrown from the mast and plummeted to the water, limbs flailing. Tolu held on to the base of the mast with all his strength, staring at Barty in helpless horror.

Morrigan acted without thinking, throwing her reach across the harbour like a fisherman throwing a net. Wunder responded instantaneously, reading her intention with a speed and precision that surprised even her.

Every rope tied to the harbour and every bundled-up old net on every crumbling boat deck was thrown into the air and snapped to attention with an almighty CRACK. They unravelled and rethreaded mid-flight, weaving together tightly with strands of golden-white Wunder. Morrigan flung the net from one side of the boardwalk to the other with her reach. It pulled taut across the harbour with another loud SNAP, just in time to cushion Barty’s fall, barely half a metre above the rolling black waves.

Barty let out another panicked scream as a bulbous, glassy eye emerged from the water beneath him, bigger than his body. Staring up through the gaps in the net, the Guiltghast gave one long, slow blink as its tentacles snaked up towards Barty, reaching through the net for the prey that had landed so obligingly on its doorstep.

Morrigan had never seen anybody crawl so fast.

‘Help him!’ she ordered Louis and Lottie. ‘ Quick , I can’t hold this much longer.’

When Barty reached the edge of the net, the twins hauled him onto the boardwalk, then ran to help Tolu from the boat. Morrigan’s strength gave out and the net completely unravelled, fraying and disintegrating into dust. The golden-white threads of Wunder that had been strengthening and reinforcing it lifted gently into the air, a trillion tiny specks of light visible only to Morrigan, and then floated down again, into the water.

She peered over the edge of the boardwalk and watched the glowing Wunder sinking deep beneath the waves, illuminating the Guiltghast in all its glory. Its tendrils filled almost the entire harbour, trailing behind it like a forest of seaweed.

The strands of residual Wunder from Morrigan’s net swirled and swam around it, wrapping its translucent body with golden warmth. The Guiltghast turned over and over in gentle circles, like a cat getting comfortable in a sunlit garden bed. Perhaps it wasn’t just the commotion on the boat that brought it above the surface, Morrigan thought. Perhaps it had felt the presence of Wunder – of her – and was hoping Hani Nakamura was nearby.

Even so, the way it had smashed into the side of that fishing boat, the way it had reached for Barty, felt purposeful. Predatory . It was hungry.

Heart pounding, Morrigan held her breath as she watched the Guiltghast dive all the way down to the bottom of the harbour again, feeling a curious mix of sympathy and horror. With one last doleful blink of its eyes it settled back into slumber, and only then did she let the air leave her lungs.

Turning back to the four shellshocked teenagers, Morrigan glared at Barty, who visibly flinched.

‘Like I said. DO NOT DISTURB.’

The St James twins recovered swiftly from the terror of what they’d witnessed, and spent the journey home enacting a blow-by-blow account of what was, in Lottie’s words, ‘One of the most genuinely, brilliantly thrilling things I’ve EVER seen.’ Morrigan knew too much about the Guiltghast – and was frankly too exhausted – to share in their excitement. It was a relief when they parted ways inside Darling House, the twins creeping back to the out-lintel to make their way home, and Morrigan slipping away towards her bedroom.

The house was still, and the sky just beginning to lighten to inky blue through the windows. Morrigan hadn’t seen this part of the house before, and it occurred to her that this would be a perfect time to cross off a few more of the rooms on Cadence’s map … although she should also probably try and get some sleep before school. She hadn’t even figured out how to get to school from here yet. It wasn’t as if a Wunsoc brass railpod would be magically waiting for her at the station.

Morrigan was so busy working through these problems in her head, she almost didn’t notice the pale wash of lamplight spilling from a room at the end of a hall.

Should she have ignored it and hurried back to bed? Almost certainly. But, as so often happened these days, curiosity and instinct won out over common sense. Morrigan sent her reach ahead and grasped for the darkest shadow she could see, threw it over herself and crept towards the open door.

It was a room she’d crossed off Cadence’s map over a week ago. A narrow, spartan study featuring half-filled bookshelves, a desk with empty drawers and a small lamp, an old typewriter gathering dust and a locked cupboard. Morrigan had wondered at the time if she ought to try picking the lock. Cadence probably would have. But the room was so obviously disused it hardly seemed worth it, and her aunts had been calling her downstairs, and – most crucially – she didn’t have a clue how to pick a lock, with or without the assistance of Wunder. Now she wished she’d made more of an effort.

The room was an unrecognisable mess. Its shelves were emptied of books, all of which were strewn about the floor, some with pages ripped out. It looked like somebody else had searched the room and done a much more thorough (and messier) job than Morrigan.

The wooden desk still held the small lamp – the source of the room’s light – and the old typewriter. But now it was also scattered with photographs. Hundreds of them in full vibrant colour, stacked in haphazard piles and spilling onto the surrounding floor. Morrigan couldn’t see them properly from the doorway, but she couldn’t get any closer to look, either.

Because there was a ghost standing beside the desk.

That’s what she thought at first: the ghost of an old woman, skeletally thin and dressed in a long white nightgown, her silver hair falling in long tangles. Skin grey, eyes sunken and hollow. Mumbling tremulously, Lady Darling sifted haphazardly through the photos, shoving whole piles onto the floor without care.

Morrigan felt her heartbeat quicken. Were she and her grandmother looking for the same thing? And if they were, was it for the same reason … or did Lady Darling have something to hide?

Transfixed, Morrigan crept further into the room, keeping to the shadows. It was hard to believe this wisp of a person was the same proud, sophisticated woman she’d met in the Receiving Room only a month ago.

She’d been hovering in the dark for several minutes, deciding whether to say something, when a tired voice came from the doorway.

‘Oh, not this again.’ Morrigan froze beneath her shadowcloak as Aunt Margot padded past her into the room, pale and puffy-eyed, wrapped in a silk dressing gown. ‘Mother. You should be sleeping.’

Lady Darling didn’t seem to hear her. She was muttering to herself – an agitated stream of babble Morrigan didn’t understand.

Aunt Margot stopped short when she saw the chaos all over the desk and floor. She let out an irritated huff and opened her mouth to say something, then pressed her lips tight together as if thinking better of it. Taking her mother’s arm, she guided her away from the desk, sidestepping a cascade of photos. ‘What a dreadful mess. Come along, I’ll make you some tea. Then back to bed.’

Lady Darling peered up at her eldest daughter, seeming to notice her presence for the first time.

‘ Tobias ,’ she said in a low, insistent voice, yanking her arm away.

‘Yes, yes.’ Aunt Margot sighed in a bored way, but Morrigan thought she saw a flash of hurt cross her face. She gripped her mother’s arm more firmly this time and steered her towards the door. ‘I know you’d prefer Tobias, but he’s asleep. Lucky him.’

Morrigan held her breath, statue-still, as the two women passed her only centimetres away, waiting until their footsteps had disappeared before rushing over to the desk.

She snatched up photos at random, examining them closely. The bride and groom leaving the chapel in a shower of rose petals. The flotilla of dragon and swan boats on the canal. Gigi Grand and the Gutterborn Five in full swing. The sky alight with fireworks, and those words burning in the air: I LOVE YOU A MILLION DRAGONS .

‘Jackpot,’ she whispered.