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CHAPTER EIGHT

Civic Tasks

‘The tournament just doesn’t work like that,’ Nan Dawson, Hawthorne’s patron, was saying in exasperation when Morrigan arrived late to her last lesson the following day, trying to slink into the room unnoticed. ‘We can’t enter him into it six months before the opening ceremony! The competitors in next summer’s tournament have already been training for months – years, in some cases.’

‘According to my information,’ said another familiar voice, ‘your scholar’s been riding dragons since before he could walk .’

Morrigan almost groaned aloud. If there was a list of people she’d least like to be surprised by when walking into a classroom, Holliday Wu from Wunsoc’s Public Distraction Department – who had deliberately exposed her as a Wundersmith to everyone in Nevermoor mere weeks ago – would be at the top.

Other names on her No Thank You list would certainly have included Baz Charlton, Cadence’s odious patron, who’d tried to get Morrigan kicked out of Nevermoor during the entry trials three years ago, and Hester Fitzwilliam, Francis’s patron (and aunt), who’d threatened to pull him out of the Society altogether when she’d learned there was a Wundersmith in his unit.

Walking into a room with all three of them present felt like a very unfunny practical joke, but Morrigan couldn’t exactly take it personally; the small room was packed with all of Unit 919 and their patrons and Miss Cheery.

‘Morrigan, come sit with me,’ Miss Cheery said quietly, beckoning her over. The rest of the unit was already seated on chairs arranged in a semicircle, looking excited and jittery.

‘Sorry I’m late, Miss,’ Morrigan whispered as she settled in. ‘Where’s Jupiter? Shouldn’t he be here too?’

But Miss Cheery’s only response was a slightly tense shrug.

Holliday was sitting on top of a desk at the front of the room. To her left stood a man Morrigan recognised as Carlos, one of her colleagues from the Public Distraction Department.

It was somehow especially galling that Holliday looked, as usual, like she’d just been styled for a photo shoot. Morrigan couldn’t help admiring her outfit: a crisp white shirt with sage-coloured waistcoat and trousers – accessorised with a little sprig of lavender in the breast pocket – and tall black lace-up boots. Her long hair was swept up in a topknot exposing a shorn undercut, and she wore a subtle pair of gold wire-framed reading glasses.

Classy , was Morrigan’s grudging assessment.

The publicist frowned thoughtfully at Hawthorne, who had slid halfway down the chair next to Nan, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Holliday murmured something to her colleague, who sighed and said, ‘Well, he needs a haircut for starters.’

‘Mmm. Let’s get a salon appointment in the calendar.’

Hawthorne’s expression turned to terror as one hand went protectively to his riotous brown curls.

Holliday returned her attention to Nan. ‘Sorry – what’s the difference between him and the other competitors?’

Nan squeezed the bridge of her nose. ‘The difference is that those riders have been training with their dragons , specifically for that event. You can’t just ride any old dragon! Not for the biggest competition in the Free State. Every reptile entered in the tournament is a Class-A specimen bred by a licensed, reputable breeder and registered to the Tournament-Calibre Dragon Index from birth .’

‘You’ve just said a lot of things I don’t care very much about, Nan. But go on, do elaborate,’ said Holliday, casually sticking her pen into her topknot and leaning forward, all ears.

‘Those dragons are all owned by obscenely wealthy stables and have been conditioned by career trainers their whole lives. They are extremely rare, extremely valuable and extremely already claimed for the tournament by much older, much more experienced riders than this thirteen-year-old,’ Nan said, grasping Hawthorne’s shoulder. Then she added quietly to him, with a reassuring squeeze, ‘No matter how smashing a rider he happens to be.’

‘Shucks, Nan,’ said Hawthorne.

Holliday waved a hand. ‘We’re the Wundrous Society. We’ll gently move one of those riders out of the way for him.’

Nan groaned loudly and rubbed her face with both hands. ‘It doesn’t WORK like that! Dragon owners are powerful, serious people. They don’t care about Wunsoc status and they’re not going to trust their most precious commodity to a teenage athlete, they’re just not .’

‘Nan’s right,’ agreed Hawthorne, a little wistfully. Morrigan knew it cost her friend something to admit that. He couldn’t wait to ride in the tournament. ‘None of the owners would be that silly. It’s too big a risk.’

‘Dragonriders are selected long before Opening Flights,’ Nan explained. ‘They’re contracted to the owner and their stable and they train twelve to sixteen hours DAILY with the specific dragon they’re going to ride. They painstakingly build a bond with their steed. You can’t just move them out of the way, gently or otherwise! And yes, one day Hawthorne will be one of those riders. No doubt. I’ll be surprised if he isn’t tournament-ready by fifteen, and that will make him the youngest competitor in at least half a dozen Ages. But right now? Absolutely not.’

‘Excellent passion! Love all that. I’m pretty confident we can find a way around this, though. Leave it with me,’ said Holliday. Nan opened her mouth to continue arguing, but the publicist made a little zip motion. ‘Let’s put a pin in the dragon stuff and circle back later, okay? I want to get through the whole unit. All right, now that you’re all present—’ (her eyes flicked pointedly in Morrigan’s direction) ‘—the session can properly begin. We’re here for the assignment of your first civic tasks. Are any of you familiar with this term?’

Morrigan and the rest of the unit all shook their heads.

Holliday slid off the desk and began to pace as she spoke. ‘Civic tasks are your introduction to playing a part in the D bit of C no one in Unit 919 would even need to ask.) ‘Ace! Let’s workshop that one together before the interview. Right, moving on. Where’s Lambeth Amara?’

Lam raised a hand. She was sitting at the end of the row, beside her patron: a tall, broad-shouldered, handsome and serious man called Wayra. Morrigan had never heard him say much; he always allowed Lam to speak on her own behalf. Morrigan had wondered how much of this was simply his personality and how much was because his scholar was in fact a secret royal.

Wayra was one of the few living members of the Wundrous Society to have come from Far East Sang, the Wintersea Republic state where Lam’s family ostensibly reigned. Her grandmother, the queen, had charged him with the task of smuggling Lam into Nevermoor to join the Wundrous Society, where she could harness her gift of seeing the near future and control the debilitating headaches that came with it. It was a dangerous and treasonous thing for the royal family to have done, and if their actions were ever discovered by the Wintersea Party (who actually ruled all four states in the Republic), their freedom – or worse, their lives – would be forfeit.

Fortunately, Queen Ama was both brave and clever; she’d taken in a young orphan girl from a nearby town who would spend the next several years living quietly and happily in the palace, posing as the sequestered Princess Lamya.

Of course, Holliday knew none of this.

‘Lambeth,’ she said again, looking down at her notes. ‘The Elders tell me I can’t do anything public with you for the time being, but they haven’t said why.’ She looked up at Wayra, who stared back silently. Holliday turned to Lam herself.

‘Any clue?’

Lam shrugged. ‘I’m shy.’

Morrigan could feel Unit 919 bristle. They all knew the truth about Lam and had promised to protect her secret no matter what. A thread of tension in the room seemed to tauten as they waited for further probing.

But if there was one thing Holliday was good at, it was reading the room. She nodded briskly. ‘The Elders must have their reasons. Most people find child oracles unnerving, anyway. It takes years to develop the sense of theatre and charm you need to be convincing, and without it the whole thing can come off a bit creepy – no offence. I’ll come back to you in a year or two.’ She moved on, consulting her notes again. ‘Next up … Anah Kahlo. Ooh, a healer! Terrific.’

‘Surgeon, actually, Miss,’ Anah corrected her timidly. ‘Or I will be. I plan to specialise in—’

‘Nope,’ said Holliday, making the zipping gesture across her mouth again. Carlos made a big ‘X’ with his forearms. ‘I’ll stop you there. You’re not a surgeon, or even a surgeon-in-waiting. That doesn’t test well. Nobody, and truly I mean nobody , wants to imagine a thirteen-year-old rummaging about in their organs. Plus, “surgeon” makes people think of scalpels and hospitals and that yucky disinfectant smell.’

‘I like that smell,’ Anah protested meekly. ‘And I’m fourteen, I had my birthday last—’

‘ Healer , on the other hand, is soothing,’ Holliday went on. ‘ Healer is mysterious. Healer is non-threatening. Got it? Now tell me what your knack is.’

Anah glanced uncertainly at her patron, Sumati Mishra, and at Miss Cheery, who was looking stony-faced at Holliday. Then she said in a mouse-like voice, ‘I’m a … a healer?’

‘Spot on,’ Holliday said, extending a thumbs-up. ‘Anah, we’re going to have you visit the Royal Lightwing Children’s Hospital and shadow a doctor on their rounds. Sound fun?’

‘Oh, yes please ,’ said Anah, sitting up taller.

‘Great. Ooh! Carlos, let’s find her a little white lab coat for the occasion. I know – adorable, right?’ Carlos was making a sound like he’d just seen a litter of puppies.

But Sumati looked sceptical. ‘You don’t want people thinking of hospitals … but you’re sending her to a hospital. In a lab coat.’

‘It doesn’t matter if she goes to a hospital,’ said Holliday. ‘It doesn’t matter if she wears a lab coat or hangs a stethoscope around her neck or juggles syringes, as long as we call her a healer while she does it. That’s the important bit. Right, next is …’ She consulted her notes again. ‘Mahir Ibrahim. Mahir, apparently you’re a … polyglot. Cool word. Please tell me it means you’ve got super speed or X-ray vision?’

‘Hmm?’ Mahir, who’d been reading a book for the entire lesson, straightened up and blinked dazedly. His young patron, Grace Mulryan, whispered in his ear, and Mahir cleared his throat. ‘Oh. Sorry. It means I speak multiple languages.’

Holliday sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut as if grappling with a sudden migraine. ‘Um … okay. Cool. How many languages? A good round number, like two hundred? Something that’ll look nice in a headline, yes?’

‘Forty-one.’

Her face fell slightly. ‘Forty-one.’

Mahir shrugged. ‘I’m learning an obscure Northern Grommish dialect, so it will be forty-two soon.’

Holliday actually grimaced at the words ‘obscure’ and ‘Grommish’, and made a few hurried scrawls in her notebook. ‘Okay. Forty-two’s … fine.’

Miss Cheery seemed to have finally had enough. She choked out a noise of exasperation that made Morrigan jump. ‘Forty-two languages is not fine , it’s extraordinary , Holliday. How many people do you know who can speak forty-two languages?’

‘At age fourteen ?’ added Grace, glaring daggers at Holliday. She gave Mahir a consolatory pat on the back, but he had returned to his book and seemed wholly unbothered.

Holliday pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Yeah, no, I completely agree. It’s brilliant! Truly Mahir, it’s brilliant. We’ll round it up to fifty. Moving on to—’

‘I don’t get this, Holliday,’ Carlos interrupted her, gesturing vaguely at Unit 919. ‘What’s the theme here?’

‘Theme?’ said Miss Cheery. The edge in her voice had sharpened to a point. ‘What do you mean, theme ?’

‘Oh, you know. Most units have one.’

‘Mmm,’ said Holliday. ‘Carlos is right, actually. Previous High Councils tended to select nine candidates from the Show Trial who ultimately sort of … fit together, somehow. Unit 914 are all talented musicians and composers and vocalists – they were a dream to work with. My own unit have quite disparate knacks, but we’ve all pursued careers of public influence – orators, diplomats, politicians, activists, publicists. And Carlos, your unit are all—’

‘Extremely good-looking, yes,’ he said in a thoughtful tone. ‘But perhaps I see the theme with these children now. The Elders were going for some sort of motley vibe, I think. A bunch of misfits, yes? Fun.’

‘Wh-what? No!’ sputtered Miss Cheery. ‘None of them are misfits. They are nine incredibly talented and well-rounded children in the Free State’s most elite organisation of remarkable people!’

Holliday made an indistinct noise that might equally have been concession or doubt as she flipped through her notebook. ‘Look, I know all this. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t remarkable. And – wait, isn’t there a musician in this unit?’

‘That’s me, ma’am,’ said Arch, raising a hand. ‘Archan Tate.’

Holliday tilted her head to the side. ‘Nice manners. Great face. Heart-throb potential for sure. We’ll start putting you in some of the teen magazines in a year or so, once you’ve developed a decent jawline. Are you in a band?’

Miss Cheery gave a faint groan.

‘Oh, er – this is more of a hobby, really,’ said Arch, gently tapping the violin case he’d brought from his last lesson. ‘I’m actually a pickpocket.’

Holliday’s nose wrinkled. ‘You what?’

‘My scholar plays the violin beautifully,’ clarified Arch’s patron, a refined but slightly weather-beaten man called Whitlam Skuld. ‘But that’s not the talent that won him a place here. Archan is a pickpocket. And a magnificent one.’

Holliday looked from Whitlam to Arch, staring blankly for several moments, then clicked her fingers. ‘No. He’s a liberationist.’

‘I’m … sorry?’ said Arch, frowning.

‘We don’t say pickpocket. Comes with a whole host of negative connotations, the main one being that people don’t like being pickpocketed. You’re a liberationist.’

‘What’s a liberationist?’

‘A champion for the underdog. You liberate money and goods from the unworthy and give them to the needy.’

Arch looked utterly puzzled. ‘I usually just give people their things back.’

‘Then why steal them in the first place?’ asked Carlos.

He shrugged. ‘For fun?’

Holliday opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a booming knock on the door a second before it swung open and a wide-eyed woman swept inside, announcing in a breathless voice, ‘They’re not coming!’

‘We’re just about to wrap up here, Judith—’

‘Holliday!’ she cut in sharply. ‘They are not. Coming. To Wunsoc .’

Carlos gasped, and Holliday’s face drained of colour. It took her a moment to recover her voice. ‘What do you mean they’re not coming? They RSVP’d. Everything’s ready, we’ve just spent two days decorating the formal parlour! We’ve done them a HIGH TEA for goodness’ sake! Judith, you did specify the invitation was from the High Council of Elders ?’

‘Yes, of course, but … they’ve asked you to come to them .’

For the second time, Holliday was silenced. She sat down as if something had pushed her, then stood up again in a rush, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear.

‘The message said they’ll send a chauffeured vessel to fetch you from their rendezvous point,’ Judith confirmed. She, too, looked shocked and slightly terrified. ‘It will be there in …’ She checked her watch, eyes bulging. ‘… seventeen minutes.’

‘ Seventeen minutes ? But I haven’t even explained – we were supposed to have—’ Holliday closed her eyes for a moment, pressing the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. She took several deep, slow breaths, opened her eyes, and was once again as cool as a cucumber. (Morrigan felt simultaneously impressed by the instant transformation, and weirdly satisfied having witnessed that little crack in Holliday’s composure.) ‘Right. Okay. Unit 919, patrons, Miss Cheery – we’ll continue this in our follow-up session on Friday.’ She smoothed down her waistcoat and straightened her shoulders. ‘Morrigan Crow? Come with me, please. Your first civic task begins right now.’

Morrigan jolted at the sound of her name.

‘Now?’ Her stomach seemed to turn in on itself. ‘What is it?’

Holliday’s face gave nothing away.

‘You have some very important people to meet.’