Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

‘First of all… we need to decide whether we stay in Ellchester, or leave right now and head to London. It’s a bigger city. People hunting us might not be able to find us there.’

‘ London? ’ Pen’s jaw dropped. ‘Do you mean… we’re really running away?’ Her face was aghast, and Not-Triss was not sure whether to laugh or cry. Clearly ‘running away’ in Pen’s mind had never previously involved ‘not coming back’.

‘I can’t leave.’ Not-Triss bit her lip hard. ‘I need to stay. I don’t know if there is any way to stop me falling apart, but I can only find that out here. All the secrets are in Ellchester. If I leave, then I know I’ll die. And… And either way, I want to do anything I can to help other me. And… Sebastian.’

Violet sighed again, and rubbed at her temples.

‘Yes,’ she muttered, ‘I was thinking much the same. We stay then. It won’t be easy – we’ll have your parents, Mr Grace and maybe the police looking out for us. And time is against us.’ She gave Not-Triss a brief cloudy frown of concern. ‘Whatever we do, we have to act fast .

‘This mysterious Architect – he seems to be the key to everything. The other Triss’s kidnap, Sebastian’s letters and whatever is happening to you , Triss. We need to discover as much as we can about him – who he knows, where he’s based. Perhaps we can even get some advantage over him.’

Not-Triss glanced at Pen, whose mouth had drooped into a little pout of fear. When she thought of hunting down the Architect, Not-Triss remembered the towering blurry silhouette that had loomed over her strange birth, and her insides felt watery with unease. But what other choice was there?

‘Triss – you understand birds when they talk, don’t you?’ exclaimed Pen. ‘You should ask them where the Architect is. They fly everywhere.’

‘I don’t think I understand real birds,’ admitted Not-Triss. ‘Just the scary ones with people-faces… and they’re working for the Architect.’

‘Let’s try another approach then,’ suggested Violet. ‘What do we know about him?’

‘He’s evil ,’ Pen declared helpfully. ‘He tricks and lies and—’

‘He has a black Daimler,’ Not-Triss cut in.

‘Distinctive.’ Violet nodded slowly. ‘I can ask around after that. Anything else? Pen, you’re our best bet.’

Pen did have the good grace to look uncomfortable at the circumstances that had made her ‘the best bet’.

‘I always met him at the park or the cinema,’ she mumbled, ‘and I talked to him on the telephone.’

‘But it’s not through the ordinary operator, is that right?’ Violet grimaced. ‘A pity, or we could ask them to track the call. I can look into that cinema though. Did he ever mention having another base? He must have somewhere. A car means a garage means a house.’

‘No! You don’t understand! He can—’ Pen was brought up short and sat gasping, pink-faced. She met Not-Triss’s eye, and they exchanged a look of helpless frustration.

The Architect was a bricks-and-mortar magician. He could build palaces in broom cupboards, and had already hidden a small town on the underside of a bridge. He could have dozens of bases that were marked on no map and known by no postman. Violet knew none of this, and they could not tell her.

Worse still, they could not tell her about the Underbelly, the pact between Piers Crescent and the Architect, anything the Shrike had said about Sebastian…

‘I hate magic promises!’ exploded Pen.

‘There are things we know about the Architect that we can’t explain to you,’ Not-Triss said miserably. ‘We want to, but we can’t.’

Violet closed her eyes, and muttered something under her breath.

‘Never mind,’ she said at last. ‘Just tell me what you can. I know some people in… interesting places. If the Architect has crooked connections, some of my friends might have heard of him. Any detail might help. Tell me what he looks like – anything that might make him stand out.’

‘I’m not sure he really looks the way he looks.’ Not-Triss remembered the ominous glints of hidden features through the Architect’s glossily handsome facade. ‘But we can try.’

Piecemeal, Pen and Not-Triss described the Architect’s treacherous appearance. Pen had seen him in other fashionable outfits, but always with the same strange grey ruffled coat over the top.

‘Oh! I remember something else!’ Pen bounced. ‘He wore a watch on his wrist – I saw it peeking out from under his sleeve. I noticed it because it didn’t look right with his clothes. It was a funny-looking thing. Old and scratched, with a bulging face.’ Not-Triss remembered that she too had noticed a gleam beneath the Architect’s sleeve. She had entirely forgotten that brief hint of metal.

‘A wristwatch,’ echoed Violet flatly. ‘Old and scratched. With a bulging face.’ The colour had drained from her face, and an angry tension was returning to her jaw. ‘Are you sure about that, Pen?’

‘Yes!’ Pen stared at Violet. ‘Why? What does it mean?’

‘Perhaps nothing,’ Violet said grimly, ‘but I have a hunch about that watch, and more questions I need to ask somebody.’ She cast an eye over the both girls, then stooped to scoop up her driving goggles. ‘You both look half dead,’ she said curtly. ‘Get some sleep.’

Not-Triss realized that she was indeed exhausted. Two nights of broken sleep and a day of running on nervous energy had left her shaky and drained.

‘Are your friends racketeers?’ demanded Pen. ‘I’m coming to meet them!’

‘No, you’re not!’ retorted Violet. ‘I don’t like leaving you two alone here, but if there’s a hue and cry out for you, then you’re better off hidden. I’ll be back before dark.’

When Violet had driven away, Not-Triss and Pen gathered mouldy patchwork blankets from the crates and made a nest in which they snuggled down as best they could. In spite of the daylight spilling into the boathouse and wooden doors banging in the wind, Not-Triss soon slipped into sleep.

When she woke, the light seeping in through the door had honeyed into a deeper gold, and she knew that it must be late afternoon, just ebbing into evening. Not-Triss was alone in the nest. She could see Pen sitting cross-legged over by the doorway, with her back to her.

As Not-Triss sat up, her hunger woke and roared, like a dragon in her belly.

She doubled over, wrapping her arms tight around her stomach. Inside her was a hole that felt big enough to swallow the whole warehouse.

She needed to eat. She needed it. Nothing else mattered.

Her desperate fingers clawed her hair and found no ribbons, then raked her pockets and found them empty. With claw-tipped hands she tore off her dress buttons and crammed them into her mouth, but that only sharpened her need. She scrabbled and yanked at the dress, hearing seams pop and threads rip, but haste made her too clumsy to pull it up over her head.

Socks. She pulled them off, repelled only briefly by the mud-spatters and the foot-smell. The first sock went down so easily it barely touched her tongue. It tasted like the smell of wet earth and wild strawberries with the rain on them. The second followed the first.

For a little while afterwards, she hugged herself and shuddered. Her claws had left hasty red scratches on her shins.

As Not-Triss tottered over, Pen looked up and peered at the blanket Not-Triss had draped around herself. ‘Why are you shivering?’

‘I’m cold.’ said Not-Triss, sitting down. She was cold, inside and out. ‘Is Violet back yet?’

Pen shook her head and carried on scribbling in the exercise book in her lap. It had blots of yellow on its pages, and a green cover curling with the damp. Not-Triss assumed that it must have come from inside one of the crates.