Sarah Driver - Sky

I twist my mouth and don’t move, but she holds them closer to me. One of her hands is sprinkled with fine white scars, and the knuckles are bloody. On the other she’s wearing a dark grey glove. ‘Take them,’ she says gently. ‘They will make it better.’

I blow the air out through tight lips and reach for the flowers. The petals are cool and smooth between my fingers. When I crunch them a bitter, earthy taste fills my mouth.

‘Heart-thanks,’ I stutter, mouth ash-dry. Then a thought squirms in my belly. She’s gifted me kindness. Maybe I can get her to help me escape.

‘Oh!’ she exclaims, making me startle. Then she winces at her own noise. ‘I almost forgot your milk,’ she whispers. ‘Hope it’s not bone-cold.’ She searches the floor behind her, then presses a steaming clay mug into my hands. A delicious warmth spreads through my fingers, all the way up my arms.

‘Wait, it’s better with this mixed in.’ She takes a vial from her pocket and pinches some rust-red powder into the cup before I can snatch it away. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says quickly. ‘It’s nutmeg and cinnamon – I’m not in the business of poisoning! You should be glad of a little flavour. These days it’s just goat’s milk, goat’s cheese, tough old goat’s meat and bog myrtle.’ She ticks them off on her fingers. ‘We’re on lock-down. No trade, because of the war.’ She speaks fast and tight, like she’s afraid someone’s gonna spring out of the shadows and gag her.

‘Ent never met someone before that can babble faster than me.’ I take a sip of the drink. It warms me from chest to toes, and the spices tingle on my tongue.

‘Suppose I have many trapped words to spill.’ She turns again and places a dented silver platter by me. There are two fat lumps of dough on it.

I raise my eyes to her face. ‘Will you help me, for real? Can you—’

‘Eat,’ she says, cutting me off. ‘The food will give you wondrous fire-in-the-belly.’

My hope fades painfully, just as one of the pipes in the wall starts to rattle and clank like a crazed thing. I scuttle backwards and my foot skids out in front of me, kicking the food platter across the floor. The noise spreads through the pipe to a small chute that enters the turret from a hole in the roof and ends in a rusty metal door.

‘Ah, here he comes, at long last,’ the girl says grimly. She turns towards the chute, skirts swirling. Her hem is fire-licked, like she’s too close to the hearth.

‘Who?’ I ask, filled with dread. ‘And who are you?’

She stares down at me, a mix of emotions that I can’t read swirling behind her eyes. ‘I’m Kestrel.’ The way she says it fills me with a fresh burst of hope that I cling onto with all my might. I can feel the heart-strength she had to summon just to tell me her name.

The chute rumbles and clangs, gives a thud , then falls silent. Kestrel scowls at it, fiddling with a chain hooked to her belt, then steps towards the chute and starts wrenching her key back and forth in a keyhole set in the door.

The chute flies open and a small, fat shape gushes out, trilling latelatelate! Latequickhelpcarryoooooooosnacks!

The creature darts for the plate of food on the floor, but Kestrel gives it a sour look, ducks low and grabs it in cupped hands. ‘Squidges don’t eat pancakes!’

They do! it chatters desperately, oozing a puddle of black stuff – like ink – into Kestrel’s hands.

‘Oh, Ettler! Calm your silly self. Anyone would think you a fat princeling, not a sawbones’ helper.’ When she lets the creature go again, it stares at me, chatters oddbeastfrightfulfeathers! and slams itself into the wall in distress, oozing more puddles of ink. I swallow my beast-chatter, cos I don’t want Kestrel knowing about it.

The beast is all kinds of oddness. It looks like a tiny round squid, no bigger than a sea-hawk’s egg, covered in shiny gold feathers. It moves through the air by wiggling and flapping, pooing ink behind it that grows an icy crust on the floor.

‘Ettler, you must learn to hold your ink!’ Kestrel scolds. ‘You know I need it. Use an ink-pan if you want letting out.’

‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘You called it a . . . squidge?’

She nods, eyeing the not-quite-squid. ‘We’ve scores of the grumblesome things, working in the pantries, but this one kept stealing food—’

Not true! shrills the offended squidge, hooting anxiously at the girl. Then mischief gleams in its round black eyes, and it chortles.

‘And so,’ she says to me, wrinkling her nose, ‘when trouble came sniffing he hid in my clothes chest. By the time I found him, all my things were covered in ink, but he was too afraid to leave my room. So I took him on, as my so-called assistant . What a fantastic decision that turned out to be.’ She turns back to the chute and rummages inside the hatch. ‘So shall we stitch that foulsome wound on your face?’ she asks, voice muffled. ‘You’ve been up to strugglings, huh?’

‘I was trying to save my brother,’ I tell her, curling my tongue over the edge of my teeth. ‘Not that it even worked.’ It don’t matter if you save Sparrow, cos you ent never gonna save him from his sickness , snickers a wicked voice in my head.

Kestrel pulls an oiled leather bag from the chute and sits cross-legged in front of me. She roots through the bag. The squidge farts anxiously around her, dripping ink into her hair. ‘Aagh, Ettler !’

He flaps stickily away and hides in the chute, whimpering.

‘Here are the things we need,’ chirps Kestrel. ‘A tear-vial, for catching your tears.’

I frown, shame prickling my scalp. ‘Tears are for weaklings and babs. I don’t need—’

‘Pish,’ she says. ‘Our Tribe used to wear these ’til our tears were swallowed by the air – that’s when the mourning has passed.’ She takes my hand and balls it into a fist, then places it against my chest. When I open my fingers there’s an empty glass vial inside my hand, with a bone stopper.

She wrinkles her nose and squints at me. ‘And . . . what else?’ she wonders aloud. ‘A spool of silk and a needle-clutcher.’ She pulls a thin roll of leather from the bag, opens it and draws out a sliver of white bone. ‘A needle and some—’

‘Why would I let you practise your pox-ridden dabblings on me?’ I blurt. My gut boils at the thought of anyone touching my face.

‘That cut is too deep to be left alone.’ She raises her coppery eyebrows. ‘Always think you know best, huh?’

I clutch the bandage tighter and turn away from her. ‘You ent touching me.’

‘’Twill fester.’

My forehead burns fierce, even worse than my sore throat. I know I’m already getting sick. I sigh, then nod quickly.

‘Good.’ She unwraps my face from the bandage I made. The cloth has stuck to the wound, so she opens her cloak to reveal a leather circle strapped to her chest, holding six daggers with leather pommels. She pulls one out and uses it to carefully slice my bandage off.

Hot, sharp pain stabs into me as the skin underneath is torn. ‘Argh!’ I hiss as she pulls the last of it away.

‘Sorry.’ She winces, and takes my chin in her hand to peer at my damaged face. ‘Claws, looks like?’

‘A terrodyl,’ I whisper. ‘Must look grim.’

‘Some folks will fear to look at you. But I say away with them! What counts is on the inside, no?’

I nod. ‘In heart-truth, a captain could use a frightful face.’ Even as I say it, I remember how I won’t be captain now, and how I don’t wanna tell her anything about me.

‘Captain?’ she whispers in an awed voice. ‘Are you to be a sea-captain?’ Curiosity shines through her.

Hawk-swift, Grandma’s face appears. A voice deep inside me whispers, over and over, you’ve got no home, you’ve got no home. The deck flashes into my brain, clear as lightning, with Grandma bundled on the plank and Stag pointing his gun at her. Sweat coats my palms and I begin to tremble.