Jenny Valentine - The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010

Text copyright © Jenny Valentine 2010

Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007283613

Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 780007489305

Version: 2015–04–01

For Maikki Ranger, my accidental twin.

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT DEDICATION ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR KEEP READING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR BOOKS BY JENNY VALENTINE ABOUT THE PUBLISHER HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010 Text copyright © Jenny Valentine 2010 Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication. Source ISBN: 9780007283613 Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 780007489305 Version: 2015–04–01

DEDICATION DEDICATION DEDICATION ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR KEEP READING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR BOOKS BY JENNY VALENTINE ABOUT THE PUBLISHER For Maikki Ranger, my accidental twin.

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

KEEP READING

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOOKS BY JENNY VALENTINE

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

I didn’t choose to be him. I didn’t pick Cassiel Roadnight out of a line-up of possible people who looked just like me. I just let it happen. I just wanted it to be true. That’s all I did wrong, at the beginning.

I was in a hostel, a stop-off for impossible kids in east London somewhere. I’d been there a couple of days, walked in off the streets half-starved, because I had to. They were still trying to get hold of me. They were still trying to find out who I was.

I wasn’t going to tell them.

It was a tired place run by tired people. It smelled of cigarettes and floor polish and soup. They gave me old clothes, washed thin and mended and almost the right size. They asked me lots of questions in return for two meals and a dry place to sleep.

I tried to be grateful, but I didn’t speak to them.

They locked me in a storeroom for fighting. Hot and airless, four pale walls, a shut and rusted filing cabinet, a shelf piled with papers, a stack of chairs.

The boy I fought with was hurt. That’s why I was locked up really, for winning. You’re not allowed to do that. I don’t remember his name. I don’t remember what the fight was about even.

I was in there for over two hours. I wanted to wreck it. I watched myself doing it, somewhere in my head.

I heard one of them coming, saw the wavering, moss-coloured shape of her through the mottled glass of the door. I banged on it hard. She stopped and turned and took a quick breath of her disappointed air.

Her voice was small and jumpy. “What do you want?” she said.

“I want you to let me out.”

“I can’t do that.”

I put my head against the cold skin of the wall. “Please help me,” I said.

“Are you hurt?” she said. “Are you bleeding?”

“I’m thirsty.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You can’t deprive me of water.”

“I’ll go and ask,” she said, and through the glass she warped and gathered and was gone.

I counted to four hundred and thirty-eight.

When she came back, she had someone else with her. They unlocked the door and swooped in with a plastic cup half-filled with water. I drank it down in one. It wasn’t enough.

The man had a hooked nose and loose, curly hair. I’d seen him before, but not her. He sounded like keys jangling.

He said, “Have you finished fighting?”

I shrugged. “Probably not.”

I didn’t like the way the woman was looking at me. I stared back so she would stop, but she didn’t. Between us there was just the blood in my ears, pounding and pumping, and the look on her face.

She kept her eyes on me while she spoke to the man, and when she left the room. “Hang on a minute, would you? I’ll be right back.”

The man sat in one of the chairs, shifting, trying hard to look relaxed. He leaned towards me and his black eyes blinked, quick and vigilant, like a bird’s. I wondered if he minded being alone with me. I wondered if he was afraid.

“Why won’t you tell us your name?” he said.

I pretended he wasn’t there. I pretended he wasn’t talking.