To my readers, for a dazzle-bright debut year.

Heart-thanks for crewing up with me and Mouse!

May the sea-gods always swim close to you.

First published in Great Britain 2018

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © Sarah Driver 2018

Illustrations copyright © Ray Tierney 2018

Map illustration copyright © Joe McLaren 2018

Additional illustrations first published in 2017 in the titles The Huntress: Sea and

The Huntress: Sky written by Sarah Driver and published by

Egmont UK Limited, The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London, W11 4AN.

Additional illustrations copyright © Joe McLaren 2017

Additional interior illustrations by Janene Spencer.

All rights reserved.

The moral rights of Sarah Driver, Ray Tierney and Joe McLaren have been asserted.

First e-book edition 2018

ISBN 978140584691

Ebook ISBN 9781780317656

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Cover

Title Page

Dedication and Copyright

Trianukka

The Spidermaster’s Lair

Epigraph

Excerpt from The Sharkskin Scripts, Volume I: The Great Trianukkan Tribes

PART 1: The Hunted Child

1 The Withering

2 The Scarred Girl

3 The Sneaking

4 Blood on the Stones

5 Trouble’s Hook

6 Visitations

7 The Summons

8 Our Own Sneaking

9 Wandering Warriors

10 One Condition

PART 2: The Moonlands

11 The Inn Between

12 Diggers-tip Cold

13 Disbelievably Wretched Slackwit

14 Lucky Find

15 Bloodcakes

16 By Tooth, by Nail

17 Burial

18 You with the Fire

19 Forest of Nightfall

20 Sneaky Trees

21 True Mystiks

PART 3: The Beasts are Coming

22 Nightfall

23 Akhund Olm

24 The College of Medsin

25 Webs and Smog

26 Beckoning the Spirits Out

27 Rough as a Clam

28 Gather the Ghosts

29 The Shadow of Spiders

30 Back from the Brink

31 Realm of Fog and Pearls

32 Don’t You Remember?

33 The Belly for the Work

34 Breaking the Chains

35 Not Too Clever

36 Wherever We Rest Our Bones

37 Brew an Uprising

38 Battle

39 False Crown

40 The Crown

41 Frozen Breath

42 My Daughter

43 Thaw

44 Sea, Sky, Land

45 A Crowning

46 Sea Voyages, for the Living and the Dead

47 Hunter’s Moon

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange

– William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Excerpt from The Sharkskin Scripts, Volume I: The Great Trianukkan Tribes

Dating back three thousand years, this ancient manuscript now resides in the Skybrary high in the Iceberg Forest of the Wildersea, under the care of the Skybrarian and his apprentice, a young Wilderwitch boy named Yapok.

We, the gathered Sea-Tribe captains, scratch these runes into skin with ink, tears and blood-truth.

In troubled times, dark forces rise. This is known. Long ago, the land of Trianukka was ravaged by unending war. In this dark time of blood and iron, a great evil rooted into our world. The evil grew, then spread. It bled into the minds of many, becoming a movement known as the

We must never forget the darkness wielded by this movement. We must make sure it never befalls our world again.

This dawn, at a ceremony on the highest peak, the Kings of Sea, Sky and Land have set three Storm-Opals in a golden crown, weaving the Tribes together in peace. Each sacred stone has been instilled with a sliver of the elements: a foam of sea, a fragment of sky and a fracture of earth. The jewels are to be guarded by a king of the giants. It is foretold that if the Opals are ever separated, evil will rise once more, and the land will be torn apart.

Hackles. Ancient stronghold of the Sky-Tribe of the draggle-riders. One full moon’s turn after a Fangtooth hunted me through the snow.

Stark eyes glint all around me, peering from the depths of fur hoods. I sniff the air. Fear-stink. Everywhere. The long-hall is packed with scarred and bandaged folk. Outsiders seeking refuge in this Sky realm of thick grey walls. Their murmurs clot together and rise into the air, crowding it with questions. Some are Sea-Tribe, and looking at them makes me wonder about my ship, and the rest of my own crew.

I’m huddled on a bench, ice-bitten and swamped in a heavy cloak of goatskin, listening to storms pummel the mountain fortress with daggers of ice.

I try to stop the fright in the air from seeping through my skin. But the walls are smeared with silver streaks that tighten my belly into knots. Moonsprites are dying, cos no moonlight can pierce the frozen clouds.

‘You alright, Little-Bones?’ Da whispers. He’s sitting next to me, grey-skinned and pretending he’s got no pain. He still ent recovered proper from being kept a prisoner of the mystiks. With food grown scarce, the flesh is slow to gather on his bones, and his jaws grip his teeth too tight. ‘You don’t have to be here for this, you know.’

‘I ent no little ’un,’ I hiss, rolling my eyes at my crewmate Crow, who’s sat on the other side of me. The former ship-wrecker boy gifts me a grin.

A door bangs and we turn to stare as Leopard – seven hundred and seventy-seventh in a great line of Protectors of the Mountain – leads five Sky Elders through the crowd. Leo looks worn to rags by exhaustion, but she’s wearing her goat headdress and a cloak of gold-dipped feathers, and she’s standing arrow-straight.

I straighten my own spine at the sight of her, and in the corner of my eye catch Lunda scowling at me. The pale-haired Spearsister – one of the Protector’s best trained warriors – still don’t like outsiders. She throws the spear of her fright even surer than her spear of iron.

The Elders are a mix of draggle-riders and Wilderwitches – enemies until one full moon’s turn ago, when I freed Leo from the possession that Stag and the mystiks were wielding to control her and her territory. The Wilder-King remains our enemy, swearing fealty to Stag even though storms have been trying to throw his iceberg forest flat and Hackles would be safer for his people. But some Wilderwitches fled to Hackles and Leo welcomed them heartily.

I watch as the Elders tread behind Leo. They’re draped in flowing sky-blue robes spun from ice worm silk and sewn with berg owl feathers. Orca teeth hang from their hems.

They carry offerings to the Sky gods – in their cupped palms sit crystal jars filled with tiny forests, dragonflies and spark-spluttering miniature storm clouds. They reach the dais and turn to face the benches.

Silence drops. The might of Hackles presses down on us – seems like even the ancient stronghold is straining to listen. Everyone says the Elders only utter a squeak when their pipes have seriousness to spill. And folks are proper desperate for them to gift words of certainty while chaos is sweeping through the world.

Chaos like how the trees can’t summon their life-blood from the sealed earth, and winter won’t thaw. Like how the land has erupted into riots, since the fires lit by Stag destroyed the Icy Marshes. Famine has seen more tribes joining Stag’s side, or taking to crimes that have long been outlawed – raiding and slave-trading. Others are divided, like the Wilderwitches, and fighting amongst themselves.

Leo addresses the hall. ‘Unity is our aim. Let us remember – our mountain was born from the sea, and the wind carved the rocks. Here is the birth of a mountain!’

‘And here is the birth of an iceberg!’ drone the Wilderwitches.

‘May swift feathers bear your Sky-Tribe glad tidings,’ I mutter along with the rest of them.

‘Let us hear the latest reports from the Sneakings,’ says Leo grimly.

Shoulders sag, mutters rise, boots stamp the floor impatiently. ‘Can’t we just hear the Elders, and get it over with?’ someone whispers behind me.

The Sneakings. Leo’s draggle patrols that slip into the world when no one’s looking. Leo promised I can join the next one, and I’m counting every beat until we fly cos the next Sneaking will be for a Tribe-Meet. Besides, it’s too long since I roved.

‘We have flown to the furthest corners of the land, Protector,’ says a lean woman with wind-burned cheeks. ‘The whole of Trianukka is blotted in the shadow of frozen cloud. Winter will not end. Fangtooths are leaving the Frozen Wastes and spilling across the ice, terrorising all in their path. They have raided the Bay of Thunder and the fishing villages along the Black Coast.’

Another rider stands. ‘Our spies have heard that the creeping ice has already spread as far south as the Giant’s Backbone; a stack of hovels teetering twenty deep upon an ancient ribcage, on the edge of Nightfall.’

Crow turns his head and our startled eyes meet.

As the reports go on, the despairing news weighs heavy on my spine and I feel my chest grow tight.

After the final report has rung through the hall, the Elders creak to their feet. Thick silence plunges once again.

Leopard nods to the Elders, then sits at the edge of the dais, opposite me. She twists her thin hands in her lap. Her lips move, and I can just hear her prayers. ‘Wakening’s Dawn, please come to us, please melt this ice and wake the sun.’

The Elders hook a cauldron over a fire, then pinch powder inside and feed lumps of resin to the flames. Sparks race each other into the air. The Elders make a circle, linking hands.

Steam noses over the edge of the cauldron, coiling up to the damp cavern that yawns over our heads. The Elders crane their necks to see the shapes made by the steam.

I scrunch my toes inside my boots.

‘A darkness spreads across all the sea, sky and land . . . the great wheel of Midwinter has turned, but new life fails to wake in the earth!’ croaks an Elder. ‘It is as we feared. The age of the Withering has befallen us!’ She rakes her wide, watery eyes through the crowd. Then she spits. ‘Sky-gods save our souls.’

The fire claws at the sides of the cauldron. The steam thickens and writhes.

Draggle-riders are a goat-hardy, wind-sculpted folk. But still their frighted whispers leap into the air like sparks from a stabbed fire.

‘My granny always warned of a Withering – why weren’t we ready?’

‘The fear was lost . . . we turned our backs on the demon!’ comes the hissed reply.

‘It’s the gods that turned their backs, on us !’

‘A Withering means no food, yet we take more stragglers in! Where will it end?’

Pika, the tall, cinnamon-skinned draggle-keeper boy, buries his face in his hands. ‘All my life, I’ve been taught to fear the Withering,’ he whispers. ‘I can’t believe it’s here.’

‘What is it?’ I ask, leaning forwards to see him, sitting on the other side of Crow.

‘Death of light,’ he answers absently, eyes roaming the hall. ‘A long, cold night of dead things. If no life stirs, there’ll be a food shortage even worse than the one made by war.’

The Withering. I try to picture it in my mind’s eye, but it’s hard to imagine a thing so vast. Not long ago – but exactly when, no one can agree on – dawn failed good and proper. Now we’re stuck in a grainy light, like a nightmare.

The steam from the cauldron twines and shifts, until I see grim faces with stretched eyes pulling upwards and swarming through the air.

One of the Elders throws a jug of water over the fire, smothering the flames. The steam dissolves slowly, the gaunt eyes fading into nothing. Something terrible is coming. Something worse than a Withering. Something even worse than Stag. I can feel it.

Leo stands. ‘We must focus our energies on the fight ahead!’ she calls. ‘A destructive force is gaining power, taking full advantage of the peril of our world – a marching movement of evil, with Stag and the mystiks at its helm. They control the devastated Icy Marshes and have dug their claws into the Frozen Wastes and the city of Nightfall. We must not let them claim further territories.’

Sickening thoughts knuckle my skull. Thoughts about what Stag is to me, now there’s a link that I’ll never be able to cut. He fathered me. He ent my da but my bones are threaded with his poisoned blood. How could Ma have chosen such a gruesome mate? Was he always the same, or was he different when she met him? I stub my toe against the floor. I hate wondering about him!

‘You say they take advantage,’ says a stout old rider called Coati. ‘But Stag is offering shelter to those in need. He has opened Nightfall as a refuge, just as we have here.’ A furious clamour rises. My fingers tighten on the bench. ‘Hear me,’ Coati calls gruffly. ‘They say he distributes food in the territories he controls. I am yet to see how we know he intends war.’ He sits down, puffing out his ruddy cheeks.

My belly squirms and fury lights my chest. I’m about to gift Coati the truth when Pike, the leader of the homeless Marsh-folk, stands and strikes the floor with his fish spear three times. ‘Stag burned our home and drained our marshes. He treated us as though our lives counted for nothing!’ His eyes blaze. ‘And mark me, Rider. He offers shelter only to certain breeds of people – those he and his allies deem elite.’

‘Aye!’ I call out, thumping my chest with my fist.

Coati shrugs. ‘I meant no offence,’ he says. ‘But I have heard the reports with my own ears. People are desperate. They say Stag offers a stability no one else can provide.’

Shouting, cursing and gesturing breaks out, with most folks telling Coati to mind his tongue. But more than a few are voices praising his words. The noise stops when the doors smash open, making every head in the hall turn.

Boots stride along the floor. A hornblower, draped in ice-matted furs, folds back his raindrop cowl. ‘Protector! An urgent message, received through the ghostways.’ The parchment rasps as he unwraps the scroll. ‘It is signed with the claw mark of the Wilder-King,’ he announces. But then something crescent-shaped – like a small moon, or a shell – slips to the floor. The hornblower stoops to pick it up, mouth slackening. ‘It’s – an ear,’ he stutters.

Folk gasp. Some leap to their feet, others reach for spears.

‘Whose ear is that?’ I ask Da. Crow leans close to listen.

Da shakes his head. ‘I can’t be sure, but – the Protector did send an envoy to the Wilder-King, who has not yet returned.’

Leopard stalks towards the hornblower and takes the ear in her hands, gently, as though it’s a broken bird. She grips the scroll and scans it quickly. Then her eyes search me out.

Me?

The look in their depths carves a hollow in my gut. I wrap my arms over my chest.

What does that scroll say?

‘This meet is dismissed,’ says Leo briskly. ‘Tribesman Fox, please stay behind.’

I hurry to Leo’s side as the hall begins to empty.

She looks from me to Da. ‘Sorry Mouse – it’s just your father I want to speak to.’

‘Anything you got to say to Da, you can say to me,’ I tell her, jabbing my thumb into my chest. ‘Ent that so, Da?’

But he just looks at me like I’m five moons old. ‘I think you’d better listen to Leo this time, Bones.’

‘For serious?’

‘Aye. Get your hide gone and I’ll see you soon.’

I want to snatch the letter and gobble every rune on it, right now. I’m sure it’s got something to do with me, from the look Leo shone out. But I turn on my heel and shove my way past the stragglers. ‘He’ll tell me as soon as he gets out of here, anyway!’ I yell over my shoulder.

I wait for Da in his chamber. Beats and beats pass, until my belly growls and my nerves are bowstring-tight. When he opens the door, I leap out at him. ‘What’s that letter gabbing on about, then?’

Da ghosts a smile at me. ‘Ah, Little-Bones! Almost stopped my heart, you did.’

‘Don’t even think of changing the subject. You know that don’t work with me.’ I lift my chin. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

I swallow a scream. ‘The letter,’ I repeat, ominous-calm.

Finally, he sighs. ‘Let’s just say, it wasn’t anything good.’ I gulp a breath but he stops my quiverful of questions with a look. ‘But it’s nothing we don’t already know, either – this world is full perilous, no doubts. So, there’s a new rule. You’re not to leave Hackles.’

‘’Til when?’

‘Until . . .’ He pauses. Shrugs. ‘It’s safe.’

I snort a messy laugh through my nose. ‘It ent never been safe, and won’t never be, neither!’

‘You know what I mean, Mouse,’ he says wearily. ‘The world’s different, now. Things are – proper crooked.’

I cross my arms. ‘But I’ll be going to the Tribe-Meet.’

‘I don’t think so, Bones.’

Which means ‘no’ in full-grown speak. ‘What? Why?’

He turns to a pouch by his bedside and rummages inside it for his pain medsins. ‘Like I said – it’s too dangerous.’

But I remember the way Leo looked at me. ‘For everyone? Or just me?’

He busies himself with looking around for something. But I know when he’s trying to dodge my gaze. ‘Da!’

He stills. ‘It’s naught to fret about, Mouse. It’s just something to keep you safe.’

But as he hobbles from the room, my chest feels bruised. I touch the dragonfly brooch on my tunic and when I close my eyes I can smell salt-traced air and see the great black shadows of the Huntress ’s sails ghosting across her wooden boards. How can Da force me not to rove when I’m so full of fight?

I’ve got to get my mitts on that letter.

My hand moves to an amulet hanging around my neck, and an idea tingles through me. The amulet is a slim oval of silver, gifted to me by Egret Runesmith and etched with the runes for binding, so I’m safe to dream-dance without having to draw protection runes all the time. My fingers brush my other amulet – the amber Bear gifted me.

Gods, I miss my friends.

I fling myself down on Da’s bed and shut my eyes, imagining climbing out of my skin. I gather all the fright in my chest – about the Withering, and the dying moonsprites, and the way Leo looked at me in the long-hall – and use it to hook onto my spirit. I feel the familiar dragging, and push into it, until my spirit nudges through layers of bone, muscle and skin. I tread the air above my body, blinking slow spirit-eyes. Then I dive through the door and into the corridor outside.

I drift past Pika, who’s kicking draggle dung off his boots at the entrance to the crooked corridor. As I pass, he shudders and glances up, looking through me. Then I startle a warmth-seeking goat that’s got lost in the maze of passageways. I turn in the air and dart along another passageway, past a group of Wilderwitches heading for the stone baths, drying-cloaks hung over their arms.

Leo’s chamber is a small, plain room at the top of a sweep of stairs, set deep in the rock above the long-hall. I slip through the wooden door and fly around the room, searching.

A small collection of books, bound in red, blue, green and gold, is stacked on her night table. A clothes chest stands at the foot of her bed. There’s a set of raindrop armour hanging from a hook, a gathering of stubby candles and a portrait of her and her daughter Kestrel that she had painted before Kes left on her mission to unite the youth of the Tribes. There’s no sign of the letter.

Just then, the door whines open and Leo strides in, tension tightening her face. She paces the floor, breathing fast. Then she draws a length of parchment from inside her cloak and yanks it straight. ‘How dare he?’ she mutters to herself.

I slither through the air and hover behind her shoulder, gulping the black runes burned into the parchment.

‘Consider this your first and final warning.’ My spirit startles, fracturing around the edges – I can almost hear the Wilder-King’s slow purr of a voice. ‘Do not imagine that your fortress protects you against the allies I have won. Allies that could be yours, also, if you heed the war cry echoing through Trianukka. The scarred girl is a hunted child. They will not allow her to further damage their cause. Surrender her, for the sake of your people. And surrender any chatterers dwelling amongst you.’

I raise my hand to trace my scar with my fingers, but my spirit edges just whisper against each other. I’m a hunted child. Small wonder Da tried to keep it from me.

The memory barges close – the night just one full moon ago, when slow, stealthy footsteps creaked through the snow behind me. I half-turned, as a salty hand wrapped around my mouth.

‘Fangtooth!’ boomed Da’s kelp-rich voice, stronger than his weakened body. ‘Release my child.’ The Protector’s spear-warriors surrounded us. Me and my brother were pulled from danger, but not before a blade against my neck nicked a tear in the skin.

Axe-Thrower, Stag’s wretched first mate, had hunted through the shadows of the stronghold, trying to get to me and Sparrow. Now she’s locked in Leopard’s dungeon, a hostage claimed by no one. And as for Da – he’s acting guilt-stung that he weren’t better at protecting me now we’re finally back together. For a while he kept saying sorry that Axe attacked me, like it was his fault.

Now I know the Fangtooth weren’t acting alone. That her attack was ordered by someone else. And that the attack ent really over. I keep my eyes on the letter as I read the runes again and again. Then Leo tenses, crumpling the parchment in her fingers, and twists to stare behind her.

I must’ve drifted too close and touched her – I can see how the skin at the back of her neck’s gone goose-pimpled. Suddenly I remember that she’s a dream-dancer, too.

‘Who’s there?’ she whispers.

I flick towards the door, squeeze through and soar down the stairs, spirit-heart weighing heavy. Most times, I can find a way to get Da on my side. But this time he’s never gonna let me go with the others to the Tribe-Meet. Not in a thousand moons. I stare up at the dark stone roof of the passageway as I fly. I feel like the walls of this stronghold are closing in, and if I ent careful, I’ll be buried alive.

Thunder grumbles, restless as a shark. I sit cross-legged on my bed, breathing the storm-stink that’s trickling in through the stones of Hackles. Thaw-Wielder breathes it with me, her eyes shining with added wildness.

The stink of a storm is the only thing that makes me feel free, these days. It kindles the flame in my blood. Stormlight flutters against the walls and I feel like I’m underwater with electric eels.

Crow sits in a chair, greasing his boots. ‘Could you give it a rest with all the sniffing?’

I tut. He don’t get it, Thaw.

She shuffles her feathers and spits in his direction. Soft-shell two-leg notknownotknowthings! Not REAL winged one.

‘And stop talking about me to Thaw! It ain’t fair.’

I stick out my lower lip. The poor bab don’t think it’s fair!

Thaw chortles.

Crow gifts me his danger-face.

I raise my brows. ‘Alright, don’t scorch your lugholes over it!’

The thunder cracks the sky apart, loud as huge iron drums being thrown around. Crow gasps, but I grin. ‘You should try hearing that when you’re out at sea.’

He scowls. In the attic rooms above, claws begin to scrabble. The rats are spooked.

Boots clank past my chamber door. I leap off my bed and rush to look – riders march along the passageway, heading to the caves to prepare their draggles to fly to the Tribe-Meet. Other preparations have been happening, too – spear-sharpening and armour-mending and gathering together of things to trade, like pots of squidge ink and stinking draggle furs and wooden snow-goggles and eggs scooped from the bogs. I’ve been shut out of all of it.

I slam my door and jump back onto my bed. ‘I am proper blubber-bored! They’re leaving for the Tribe-Meet at the morning bell. How can Da force me to stay here?’

‘At least someone cares if you live or die!’ interrupts Crow, loudly. His tone makes Thaw flap herself into outrage, rasping and spitting, eyes bright.

‘Calm your feathers, you stupid bird,’ snaps Crow.

Trymakeme, hisses my hawk.

Crow stands up, eyes on his boots. ‘Mouse, I mean – can you blame your da, really? How addled would he have to be to let you roam the place now that the Withering’s set in and there’s a hunt for your skin?’

I pull at the loose threads in my blankets. ‘But no one gets how bad my bones are itching – itching! – to move, to rove, to do something!’

‘But maybe you can’t do anything, this time,’ he says more gently. ‘And maybe your da’s right – maybe, for once, you don’t have to. It ain’t your job.’

I shine my fierceness through the grime coating my skin. ‘I can’t do nothing – that’s never been what I do.’ And it never will be!

‘None of this is about you, though, is it?’ He picks up the pot of grease he used for his boots and turns away. ‘What would you do if you could leave Hackles, anyway?’

‘Um, let me ponder.’ I chew my cheek, pretending to think. ‘Go to the Tribe-Meet, then find the Opal, and save the world ?’

He sighs. ‘How about you start by coming to supper?’

‘Aye,’ I tell him, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘See you in the hall.’

Thaw oozes a low hiss at his turned back.

‘I heard that, Thaw-Wielder!’ he snaps, before leaving the room.

Thaw, I gabble quickly, my mind wheeling. I HAVE to go to that Tribe-Meet. Cos if I don’t prove myself to Da, how’s he ever gonna let me do anything, ever again? I’ve got to remind him what I can do. I’ll be back before he can blink, anyway! Thrills explode in my belly.

Thaw’s eyes glow, but her pipes spew tiny doubts. Two-leg girl danger times . . . hunthunthunt?

Aye, Thaw. But how’s any of them stupid lumberers gonna hunt me if I swap places with a Spearsister – like Pang? She’ll swap with me, I know it! And if the riders do a count they won’t find anyone extra. I block out a thought about what might happen if anyone needs me to throw a spear. Anything’s better than sitting here, ent it? And I might get to scratch around for snippets of news – or even CLUES – at the Meet.

She takes to the wing, soaring in circles around me until my hair’s stirred into a black cloud. Wild girl show them all!

Thaw wakes me before the morning bell. My limbs are stiff and cold-clumsy as I force myself out of bed. I tiptoe through the gloom to the draggle caves, pulling on the eelskin gloves Marshman Pike once gifted me to keep my fingers warm enough to wield weaponry. If I’m to be a Spearsister, I’ll have to be able to grip a spear, as well as draggle reins. I wait amongst tangled ropes of orangey draggle fur, huddled in a white goatskin cloak that Pangolin hung with iron storm-weights. Underneath clings the rune-spelled breastplate she loaned me, charged runes flickering across it like worms.

I watched the giant shaggy beasts shuffle their wings in their sleep. When the first riders clamour into the cave, heading to the tack room to don armour and fill saddle bags with supplies, I drift from my hiding place and begin sharpening Pangolin’s spear.

Once the whole stronghold is awake, Wilderwitches line the rocks outside. I edge as close as I can to the mouth of the cave and watch them standing, palms held up in front of them, trying to clear a sky-path through the storm. Their weather-magyk battles winds that thrash around like maddened beasts.

A rich smell catches in my nose and I turn to see a cook with greasy white hair passing cups of bone-broth among the riders. A mug finds its way into my hands, glowing with heat that I am more than heart-glad for. I stare down at myself in the gleaming surface of the broth. My eyes are painted from brows through to cheekbones with the black stripes of a Spearsister, an eagle-feather hood is pulled over my head and a raindrop cowl is moulded to my face.

‘Sup your broth and prepare to fly,’ commands Leopard. She wears a long black cloak of eelskin, gifted to her by Pike. I drop my eyes while she’s talking, in case she knows my stormy greys.

I listen to the bubbling of the broth and the crackling of the flames and the nerve-tense chattering of the draggles.

Huntnohuntnohunt? WhywhywhyHUNGRYwherefoodfly?

I’m half asleep with my chin propped in my hands when the storm dies, gaping breathlessness in its wake, sudden as the thunk of a dropped longbow. My chin slips out of my hands and my neck bends painfully as my head lolls. The Wilderwitches’ weather-magyk must have finally pushed the storm away from us. Now there’s just a deadened stillness.

Leopard pulls a small bronze spyglass from her pocket and presses it to her eye. ‘The chief storm has raged west,’ she announces. She sighs, tucks away her spyglass and nods to the draggle warden. ‘We fly.’

I blow out my held breath and we mount our draggles, Leo taking the lead. I copy the others; holding a spear in one hand and the reins in the other. When Leo raises her hand, the draggles swoop from the mountain.

Rough air bruises my eyeballs. My belly plunges, sloshing the broth I glugged. But hidden inside my armour, my lips riot into a grin. Finally, I’m roving.

Below, a group of song-weavers has gathered on the rocks to gift us music as we fly. A little clutch of Sea-Tribe kids – I spot the white shock of Ermine’s hair and Squirrel’s red braid – bang drums they’ve painted to look like whale-eyes. Eyes like portals, or knots in wood. I spot Da and Sparrow, singing together, and duck lower in the saddle. A flush of guilt steals across my skin, itching under all my layers.

We pull away from the mountain, dodging the silvery ghostway tubes that cobweb the stronghold so the Sky-Tribes can pulse messages to each other. The tubes quiver with voices.

Across the valley, tangles of lightning sprout like trees, and the sky flickers as though it’s blinking. When the lightning branches fade, their ashen ghosts hang in the air. My draggle fights the wind, despair mixing with the ice in her fur. I lean down and mutter heart-strengths to her.

We fly over Hearthstone, where almost all the dwellings have been rebuilt, with Leo’s help. But when we reach the Icy Marshes, fury flares in my gut. Terrodyls swirl through the sky, patrolling to make certain the Marsh-folk never dare to return. All that’s left of Pike’s home is a field of blackened wooden stumps capped with bulbs of ice.

Refugees wade through the reeds and ford the rivers on their way towards the mountains, seeking higher ground. We hover while a few riders drop to land and tell them how to reach Hearthstone or Hackles.

As we pass into wilder territory that could be more hostile, Leo calls for us to douse our lamps. I lie along my draggle’s back and stretch to reach the metal lantern hanging on its pole. The hinges squeak as I fumble the door open, making my draggle flick her ears irritably.

Sorry! That needs oiling, I chatter.

I wet my fingertips and squeeze the life from the flame. As the other lamps blink out, heavy gloomlight thickens around us. We race deeper into the murk. I keep to the rear. We soar over leagues of ice-ridges carved by the storm winds; great blue-white dunes that gift the land the look of the wrinkled skin of a whale. Maybe that’s all we are. Whale lice crawling over some giant sea-god.

When Leopard drops back to check we’re all well enough to keep going, I dodge but she draws alongside me and leans across to grip my chin, guiding my eyes to meet hers. My heart skitters.

‘You really thought I would not realise?’ she asks, letting go of me with a sigh. A few Riders twist in their saddles, staring at me with narrowed eyes.

I shrug, cheeks burning. ‘Reckoned it were worth a stab.’

To my startlement, Leo’s face dimples into a grin. ‘I promised your father I would keep you safe – I will deal with this disobedience when we return,’ she swears. ‘But I do admire your determination.’

I don’t dare return her grin, but I let my eyes sing out my wildness.

We reach the sea, where storm-waves have frozen solid, into ice-mountains that rise like great dark fins. Between them, the sea that ent yet frozen bubbles weak as a dying Tribesperson’s spit.

Ice-bound ships litter the sea, wounds agape in their flanks. Tears well in my eyes as I think of my ship. Bear. Frog. Pipistrelle. Vole. I breathe the names of my Tribe into white ghosts on the air. Where are you? Where?

In the distance, a steady drum begins to throb, shattering my thoughts.

The drum beats louder, closer. It rattles my ribs. Riders stare around them, and I feel their nerves tense.

The rider nearest me draws a breath. But then there’s a choking sound as the air catches in her throat.

Movement catches my eye from the left. I twist in the saddle. My skin jumps. Smoke puffs in time with the drumbeat I heard. As I stare I realise that it’s vapour, that it’s something’s breath. Something big, to make that much steam. Something with a footstep even bigger, to make a drumbeat that loud.

A dark shape is looming. My heart clangs and hammers.

Through the bleak light stamps a chalk-white giant with a skull bubbled all over in milky sores.

Yellowy fluid seeps from sores and trickles down the giant’s body. He leans down, opens his cavernous mouth and smashes his tombstone-teeth around a frozen wave. He chews the ice, then bends for another bite.

The giant’s blistered flesh sucks any last warmth from the half-frozen clouds and the sluggish sea, which throws up a new tower of ice as he passes.

A long, low groan knocks from the giant’s mouth, echoing around the sea of crystal waves. I remember seeing giants like this one in the stories etched in bone that Grandma and Da used to read to us. They were called stogs – the biggest of the Tribe of giants, and the most miserable. They made the seas by weeping, and liked to pluck ships from the waves, crushing them with their bare hands. But the stories said the giants were all sleeping . . .

Not any more.

The stog’s face is craggy-glum and his legs are as long as masts. His hot breath knocks the draggles up and down in the air like toy ships. He snaps a hateful glare onto us and roars, a sound that booms through my chest and makes my teeth chatter. Then his fist swipes through the air.

The draggles scatter. Leo calls orders lost as the storm winds begin to whip again. The stog groans, and kicks out against a wave, making icy rubble fall.

I’ve ended up alone on one side of the giant’s flailing arm, the others all watching me from the other side. As I struggle to control the draggle, I lose my grip on Pangolin’s spear and it falls, clanging onto the ice below. A Spearsister jerks her face towards me. Wisps of white hair have escaped her hood – Lunda. ‘Is that who I think it is?’ she spits. ‘She’s not even meant to be on this patrol!’

I grit my teeth. The stog’s breath reeks, even through my raindrop cowl. I guide my draggle lower, trying to dodge underneath the huge arm.

‘Mouse!’ warns Leo.

The arm sweeps towards the ground but I swoop low and fly past the dank hollow of the armpit, gulping a lungful of a sharp tang that makes my head woozy. The stog snatches me from my draggle. My chest is squeezed until black spots dance in my eyes. There’s no air left in my lungs for screaming. My legs swing wildly in the air, and my belly pitches into my mouth . . . and dimly I’m aware of riders yelling before I’m shut inside a huge, clammy fist.

I gulp for breath, heart skittering. I slip on the thick yellow sweat pooled in the stog’s palm, clawing at the ridges of his skin. ‘Leo!’ I yell, but my voice bounces back into my own ears, stabbing painfully into my head.

I’m running out of air. My eyes scan the roof of flesh above my head – there are thin gaps between the fingers. The stog’s grip tightens so I push through one of the gaps, kicking, clawing, scratching, wriggling . . .

Finally I squeeze through and leap out of his hand, grabbing hold of a thick brown vine sprouting from his ear – but the vine is slippery, and I can’t hold on.

Lunda zooms towards me, one foot planted on her draggle’s back, the other on mine. Two sets of reins are bunched in her hands. She hovers as near to me as she can get. ‘Jump, fool child!’

The giant roars, thrashing his head around.

I swing myself across the space, miss my own draggle and land with a thump behind Lunda. I grab her waist as I regain my balance. ‘Bleeding blood cockles,’ I whisper, eyes watering with shame. My palms are coated in stinking, gloopy ear wax.

‘Fly on!’ calls Leo, and we wing away from the giant.

I wipe my hands on my breeches as we tear away through the sky.

Jealousy nags me. Wish I could be as skilful riding one of these beasts as Lunda is. ‘You should stay behind with the other youngsters from now on!’ she hisses, holding the reins while I scramble back onto my own draggle. Her hard blue eyes graze my face.

I glare at her while my lungs suck shallow breaths. The stog’s distant howls of fury rattle through my chest and make my teeth throb.

In spite of everything, excitement bubbles in my belly when I think about the Tribe-Meet, where my Tribe traded jet and amber for songs, stories for furs and fish. Sometimes Da and Bear traded sailcloth or silver for songs alone, and even though magyk could be spun from them, Grandma weren’t never too impressed. The last Meet I went to – for Dread’s Eve – feels so long ago. And it weren’t exactly a normal meet, with Da missing and me almost getting swallowed by a gulper. It’s where I lost Sparrow, too, when Stag had him snaffled by wreckers.

The Tribe-Meet for Wakening’s Dawn is all about drumming Spring up from her grave. There’ll be market stalls and music-makers and acrobats with flaming torches, bakers whose spices dance in the air, traders with bundles of brightly dyed cloth and sword-sharpeners, tanners and tricksters.

‘I can’t wait to show you your old Sky-Tribe path and gateway stones!’ I call to Leo, to gift her good cheer.

She nods. ‘I am keen to see these things,’ she says. ‘But nervous, also. Many suns and moons have risen since any Sky-Tribe attended. How do we know the etiquette, here?’

Lunda’s draggle drops closer as the Spearsister tries to listen. Maybe her nerves are tightening, too.

‘You approach the circle along your Great-Tribe’s path – that’s the Sky Path, which you get to through the gateway stones shaped like eagle heads. There’s no weapons allowed, so we’ll have to leave our spears outside.’

The old rider called Coati, who angered Pike in the long-hall, laughs, face fury-flayed. ‘Leave our weapons and we are sitting targets, mark my breath.’ He twirls his spear.

Leo rolls her eyes at me, the tension melting off her face. But when we can see the tips of the circle of stones piercing the drifting fog, I sense my draggle wants to bolt.

‘This place is eerie,’ hisses a rider, a man with two long black braids hanging over his shoulders.

I struggle to steady my draggle, stroking her head, but she hisses.

‘They’re spooking!’ I call. My hands are sweaty on the reins as I jostle to get my balance. The draggles’ voices rise in panic.

Suddenly, a young terrodyl flickers up and out of the fog, wings lashing inches from our flock. Black blood drips, fizzing, from a wound in its flank.

‘Pull back!’ shouts Leo, and the draggles bare their teeth at the terrodyl.

Gold gleams like shattering stars as the riders level their spears as one. But Leo warns them not to shoot. ‘You’ll burn whoever’s down there with black rain!’

Black rain – the weapon wielded by Stag, extracted from the veins of terrodyls, that burns warped, bubbled pits in the flesh. My belly writhes at the thought that he’s twisted a beast’s own life-blood into a weapon.

The riders hold fire, their spears shining in the depths of the terrodyl’s eyes.

Dead things! Ice! the beast screams, wheeling away. Sad-hearts rotted!

What’s down there, beast? I chatter. What’re you fleeing?

The terrodyl’s panic mingles with the draggles’ fright-pangs, gifting me a sore, woozy head. TroubletroubletroubleHIDEflyflyhideinnest!

What trouble? I ask, but she’s pulling further away and thudding out of sight. Wait, you’re hurt!

‘What is that child doing?’ Coati asks Leo, watching me with hard eyes.

What trouble? I call again, threading my beast-chatter through the air to touch the creature’s hair-prickled hide.

The terrodyl jerks in the air and her wings carve the sky as she twists around and soars towards me.

‘She’s brought it back upon us,’ gasps Lunda.

‘Spears!’ declares Leo, flashing me a frighted look.

‘No, just trust me for a beat!’ I beg.

Lung-stink! snaps the terrodyl, fixing me with her great lantern eyes. Blood-stink! Spine-shudder bad-taste bled. Life fled, bled, BLED!

My breath comes quick and tattered. Life fled? Bloodshed? That can’t be what she’s saying . . .

Uuuuuughhhhh tongue-tang rot-shadow-HOME! She bolts.

My head fizzes with her fading beast-chatter. No, you must be wrong! I chatter after her desperately. There’s never bloodshed at the Stone Circle! It’s forbidden!

The draggles pop up and down in the air. Mine bucks underneath me, half crazed from fright.

Gods. Blood at the Tribe-Meet ? Grandma must be writhing in her sea-grave!

Leo watches the terrodyl vanish from sight before guiding the flock closer to the Stone Circle.

‘Wait!’ I shout.

‘What is it now, Mouse?’ calls Leo, impatience sharpening her tone.

‘We can’t land,’ I plead. ‘A proper bad thing’s happened.’

Coati gruffs a laugh of steam and bitterness. ‘Why does a child ride among us? Someone get her back to the mountain!’

Leo turns away from me, leading the draggles lower.

‘Protector!’ My urgent use of her title makes Leopard jerk around in her saddle to look at me. I force my voice steady. ‘There’s bloodshed.’ I wipe my palms on my cloak and stare around at the riders. ‘At the Stone Circle.’ Shock guts my words even as I spill them. Gods swim close.

Our flock pauses, beating the air. Leopard’s eyes are large and fixed on my face.

Then everything erupts into a tumble of loud babblemaking.

‘That’s impossible!’

‘It’s the Fangtooths, isn’t it? They’re terrorising again!’

‘What if there is? Bloodshed does not faze warriors!’

‘Mouse, are you certain?’ asks Leo. As the words steam from her mouth, a great black talon of smoke stabs the sky in the distant west.

‘I’m heart-certain,’ I pant, thumping my fist to my chest.

A tide of disappointment floods Leo’s face. ‘We’ve come all this way,’ she says, through clenched teeth.

‘How do you know?’ challenges a narrow-eyed Spearbrother.

‘The terrodyl told me.’

Coati watches me darkly. ‘You are sheltering a chatterer ?’ He flicks his eyes to Leo.

‘Enough, Coati,’ warns Leo.

The old man snorts rudely. Heat creeps up my neck to sting my cheeks. I remember the Wilder-King’s letter. Surrender any chatterers dwelling amongst you. ‘If it wasn’t for me you’d have landed unawares!’ I spit, hurling the old man’s gift of shame back to him.

Coati’s face darkens. But then the draggles begin to scream, borrowing the words of the terrodyl. Life-stink! Lung-stink! Troubletroubletroubleflee!

The chatter is like a punch in the brain. Before I can breathe it smacks into me again.

U h h h h h m u r k w o r l d r e a c h r e a c h S T R E T C H s e i z e c a t c h s l i t h e r g u l p b o n e s s m a s h s m a s h d e p t h s c r aw l i n g c r e e p i n g d a r k d a r k p u s h d a r k a b o v e d a r k b e l o w r e a c h r e a c h STRETCH grabuhhhhhhhh . . .

‘Mouse?’ The Protector’s voice breaks through the chaos as she guides her draggle towards mine and touches my shoulder. As I return from the beast-world I taste blood and realise I’ve clamped my teeth onto my tongue. I gulp a breath, glancing at the faces of the Spearwarriors.

They’re gifting me a look of fear. They’re frighted of what I am.

We’ve drifted closer to the Stone Circle.

While I’m grappling to stay mounted and catch my breath, a sight emerges below that almost makes me plummet to my doom.

Lying across the standing stones is a dead terrodyl.

When the tips of the stones pierce the drifting fog, some are bloodied. Others are dripping with black rain.

A ragged figure darts out from beneath the dead beast’s wing, wielding a longbow. An arrow pierces the fog.

‘Go!’ shrieks Leopard.

As we’re wheeling our draggles around to flee, the sight of the blood-splashed Sea gateway stone clangs into my brain and the chatter of the draggles rises to a storm inside my chest.

The world blinks and melts into a frenzy.

Deathridesclosedrowningredsoakedgetawaypointawaygogogofly strongwingfightridersgogogoBOLTgogogoDODGEgogogoRUN gogogoNO!

Dizziness swarms my head. Faces slip in and out of focus.

Noise. Swelled. Everything. Everywhere. Sick bursts up my throat and blurts from my lips. My foot slips from the stirrup.

‘Tooth-and-bone storms!’ yelps Lunda, pointing.

Great cyclones sweep from gaps in the ice out to sea, packed with shark and whale teeth that tear bites from whatever they touch.

Chatter. Stealing breath. Stealingthoughtsthoughtsthoughts.

Stealingbreathbodymindgrowingcuttingsqueezingweare panickingflutteringbreathingironbloodstinkdeathlurksheregreed squatsherenosafetynohome—

I push away the chatter but it presses close again, suffocating like lungfuls of damp fur.

GETAWAY—

Lash of whips—

‘Is she breathing ?’

Falling backwards ice nipping ears blood in nostrils chatter in head.

Everything hurts.

‘Who are you?’ bellows a deep voice from the ground. ‘Are you Sky-Tribe?’

The world fades in and out.

‘Show yourselves!’ booms Leo.

Black emptiness swarms close.

‘We need help!’ The voice snips at my memory. My draggle stays close to the others, her muscles squirming with horror and wanting to get back to her cave. We drop lower in the sky, towards the ground.

Chatter squiggles in my blood, setting it alight.

FrightfrightfrightSPARKrawbloodbeatboomboomBOOM!

A tall man garbed in salt-stained boiled leather steps out from behind a blood-splattered standing stone. His face is swamped in a wild tangle of icicled beard.

Then I’m flung into a dream-world of beasts. Getawaygetawaygetawayspeartipshadowspressingbreathstopping helphelphelpwrongnessnomoonnosunclamouringbuzzingrunning runningnowheretorun. Nowheretohide.

I’m flying so fast, so far. I’m diving into the shallows, spearing a fish on my claws. Heavy wingbeats slice the air, carrying me so fast the wind slips past me like water.

Paws and hooves drum the snowy plains. Starlight writhes under us, locked in ancient graves. Bellies sore, bloated-not-with-cubs. Wind-spirits lick our fur. We move. We fight! We hunt. We roar! We face dark burrows, endless night. But we shudder secretly, blood roiling. Our bones click with ice. Life starves, withers. Storms boil.

A shiver brushes my belly as my fur drags in the snow but then a brown-and-white blur streaks into my room and I’m waking up, straining against iron-heavy dreams that drag at the edges of my brain.

My eyes crack open. I’m in my featherbed in my chamber at Hackles, sweating buckets. The room thumps into being around me, full of fuzzy outlines in the half-dark. In the hearth, a fire devours kindling in a spit-crackle frenzy.

Thaw-Wielder soars across the chamber to the messy nest of twigs she’s built atop one of my bedposts. My sea-hawk’s been thieving kindling from all the hearths in the stronghold to build it, much to the vexation of the cooks. I hear the thud as she drops a fish onto the twigs, and the scratching as it thrashes. Fillpipesfillboots, she chatters, jostling her feathers. She squints down at me, stirring a love-pang in the pit of my belly.

A bright droplet of blood falls from her wing onto my pillow. Reckon she must’ve got scraped flying through the arrow-slit again, cos at just the same moment the skin on my arm burnt and the muscles throbbed. Sometimes when she hurts herself, it’s as though I feel it with her.

Thaw gurgles at me, low in her throat, and then the beast-world presses closer to me again, its rich stink clogging my mouth and nose. My skull thuds. I know the hunt Thaw flew. I can taste the fish she speared. I can feel the ice carried by the wind, wrapping around my claws.

A wave of sickness rolls over me. I blink filmy eyes and suddenly I’m looking down into the nest and my own huge talons, one of my claws still hooked through the flesh of the dying fish. I gasp, shaking my head, grabbing fistfuls of bedding. What’s happening to me? For a beat, I’d swear I was peering through my hawk’s eyes. It feels like something inside me is tearing.

There’s a movement to my left. I roll blearily towards it. Da sits in a chair by my bed, rubbing his jaw. The stubby hairs make a scratching sound.

‘Da,’ I croak stupidly. My skull pounds, and a foul, rusty taste clogs my mouth.

I can only see one side of his face, lit by the pale glow of a moon-lamp he’s wedged onto a table next to him. He’s garbed in a midnight-blue tunic with pearls for buttons and a shaggy black goatskin cloak. His yellow hair is bundled into a messy knot on his head. Behind a tangle of reddish beard, his face is the pale grey of a skimming stone.

‘Bloodshed! ’ I blurt, lifting my head from the pillow. The room spins wildly. ‘At the Stone Circle!’

‘Peace, Mouse,’ says Da softly.

I stare at him through great matted clumps of black hair. He’s full-vexed at me, so I make ready to charm my way off trouble’s hook. ‘You know the sea is calling me but still you come in here dressed like her, in blue and pearls and gold like the sun on the waves, eh?’

He stares at me evenly. ‘A hailstorm broke the skulls of three draggles and two riders. Leo—’

‘She’s alright, ent she? Is she?’

‘Let me finish. Leo told us that the rest of the flock spooked, and badly. She managed to shoot a message into a ghostway and called some of the Wilderwitches to her aid. They used weather-magyk to help get the party home. But before they arrived, you passed out.’ He clears his throat and looks away.

I know I’m in for the worst earful of my life, so I clutch handfuls of bedding and get ready to beg myself blue. ‘Staying still is too hard!’ I whine. ‘I loathe it here! I miss home! You can’t blame me!’

‘Are you eight moons old?’ he demands.

I flush.

‘You of all people should know there are worse places for those without a home. Don’t be so guppy-witted.’ He reaches over and gives my leg a shake – not hard, but enough to put me in my place. ‘Can you picture how it feels to find your child gone, in the middle of a pack of angry storms, in the breath before a war? Because mark me, girl—’

‘It weren’t my—’

‘That is what is coming. A war ! A war that I would die before seeing you caught up in!’ he yells.

Da’s only yelled at me a handful of times my whole life long, but when he does, it’s frightful cos normally he sails so easy, and suddenly he’s so mad-vexed his face is purple. The odd thing is, the frightfulness of it makes me laugh, which don’t help matters at all. Grandma used to give in much quicker when fury bit her.

‘Banish that smirk or so help me Mouse I will lock you in this chamber and you won’t even have the run of the stronghold. Then we’ll see how trapped you feel.’

I force the corners of my lips down.

‘Better.’ He sits back, pulls the band from his hair and runs his fingers through it, blue eyes flashing. ‘Gift a man a young death, you will.’

‘I’m not trying to hurt you, Da. I just can’t stay here. I don’t know how.’

‘You’d better get learning, then, hadn’t you?’

I puff up my cheeks and blow all the air out in a rush. ‘When are we gonna find the Land-Opal?’

‘Mouse.’ He folds his arms and leans closer to me. ‘What sort of a father would I be if I let you go running off into this perilous world again, when I’ve only just got you safe?’

I raise my brows. He got me safe?

He sees my look and narrows his eyes. ‘You don’t need to fret – I’m going to find the Huntress and rescue those of our Tribe who are still aboard. Then I will search for the Opal.’

A howl of hope arrows from my throat. ‘And I’ll go with you!’

He frowns. ‘No. No, you won’t.’

‘I’ll gift you a knowing for nothing,’ I hiss, tears sparking in my eyes. ‘You’re too tall, too full-grown and still too slow to be anything but a hindrance on a mission! You stick out like a sore thumb, old man. Any bad-blubber will see your hide coming from a league away.’

Finally, a laugh splutters out of his dry mouth. He grabs for me and musses my tangles into an even worse mess. ‘Listen, Bones. I’ve got a knowing for you, too.’ His voice is taut with heart-worry.

An oar-drum booms in my marrow. ‘What?’

He drops his voice to a whisper. ‘I need you to promise to keep quiet about your beast-chatter.’

Something slithers in my gut when I see the fright stretching his eyes. It’s the first time Da’s told me to hide anything, and the oddness of it bites like a ray. ‘Why?’

‘Just . . . trust me. Alright? These folks don’t know you like your own Tribe. They may not understand your blood-wildness like we do.’

I frown, thinking back to how Coati looked at me before I fainted on the Sneaking. The way he called me a chatterer, like his tongue was wrapped in poison.

Da leans down and presses his forehead to mine. ‘Keep your brother safe ’til my return.’

I chew my tongue to keep from hurling curses. Cos I remember what happened when I parted with Sparrow after a frightful row where I said I hated him. Now I always wanna part with my kin on good terms. So all I do is nod. ‘Come back safe, Da. Don’t be long.’

‘I swear it.’

He limps towards the door, and a rock swells in my throat that I have to fight and fight to swallow down. My mind fills with a picture of him with ice crackling in his yellow brows, his sea-eyes sweeping vast plains of land. May the sea-gods swim close to you, I pray, laying my weary head back on my pillow.

I fall into a fitful doze. When I wake in the glow of the dying fire, my brother crouches at the end of my bed, humped like a bowhead whale and draped in a thick grey bed-fur. I croak out a startled yell but he don’t look up. His moonsprite Thunderbolt sits in his hair, a paling slip of silver. Sparrow’s song is a husked whisper under his sticky, blue-lipped breath. He’s staring at something on the blanket. Sparrow lost his sight after the worst shaking fit I ever saw, at the same time as a great storm at sea. Now he can see hazy shapes and colours, and things like Thunderbolt’s light help his eyes work better. But in other ways, he sees better than anyone. He glimpses the future in visions that leave him frighted breathless. Sky Elders say he is gifted with True Sight.

Last time Sparrow had a vision was the day Axe-Thrower attacked me. He told it to me after we’d both been taken for healing in the sawbones’ nest, and as he spoke I saw that, under his tunic, his muscles still twitched.

‘I saw you,’ he said, eyes blackened by exhaustion. ‘On a carriage pulled by polar dogs, past a beach of white stones in the shape of eggs. A place where—’ He started to cry, lightning webbing his fingers. ‘Sea-gods die, and there are so many polar dogs, with blood on their teeth. There were doors of ice, covered in reindeer fur. You got shoved through them. Then I woke up.’ He shuddered with his whole body, like someone swam over his grave.

Thunderbolt chitters softly at me, bringing me back into the here and now. Black-Hair better now? Thunderbolt fretful for Black-Hair!

Heart-thanks, Thunderbolt! Aye. I’m better now.

Her frail voice and thin light make me look at her more closely than I have for a while. Gods! With everything that’s been happening, I barely thought that if the other sprites need moonlight, so does she. Come back with that Opal soon, Da, I pray.

The middle of my bed is aglow with purple, the light from Sparrow’s lightning that webs between his fingers.

‘What are you—’

‘Shh!’ he says, face screwed up with determination.

‘Don’t you shh me!’

He ignores me. He prods something lying on the bedsheets. I step closer. It’s a dead frog, stretched out on its back.

I sigh. ‘You don’t have to fry your own frog for breakfast, too-soon. Things ent that bad.’ Yet.

‘I just made a thing happen,’ he whines, lightning flaring. ‘And now you’re distracting me!’

I pull a face. ‘What?’

‘The frog’s leg just moved!’

I roll my eyes. ‘That beast’s stone dead.’

He shakes his head, still not looking up. ‘I ent ready yet – my lightning went into a skinny thread. I want to make it do it again.’

Sparrow reaches down to lift the limp body of the frog. Purple light pulses through it.

He flexes his fingers, dropping a splodge of purple that fizzles on the sheet until I lunge forwards to smother it. Then he flicks a small lightning bolt into the frog’s chest. He draws back, breathing hard through his mouth. Then he yells, ‘Why won’t it do it again?’

I try to distract him. ‘Ent you heart-glad I’m better?’

Finally, he looks. ‘Aye,’ he says doubtfully, with a half-shrug. ‘You passed out cold, dint you?’

I press my lips thin. ‘I’m strong as ever I was,’ I tell him, hating the thought that folks might think me weak.

‘Mouse?’ calls a bright, hesitant voice outside the door, making my skin jump.

I brush my tangles out of my eyes. It can’t be. Can it?

Sparrow slithers off the bed and yanks open the door. Kestrel steps into the chamber, face flooded with concern, coppery hair threaded with firelight. ‘How is she, Sparrow?’

I watch them watching me from the doorway. A little spark flares in my belly. ‘Aye, and who might she be? The ship’s cat? The shark’s mother?’

‘She’s as prickly as ever,’ announces Sparrow, ducking under Kestrel’s arm and marching from the room.

Kes bites the corner of her mouth to keep from laughing as she hurries to my bedside. My heart rolls over in my chest and all in one beat I’m kneeling up, bed-furs and blankets flying, and my arms are wrapped tight around her neck. ‘Is it really you? Am I still dreaming? What you doing here?’

‘So many questions!’ She laughs, returning my hug just as fiercely.

We pull away, checking each other over. She’s thinner; her plain garb is slack and her cheekbones jut. Her light brown face looks tired, her freckles are pale and there’s no gold paint on her catlike green eyes. But they glow with more heart-strength than ever.

‘You have grown, sea-sister!’ she says. ‘And your scar continues to heal well – I wonder who stitched it so finely?’ Her lips quirk into a grin.

I laugh, more loud and pure than I feel like I have in an age. Thaw thuds onto my pillow, stretching out her long neck to peer at Kes, blood glistening in the feathers beneath her hooked beak. Hoodwink-high two-leg girl home?

Aye, Thaw!

A strange look crosses Kestrel’s features, seabird-swift, but she blinks and the look melts away and then she’s clasping my hands. ‘So, to answer you. Yes, it is really me. No, you’re not dreaming. And I came to meet with Mother, to reassure her all is well and beg more provisions – not that there are many to be had. I hear more goats have frozen to death, so now Butter and Bone rule the hearth-sides, hogging the heat.’

Butter and Bone are the oldest goats on the mountain – two sisters who do as they please and bite anyone who challenges them. Cantankerous bleaters, both, and forever underfoot. I nod. ‘But how is your mission working? Have you reached many of the Trianukkan youth yet?’

Her face grows flushed, burning with a look of hope and excitement. ‘We’ve been camped with the Tree-Tribes at the edge of Nightfall, sneaking into the colleges when we can. Staying safe and hidden takes so much of our energy, and I tire of hiding,’ she tells me with a small smile. ‘But we’ve left scrolls full of our writings for folk to find, spreading word that the draggle-riders have returned and are seeking unity, not war. Also, about how women should be permitted to study, and about what Stag and the Wilder-King have been doing. We have met with young ones fleeing the city, helping them escape slavery, teaching them medsin and rune skills. And we’ve met with poor people on the outskirts, teaching them to read runic script. But it’s all so much harder than I had thought! I must have been so naïve,’ she says, burying her face in her hands. ‘Our words have been discovered by angry, powerful people. I believe—’ She pauses, studying her lap. ‘They have begun to search for us.’

‘Have you told your ma?’ I ask, dread tumbling in my belly.

She shakes her head. ‘And I beg you, please don’t tell her! She would keep me here, and even if I were willing to stay for her sake, I could never leave Egret.’

I nod, slowly, the breath turned to iron in my lungs.

‘You know, Mouse,’ she says, like a conspirator. ‘Even when you’re stuck in one place, you can still make waves. Think of all the allies you have, right under your nose.’

She’s misread my look – for once, I weren’t feeling heart-sad at being left behind. I was fretting for her.

‘Mother and I thought we would give you a present,’ she says brightly, fishing in her pocket. She pulls out a tiny stub of silver, worn and smooth. I take it from her and find that my thumb fits inside a groove in the silver – it’s an old key. ‘It unlocks the Opal Chamber, so you can visit the stones,’ Kes tells me, grinning.

‘Let’s go, then!’ I put my head under the blankets and dig my fur-lined slippers from the bottom of my bed. A fool that climbs out of bed barefooted is a fool that loses toes to winter’s jaws.

We step into the crooked corridor outside. Thaw glides by my shoulder, throwing the cloak of her shadow over the glittering stone floor.

As I glance sideways at Kes, her words buzz in my brain. You can still make waves. I can feel the seed of an idea throwing roots into my blood.

We wind our way up three stairways hewn into the mountain, past sputtering lanterns that cough up oily wreaths of smoke. We reach a small wooden door and fit the key into the lock.

Kestrel has to stoop to fit through, but inside, the space yawns wide into a cavernous antechamber. Another door, much bigger, is flanked by two guards with crossed spears. The Opal Chamber. Leopard waits with the guards. She smiles at me when I thank her for the key.

The warriors uncross their spears.

We step into the storm-restless feeling of the Opal Chamber. Kestrel gasps. Leo stands by my side, breathing fast. The walls are charred black, seeping fire-worms from tiny pits in the rock. The air tastes charred, too. The fire-worms thud against my heavy cloak like scraps of burning black silk.

A pulsing silver ghostway gloops through a crack in the wall, so the guards can hear if anyone is trying to get too close to the gems.

The Opals hang from the ceiling inside two round iron cages, etched with glowing protective runes. Even though there’s no breath of wind, the cages sway and the chains creak and groan. As I watch them, my skin itches on the inside. The Opals pull on my spirit, and I wish I could free them from their cages. Thaw rockets high in the air and swoops wide circles around the cages, feathers spiking. Shinystones! Glintofgreenbluesparkles!

I step slowly closer to the cages, dragging my fingers across the rough wall. There’s a sour smell in the chamber. ‘Are you making stinks cos you hate being trapped?’ I whisper. The smell in here reminds me of how my armpits get when I’m nerve-jangled.

In answer, the Sea-Opal glows bright green and weeps chips of ice. Gold flecks swirl in its depths. It throws shadows on the cavernous walls, shadows in the shape of seals that writhe and twist and float together, sliding sleek dark skins across the damp rock. Salt rides the air. I stick out my tongue to taste the tang.

The Sky-Opal’s blue deepens like dusk, as it splutters puffs of smoke and flurries of blue sparks that print pictures of clouds and birds and bats and the night hunts of owls on my vision. Shadows shaped like feathers dance across the walls. The cages holding the jewels pull towards each other, creaking.

‘They hate being separated,’ I murmur. Leo stands close by my side.

‘I am sorry for it,’ she says. ‘But we decided that together their power was too great.’

I chatter to the Opals, imagining they’re listening to me. They throw a fire-spirit glow onto the wall and I try to read the pictures. They twine together in ribbons of silver, like a plume of hair caught in a sea-wind. Hair like Grandma’s.

Thaw rasps a cry, wrenching me from my thoughts. A scuffling sound makes my skin twitch.

‘Who’s there?’ demands Leo, face sharpening to full alert as her fingers wrap around her spear.

‘Protector?’ calls one of the guards, knocking on the door.

Thaw dives past our startled faces, hurtling towards the floor. I turn around and see a small furry creature wriggling away through a gap at the bottom of the wall. Thaw shrieks her anger, her claws scraping against the stone floor. ‘Oh! It’s just a lemming,’ says Kes.

Leo’s shoulders sag. ‘It’s nothing, we’re fine,’ she tells the guard. She and Kes begin to laugh.

But a chill spreads through me. I breathe, trying to work out why I’m getting the fear. Notjustlemmingnotjustlemming, croaks Thaw.

Slowly, the knowing trickles into my veins.

‘I didn’t hear that lemming’s beast-chatter,’ I tell them. The beast had the same empty hole where beast-chatter should be that Crow has. What if that lemming was a shape-changer?

‘Perhaps you had no time to notice it?’ suggests Leo.

I shake my head. ‘I can tell when it ent there.’

‘Right,’ says Leo, eyes darkening. ‘I will have a word with the Elders about this.’ She nods to us and strides from the chamber.

Kestrel frowns at the place where the lemming vanished. Then she fixes me with troubled green eyes.

‘I feel like something’s changed, about the chatter,’ I tell her slowly. ‘Da’s been fretting about it. He told me to keep it secret, and he’s never said that before. It’s like it’s suddenly a thing of shame.’ Thaw glides towards me and I hold out my arm for her to land. Then her head nuzzles my jaw. ‘I’ve heard folk say mean things, too. Like Coati, and some of the older girls that hang round Lunda. I’m not telling tales – I can handle myself against them, I just—’

‘Mouse,’ she interrupts gently. ‘I know you can. But you’re right to ask about this – I know I would. And I know something about it. Now seems as fine a time as any for the telling.’

‘Go on,’ I whisper.

‘Since I stepped into the great wide, I have heard many foolish opinions of beast-chatter. Some view it as a sickness. A disease of the mind. It is an idea that is spreading.’

I stare up at her. ‘A disease ? But I ent sick.’ I touch the blade at my belt, and Thaw shrills a cry of outrage.

‘Of course not,’ she adds quickly. ‘But in times like these, folk distrust anyone marked out as different. Especially those with a connection to things they can’t understand. Some powers are so ancient that they are feared. I remember my mother teaching me of the old ways. She said there were once other chatterings, kinned with the same power, but different strands of it. Green-chatter, wielded over the plants, and wind-chatter, which is sister to the weather-witch powers, but more potent.’

Other chatterings?

‘It takes its toll on you, doesn’t it?’ she asks, brow puckering. ‘Is that why you fainted on the Sneaking?’

‘It don’t normally, no. That’s the point – I feel like it’s different. Something’s changing. But aye – my chatter’s what knocked me out cold.’ I nibble my lip. ‘What about Stag, though?’ The name feels like it’s knocking around in the air, bruising my skin. ‘He don’t keep his beast-chatter secret.’

Kestrel considers. ‘He’s using his power for ill-doings. Maybe that protects him, somehow.’ She takes my hand. ‘Enough about him, though. Just be careful. Please?’

‘I’m stuck here, ent I?’ I pull my hand away and turn to stare at the Opals, pins pricking my eyes. ‘Can’t get much more careful than that.’ My voice comes out more bitter than I expected.

‘I know. I’m sorry – you must hate me, coming back here and telling you what to do.’

I offer her a small smile. ‘It’s alright.’

She links arms with me. ‘Now, more importantly – shall we go and find some food?’

We step into the flickering torchlight of the long-hall. The place rings with the cries of babs, the bleating of goats and a score of mismatched tribe-tongues. Squidges have wedged themselves into clusters along the tops of the walls and on the chains of the lanterns. The round, feathered, squidlike creatures squeal about the cold, chubby tentacles quivering. They drip ink onto folks’ heads and into their food.

Great oaken eating benches glitter with hollowed, hungry eyes. The benches are laden with piles of kids, thumping each other’s arms, tumbling around, jostling for space. As we walk past, they nudge each other, staring at my scar. Their stares make me feel skinned. What I did for Leo’s lost spirit is famed round here.

‘There treads the sea-witch,’ someone whispers behind our backs. Nervous laughter whistles around my head, and my shoulders tense.

‘Ignore them,’ whispers Kestrel.

Easy for her to say. She’s getting out of here. We stand in line for shallow bowls of goats’ milk porridge. Pangolin joins us. She’s bundled in thick wool dyed the colour of flame, and a grey enamelled pin in the shape of a draggle holds her cloak close around her neck.

She greets us both, but Kestrel’s manner is stiff and the two eye each other warily. Maybe Kes still ent forgiven Pang for the way she was under the old regime.

I’m so busy watching how they are with each other, the seed of my idea swelling in my bones, that I end up stepping on Pang’s cloak and she trips, almost knocking a pot over.

Curses whip from the cooks’ mouths.

‘She never meant to!’ I blurt.

‘Make her words big to her elders, will she?’ threatens a fat old waddler called Kid, with six chins and three mean looks she switches between. She raises a tarnished ladle like a fist and turns to Kestrel. ‘Sawbones, you keep these filthy sea-roving folk out of my kettle-fires.’ She turns her broad back on us. ‘That’s the last of the provisions. Protector says we’ve to hold back the pot-scrapings for the prisoner.’

Axe-Thrower. But she wasn’t the only prisoner, before. Leo captured a mystik and locked him in the belly of Hackles, but one day the cell was empty ’cept for a dark stain on the floor. The mystik leaked through the cracks in the stone.

Kestrel’s cheeks have reddened. ‘If my mother finds out you spoke of Mouse in such a way, she will not be pleased!’

Kid rounds on us, eyes rolling in her head. ‘You dare take a tone with the women who have kept watch over you since you were belly-swell?’

Lunda appears, holding a bowl of porridge scraped clean. ‘Your mother won’t be around much longer anyway. Oh – haven’t you heard?’ she asks innocently. ‘She received a summons, just before the mid-meal bell. She’ll be flying to the Frozen Wastes as soon as possible.’

As me and Kes hurry from the hall, Kid’s words arrow into our backs. ‘She and her kin pine for the sea like a pack of seals. I say, let them fish for their breakfast.’

We find Leo in her chamber. She tells us the summons came from the Fangtooth Chieftain. ‘Stag has turned on the Fangtooths,’ she tells us. ‘My strongest warriors are making ready to fly as soon as we are able.’

‘You cannot accept this summons!’ begs Kestrel.

‘That Chieftain chased me and Crow into the sea with a volley of fire arrows,’ I add, curling my lip. But I swallow down the real reason I don’t want her going. You can’t abandon us !

Leopard smiles sadly. ‘How can I not go? My help has been requested. Isn’t unity what we fight for? We are trying to re-establish ourselves as a major Trianukkan Tribe. The time for hiding is over.’

‘Then there’s something I need to tell you,’ I say quietly.

Kestrel turns startled eyes on me.

Leo nods. ‘Go on.’

I gabble breathlessly about how I reckon the Land-Opal is at the Wastes – cos that’s what Da’s magyk map told us the last time we used it. The map unlocked when Sparrow sang the old song, and showed us the bright amber orb, far to the north.

Leo pockets the knowing like an ingot of gold, promising to look for the Opal. But she won’t let me go with her, however hard I beg.

Three morning bells later, Leopard orders the riders to keep me busy with milking the goats, polishing the moon-lamps and helping in the sawbones’ nest. Then she and Kes take to the skies, bound on their separate missions, leaving me stuck here. And while I work, all I can think is that Kestrel’s gone, Da’s gone, Leo’s gone, Stag’s still got one of the Opals and here I am, washing out old medsin bottles.

I only remembered that lemming with no beast-chatter after they left.

Time slips past. And the faster it hurries, the stronger my idea grows. If full-growns won’t let me do anything, then the kids are gonna have to stick together to get stuff done. I just have to watch folks for a bit longer first. I have to know, good and proper, who I can trust . . .

‘When’s Da coming back?’ asks Sparrow, blundering into the midst of my thoughts.

We’re cross-legged before the fire in my chamber and I’m smoothing fat into my longbow, Kin-Keeper, to seal the new runes I’ve carved into the yew – though I’ve not yet managed to bring them to life, like Egret Runesmith can. Folk reckon she’s the most gifted rune-worker on the mountain, and many are bitter that she left. But I know there’s no way she and Kes would be apart.

Before I can reply, Sparrow pipes up again. ‘How long do we have to wait around here? When can we go home? The whales need us, you know.’ A slug of blue gloop leaks from his nostril and he sniffs it back in. ‘The ones that ran away from Stag and then got stuck under the ice.’

I feel sick at the mention of Stag. He’s taken everything from us – our home, our grandma, the whales. He tried to kill Da, and Kestrel. He made Crow do his dark bidding.

‘The only way we can help them is by getting the Opals to the Crown, wherever that is.’ I stand and brush myself down, rubbing the fat into my hands.

‘But how?’

‘Leo’s planning to look for the Land-Opal while she’s at the Wastes. So if Da gets back first, my bet is he’ll go too.’

‘And then he’ll have to get all three to the Crown?’

‘Aye. So, we need to think over everything we already know about it. There must be clues we’ve missed.’

‘Well, we know that the Sea-Opal and the Sky-Opal are here, at Hackles,’ he says, firelight tickling his cheeks.

I roll my eyes. ‘Aye, course !’

‘And the Fangtooths got the Land-Opal.’ Sparrow wrinkles his nose. ‘But Leo’s gonna snatch it off them!’

‘Aye – but we’ve got to pray the Opal’s still there . . .’

‘Cos the map’s broken.’

I nod again. The map got so broken, when Stag kept trying to unlock it, that all the runes on it died. None of the Runesmiths at Hackles could revive them – not even Egret. ‘So, that leaves the Crown.’

‘The Crown’s in a whale’s belly, ent it? That’s why Stag was dredging all them whales.’

‘That’s what the legend says, aye. But the Skybrarian reckons it’s a lie, that Rattlebones never hid the Crown in belly of a whale. And that whale that swallowed me said that Glint-of-gold cannot adorn a man’s head, so we know there’s more to the mystery than just finding some rusty old normal crown.’

Sparrow’s mouth opens but before he can reply Thaw screeches, thumping down out of the darkness to peer under my bed.

Thaw?

Sneakythinglurks!

A beast? I listen past her chatter for what type of thing might be lurking under there – and slam against the same void as before. The void where beast-chatter should be.

A lemming shoots out from under the hanging blankets. Sparrow shrieks.

Thaw ducks low to grab it in her talons, but it changes into a slug, lengthens itself on a strand of slime and drops away into the darkness of the floor. I sink to my knees, waves of horror stroking up and down my spine.

That ent no natural creature. And I’ve never seen anyone have a choice of shapes before. I try to find the thing and close my hand over a lump of hard, slimy flesh, but it shrinks suddenly down, and it’s become a thick-legged spider. I lunge for it, both hands outstretched, but it scuttles through a wormhole in the wall. I rock back onto my heels, swallowing a mouthful of spew.

What is going on here? I whisper.

Baaaaaaaaad-featheredblunderings, breathes Thaw, landing on my arm and snuggling her head under my chin.

Me and Sparrow face each other, his eyes pinned to the air next to my head. He opens his mouth, but a horn bellows outside, smothering his voice. Then shouting echoes off the rocks. I press my eye to an arrow-slit in the wall and gasp as I see the black outline of a draggle, wobbling towards the stronghold, caught in the mouth of a storm. I run, ignoring Sparrow’s questions.

Folk yell at me as I barrel past them. It feels like an age before I reach the lower levels.

I jump down the steep steps into the guts of the mountain and tear past a startled Lunda – then double back and catch her wrist.

‘Is it Leo? Where is she?’

A look of disgust traces her features. ‘It’s “the Protector”, to you.’

‘Where is she?’ I hiss again, through my teeth.

‘She’s not here,’ says Lunda, wrenching back her wrist. ‘Her draggle returned with a message, is all.’

I push past her and tear to the draggle caves. A few snoozing draggles crack open their eyes to peer at me. Coati and Crow are trying to tether Leo’s draggle. It’s the one she always rides, with a stripe of silver fur through the orange. I step closer to the draggle to listen to her chatter.

She’s so strongly frighted that I can feel her chatter pulling on my brain and crowding my bones. I try to breathe, putting out a hand to steady myself.

‘Grab the other wing, boy,’ gruffs Coati.

‘I’m trying!’ says Crow, eyes flashing. He’s been helping with the draggles cos they’re the closest things to horses, in a Sky-realm.

I take a deep breath and try to tune to the chatter again. It takes a few beats to untangle even a word of sense.

Fleefleefleebloodhandssilverflashmissingriderwhere?

I force my mind back from hers, then reel, leaning on the wall for support.

‘Mouse?’ says Crow, noticing me for the first time.

‘I need your full attention here, lad!’ commands Coati. Eventually they get the draggle tethered.

‘She won’t settle,’ says Crow in concern, stroking the beast’s muzzle. She knocks his hand away, eyes rolling back.

‘Must’ve had a bad flight though the storms,’ says Coati. ‘Get her warm and watered, then keep watch over her until she settles – they always do. Strong of spirit, each one.’ He turns towards the tack room and almost crashes into me.

‘Watch where you’re treading!’ he says. His arms are full of saddle, but a crumpled piece of parchment pokes through the gaps in his fist.

I point at it. ‘What does the message say?’

‘Just that the Protector has reached the Wastes and started secret talks with the Chieftain,’ says Crow, still trying to soothe the beast.

‘Why didn’t she send one of her warriors?’ I ask doubtfully.

‘Guard your own business and I’ll guard mine,’ says Coati, eyeing me stonily as he steps past.

Crow rolls his eyes behind the grumpy old man’s back. ‘She needs her warriors by her side, Mouse. Everything is fine.’

But that’s not the message I’m getting from the draggle.

Tornfrombackdragawaychiefmangonegonegone – chief man gone!

Chief man? I whisper, stepping closer and putting a gentle hand on her flank. The Fangtooth Chieftain? Gone where?

Coati emerges from the tack room and starts to trundle around the caves, whistling as he feeds the draggles.

‘How do you know that message is really from Leo?’ I whisper to Crow.

‘I read it,’ he says, shrugging. ‘It was signed by her, and stamped with her own mark. There’s nothing to fret about.’

Doubt plagues me. I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. That’s not what the draggle is say—’

I’ve forgotten to keep my voice down. Before I can blink, Coati’s looming over me. ‘Child, I won’t have you practising your dark jargonings in my draggle caves. Off with you to supper!’

He ushers me out of the cave.

I find the round tower room where Leo’s commanders rule over Hackles in her absence. I tell them something’s wrong, that Leo needs help, but they won’t listen.

‘How do you know?’ they ask me, eyes too calm, too blank, looking right through me cos I’m just a child.

‘I – the draggle was spooked. I mean good and proper, and I know it weren’t just storms—’

‘Draggles encounter many irregularities during a flight,’ says one, glancing at me from under big bushy brows. ‘There is no cause for concern.’

I bang through the door and run down the steps from the tower, back into the main web of passageways.

Da needs to get back here, now. He’d believe me, in half a heartbeat. But for all I know, his mission could take ages longer. I scrape my fingertips along the wall as I hurry towards my chamber. All these full-growns having secret meetings, making secret plans, getting stuff done . . .

You can still make waves.

A glow heats up my belly. What if I could assemble my own crew?

If Leo’s in danger, and no one believes me, then I could be her only hope. And if I can get to the Frozen Wastes to search for her, then maybe I can find the Opal!

Sparrow edges round the corner, using the stick Da whittled for him to help him find his way. Thunderbolt hovers in front of his face and his filmy eyeballs scan the air for me, using her light. ‘There you are!’ he huffs. ‘The ghostway spat this out for you.’ He hands me a tightly wrapped scroll sealed with a splodge of blood-red wax.

I blink at him, startled that I’ve found my way back to the door of my chamber without even noticing.

We slip inside the chamber and I snap open the seal. ‘What’s it say?’ jabbers Sparrow impatiently.

‘Gift me a chance!’ Sitting on the edge of my bed, I smooth the letter flat on my knees. Before my eyes, the runes tremble and glow moon-silver. Sparrow scrambles closer.

There are only three words etched into the parchment. Read in private!

As soon as my eyes drink them, the bright silver runes disappear with a small cracking sound, leaving a faint trace of smoke.

Then others appear. ‘It’s from Yapok,’ I whisper, realising how relieved I am to hear from the Skybrarian’s apprentice after so long. Then I remember the lemming and look quickly around to make sure no slitherers are watching from the walls, before reading Yapok’s scrawled silver runes.

The Skybrary stands strong, and we are safe enough for now. The Skybrarian and I have been travelling to seek out new manuscripts for the collection – he says we don’t have to hide so much now that the Sky-Tribes are returning.

We’ve been tracking some names of people who are known to protect books – in crowded bazaars, secret libraries, back-alley bookshops and grand houses.

And I’ve made a new discovery. I wanted you to know because of your quest. Some of the war manuscripts I’ve been looking at – I think they have much older runes hidden underneath the text.

My mind reels. Underneath?

I think I could find something helpful if I can just see beneath the writing, long enough to reveal the truth. But every time I manage to scrape away the newer runes, a strange symbol, like a strangling vine, bleeds upwards through the parchment, throttling the old runes.

Anyway, it feels like progress. I’ll write again if I discover any clues about the Crown.

A shiver ripples up my spine, as a picture of a strangling vine coils in my mind. I turn to Sparrow. ‘We’ve got to take matters into our own hands.’

I make my way to the sawbones’ nest and steal a pan of squidge ink and some brittle old scraps of goatskin and scratch my message into them.

Time’s come for a Sneaking of our own. I call a secret youth’s Tribe-Meet. Honour this law: no full-growns. Bone-crypts, after lamps out. Come if you’re brave enough.

I slip into dormitories and stuff the notes under the pillows of the biggest blabbermouths on the mountain – the kids that can’t turn down a challenge. Then I wait.

The day drags on for ever. I’m a bundle of nerves. My mind keeps straying to the seed I’ve sown. When it’s time to bed down again, I pray to all the sea-gods that my note is enough.

Then down, down, down through the murk I slip, Thaw riding the air by my side.

I scurry down to the bone-crypts, until the crushing weight of Hackles hulks overhead. The crypts are deeper than even the draggle caves, but off in a different direction. I step through an archway sculpted from thighbones and stare around. Thousands on thousands of Sky-folk shoulder blades, collarbones, fingers and toes, and piles of staring skulls boom their chalky death into the tomb-chamber. They’ve been arranged in ornate patterns to honour the dead. I feel a grin melt across my face. If we have to plan for the end of the world, this is a proper place to do it.

I settle down to wait. Thaw stays close, and I try to stroke away her frights.

But soon, I’m praying for something to move. Cos no one comes, and the cold prods my bones. Lamps must be out by now! I chatter to Thaw. Where are they? Sparrow ent even here – and he said he’d bring the kids from his dorm.

Gods. He’d better not have broken his neck on the way down here. I said I’d help him find his way, but the stubborn too-soon just said lemme be !

My eyelids are growing heavy when slowly, one by one, ghoulish shadows wisp through the thighbone archway into the crypts. My gut turns hot and tight. Thaw shuffles her wings and puffs a belch of fright into the gloom.

‘I could be at Hackles the rest of forever and still never learn all its secrets,’ lisps a Wilderwitch girl called Ibex, with hair shaved to her skull and the stubble dyed bruise-blue.

Relief whumps through me.

‘Quiet!’ shushes someone from the gloom.

‘Hope we won’t be here forever,’ mutters Ermine, from somewhere to the left of me.

‘Don’t fret,’ I husk, making him startle halfway out of his skin. ‘Soon, we rove.’

‘Mouse!’ whispers Hammer. ‘Don’t do that!’

‘I was just saying,’ says Erm, to cover his frights. ‘Aren’t you creeped out of your pelt down here?’ He scowls. ‘Just me then.’ His gaze burrows under my skin. Then he tips back his head and stares at the underside of our world.

‘I’m frighted, too,’ says Sparrow.

‘I never said I was frighted,’ spits Erm, crossing his arms.

‘This is the one who left the notes,’ Lunda tells the kids that’re trotting after her. She fixes her eyes on my scar. ‘The pearl-fisher that talks to animals.’ She stalks towards our group with a lantern raised in her hand.

My heart drums and my blood kicks for a fight. Part of me wishes I never invited her – but she’s gonna be useful.

‘Oh, you’re Sea-Tribe, aren’t you?’ asks Ibex. ‘How fascinating! I’ve never even seen the sea!’

I gift her a grin.

But Lunda chuckles coldly. ‘I’m not sure I’d call roving sea-creepers a Tribe ! And I’ve no idea why we’re giving them shelter-feather in our sky-fortress.’ She’s goading me for a brawl. A brawl I realise I’ve been thirsting for.

‘Don’t think this girl walks alone, will you?’ snarls Hammer, who’s got my back along with Ermine and Crow.

‘Aye, and she’s got more than little boys standing up for her,’ says Crow. Someone snickers. Hammer’s fine black brows quirk together in a frown as he rounds on Crow.

‘Boys fighting over her, huh?’ scorns Lunda.

‘Your words are dust to me,’ I say calmly. And I am ready for the next battle.

Thaw-Wielder chats straight into my head. ArmLAND!

For a beat I watch myself from above, through her eyes. It’s the strangest feeling, like there’s a wormy cord threading out of my belly and connecting me to my hawk. I unfurl my wrist and she drops onto it, out of the immense nothing yawning over and around us, like someone high up has dumped a bucket of feathers and claws and quickness into the air. Even Lunda gasps as Thaw resettles her feathers, twitching her head around at them all.

I smile. These kids are starting to know something about my fierce.

‘I’m not fazed by your tricks,’ says Lunda. ‘Soon, you will be dust, too. Only the strongest will survive this Withering.’ Her words wreath from her mouth like pale spekters.

I push my face into Lunda’s. ‘Either rest your jaws, or say that again – if you dare.’ I can feel my magyk pulsing in my blood and in my gut and in my dark-gulping eyes. I could do anything in this beat.

‘Mama says that’s not how girls should act,’ quavers Ibex.

I reply to her, not taking my eyes off Lunda’s. ‘Your mama needs to learn herself a thing or two.’

Lunda’s eyes are like hard blue chips of ice. ‘What are you waiting for, sea-witch?’

‘I didn’t come here to fight, spear-flinger.’

She stares at me and spills two words that sharpen the air. ‘Didn’t you?’

This night belongs to us.

I ent sure who moves first. But then all of a sudden the crypts are one giant tangled sweaty brawl and all I know is

Fists

Feet

Eyelids

Ribs

And all we are is

Clawed

Punched

Pulled

Scrambled

Laughing

Yelling

Thaw roosts atop a skull and screams encouragement, making my foes shudder.

Fists to fists, we practise our fight for the end of the world, then someone steps on a lemming and it screams and we’re all falling about in stitches of laughter. Breath-clouds puff all over the crypt.

The sharpness has been squeezed out of the air and it feels easier to breathe. Pangolin says something to Lunda and the Spearsister laughs, in a pure way I ent heard her do before. The sound gifts me heart-strength. She’s here now, like it or not. And if Pang trusts her, maybe I can learn to.

Thaw, I chatter, while the others are still laughing and a few fights are still growling, keep watch for any sneaky blighters that look like beasts but don’t have chatter. I don’t want any spies down here.

She screeches, lifting up into the air to start her patrol. Everyone turns to stare at me.

I make my spine arrow-straight. ‘I called this secret meet cos we need a crew.’

‘What is a crew?’ asks Pika.

I grin at him. ‘It’s everything – kinship, knowing how to weather storms together – storms in the world and storms in your heart. It’s having each other’s back, no matter what. It’s – it’s sharing heart-love for what matters most and gifting each other the heart-strength to fight.’

‘Pretty speech,’ snaps Lunda.

‘Why do we need a crew?’ asks a boy.

‘Naught’s going right round here. They tell us to let the full-growns save Trianukka. But who’s gonna save them?’

‘What are you talking about?’ demands Lunda. ‘You’re the one that endangered the whole Sneaking because of whatever’s going on up there.’ She gestures to the sides of her head and pulls a gruesome face.

Crow steps towards her but I hold up a hand. Da said not to reveal my chatter. But how can you make a real crew if you ent honest with them? ‘It’s true that I’m a beast-chatterer, and that my chatter can overpower me.’ I pause, waiting for the whispers to fade. ‘But it means the beasts can tell me things we wouldn’t know elsewise. Like this now – something has happened to the Protector. Something bad.’

Gasps rattle through the spaces between the bones.

Pangolin steps forwards. ‘What has happened?’

‘I don’t know. But her draggle was spooked—’

‘So would you be if you flew through those storms,’ says Lunda.

‘It was more than the storms!’ I yell. ‘I heard her! She said missing rider, torn from back. Something happened to Leo. And now I’ve got to find a way to get to her, cos none of the full-growns believes me.’

Lunda snorts. ‘Small wonder.’

‘If you don’t want to be crew, Lunda, that’s no blubber off my blade. But if there’s even a chance that something’s gone wrong, don’t you wanna be sure?’

Lunda slides down the wall until she’s sitting cross-legged. She puts her face in her hands, saying nothing.

‘So . . . what do we do?’ whimpers Ibex.

I blow out my cheeks. ‘First, I need to know who’s in. Raise your fist and thump your heart if you’re crewing up!’

Slowly, one by one, each kid in the crypt steps forwards and thumps their chest. My heart glows. Lunda stands, keeping her eyes on mine.

I swallow my pride though it snags in my throat. ‘Be part of our crew. Help us, Lunda.’ I hold my fist to my chest and she hesitates, big pale eyes wavering as the struggle under her surface rages.

Then she swears in, too. But not without another challenge. ‘Who is leader of this crew ?’ Her accent clips the word and makes it whistle through her teeth like a birdcall.

Pride punches my chest and stings my cheeks.

‘Oh, you?’ She laughs.

‘Course!’

‘Why am I not surprised that the sea-creeper seeks attention?’

‘You didn’t even know what a crew was—’

‘Hey, you two!’ says Pangolin. We turn to face her. She’s standing next to Pika and the two of them are chuckling into their hands. ‘Settle your feathers. There is room – sure, there is need – for more than one leader. I vote for one from each Sky-Tribe plus Mouse to represent the Sea-Tribes.’

I study my boots. ‘Grand idea, Pang.’

We cast votes and count them up. The three leaders are decided – me, Pika and Ibex.

Pika strides into the middle of the crypt. ‘Our crew needs a plan. If the draggle spoke true, we have to get to the Wastes and find Leopard.’

‘How?’ asks Pang.

Silence.

‘Take the draggles?’ suggests Hammer.

‘A few of us have weather-work,’ offers a Wilderwitch kid. ‘We could try to push the storms away from you.’

‘We can’t all go out there riding draggles. Someone would see!’ glooms Ermine.

I nod. But one girl . . .

Crow catches my eye and frowns. I smile at him, but it’s a proper beam by accident. Too late, I try to wipe the look off my face but he scowls. Then he puts his mouth close to my ear. ‘Gone and had a terrible idea, have you?’

I push him away, biting back my grin. Aye. And I’ll make you help me with it. I’ll need a lookout. Who better than a boy who can take the shape of a harmless crow?

I turn to Ermine. ‘Not if one girl took the journey. Alone.’ The thought makes fire stir behind my eyes and I have to breathe quick, my veins jumping with excitement.

‘Not alone,’ says Lunda impatiently.

We look at her in surprise.

‘Haven’t any of you realised it yet?’ she says, voice bubbling with irritation. ‘Even if you got as far as the Frozen Wastes, the Fangtooths would sniff out a sea-creeper. But there’s one person at Hackles who’d be admitted into their territory, bold as daggers.’

I meet her eyes. ‘Axe-Thrower!’

Lunda bites the skin around her thumb, nods briskly.

‘But she’s a prisoner,’ says Pang. ‘She won’t be going anywhere.’

‘No, she won’t,’ replies Lunda. ‘Unless we break her out.’

Crow curses all over everyone’s shock.

But the hooks of Lunda’s idea dig into my skin. Cos what if the vision Sparrow had of me in a place of sleds and reindeer skin ent a destiny that will happen to me, but a destiny that I can choose for myself ? ‘That’s a flaming good idea!’

‘It’s too dangerous,’ warns Crow quickly. ‘Your da would never let you do a foolish thing like that.’

And there they are. The words that decide it. ‘Da’s not here,’ I whisper.

Lunda grins, eyes sparking. ‘Good girl.’

The spark leaps into my chest and sets my heart drumming against my ribs.

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