‘Kate is entertaining the Guild of Lawmakers for breakfast,’ said Ellie. ‘And you wouldn’t find barnacle soup in a whale’s stomach.’ She gave Seth a wry smile. ‘Just strange boys.’
Seth waved her away as a timid servant sidled over, eyeing Ellie nervously. ‘Um, Miss Stonewall? The Queen asked to see you the moment you arrived.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ said Ellie, ushering Seth up the mighty staircase to the top of the Ark. A Warden peered suspiciously at Seth as they hurried past.
‘You did get permission for me to be here, didn’t you?’ asked Seth.
‘Of course! I mean, I think so,’ Ellie said. ‘But it doesn’t matter, because I’m with you,’ she said, placing a hand to her chest and feeling very humble.
‘Stop looking so pleased with yourself.’
They stepped inside Kate’s chambers and were confronted by the massive God-Bird perched above, which stopped Seth dead with its glare.
‘It’s not real,’ said Ellie.
‘I know that.’
From the state of the chamber, it seemed Kate’s handmaidens had not dressed her that morning without a struggle: there were streaks of gold face paint on the statues, a smashed clay pot leaking gritty ointment on the marble floor, and Kate, lying on her back with a happy smile and purple make-up smeared erratically across her cheeks. She wore a long black gown, and a headdress of purple feathers. Her eyes flicked to Ellie. ‘You’re here!’ she cried cheerfully, then noticed Seth and sat up. ‘I mean,’ she added, in a much deeper voice, ‘you may enter.’
‘It’s only Seth,’ said Ellie. ‘You don’t have to be a queen in front of him.’
‘Only Seth,’ said Seth. ‘How nice.’
Ellie pointed to the mess. ‘Um, did your handmaidens attack you?’
Kate scowled. ‘They were being annoying. Felicity kept going on about how handsome Loren Alexander is. And then Yasmin asked me if I was excited about the Festival of Life. As if that even matters any more – thanks to your machines, the farms are green and gold as far as the eye can see.’
‘Well, actually, we do still need to figure out how you’re going to perform convincing miracles at the Festival of Life, if you, um, can’t get your powers working in time,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m building a device that will let you shoot flowers from your sleeves. And I’ve found a species of plant that looks dead if you don’t water it, then springs back to life in seconds when you do.’
‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ said Kate, then she let out a long yawn. Ellie noticed bags under her eyes. ‘Sorry, I didn’t sleep well, I was too excited. I’ve been worried for so long, it’s weird now to feel such relief instead. Oh, and speaking of your hard work …’
Kate leapt to her feet and raced up one of the golden staircases to her bed.
‘There’s seawater in there,’ said Seth. He was frowning at the Cabinet of Tears.
Ellie blinked in surprise. ‘They’re supposed to contain Kate’s ancestors’ tears, but she does suspect they’re mostly seawater. Wait, you can feel that?’
Seth rubbed his arm. ‘I can always feel the sea.’
Kate hurtled back down the stairs, clutching a bundle of lilac cloth. ‘Here!’ She unfurled it, revealing a long coat. It was the exact same shade as the handmaidens’ dresses.
‘It’s … it’s lovely,’ Ellie said, her throat dry.
‘I don’t mean for it to replace your mother’s coat,’ Kate said hastily. ‘But, well …’ She scanned Ellie’s old coat, pockmarked with huge holes that were growing every day. ‘I think one more explosion might finish it off for good. This coat has just as many pockets, look.’
She held it out and Ellie rubbed it between her fingers. The fabric was so soft it was hard to be sure she was even touching it. ‘You … you made this?’
Kate nodded. ‘Now come on, try it.’
‘Oh,’ said Ellie, shifting uncomfortably.
Kate glared at Seth. ‘It’s not polite to look when a lady is changing.’
Seth frowned. ‘It’s only a coat.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Ellie, unbuttoning her coat one-handed, then trying to shrug it off without hurting her broken arm. Seth and Kate both went to help her, but Kate got there first.
‘Your poor arm,’ she said, easing off the coat. ‘The bone is taking a long time to mend, isn’t it?’
Ellie felt the humid air pressing on her skin. Her body felt like a brittle, flimsy shell wrapped round an ancient, terrible secret. She looked nervously at Seth, waiting for Kate to say something. Instead, Kate draped the new coat round her shoulders, delicately avoiding Ellie’s broken arm and helping the other through the sleeve. It was light as sea foam, and when Ellie moved, the folds fanned her with cool air.
‘I made it with silk from the silkworms of Bianca Island,’ Kate said proudly, scanning Ellie up and down. ‘Perfect,’ she said, smiling so broadly that dimples formed on her cheeks. ‘Just perfect.’
‘I prefer the old one,’ Seth muttered, and Kate either didn’t hear him or pretended not to.
‘I thought you could wear it …’ she began, then her smile faltered. ‘At the Festival of Life.’
Her eyes grew wide, and she was silent a long moment. Seth and Ellie shared a glance.
‘Kate,’ said Ellie delicately. ‘If you don’t feel ready for the Festival of Life yet, then why don’t you postpone it? That way you have more time to figure out your powers, and I have longer to figure out how to fake a miracle. You know, just in case?’
Kate stared at Ellie. ‘Postpone the Festival of Life? It’s not a dinner party, Ellie. I can’t simply postpone it. Loren will leap on that – say I’m weak. Eugh, he’s going to be at this awful breakfast. Though at least I don’t need his help any more. If your machines hadn’t worked, I would have had no choice but to ask him to bring grain from his family estates. I’d rather eat my own fingers.’
‘Please don’t eat your own fingers,’ said Ellie. ‘And it’s still fourteen days until the Festival of Life. That’s plenty of time for you to learn to control your powers. Actually, I’ve had some thoughts about that.’ She knelt by the box Seth had brought. ‘Now I know you were sceptical about dressing up as a plant, but –’
Kate tilted her ear to the window.
‘Focus, Kate,’ Ellie said. ‘You’re not wriggling out of this again.’
‘Quiet!’ Kate snapped.
Ellie strained to hear. ‘What is that?’
‘It sounds like seagulls,’ said Seth. ‘Or is it – someone crying?’
Kate’s lips went white. ‘It’s not one person crying.’ She ran to the window and stuck her head outside. Ellie could hear it more clearly now – the noise of people wailing, like at a funeral.
‘It’s coming from the farms,’ said Kate, snatching up her blue cloak from a chair to hide her gown, pulling the hood over her headdress and darting from the room. Seth and Ellie exchanged a worried glance then hurried after her, down the staircase and out through the palace gates.
The sound of wailing was louder in the streets, burbling between the buildings like a flock of injured birds. Kate raced ahead, Ellie falling behind as she hobbled on her cane. The alleys teemed with people drawn by the cries.
‘Keep close to me,’ said Seth, the crowd parting before him. Ellie peered over shoulders, straining to catch a glimpse of whatever was causing the terrible sound. Finally, the western coast of the island stretched out beneath them.
What before had been a gleaming, luscious land was now a putrid swamp. Once-golden fields of wheat had turned the colour of rust, while green crops of maize and sugar cane had faded to pus-like yellow. Puddles of milky water pooled round the stems of wilted plants, and the air was filled with a sour, vinegary stench. Ellie covered her mouth, feeling like she was going to be sick – from the smell or the shock, she wasn’t sure.
They found Kate hunched in the soil, her cloak heavy with mud. The crowd was swelling now, spreading along the edge of the fields.
‘Save us!’ a man cr
ied.
Next to Ellie, a woman kept muttering ‘She protects’ under her breath. Farmers knelt desolately in the grey, grainy soil, friends picking their way through the marsh to console them.
‘Ellie, Seth!’
Viola squeezed through the crowd, Molworth scurrying behind. ‘Queen’s mercy!’ he squeaked, when he saw the fields.
‘What on …?’ Viola started, clutching Archibald protectively to her chest. ‘How did this happen?’
Ellie helped Kate shakily to her feet. Her hands were trembling.
One of the fertilizer-sprayers nearby hissed out a cloud of greenish vapour, and the smell of vinegar grew stronger. Ellie sniffed. ‘That’s not my fertilizer,’ she said. ‘Someone’s switched it for something else. Who would do that?’
Kate’s eyes were glassy. ‘Him.’
‘MY FRIENDS!’
The voice rang out as clear as a trumpet call. Loren was standing above the crowd, on a rickety platform that seemed to have been hastily built for this exact purpose. He was dressed in a black gown.
‘Oh, friends,’ he said, the crowd falling silent. ‘Grieve with me! What a terrible tragedy to have befallen our island. Our crops, shrivelled and dead. Grieve with me, friends!’
He met the miserable faces tilting up to him, one by one, and their sobs pierced the air. Ellie squinted. There was water on Loren’s cheeks, but his eyes were not ringed red like someone who’d been crying.
‘I’m afraid, friends, that I know why this happened. I am fortunate enough to be a close friend of the Queen. I told Her that it was foolish to trust an untested “inventor” with the future of the island. A child.’
‘It was your idea!’ Kate hissed. ‘You brought her to me!’
‘Now, whether by accident or design, this girl has poisoned our crops and we will all suffer.’
Ellie froze, rooted to the spot. She yelped as Kate pulled her roughly towards her, tugging off her new coat.
‘What are you doing?’
‘No one must recognize you,’ Kate said, throwing the coat to Molworth. ‘Hide this. We need to go now.’
Viola began pushing back through the crowd. ‘Out of my way! Coming through! Jenkins, shift that humongous son of yours,’ she growled. Ellie tried not to meet anyone’s eye as she followed.
‘But, friends,’ Loren continued, ‘do not judge Our Divine Queen too harshly for this terrible lapse in judgement. She did only what She thought was right for Her people. Praise Her!’
‘PRAISE HER!’ the crowd roared back, spit flecking the air.
‘Now, friends,’ said Loren. ‘I ask you, as a humble servant of Her Divine Majesty – do you trust me?’
‘YES!’
‘Then know that I will fix this famine. I will ask the Queen to abandon these reckless experiments. But first I shall bring grain to our island with all haste, so no one shall go hungry!’
There was an eruption of applause, and the crowd took up the chant of ‘LOREN, LOREN, LOREN!’ He waited for everyone to settle down, beaming round at them.
‘One last thing. This is hard for me to say, dear friends, but I do what I must for the safety of the Queen. We cannot trust this inventor, Ellie Stonewall.’
Kate and Ellie shared a panicked glance as they neared the edge of the crowd.
‘Hurry,’ Kate said. Without thinking, Ellie glanced up at the woman next to her. The woman’s eyes narrowed.
‘Wait …’ she said.
‘Come on!’ Kate urged, tugging Ellie out of reach.
‘That’s her!’ the woman cried. ‘That’s the girl!’
‘Go,’ Viola growled, shoving Kate and Ellie in front of her and blocking the woman’s way. ‘What are you talking about, Griselda? I think you’ve been drinking old cactus juice again.’
Kate, Ellie, Seth and Molworth hurried up the street, but others were following now: a group of twenty or more peeling off from the back of the crowd.
‘Go,’ Molworth hissed, pointing them into an alley.
‘That’s not the quickest way to the palace,’ said Ellie.
‘Shut up, hamster-face, and trust me!’ he cried, flinging Ellie’s coat back at her.
They hurried down the alley, and Ellie looked over her shoulder to see Molworth grinning happily as the pursuers caught up with him. ‘Would you like to see a dance I just invented?’ he said, starting to caper round in circles.
‘Out of our way, fool,’ said a burly man.
‘Are you after the pasty girl with the funny nose?’ asked Molworth. ‘She went towards the Royal Oak,’ he said, pointing up the street away from Ellie and Kate. ‘I hear it serves delicious orange-peel pie. And the prices are very reasonable too.’
Kate stormed up the street towards the gates of the Ark, flinging off her hood and cloak. Tears streaked the swirls of purple make-up on her face.
‘It’s fine,’ she muttered. ‘Everything’s fine. We don’t need his grain.’
‘Really?’ said Ellie hopefully.
Kate nodded. ‘There are three more royal grain caches hidden around the island, besides the one that the fire in the Lorenza Mines destroyed. We’ll use those to feed the people while we get the farms back to health.’
The palace doors swung open as they hobbled up the steps. The Seven Sentinels came clattering out, and though Ellie couldn’t see their faces, she could tell from their jerky movements how agitated they were. One scrutinized Kate for injury. Another drew their sword and pointed it at Seth.
‘Put that away,’ Kate snarled, pushing past and into the Grand Atrium. Quentin hobbled to her side, clutching a bundle of letters and nervously readjusting his glasses.
‘My Queen, I have –’
‘Quiet!’ Kate snapped. ‘The royal grain stores. We must open them now.’
The colour drained from Quentin’s face. ‘But that’s what I was going to say. The stores … they’re ruined. Destroyed.’
Kate fell utterly still.
‘I sent Wardens to check,’ said Quentin. He swallowed. ‘Some potent poison.’
Kate’s fingers trembled. ‘The locations of those stores were a secret,’ she said, in her queenly, emotionless voice. ‘Even from my Royal Court. Loren could not have known about them.’
‘Loren, Your Divinity?’
‘Kate,’ said Ellie. ‘Loren must have started the fire in his own mines deliberately. That’s why he was right there to rescue me! It wasn’t an accident – it was sabotage.’
‘Who told him?’ Kate shouted. ‘Who has been spilling my secrets?’
The handmaidens burst from a door nearby and threw themselves at Kate’s feet, weeping in relief. The Seven formed a tight circle round them all, and Kate let out a savage roar.
‘GET AWAY!’ she cried. ‘You’re all useless – useless. Seven of you can’t speak, and the rest of you I wish couldn’t speak.’
‘Kate,’ said Ellie. ‘They didn’t do anything.’
‘You must address the Queen as Your Divinity,’ hissed a handmaiden, throwing Ellie a filthy look.
‘Oh, who cares about that!’ Kate yelled. ‘Loren has destroyed me! He has poisoned the farms and the grain and ruined everything!’
She stormed up the steps, scattering the servants who’d been watching the spectacle from above. The Seven and the handmaidens hurried after. ‘Leave me!’ she bellowed. ‘All of you, just leave!’
The handmaidens fled and the Seven shrank away as if scolded by a parent. Kate took five more steps, then sank to her knees, tugging at her fingers one after another, her body shaking like a sapling in a storm. The servants, the handmaidens and the Seven all stood paralysed, too afraid to go near. Kate’s quiet sobs filled the chamber.
Ellie rushed up the steps, helping her off the ground and up the staircase. Kate was stiff and heavy, clinging so tightly that her nails dug into Ellie’s arm. Her eyes were closed, and occasionally she let out a stifled groan, like someone fighting back against a nightmare.
They hobbled into Kate’s bedchamber. Ellie guided Ka
te to the bottom of one of the spiral staircases, where she sank into a beautifully dressed heap. Carefully, Ellie removed Kate’s headdress, wincing to see a drop of blood inside the headband, where it had dug into her scalp.
Kate grabbed Ellie’s wrist, looking at her pleadingly, her breath coming in fevered starts.
‘Slowly,’ Ellie said. She took in a deep breath, and released it gently. Kate breathed with her. Finally, she rose, stepped over to the balcony and opened the glass doors, letting in the morning air.
‘LOREN! LOREN! LOREN!’
A thousand voices chanted the word so forcefully it made Ellie’s throat hurt just to hear it. Kate watched the streets with a glassy, disbelieving stare. She closed the balcony doors.
‘Kate?’ Ellie said gently. Kate stood in the shadow of the amethyst God-Bird, her nose and lips twitching. There was a second of total silence, and then a wretched, blood-freezing scream tore its way out of her. Her face contorted like a hissing cat’s, her cheeks bright red, her every muscle tense. She sank to her knees and fell quiet.
Ellie put a hand on her shoulder.
‘It’s –’
‘It’s not okay, Ellie,’ said Kate. ‘Nothing is okay. It’s over.’ She hugged her knees. ‘They see how weak I am. I’ve got no choice now but to accept Loren’s help, and everyone is going to love him for it. He wants to rule the island, I know it. He’s going to turn them all against me.’
‘Not if we can prove Loren’s behind all this. Prove what a monster he is. And we will. And we’re going to keep practising with your powers too. Nobody’s going to think you’re weak when the Festival of Life comes. You’re going to show them just what you’re capable of.’
‘Oh, Ellie. My practice is going terribly, and you know it.’
Ellie knelt beside her. ‘You’re so determined, I really believe you can do this.’
Kate looked at Ellie a long moment, then rested her hand on Ellie’s. ‘You have such faith in me,’ she said, with a sad smile. ‘I wish you’d come to me sooner. The last six years might not have been so painful.’
She closed her eyes, squeezing fresh tears down her cheeks. ‘You know, you even managed to make me believe. To hope. That maybe I’d been wrong all along. That just maybe I could do all the things they think I can.’
Shipwreck Island Page 15
