Midnight Train

by Angie Sage

  Ratchet stopped outside a boarded-up store with a faded sign proclaiming “The Old Watch Shop” above a scrappy door. He banged a complicated rhythm on the door and waited, tapping his foot impatiently. At last the door creaked open and an anxious-looking woman peered out. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. And then in a strangely mechanical voice she intoned, “The ocean brings us fair winds today.”

  “All is for a porpoise,” Ratchet replied in similar tones.

  “What?” the woman asked.

  “Purpose! All is for a purpose!” Ratchet corrected himself hurriedly. “Oh, this is ridiculous, Vera. You know perfectly well who I am. Let us in, will you?”

  Vera Watchet, last survivor of the King’s Spy and Messenger Service, did as Ratchet asked and led them up some disconcertingly wobbly stairs to an attic room. There, Zerra swore loyalty to King Belamus and was, to her delight, not only given a pass for the Inner Star, but also signed up as the King’s Spy. “We don’t have one anymore,” Vera had said. “So you may as well.”

  As they were about to leave Vera asked Ratchet, “You still a KM?”

  “A what?”

  Vera gave an impatient tut and said slowly, “Are you still a King’s Messenger?”

  “The King’s Messenger,” Ratchet corrected her. “Only me left now.”

  “Well, the MAP has expired.”

  “The what?”

  “Message Authentication Password,” said Vera. “You sure you’re still a KM?”

  “Yes. And my little Merle is still a King’s Bird.”

  “Then you need to give me a new password. Write it down here. At least ten letters. No profanity.”

  Ratchet took the pen and paper and thought hard; he found passwords difficult. But then something came into his mind and he smiled. Starting from the wrong end of the phrase, he wrote, ANANABASITTELTRAB. He knew it was childish and silly, but right then it made him feel better. And at least it was something he would remember.

  Vera took the paper and gave it a cursory glance. “Fine,” she said, and she closed the door with a bang.

  Zerra and Ratchet found their way down the dingy stairs and then set off along the street. Both were smiling. Ratchet because he was pleased with his new password, and Zerra because once again she felt important. She loved her Spy Pass—the black-and-gold silk cord around her wrist with its silver seal on which was the secret pass sign for the King’s Jackal that allowed her access to the King’s Gold Tower. Sitting neatly in her training jacket pocket were the tools of her new trade: a small brass spyglass, a plan of Rekadom and a corkscrew key. It felt almost as good as the time she had been appointed Junior Sentinel in her hometown of Luma. She just hoped it would end better than that had.

  “King’s Spy, eh?” Ratchet said. “Very impressive.”

  “Piece of cake,” said Zerra.

  “Don’t forget you are a Flyer first,” Ratchet told her. “And your priority is to protect the Hawke egg.”

  “No problem,” Zerra said. “Anyway, it’s the king’s Hawke, right?”

  “But it’s my egg,” Ratchet said. “So go and make sure that the Enchanter and that Meister person are not messing with it. And be sure to get out of here by six at the latest, when the Slicers come out.”

  “Slicers? What are they?”

  Ratchet shuddered. “You don’t want to know. Get going with you. I’ll want a report this evening at Birds-In.”

  “Burstin’?” asked Zerra.

  “Birds-In. Once a week we call the birds into the mews for a count. Six o’clock tonight. The Flyer is required to attend.”

  “Okay. Got that. See you later.”

  Zerra watched Ratchet hurry away and disappear off down the ginnel. She stood in the deserted street and breathed in the dusty warmth of its old buildings. For a moment she was reminded of what she thought of as her “old life,” when she had lived in the hilltop town of Luma with her mother, her big sister, Francina, little brother, Louie, and her stupid foster sister, Alex. Zerra had always enjoyed noticing what people were doing. Francina had called it “sneaking,” but Zerra thought it was an important skill. She pushed away the uncomfortable thought that maybe it would have been better if she had not sneaked on her mother and accused her of “Harboring a Beguiler”—Alex, whose Enchanted cards she had discovered when she had sneaked into Alex’s room. She decided not to even consider that maybe it would be nicer to still be living with her family in Luma, which was not nearly such a dump as Rekadom. Resolutely, Zerra pushed aside the troubling thought that if she had not sneaked, her mother, Louie and Francina would be still be safe. And that no one—not even Alex—would hate her.

  Determined to enjoy her new life and her amazing new job as the King’s Spy, Zerra set off. She was going to be good at this. She knew it.

  Chapter 7

  Goodbye, Oracle Rock

  WHILE ZERRA PROWLED THE EMPTY streets of Rekadom, Alex and Benn had got the last of the water out of Merry and the little boat was floating again. They were ready to go. Anxiously, Alex glanced at the sea beyond the protective arm of the harbor wall. The waves were what Benn called “lumpy,” but they were nowhere near as wild as they had been earlier. Even so, it still looked a little scary.

  But Benn was confident. “Merry will be fine,” he said. “The wind will blow us straight along the coast to Netters Cove. We can stay the night in the harbor there, and by tomorrow we’ll be back home safe in Lemon Valley.”

  Alex didn’t want to spoil Benn’s enthusiasm by pointing out that she would never be safe in Lemon Valley while the Twilight Hauntings were at large, attacking all Enchanters and their children, but Benn guessed what Alex was thinking. “I know it’s not safe for you,” he said, “but it will be soon. We’ll get the Tau back somehow. And then you can do that Enchanted thing with the codex and your cards and get rid of all the Hauntings.”

  Alex looked at Benn. “We get the Tau back?” she asked.

  “You bet. We’re in this together. You, me and Merry.”

  They were ready to go. Benn was already aboard checking the ropes. Alex was about to jump in when she noticed something was missing. “Where are the oars?” she asked Benn.

  “Bother,” said Benn. “They’re still up on the harbor wall.”

  “I’ll get them,” Alex said, running up the steps. Benn had tied the oars to a ring in the rock, and the drenching of the rain had shrunk the rope. As Alex fumbled with the knot, she heard a shout from Benn. “Okay, okay!” she yelled.

  “Alex! Alex!” came another shout, and this time Alex heard the terror in Benn’s voice. She wheeled around in concern—and then she saw them: four white-headed, pointy-nosed, red-coated Jackal racing toward her, their mouths open, their yellow, razor-sharp fangs glistening.

  “Alex, run!” came a desperate shout from Benn. But it was too late. Already the Jackal were surrounding her; one dropped a lasso of rope over her and another pulled it tight against her waist, pinioning her arms to her sides.

  As Alex struggled, she saw Benn racing along the harbor wall toward her. “No!” she yelled at him. “Go away! Go!”

  But Benn took no notice. In seconds he was at Alex’s side, throwing himself at the Jackal. He knocked two down before he too had a lasso thrown over him and pulled viciously tight.

  Far above in the sitting room window, from behind her hands, which were covering her face in dismay, Palla watched two small figures being led across the causeway by the four red-coated Jackal. She forced herself to watch until they disappeared into the dark depths of the cliff and she was the last person left on Oracle Rock.

  Chapter 8

  A Dark Hour

  ZERRA WAS NOT HAVING MUCH luck. She’d tiptoed up the stairs to Hagos’s rooms, but the Jackal at the top had growled at her, even though she waved her King’s Spy wristband at it. She’d hung around for ages outside the Silver Tower waiting for someone to come out so she could follow them, but no one had. So how was she supposed to spy on the Enchanter and the so-called Hawke Meiste
r?

  Bored, Zerra had decided to check out the rest of the Inner Star. She had sat on a swing in a deserted playground covered in weeds, which was no fun because there were no little kids to take the swings from. She had wandered into an empty library, where bats roosted in the top shelves and dried bird poo crunched under her feet. She had even pulled out some books to look at, but their pages were swollen with damp and stuck together. The highlight had been finding a scruffy shop that had three limp cabbages, a sack of apples and some moldy-looking boxes of cookies for sale. It also had a jar of orange candy stuck together in lumps. She’d waved her wristband at the shopkeeper—an elderly man who, Zerra figured, was at least one hundred and fifty—and he had looked scared, which was nice. He had pulled out a lump of the candy, hit it with a hammer, put the pieces into a twist of paper and handed it to Zerra. Then he had said quite politely, “Now go away, please.” Which is what Zerra had done. The candy had tasted old and coated her teeth with gritty sugar.

  Zerra was resolutely chewing a large chunk of candy when she discovered something interesting—a gated flight of steps that led up to the battlements on the Inner Star wall. She opened the gate with her corkscrew key and headed up the steps to a small path that ran along the top of the wall. From her vantage point Zerra could see Mews Court below. To her left was the long roof of the falconry mews, at the end of which the tall wooden Hawke hut—where the giant Hawke had once roosted—rose up. Ahead was the high city wall, where two guards were waiting outside a small red door. Why, Zerra had no idea. But as she watched, the guards suddenly sprang into action. Fumbling with keys, they opened the door and jumped back. A Jackal holding a rope emerged and then, to Zerra’s astonishment, came Alex, with the rope around her, closely followed by more Jackal and her “boyfriend,” as Zerra thought of Benn—with a niggle of jealousy.

  Their task complete, the guards saluted the Jackal, locked the door and marched away. Zerra watched Alex and Benn being hustled across Mews Court. As they drew close, Zerra saw the fear in Alex’s eyes, and she felt just a little bit sorry for her—but she quickly pushed that away. It was all Alex’s fault, Zerra told herself. If Alex hadn’t put their whole family in danger by playing around with her Enchanted cards in Luma, where everyone knew Enchantment was forbidden, then she, Zerra, would still have a home with Ma, Francina and Louie. Zerra realized with a sharp pang that she had absolutely no idea what had happened to her older sister, Francina, and her little brother, Louie. That was not a good feeling.

  To get rid of the bad feeling, Zerra leaned out from the battlements and yelled down, “Hey, Alex! They got you—and your little boyfriend.”

  Zerra was pleased to see Alex jump in surprise, but she was less pleased at the expression in Alex’s eyes as she looked up at her. This was not the old Alex, always trying to be nice. This was a new, angry Alex, and it made Zerra uncomfortable.

  “He is not my boyfriend,” Alex yelled up. “Just like you are not my sister. You are a liar, a low-down sneak and a nasty little—”

  Alex’s tirade was cut off in full flow by a Jackal hand—humanlike, but with coarse fur and curved claws—shoved roughly over her mouth.

  “Yeah, shut her up!” Zerra yelled down. “Beguiler’s brat!” Suddenly aware of a figure in brightly colored silks approaching along the path, Zerra swung around guiltily. The silks reminded Zerra of her mother, and Ma did not like shouting. It was not, of course, her mother. But it was someone just as unsettling—King Belamus. He looked at Zerra with a pained expression and Zerra knew at once that the king did not like shouting either. She clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oops. Sorry,” she said.

  “What are you doing on my private walkway, Flyer?” the king demanded.

  Zerra waved her black and gold wristband at the king. “I’m your Spy,” she said airily. And then, noting that did not seem to have gone down too well, she added, “Sire.”

  King Belamus made a harrumphing sound and turned to look down at the scene some twenty feet below in the courtyard. “Aha,” he said, “the Beguiler brats from Oracle Rock. We have them!” He leaned over the battlements and called down, “Jackal! Take them to the dungeons!” All four Jackal jumped to attention, saluted—and let go of the lassos.

  Alex seized her chance.

  She wrenched free of the Jackal, launched herself at Benn and sent him staggering backward.

  “Stop her!” screamed the king.

  The Jackal leaped after her, but Alex wheeled around and threw a well-aimed punch at one and kicked out at the delicate legs of the other. They tumbled down on top of the other two and lay in a tangled heap of sticklike white limbs and swaths of red cloth. As the Jackal struggled to disentangle themselves, King Belamus screamed at them from above. “Idiots! Fools! Get them! Get the brats!”

  With the king’s screams echoing in her ears, Alex pulled Benn to his feet and, holding tightly on to his hand, she ducked into the shadows beside the falconry mews. She did not notice Ratchet emerging to see what the commotion was, or a group of guards come running—all she saw was the ground at her feet, and all she was thinking of was being one with the earth beneath her, one with all that she touched. Blocking out all around her, Alex felt the warm buzz of Enchantment course through her as her Fade kicked in and she knew she was now invisible. She looked down and saw how both their hands were shimmering with Enchantment. “We’re invisible now,” she whispered to Benn. “Just don’t let go of my hand, okay?”

  Not daring to speak, Benn nodded. It felt strange, he thought, being included in an Enchantment. He was not sure if he liked it much. It reminded him of the time his brother, Jay, had thrown him down the waterslide he had rigged up into the river—exciting, but also out of control.

  From his walkway on top of the Inner Star, King Belamus was panicking. “Beguilement, Beguilement! They have vanished! Vanished!”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Alex muttered. “Before they shut the city gates.”

  Uncannily, as if he had heard her, the king screamed out, “Shut the city gates! Shut the city gates!”

  Together Alex and Benn set off at a run, heading for the next courtyard, Gate Court, and the gates of Rekadom before they were closed.

  On the battlements the king wheeled around to Zerra. “You, girl!” he yelled. “Tell me where they’ve gone!”

  Zerra did not like the way the king called her “girl.” It was just plain rude. “How am I supposed to know?” she told him.

  King Belamus stared at Zerra, dumbstruck. No one talked to him like that—no one. Normally he would have thrown this girl into the dungeons and hurled the key into the Iron Tower. But unfortunately—for nothing would have given him more pleasure right then—she had powers he desperately needed. And so he screamed at Zerra, his high-pitched voice echoing around the empty arena, “You’re a Dark, you idiot. All Flyers are Dark. So tell me where they are!”

  King Belamus’s face was red with anger and Zerra saw that his hand was clenching the hilt of the silver dagger he wore on a little gold belt around his waist. She was going to have to say something fast—and it had better be the right thing, too. “I will pursue them, Sire,” she said. “And I will bring them to you. I promise.”

  King Belamus looked down at Zerra through half-closed eyes. “You had better. Dark.” Then he leaned over the battlements and gave a long hiss, like a snake. It was the creepiest sound Zerra had ever heard. Mesmerized at the weirdness of it, she watched the Jackal—who were stumbling to their feet—throw themselves back to the ground and lie on their stomachs, whining like dogs. “You, curs!” Belamus yelled down at them. “There will be no meat for you tonight. Go! Bar all the ways into the Inner Star. I want every door, gate, flap, hatch and trap, every little sneaky snicket, every guilty ginnel, locked, barred and bolted. Those Beguilers’ brats must not enter the Inner Star. I want them trapped out here.”

  Laughing, the king turned to go and noticed Zerra staring at him, openmouthed. “Why are you still here?” he demanded. “Track those brat
s down!” The king gave a tight little chuckle. “Bring them back to Mews Court. We will watch the Rocadiles eat well tonight.”

  “Yes, Sire!” Zerra sped off down the steps, aiming to get out of the king’s way as quickly as possible. She decided to go back to the old library and try to find a book to read. There was no way she was going looking for an invisible Alex and her creepy boyfriend. No way at all.

  Chapter 9

  Breathing Beguilers

  ALEX AND BENN COULD HEAR the gates of Rekadom being closed. They jumped through the star snicket—the point where the star-shaped inner walls touched the circle of the outside walls. It was a narrow gap with a high step in the form of a beautifully carved stone crocodile. Taking care not to let go of one another, they jumped down into Gate Court and raced across the open courtyard. Two guards with long, sharp javelins were slowly pushing the massive wooden gates closed, but they were clearly very heavy and it was slow work. Alex and Benn raced toward the narrowing gap between the gates, but as they drew near, Benn slipped on a loose pebble and sent it flying, skittering onto the foot of one of the guards.

  The guards sprang into an attacking stance, with their javelins pointing forward. “Halt! Who goes there?” they yelled in unison.

  Alex and Benn froze.

  The two guards—an older, stocky woman and a very young man covered in pimples—also froze. Stock-still, they scanned the courtyard, their gaze traveling blindly across Alex and Benn. There was a strained silence and then the pimply guard whispered, “It’s nothing, Auntie. Just the wind.”

  “I told you, don’t call me ‘Auntie’ on duty,” the older guard replied. “It’s unprofessional.”

  Her nephew blushed. “Sorry, Auntie,” he murmured.

  His aunt rolled her eyes and walked slowly forward, the shining razor-sharp tip of her javelin heading straight for Benn. Benn and Alex took a few careful steps back.