Wundersmith, The Calling of Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend

  “Let’s see,” she continued, shaking off her residual guilt, “there’s the kind of horrible where everyone else in my unit is having an amazing time and learning amazing things and I’m not. There’s the kind of horrible where the Scholar Mistress won’t approve any of the classes my conductor planned for me. My one teacher in my one class is the most boring person alive, and he’s mean, and he—”

  “Wait—what did you just say?” Jupiter looked suddenly serious and alert. He froze, his teacup halfway to his mouth.

  Morrigan sighed. “I know I shouldn’t call a teacher boring, but honestly, Jupiter, if you’d met him—”

  “No, not that—the thing about the Scholar Mistress,” he said, frowning deeply. “She hasn’t approved your timetable?”

  “No. It’s because she hates me and she thinks Miss Cheery’s trying to turn me into a weapon of mass destruction.” She rolled her eyes, wrapping a pork sausage in a slice of bread and smearing it with peppery horseradish. “The only class I’m allowed to do is History of Heinous Wundrous Acts with Professor Onstald, and all he does is make me read from this stupid book he wrote about how Wundersmiths are all evil, and then he gives loads of homework and it’s always more reading, and I’m so—”

  “What book?” asked Jupiter.

  Morrigan tried to remember the full title. She took a bite of her sausage-in-bread, and the horseradish was so hot it made her eyes water, giving her time to think while she recovered. “Missteps, Blunders… um, Fiascoes… Somethings… and Devastations: An Abridged History of the Wundrous Acts Spectrum. Oh! Monstrosities.”

  “Hmm.” Jupiter made a face. “Not a very cheerful title.”

  “Remember last year, when you said…” She faltered, suddenly unsure. “You said that Wundersmiths used to be good. That they were wish-granters and…”

  “Mmm?”

  “Well, I was just wondering.” Morrigan wasn’t sure how to put it delicately, so she didn’t bother. “Are you sure you’re right about that?”

  Jupiter smiled. “Quite sure.”

  “Are you, though?” she pressed. “Because I’m already twelve chapters in, and so far they’re all terrible.”

  He watched her for a moment. “Tell me about the other Wundersmiths in old Onstald’s book.”

  Morrigan looked up at the ceiling, reaching back into her memory.

  “Well, there was Mathilde Lachance,” she began, counting on her fingers. “And Rastaban Tarazed. Gracious Goldberry. Decima Kokoro—”

  “That name sounds familiar,” Jupiter said. “Tell me about Kokoro.”

  “Well… she liked to build things, but they all went wrong. She actually sounds a bit stupid, to be honest.” Jupiter raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “What? She does! There was this whole chapter about how she tried to make a building out of water—I mean, water, really!—and of course it was classified a Fiasco—”

  “You two are a fiasco,” said Fenestra, stretching out and scratching behind her ear with one huge, tufty paw. “Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”

  “Yes, I can see you’ve been sleeping here quite a lot.” Jupiter threw her a resentful look. “The floor’s got more cat fur than rug.”

  “Have you any idea how much Magnificat fur is worth?” Fen drawled, rubbing her head against the floor to dislodge a few more strands. “Sell it to the aristocracy; you’ll make a fortune.”

  “It’s only valuable if it’s still attached to your skin, Fenestra. I doubt you’d enjoy the removal process. Besides, it’s Magnificub fur those people want, you’re much too old and matted.” Fenestra opened one sleepy eye and hissed at him. Jupiter grinned, but then his face fell. “Oh. Speaking of which, have you heard anything?”

  Fenestra sighed. “Not yet. We’ve put the word out. Looked in all the usual places, shaken up the usual suspects. Hopefully he’s just a very clever cub who’s found himself a good hiding place.”

  Morrigan sat up straight. “Are you talking about Dr. Bramble’s missing Magnificub? Do you think he could have been stolen for his fur? That’s horrible.”

  “Probably just ran away,” said Fen, rolling sleepily onto her back. “And good on him, frankly. Bramble sounds like a drip.”

  “Miss Cheery said Dr. Bramble was distraught when he disappeared.” Morrigan remembered the affection she’d seen between them, that day in the lecture theater. “She seemed to really care about him, she had him in a nice basket and every—”

  “A nice basket?” Fen shot her a look of disdain. “A Magnificat is not a housecat.”

  Morrigan said nothing but looked pointedly from Fenestra, to the rug, to the fireplace. For not-a-housecat, Fen sure knew how to make herself comfortable.

  Jupiter swished his teacup and took a sip, staring into the fireplace. “The streets of Nevermoor are no place for a cub, though, Fen.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Fen snapped. “My lot have got a handle on it, all right? We’ll find him. End of.”

  “Your lot?” asked Morrigan. “Who’s your lot?”

  The Magnificat glared at her and rolled over, effectively ending the conversation. Morrigan stared at her enormous backside, wondering if she would ever fathom the surprising depths of Fenestra’s world. She was still reeling from last year’s discovery that Fen was a former Free State Ultimate Cage Fighting champion.

  Giving up on Fen, she turned to Jupiter instead. “Someone else disappeared too. Paximus Luck. Did you know?”

  “Mmm.” He had a cagey look about him, and Morrigan knew instantly there was something he couldn’t—or didn’t want to—say.

  “Oh! Is that where you’ve been?” She bounced up and down on her armchair. “It is, isn’t it? You’ve been looking for Paximus Luck!”

  He seemed to think about his answer for a long time. “No. I’ve been looking for Cassiel. I only heard about Pax from the Elders today.”

  “So they want you to help investigate?”

  “I can’t talk about it, Mog. That would be breaking the Elders’ trust.”

  “But are they connected, do you think?” she pressed.

  “Not sure. I doubt it, to be honest.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, go on—Kokoro’s building made of water. I’m fascinated.”

  “Oh, that.” Morrigan made a face.

  “Who classified it a Fiasco?”

  “Um, the Committee for the Classification of Wundrous Acts,” she said with a sigh. “They were the people who decided if a Wundersmith had done something bad, like a Misstep or a Blunder, or something terrible, like a Fiasco or a Monstrosity, or the worst thing they could do, which was a Devastation. And Cascade Towers was a Fiasco bordering on a Monstrosity, because anybody who tried to walk through the front doors got washed away or completely soaked and they couldn’t keep anything inside the building, of course, because it was too damp. So… yeah.” Morrigan finished with a shrug. “Kokoro was a bit of an idiot, really.”

  “But not evil?” said Jupiter.

  Morrigan considered this as she buttered the second half of her scone. “Maybe not evil. But definitely stupid.”

  “Who else?” he asked, leaning over on one elbow and hiding a smile behind his hand.

  “Odbuoy Jemmity built an adventure park.”

  He nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”

  “But that was definitely a Fiasco,” said Morrigan, rolling her eyes. “On the opening day there was this crowd of people and reporters all waiting to get inside, and they could see the roller coasters and water slides through the gates, and everybody was getting excited. But Jemmity never showed up, and the gates never opened, and nobody ever got to go inside.”

  Morrigan hated to agree with Professor Onstald, but truthfully, she was outraged at the very thought of it. An adventure park you could never go inside! Granted, she hadn’t visited an adventure park herself, but she could certainly imagine how much fun it might contain. How frustrating it would be to see all those marvelous rides and attractions and never be able to enjoy them. “So Jemm
ity was clearly also a bit stupid and selfish and—what?”

  Jupiter’s jaw was clenched, a sure sign that he was trying not to say something he really wanted to say. “I just…” he began, then paused to take a breath. “Look, I don’t have any proof to show you. But I suspect Professor Onstald might be giving you a rather”—he took a moment to search for the word—“lopsided version of Wundersmith history. I shall have to speak with the Scholar Mistress about it… and about the rest of your timetable,” he finished in a low, irritable mutter.

  “But Professor Onstald literally wrote the book on Wundersmith history—his name is on the cover! Who could know more about Wundersmiths than he does? Have you met any?”

  Jupiter rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, no, but Wundersmith history goes back hundreds of years—thousands. They can’t all have been bad, can they? Not in all that time.”

  Morrigan slumped back in her chair, her brow knotted in frustration. “So, you’re just guessing, then.”

  “Look.” Jupiter sighed and ran a hand through his long ginger hair, roughing it up a little. “There have been some dodgy Wundersmiths, Mog, I grant you that. Ezra Squall chiefly among them. A lot of Wundersmith history has been lost, and what remains of lost history—the stuff people remember longest—is usually the worst of it. There are things we just can’t know for sure. I know Professor Onstald’s one of the few people alive who remembers what it was like to live in the time of Wundersmiths, and I certainly don’t wish to impugn his teaching methods—he is a respected member of the Society—but I don’t believe he has the full story. I can’t believe it’s that black-and-white.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  “Neither can Onstald, Mog! He wasn’t there for all of it.” There was a note of desperation in Jupiter’s voice now. He sounded just like a man who knew he was losing his audience. “The city of Nevermoor was created by Wundersmiths through the Ages. I refuse to believe they were all wicked or useless. Nevermoor’s still standing, after all. It’s still the greatest city in the Unnamed Realm. In all the generations of Wundersmiths who built it from the ground up, there must have been some good.”

  Morrigan felt her heart sink to the floor. Must have been. She brooded for a minute over the uncertainty of those words, listening to the fire crackling in the hearth and the soft rumble of Fen’s snoring. She could feel Jupiter watching her over the rim of his teacup.

  “So,” she said finally, “when you said last year that Wundersmiths were good once… that they were revered and… and all that other stuff you said”—she shook her head, looking down at the floor—“you really had no idea.”

  “Mog, listen to me. I know that Wundersmiths can be good.” He leaned forward and fixed her with a serious, searching look. “I know it because I know you. You are a Wundersmith. And you are good. I don’t need any more proof than that.”

  Morrigan sipped her tea and wished she felt the same way.

  The next morning, Jupiter was gone again.

  “Who needed him this time, Kedge?” she asked the concierge, who’d delivered Jupiter the message that had sent him running off again.

  “Oh, some hoity-toity little upstart from the League of Explorers,” said Kedgeree. “They won’t leave him alone at the moment. Oi—hands off the desk, miss, I’ve just polished that.”

  “Sorry.” Morrigan stopped drawing frowny faces with her finger on the shiny marble concierge desk, sighed, and slumped away.

  She supposed it would be selfish to complain if Jupiter was helping to search for missing people, but even so, she couldn’t help feeling put out. He’d only just got back, after all, and she hadn’t had a chance to tell him all she’d meant to. They hadn’t talked about the mystery door or Station 919 or lovely Miss Cheery. She’d wanted to ask Jupiter if he had been in the School of Mundane or Arcane Arts (her guess was Arcane), and why he thought she’d been put in the Mundane school, and what exactly was so mundane about being a Wundersmith.

  Morrigan slid onto a pink velvet love seat in the busy lobby, cutting a dramatic figure as she gazed up at the blackbird chandelier. Her view was suddenly interrupted by an enormous furry face, with tufty whiskers and a pair of glowering amber eyes.

  “Fen!” she cried, clutching her chest and sitting bolt upright. “Don’t do that, you nearly scared me to death.”

  “Good,” said the gigantic gray cat with a scowl. “If you die of fright, perhaps I won’t have to play the role of lowly messenger on the whims of our eccentric proprietor anymore. As if I don’t have better things to do.”

  Morrigan shook her head. “What are you talking—”

  “He wanted me to pass on a message,” Fen growled. “He says he’s going to find proof. He says he doesn’t need it, but he knows you do. So he’s going to find it, no matter how long it takes.”

  Fen paused for a moment, as if reluctant to deliver the next part.

  Finally, with a deep sigh and a hearty roll of her eyes, she added, “He pinky promises. Blech, revolting.”

  Fen skulked away, presumably to wash out her mouth, and Morrigan lay back against the cushions. Above her the chandelier beat its silent wings, steadfast on its flight path, radiating light across the floor. Her heart lifted, just a little.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE LIVING MAP

  That patron of yours is a bit good, isn’t he?”

  Miss Cheery was grinning from ear to ear when Morrigan boarded Hometrain on Monday morning. She held a timetable, waving it gleefully.

  Morrigan took it, then sat on an old couch next to Hawthorne. In addition to her dreaded lessons with Professor Onstald every day that week, she also had a new class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.

  “‘Decoding Nevermoor: How to Successfully Navigate the Free State’s Most Dangerous and Ridiculous City,’” she read aloud.

  Hawthorne peered over her shoulder. “I’ve got that one too! Decoding Nevermoor with Henry Mildmay, in the Map Room, Sub-Three, Practicalities Department. Excellent.”

  “So have I,” said Anah from across the carriage. She sounded rather less pleased about it than Hawthorne. There was a rustling of timetables as the others went to compare their lessons.

  “Yes, you’ll all be decoding Nevermoor together.” Miss Cheery clapped her hands with delight. “This morning Ms. Dearborn told me she’s decided that ALL NINE of you need to learn how to get around the city if you’re going to be ‘useful human beings.’” Her eyes flicked briefly upward. “So, you get to have a class together as a unit, at last! Isn’t it marvelous?”

  Apparently it was not marvelous, judging by the faces around her. Francis and Mahir were gazing determinedly at the floor, while Thaddea looked openly appalled.

  Anah—who always took the farthest seat from Morrigan on their brief trips to and from Station 919—seemed positively terrified at the thought of spending any more time in a confined space with the dreaded Wundersmith.

  But nothing was going to dampen Morrigan’s spirits. She finally had a lesson that wasn’t about how evil Wundersmiths were, and it was with Hawthorne. It was a start.

  When they arrived at Proudfoot Station, Morrigan made sure she was the last to leave Hometrain.

  “Thank you,” she said to Miss Cheery, indicating her timetable. “Really.”

  The conductor winked at her. “Thank the bearded wonder. I don’t know what Captain North said to convince the Scholar Mistress, but it was all down to him, I’m sure of it.”

  As the most underscheduled member of Unit 919, Morrigan was the first to make it to the Map Room for their lesson that afternoon. When she pushed open the heavy polished wooden doors into a huge, circular room with a domed ceiling, her heart gave a little leap. It was aptly named—every single surface in the room was a map. The dome itself was painted like the night sky, a dark blue chart of the heavens with each twinkling constellation marked and named: ALTHAF THE DANCER, GURITA MINOR, CRAIG, GOYATHLAY THE WAKEFUL…

  Along the curving walls, Morrigan tra
iled her fingertips over the bumpy topography of the Highlands, on to the tiny, bristly trees of the Zeev Forest, and through the gently lapping waves of the Black Cliffs coastline. She snatched her hand back at the unexpected texture—the oceans on the map were wet. Morrigan pressed a finger to her lips; the water was salty.

  But these were all just warm-up acts, compared with the main event. The center of the enormous room was dominated by an irregular-shaped structure covered in what looked like little dolls’ houses and surrounded by a raised walkway made of glass. Morrigan climbed up three steps and leaned against the railing that separated her from what she realized, with a gasp, was the most extraordinary map she’d ever seen.

  It was Nevermoor. The entire city of Nevermoor, laid before her in precise miniature. There were tiny winding streets lined with perfectly built shops and houses, pockets of greenery dotting the landscape here and there, and the mighty River Juro snaking through the center of the city.

  Morrigan leaned over the glass rail; the tiny people on the streets were moving! Hyperrealistic and barely an inch tall, they were riding their bicycles in the parks, carrying their shopping bags down Grand Boulevard, hailing the Brolly Rail. Flocks of tiny seagulls gathered at the docks, and little boats sailed down the Juro. A large black cloud hovered over the southern end of the city, drizzling rain onto the streets below, and Morrigan saw the tiny map people pulling out their umbrellas and hurrying to find cover.

  It was a perfect representation of Nevermoor in microscopic, moving detail. Not just a model town or a dollhouse village… a living, breathing, three-dimensional city.

  “How does it look out there? Still raining?”

  Morrigan jumped. She turned to see a bright-eyed, pink-cheeked young man rushing into the Map Room, his shirt half untucked. He abandoned his satchel on the floor and ran up the steps to the walkway, where he leaned over the glass rail beside Morrigan, gazing eagerly down at the miniature city. His golden-brown bangs flopped down in his eyes, and he brushed them back.