Wundersmith, The Calling of Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  STOLEN MOMENTS

  It was different this time. The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow had stolen Morrigan once before—last winter, after her final Wundrous Society trial. It had felt like being tossed on the waves of a black-smoke ocean, or swept away by a hurricane of shadows, or tumbled over and over in an endless, dizzying tunnel, until finally the Hunt had dropped her on the Gossamer Line platform. Laid her at the Wundersmith’s feet, like a dog brings a dead rat to its master.

  But now, seated in front of the towering ember-eyed huntsman, Morrigan felt more like an arrow that had been shot from a bow. The shadow-horse carrying them moved at such impossible speed they might have been flying through the Gossamer. City lights streamed past in their wake, and the wind roared in Morrigan’s ears, deafening her.

  And then it stopped.

  There was silence but for the sound of Morrigan’s own rapid breathing. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. The huntsman had disappeared, and she was standing alone inside a cavernous hall. Pockets of light reflected in the marble floor, flickering from lanterns bracketed on the walls.

  Morrigan walked the length of the room, her heart thumping, each footstep echoing. It was lined with snow globes. Not the tiny little ones you can shake in your hands. Looming, life-sized snow globes. Each one carried inside it a tableau of life—sculptures of men, women, children, Wunimals and unnimals, beautifully crafted in their own fascinating little scenes and poses. Encased in glass and shrouded in swirling, snowy mists that never slowed and never settled.

  A woman swimming in the ocean.

  A wolfhound curled up by a fireplace.

  Two young men embracing beneath a gaslight.

  Morrigan pressed her nose against the glass cradling the woman and the ocean. She was beautiful, her face a perfect oval emerging from dark blue waves, eyes to the sky. The scene was so lifelike Morrigan felt she could almost dive into the ocean and swim alongside her. She held both hands to the glass dome, feeling a strange sort of loneliness, right in her chest.

  “You’re not supposed to touch the exhibits,” said a soft voice from behind her.

  Morrigan spun round, inhaling sharply.

  A familiar face, inches from her own. Pale and ordinary but for the small white scar splitting one eyebrow down the middle.

  Ezra Squall. The Wundersmith.

  (The other Wundersmith, Morrigan amended in her head.)

  She stumbled backward into the glass of the snow globe, looking left and right for an escape route. Every inch of her was tensed, ready to flee, but her brain hadn’t yet caught up to her body. She felt slow and stupid, and all she could think about was the face in front of her. The face of the evilest man who’d ever lived.

  But… was Squall really here? Had he found a way back into Nevermoor after all these years in exile? Or was this the same trick he’d pulled last year, when his ghostly form had visited Nevermoor on the Gossamer Line, pretending to be his own assistant, the kind and mild-mannered Mr. Jones?

  There was, most unfortunately, only one way to find out.

  With the deep reluctance of someone trying to pet a rabid dog, Morrigan reached out one tentative, trembling hand. She steeled herself, half expecting to hit the warmth and solidity of a human body, and preparing to run if it happened… but her hand fell straight through Squall’s shoulder as if he were made of air.

  Gossamer Line, she thought, closing her eyes in relief. Squall’s real body was still safely back in the Wintersea Republic, far away, locked outside Morrigan’s city where he could do no harm to her, or to anyone else in Nevermoor. She realized she’d been holding her breath, and she heard Mildmay’s voice in the back of her head. Step one: STAY CALM. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Squall gave a rueful smile. “Hello again, Miss Crow.”

  “Where am I?” Morrigan demanded. She was surprised and relieved to hear that her voice wasn’t shaking, even if her hands were.

  “I do hope the huntsman minded his manners.” He spoke in a pleasant, conversational tone. They could have been strangers discussing the weather.

  “Where am I?” she repeated, and this time her voice gave the tiniest tremor. She clenched her jaw.

  Squall held out his arms, gesturing around the hall. “The Museum of Stolen Moments. Heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “No. Of course you haven’t. This is a Spectacle.” He paused, and gave a careless little shrug. “I hear you’ve been receiving a rather substandard education. Thought I’d do you a favor. Expand your horizons a little.”

  Morrigan said nothing. She forced her face to remain expressionless, but how did he know anything about her education at Wunsoc? Had he been traveling here on the Gossamer, watching her in secret? Or did he have spies to do that for him?

  “Personally,” continued Squall, casually running his ghostlike hand through the ocean inside the globe, “I always thought the Committee for the Classification of Wundrous Acts got it wrong on this occasion. A Spectacle is something that inspires awe and delight, something that baffles the brain. The Museum of Stolen Moments is much more than that. It ought to have been declared a Phenomenon, or at least a Singularity.”

  Spectacle, Phenomenon, Singularity… Morrigan had no idea what he was talking about. She opened her mouth to ask, then snapped it shut. She would not be drawn. She would not be lured into any kind of discussion with this monster. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for the best means of escape. Should she run? Or would he just call back the Hunt?

  Squall was silent for a moment, lost in his thoughts. “She had such a talent,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  It was the curious wistful note in his voice that made Morrigan give in. Inwardly cursing herself, she asked the obvious question. “Who?”

  “Mathilde Lachance. The Wundersmith who created all of this. It’s a masterpiece, don’t you think? It must have required the use of at least five of the Wretched Arts. Nocturne, of course, and Weaving. Tempus, probably Veil, maybe even…” He cut himself off, catching sight of Morrigan’s face. Her expression must have betrayed the hunger she felt at hearing those words, the sudden click in her mind as she recalled what Murgatroyd had said in the Elders’ Hall—someone must teach the little beast her Wretched Arts—and she remembered at last where she’d heard those words before. From Squall himself, last year at Crow Manor. He had called them “the Wretched Arts of the Accomplished Wundersmith.” He had offered to teach them to Morrigan, and she had declined.

  Squall smiled. “Ah. But I mustn’t give too much away. They wouldn’t like that, would they? Your Wundrous Society.” He said the last two words with palpable disdain. Morrigan tried to hide her disappointment, while memorizing those four precious words he’d let slip—Nocturne, Weaving, Tempus, Veil. Nocturne, Weaving, Tempus, Veil. What did they mean?

  “How are you enjoying life at Wunsoc?” His voice was casual. He began to pace back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back. “Is it everything you dreamed of and more? I hear your fellow scholars are acquiring knowledge and skills the likes of which they’d never imagined. Before you know it, they’ll all be experts in their fields, famous the realm over. The greatest living dragonrider. Nevermoor’s foremost linguist. A mesmerist of unparalleled talent.” He turned to Morrigan with sad eyes and an exaggerated pout. “And you, a child forbidden to use her strength or develop her gifts. Curbed and controlled by the very people who fear her the most.”

  Morrigan shook her head. “That’s not—they don’t fear me, they just… it’s for my own…”

  Morrigan trailed off as she saw the Wundersmith’s eyes light up with some mixture of amusement and outrage. “Your own what? Your own safety? Your own good, your own protection? Oh dear. I see you’ve learned to lie a little better. At least to yourself.”

  She didn’t respond. He was right, and she couldn’t bring herself to deny it. The Elders were afraid of her.

  Squall was watching her carefully. He knew he’d touched a ner
ve. “And what has your hunchback professor taught you, hmm? Tell me what you’ve learned about those wicked, wily Wundersmiths of old.”

  “I’m not telling you anything, and he’s not a hunchback, he’s a tortoisewun,” Morrigan snapped, then cursed herself again for letting him goad her into conversation. She squeezed her hands into fists. Stay calm. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “To do just what a Wundersmith does.” One corner of Squall’s mouth twisted into a quarter-smile. He’d stopped pacing and was standing in front of a snow globe that held four gleeful young men hanging out the sides of a careening motorcar, the wind blowing back their hair. “To grant your fondest wish. To give you the thing you want more than anything else.”

  “And what’s that?” Morrigan asked through gritted teeth.

  “An education.” He resumed his pacing. “That’s what you were wishing for just now, down the bottom of that dark, dead-end alley, was it not? So. Welcome to your second lesson. Would you like to learn how to summon Wunder?”

  She wanted to say no. She wanted to spit right through his incorporeal face, to flee the museum and go straight back to Wunsoc. The rest of her unit would surely have made it back by now, and they’d fail the exam unless everyone was present. Yet another reason for them to be angry at her. Morrigan wondered what had happened to Francis and Mahir, if they’d waited, if they’d also entered the alley… no, she thought. Probably not.

  But Hawthorne, at least, would be worried about her. Possibly even Cadence. She needed to get back and let them know she was all right.

  But the temptation to stay was overwhelming. The High Council of Elders was committed to keeping Morrigan’s power locked up and leashed. Onstald refused to give her even the smallest bit of useful information. Even Jupiter, who’d sworn he would prove to her that Wundersmiths weren’t all terrible, had come up with nothing.

  And here was Ezra Squall, Nevermoor’s greatest enemy, offering Morrigan the key.

  Would you like to learn how to summon Wunder?

  Something deep inside her stirred.

  “Yes or no, Miss Crow?” Squall prompted. His complacent expression told Morrigan that he already knew the answer but wanted to hear it from her.

  She sighed, and then said in a low, reluctant voice, “Yes.”

  “The first of the Wretched Arts, then, and perhaps the most important.” He clapped his hands together and went to stand in the very center of the hall, as if it were a stage. He raised his voice, letting it fill the cavernous museum. “The Wretched Art of Nocturne. The summoning of Wunder. Singing to make it so.”

  Singing? It sounded like a joke. Singing was for people like Dame Chanda. For the Angel Israfel. Surely it was not one of the Wretched Arts of the Accomplished Wundersmith.

  Squall held up a hand for silence. “Little crowling, little crowling,” he sang softly, “with button-black eyes.”

  A chill crept along the back of Morrigan’s neck. She’d heard him sing this song before. Last winter, on the Gossamer Line platform. Moments before he’d swept her away on the blinding Gossamer train, back to the Republic. Back to Crow Manor, where Squall had threatened her family. Morrigan took a deep breath and rooted her feet to the ground, trying to fight the sudden urge to flee.

  “Swoops down into the meadow, where the rabbits all hide.” Squall moved his fingers slightly in midair. His eyes were closed. “Little rabbit, little rabbit…” He trailed off, opening his eyes to look down at his hand with interest. “It’s like training a dog, you see. Except the dog isn’t a dog. It’s a monster. And the monster has ideas of its own. Can you see it?”

  “Wunder is invisible,” said Morrigan warily.

  “Invisible when dormant, yes,” he conceded. “But summoned Wunder shows itself to summoner and smith, the old saying goes. Meaning when Wunder answers the call of a Wundersmith, it creates… a sort of agreement with the summoner.”

  “An agreement… to show itself?”

  “Precisely.” He nodded, closely watching the movements of his own hand. “And although Wunder is intelligent, it doesn’t discriminate. Once it’s been summoned, any old Wundersmith can see it. Summoner and smith, you see? But only if you’re paying attention. Only if you know what to look for.”

  Morrigan gasped. She could see it—a tiny, shimmering thread of golden-white light that Squall weaved in his hand. It swam between his fingers like an eel. She watched, mesmerized, as he lifted his hand and blew away the little strand like a puff of dandelion seeds. It scattered to the wind and disappeared.

  She already knew what Wunder looked like, of course. Jupiter had shown her last year, after she’d safely returned from Crow Manor. He’d pressed his forehead to hers, and for one blazing moment, she had seen the world—and herself—as her patron did. The Wunder that had gathered around her was blinding. This tiny little thread on its own was different, but no less astonishing. No less beautiful.

  “Your turn.” Squall gestured to the center of the room and backed away, surrendering the stage. “Sing.”

  Morrigan shook her head, horrified. “I can’t sing.”

  “Wunder doesn’t care. You can’t offend it.” He snorted. “You can’t be worse than old Owain Binks. Every time he summoned Wunder, people came running because they thought someone was being murdered. Come now, sing something. Hurry up.”

  She hesitated, and then began shakily, “Little crowling—”

  “NO!” He held up both hands to stop her, rushing forward. Morrigan shrank away, and he stopped abruptly. “No. Not that. Each Wundersmith must have their own, individual way of calling Wunder. Choose another song.”

  “I don’t know any other songs,” she protested.

  “Nonsense,” Squall said impatiently. “Everyone knows at least one. Didn’t your worthless family ever sing you a lullaby? Think back to your days as a mewling, red-faced infant.”

  Morrigan was about to roll her eyes at the thought of her father or grandmother ever doing anything so foolish as singing her a lullaby, when she was struck by a sudden, vivid memory.

  She was young—maybe six or seven. Her tutor at the time was Mrs. Duffy, the latest in a never-ending string of hapless men and women her father had brought to Crow Manor to teach Morrigan reading, writing, and arithmetic… or, more truthfully, to keep her out of his way so that he could carry on pretending she didn’t exist. Most of Morrigan’s tutors had been content to avoid direct contact with Morrigan and never meet her eyes during their lessons. Some had gone further to protect themselves from the curse—Miss Linford had insisted on keeping a door between herself and Morrigan, just to be safe.

  But this one was different. Rather than avoiding Morrigan, Mrs. Duffy seemed to feel it was her duty to constantly remind her of the drain she was on society and on her family. What a dreadful burden she was, what a danger she presented to everyone around her—to everyone in the Unnamed Realm—just by having been born.

  Mrs. Duffy had taught Morrigan a song, and whenever Morrigan failed a quiz, or misbehaved, or spoke out of turn, she would make her sing it. Over and over again, until the tutor told her to stop.

  It had been an awful, frightening song to Morrigan when she was very young. But it was the only song she knew all the words to. They were burned indelibly into her brain.

  She began to sing in a quiet, hesitant voice.

  “Morningtide’s child is merry and mild.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Eventide’s child is wicked and wild.”

  Squall cocked his head to one side, a deep frown etched into his forehead.

  “Morningtide’s child arrives with the dawn,” Morrigan continued. Her singing was dreadful, but her voice projected into the vast space and became stronger with every note. “Eventide’s child brings gale and storm.”

  Squall took a step toward her. He looked like he was remembering something.

  “Where are you going, o son of the morning?” he sang softly. When he sang, Squall’s voice was unsettlingly gentle and sweet. Much lovelier t
han Morrigan’s. It shouldn’t sound like that, she thought. It should sound ugly and jagged. Like his heart.

  She took a shaky breath.

  “Up with the sun where the winds are warming.” Morrigan paused, wanting to stop, but then… there was a sudden feeling like static electricity in her fingertips. A slight hum of resistance, like pressing into a strong wind. She looked up at Squall.

  He nodded his encouragement, eyes gleaming, and sang, “Where are you going, o daughter of night?”

  Morrigan waved her hands back and forth a little, testing the sensation. It felt like beams of moonlight were dancing through her fingers. “Deep down below where the pale things bite.”

  Wunder had been waiting for her. That was what Jupiter had said.

  Waiting for me to do what?

  I guess we’ll see.

  This was what it had been waiting for. She’d thought it would be difficult to summon Wunder, but it was like… it wanted to be summoned. It gathered fast—a hundred tiny threads made of a million tiny specks of light, surrounding her head and body… swimming, skimming lightly over her. It was quick and curious. It felt alive.

  “Concentrate on your hands,” said Squall.

  Wunder was eager to please. As soon as he said the words, as soon as the idea entered Morrigan’s mind, the floating golden threads seemed to gravitate toward her outstretched, upturned hands, pooling in her palms like sunbeams made liquid.

  That was just what Wunder felt like. Like being warmed by the sun, like holding pure energy. Like being pure energy. Morrigan’s hands vibrated. She couldn’t even see them anymore, she could only see the Wunder engulfing them like strange, amorphous gloves. Two clouds of light. It made her feel strange. Powerful, and yet somehow under siege at the same time.

  And now that she’d summoned it, she didn’t know what to do with it.

  “How do I make it stop?”