Curtis marched over to the reception desk and spoke urgently with the underguards sitting behind it. The officers watching Ivy and the others stood up and went over to join them.
‘We don’t have much time,’ Johnny Hands said, sitting down on a seat opposite them. He leaned forward, gathering them around. ‘Alexander Brewster’s been charged. The officers here believe there’s plenty of evidence to have him convicted, so I doubt he’ll be trying to kill you again any time soon.’
Ivy felt conflicted at the news. She knew that Alexander needed to pay for his crimes. And yet … the overwhelming feeling she had when she thought about him wasn’t anger, it was pity. She wanted to believe there was still hope in the future for him.
‘Turns out Alexander wasn’t very loyal to the Dirge,’ Johnny Hands added. ‘He actually gave us the identity and location of Nightshade in exchange for a nicer cell. We’ve deployed a team of agents to go and arrest her.’
So Nightshade is a woman, Ivy thought, but then her surprise and relief were tainted by another reflection: having another member of the Dirge unmasked was a positive step, but it didn’t solve the bigger problem. ‘What about Monkshood and the Sword of Wills?’ she asked.
‘That is slightly more complicated,’ Johnny Hands admitted. ‘But it’s not for you to worry about. My orders are to send you and your brother home.’
‘Home?’ Seb’s voice faltered. ‘You mean, London?’
‘London, the Big Smoke, Thames City – whatever you want to call it. Agent Curtis has organized everything with your parents, who are expecting you back today. I thought you’d be concerned about them, so I’ve pulled a few strings and arranged for a couple of Special Branch officers to be stationed outside your house in case Octavius Wrench turns up.’ Johnny Hands gave Valian and Judy a wonky smile. ‘You’re both free to join them, if you like.’
Valian shook his head. ‘Er – thanks, but I’ve got somewhere to be.’
‘Me too,’ Judy said, her shoulders drooping as she looked across at Ivy and Seb.
‘We can’t go home yet,’ Ivy told Johnny Hands. ‘There’s something we need to do.’
He winced. ‘I thought you might say that. The thing is … your parents aren’t considered high-priority assets, but you are. The only way to protect them is for you all to be in the same building. So, if you remain here, those Special Branch officers will be deployed on other duties and your parents will be all on their own.’
Ivy flashed her brother a panicked look. The Dirge could attack London at any moment and their parents would be defenceless … Then again, they couldn’t abandon Valian now. Four heads were better than two: they’d have a better chance of finding Rosie if they stuck together.
‘Curtis has arranged for you to travel to London via uncommon drawer,’ Johnny Hands explained. ‘Whatever your decision, I wish you luck. In the meantime, I have work to do. Goodbye, Ivy Sparrow.’
After the furore of the morning’s celebrations, the streets of Nubrook were quiet. The shops had shut early, but a few bars and restaurants were open, a sprinkling of customers watching sport on huge materializers inside. Steam fragranced with roast turkey escaped from the occasional kitchen window and chatter spilled from terraces. Ivy wondered how many of Nubrook’s residents had changed their traditional Thanksgiving Day plans after the events on top of Breath Falls.
After returning from Guesthouse Swankypants with a small bundle of singed clothes, Curtis escorted Ivy and Seb to the drawer-station. Walking alongside them, Judy and Valian were unusually quiet.
‘Keep up, you four!’ Curtis called from up ahead.
Every time Ivy caught the look of disappointment on Valian’s face, the bagel she’d nibbled at the underguard station that morning threatened to reappear. With time running out, in the end she and Seb had agreed to Curtis’s plan. Ivy’s stomach tightened as they walked past a troop of severe-looking underguards marching in the opposite direction. There were more around than normal. Groups of two or three stood on street corners, patrolling with their toilet brushes on show. Ivy guesstimated the size of the underguard force in Lundinor and wondered whether there would be enough of them to defend London from the Dirge’s army.
They passed the bench that Seb had turned into an Andy Warhol installation with Rosie’s MISSING posters. As Ivy studied the different coloured versions of Rosie’s picture, a new detail suddenly jumped out at her. ‘Seb, hold still.’
She took out her ping-pong ball and threw it at his back: Rosie’s poster appeared on his hoodie. He yanked it up at the shoulders to see what she’d done. ‘Ivy!’
‘It’s important,’ she told him. ‘I need to take a closer look at the photo and I can’t slow everyone down.’
As they walked, Ivy examined Rosie’s necklace with fresh consideration. It had a metallic rope chain and a large pendant featuring a black crystal in a silver mount. ‘Valian,’ she asked, ‘that necklace Rosie is wearing – do you have another photo of it?’
Valian took a fifty-pence coin from his pocket and flipped it over between his fingers. A different image of Rosie appeared with each turn. Ivy knew that uncommon coins were used a bit like photo albums. ‘No, I don’t think so. She’s not wearing it in any of these.’ He looked again at Seb’s back. ‘Why do you ask?’
Ivy hesitated, thinking of the discussion she’d had with Seb about the strange ‘bathed in breath’ phrase from Amos’s riddle. ‘The rhyme in Amos’s journal – “crystal droplet, bathed in breath, clasped within silver hands” … well, Rosie’s necklace would fit the bill perfectly. Her crystal pendant has a silver frame; and wearing it around her neck, she’d breathe on it all the time.’
‘You think her necklace is the Sands of Change?’ Judy had skated closer and was resting a hand on Seb’s shoulder to examine the photo too.
‘Look, I could just take my hoodie off,’ Seb pointed out as they continued to peer at his back. ‘That way we could all see.’
Valian rubbed his forehead. ‘I wish I could remember more clearly what I saw through the Frozen Telescope. There might have been a necklace on that table …’
‘If there was, it could easily have slipped off when you and Rosie jumped out at your parents – and it would be the right size to fit in Rosie’s pocket,’ Ivy said, easing the facts into place. ‘Is it something she would have been likely to take?’
‘She liked glitter and sparkly stuff, so yeah.’ Valian looked again at Rosie’s photo, his brow hardening.
‘Hold everything,’ Judy said, lifting an uncommon cufflink closer to her face. ‘The coordinates on these have changed – Mr Rife has moved. Here, take this …’
She unfolded a world map from her pocket and gave it to Valian, then relayed the numbers. ‘He’s in Tibet,’ Valian said, tracing his finger across the page. ‘Strassa.’
Ivy peered closer. The gradient lines on the map were compactly spaced, indicating steep mountains. She remembered seeing the advert for Strassa on the boarded-up shop two days ago – THE WORLD’S FIRST SKYMART! ‘That’s above ground,’ she observed. ‘It’ll have natural light, so Octavius Wrench could exist there without help from Alexander’s potion.’
‘There’s no time to lose,’ Valian said, folding the map away and stuffing it in his pocket. ‘Judy, we have to leave now. Ivy, Seb … get home safe.’ Then he turned in the opposite direction. Judy smiled weakly at Ivy and Seb before she and Valian hurried away.
Ivy’s legs twitched, wanting to join them. She felt awful.
Curtis, Seb and Ivy turned into a marble courtyard where stationmasters in red uniforms were standing in a grid formation. Resting beside each of them was a chest of drawers, every drawer labelled with a different number. Uncommoners stood waiting between the chests, fidgeting and chatting. Ivy assumed it was the equivalent of a major transport depot.
Curtis approached a mirrored dressing table with six drawers. The stationmaster dipped his head. ‘Miss?’
‘These two are to travel to drawer 262 in London,’ she t
old him. ‘I will be accompanying them.’ She gave him a piece of paper stamped with the forked-arrow crest.
The stationmaster read it quickly. ‘As you wish.’ He handed them each a ticket and signalled to chest number 36. ‘Please join that queue.’
Curtis herded Ivy and Seb over, checking the faces in the crowds. Ivy examined her ticket. It had been stamped with two words: ONE JOURNEY.
‘I wonder if there’s a drawer in one of these chests that goes to Strassa,’ Seb whispered in her ear.
‘What difference does it make?’ Ivy asked, watching Curtis double-check she had her common mobile phone stowed in her pocket. ‘Mum and Dad are at home, waiting for us. You heard what Johnny Hands said: they’ll only be protected if we’re with them.’
‘We can’t just sit at home waiting for New Dawn to happen,’ Seb argued. ‘I’ve been thinking: maybe the best way to safeguard our parents is to help save Rosie first. The Dirge are still hunting for her and the Sands of Change; if we can find her before they do, we can stop them from using another of the Great Uncommon Good. That might give the Tidemongers and the underguards a better chance of defeating them.’
‘I don’t …’ Ivy hesitated, feeling torn. The last thing she wanted to do was destroy the one chance their parents had of being safe when New Dawn began … but Rosie’s life was at stake too. And Seb was right: if the Dirge got hold of the Sands of Change, they would be unstoppable.
London or Strassa? Both options seemed like the right thing to do, but Ivy could only pick one. In the end she listened to the sinking feeling in her gut that had started when Valian and Judy left. ‘You’re right,’ she told her brother. ‘We should be with Valian. We’ve got to see this through to the end.’
Seb lowered his head to Ivy’s pocket. ‘Scratch, buddy, you listening? Can you read Farrow’s Guide and see which one of these things goes to Strassa?’
Ivy’s coat vibrated. ‘One hundred and sixty-six,’ Scratch said in a muffled voice.
‘I can see it.’ Ivy pointed to a rickety wooden chest with a fabric top, a little way along in the same row. ‘We’ll have to switch drawers at the last minute, once Curtis is inside the drawer to London.’
The stationmaster checked his pocket watch before finally opening the top drawer in the chest. Ivy scrutiized the uncommoners queuing in front, who took it in turns to board. ‘Adults to load first, please,’ the stationmaster instructed. ‘They take up more space.’
The pavement rumbled as their bodies turned into tiny golden lights that flew into the drawer, like dust being sucked into a vacuum cleaner.
Ivy transferred Scratch to her satchel and nervously adjusted her coat as they approached the head of the line.
‘First time?’ the stationmaster asked her and Seb. ‘You won’t feel a thing. Just place your hand inside the drawer. After you, madam.’
Curtis assessed Ivy and Seb carefully. ‘I’ll be waiting for you in there. Just be quick,’ and she scanned the nearby faces one last time before moving her hands into the drawer.
Ivy noticed Curtis’s headscarf ruffle as a strange wind passed over her, and then, with a golden flash, she disappeared. Ivy went leaden with guilt, hoping they were about to do the right thing. ‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing Seb’s hand. ‘Let’s go and save Rosie.’
The drawer to Strassa was dark and smelled overwhelmingly of talcum powder, making Ivy’s nose twitch. She tried to peel her foot away from someone’s thigh, but there was no other space to put it. She understood now what Valian had meant by ‘those impossibly cramped drawers’.
‘Scooos mee,’ Seb mumbled in a muffled voice. Ivy glimpsed him a few bodies away, his sweaty forehead pressed against the shoulder of a woman wearing a flamenco dress. She wondered how Curtis was faring in the drawer to London, and whether she’d realized that Ivy and Seb wouldn’t be joining her.
There was a loud rumble, and then clear light appeared in the cracks between passengers. Other people started shuffling; Ivy felt a stream of hot air circle about her. Light flashed all around, and before she knew it she was crouching on an area of pavement, surrounded by people in Hobsmatch.
‘I can’t believe uncommoners actually pay to travel like that,’ Seb grumbled next to her, wiping his face clean with the sleeve of his hoodie.
Ivy could see the pores of his skin as clearly as if they were in daylight … She looked up and her legs wobbled. ‘Seb, are you seeing this?’
He craned his neck. ‘No. Way.’
They were on a star-shaped platform jutting out from the side of a craggy mountain. Its snowy brothers rose into the blue sky for miles in either direction. The Himalayas! Ivy’s heart stirred with emotion; it was the most spectacular sight she had ever seen.
‘Look over there – camels!’ Seb cried.
Ivy groaned and turned to where a small enclosure of packhorses, donkeys and camels were being offered to traders needing help to carry goods. All around, uncommoners were wrestling with overflowing boxes or towing heavy carts. She cast her gaze through the crowd, looking for anyone in a black suit and bowler hat – all this natural light would be perfect for Octavius Wrench.
‘This must be the equivalent of the arrivals chamber,’ Seb decided. ‘So … where’s the skymart?’
On the opposite side of the platform a doorframe the size of a three-storey building stood astride one of the star’s points. In place of a door there was a brightly coloured beaded curtain decorated with chrysanthemum flowers and hanging chimes.
‘Through there, I guess. Whatever’s behind it must be invisible.’ Ivy angled her head and caught flickers of a thin dome of light surrounding them. From the poster she’d seen of Strassa, she knew that the skymart was constructed from a number of different platforms slotted together. Maybe they couldn’t see the adjoining one because each had its own invisible covering. That would also explain how commoners couldn’t see the skymart.
Seb stripped off his hoodie and tied it round his waist. ‘Hopefully Valian and Judy haven’t already gone inside; we’d better start looking.’ Ivy removed her duffel coat; the sun was surprisingly warm.
Meandering through the crowd, she caught alternate wafts of manure and sweet incense. She scanned for Judy using her whispering, but there were so many races of the dead around it wasn’t easy. Seb picked up a freshly printed copy of Strassa: Farrow’s Guide for the Travelling Tradesman, and borrowed Scratch from Ivy’s satchel in order to read it.
‘… advanced uncommon technology controls the temperature and air quality inside Strassa and offers year-round protection from wind, rain and snow,’ Scratch read. ‘The control hub of the skymart is situated inside the mountain, where technicians also manufacture uncommon equipment for other undermarts in the world. Officials estimate that the skymart will be finished in two years, once expansion inside the mountain is comp—’
‘Found her!’ Ivy interrupted, picking out the soothing voice of Judy’s broken soul among the crowd. ‘This way.’ She stuffed Scratch and Farrow’s Guide in her pocket and dragged Seb in the direction of the giant beaded curtain, where a mass of people were waiting to pass through.
Valian’s face lit up when he saw them running over. ‘You’re here!’ Without thinking, he hugged them firmly. ‘What about your mum and dad?’
‘They’ll be OK,’ Ivy said. That heavy feeling in her gut hadn’t gone away but, seeing how much their presence meant to Valian, she knew they’d made the right choice.
‘Glad you came,’ Judy said, smiling at Seb. ‘Strassa is twelve hours ahead of Nubrook. Right now it’s seven in the morning on the first day of trade. There are ID checks to get in – it’ll be busy.’
Ivy saw men in green-and-silver uniforms standing in a line across the entrance. Large silver bells etched with a fingerprint symbol stood on tables beside each.
‘Must be a reaction to Monkshood’s appearance on top of Breath Falls,’ Valian commented. ‘There are more skyguards on duty here than I’ve ever seen before.’
While they qu
eued, Ivy nervously fingered the copy of Farrow’s Guide, hoping that their last-minute drawer-hopping hadn’t raised any alarms in Nubrook. The paper felt crisp and unwrinkled. Curious, she took a look at the author’s biography on the back cover. Frederick Ignacio Farrow, it said, is the pseudonym of a writer who started travelling at a young age, after the death of his intrepid explorer parents left him an orphan. The Strassa guidebook was the most recent Mr Farrow had written.
‘Gloves on?’ Seb asked. Everyone queueing around them was pulling on a different pair.
Ivy cringed at her dress gloves, now mud-stained and grubby. ‘Yeah.’
At the front of the line she was asked to ring one of the large silver bells. ‘Ivy Sparrow. Junior trader. Primary undermart: Lundinor in the United Kingdom,’ the bell said in a clear, high voice.
The skyguard stepped aside to let Ivy pass. As she waited for the others to join her, she listened to the bells announcing their details. Instead of ‘junior trader’, Valian got ‘scout’ and Judy ‘waitress’. The bell also told everyone that Judy was ‘Dead. Classification: Phantom’.
The four of them walked through the beaded curtain together. The chimes tinkled as chrysanthemum petals fell into everyone’s hair. On the other side, Ivy saw a city of modest wooden buildings arranged around a stunning jade temple on a hill. The structure had translucent green walls and a roof decorated with silver crescent moons. In the streets below, Tibetan writing decorated the brightly coloured shopfronts, and rich fabrics embroidered with gold thread hung from the balconies. Ivy noticed that, like Lundinor and Nubrook, Strassa had its own special streetlamps – shaped like tall flowers with white petals. Every door had a colourful rope knocker.
‘Does that include a map?’ Judy asked, pointing to Farrow’s Guide.
The Lundinor guide didn’t, but Ivy flipped through the Strassa guide anyway. Inside, she found what she assumed was a street plan. The names were all written in code, but the grids were numbered. Judy checked the coordinates on the cufflink against the map. ‘Looks like Mr Rife’s pram is not too far away. Follow me.’
The Frozen Telescope Page 13
