Brutilus Brown and the jackal and … I don’t know, about three dozen more. They’re sedated most of the time but when they’re awake … oh, it’s so awful.’
‘What about the Minors?’ said Cadence. ‘Will they be the same when they wake up? Surely if they’re more … you know. Human …’ She looked at Morrigan, unsure how to finish that thought.
‘We don’t know yet.’ Anah sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘But Dr Lutwyche said he wants to start moving the Majors next week.’
‘Moving them where?’ said Cadence. She dug around in her bag and produced a rumpled but clean tissue, rolling her eyes when Anah’s face dissolved at this newest small act of kindness.
‘Who knows? I heard him and Dr Bramble arguing about it. Dr Lutwyche says the hospital isn’t a zoo. But that’s how they’re treating them! Like unnimals in a—’
‘Kahlo!’ came a sharp voice from down the corridor. ‘Kahlo, where are you? We need an extra pair of hands in here.’
‘Coming, Dr Lutwyche.’
Anah hastily wiped her face, straightened her uniform and rushed away without another word to Morrigan and Cadence, looking almost as if nothing was wrong.
Morrigan spent the rest of the afternoon on Sub-Nine in a water-Weaving class alongside eleven-year-old Elodie and Ezra, utterly unable to concentrate. When she wasn’t thinking about what Anah had said, she was staring – distracted and furious – at the young Ezra building a whirlpool inside a glass with maddening ease.
It was a long, difficult lesson, but by the end of the day Morrigan could make a puddle of water splash without anybody jumping in it. She wasn’t as quick or precise as the younger students, and she was utterly exhausted afterwards. But still, it was progress. She only wished she was as accomplished with water as she was with fire.
Two strange and upsetting things happened on the way home that afternoon: first, during their walk through the Whinging Woods to the station, someone parachuted down onto the path in front of Morrigan and shoved a camera right in her face.
‘What are they teaching you here at the Wundrous Society, Morrigan Crow?’ the woman demanded breathlessly. Morrigan was so shocked she said nothing, did nothing, and the woman gained a little courage. ‘Are you really a Wundersmith? Why don’t you show the public what you can do? We all know it’s a lie, just a publicity—’
‘Oh, go climb a tree,’ snarled Cadence, and the parachutist dropped her camera and obeyed without hesitating, much to the chagrin of the nearest oak tree.
‘Git orf me!’ it grumbled. ‘Ow, that’s my nose you’re standing on, you wretch!’
They left the stranger to be swatted by tree branches and swarmed by a group of senior scholars (who seemed outraged more by the campus breach, Morrigan thought, than her surprise interrogation).
The second strange and upsetting thing came just a few minutes later when Mahir turned on Miss Cheery’s wireless radio.
‘—from the Department of Agriculture,’ a cool, calm female voice was saying, ‘who reports bubbleberry farmers in the Fifth Pocket are bouncing back after last year’s lacklustre harvest. More on that story to come.
‘But first, the news from the capital. Laurent St James, Silver District tycoon and leader of the newly formed Concerned Citizens of Nevermoor Party, has today offered a fifty-thousand-kred reward to anyone who can provide, quote, “indisputable visual proof” of the claim made in the Sunday Post this weekend, that the Wundrous Society is harbouring and training a genuine Wundersmith, thirteen-year-old scholar Morrigan Crow.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Hunt for Morrigan Crow
The announcement was met with horror from 919 and a furious sigh from Miss Cheery, who immediately stomped over to turn off the radio.
‘That scumbag,’ said Hawthorne, punching a beanbag to vent his feelings. ‘That foul rat!’
‘Fifty thousand!’ muttered Thaddea. ‘Imagine having that much money and spending it all just to see Morrigan be a bit rubbish.’
Miss Cheery sighed again. ‘Thaddea.’
‘What? She is, though. No offence, Morrigan.’
Cadence clicked her fingers. ‘Oh! The woman in the parachute – that’s what she wanted! She was trying to goad you into using the Wundrous Arts so she could get it on film and claim the reward. What a cow.’
‘Good thing you didn’t give it to her,’ said Arch.
‘Yes,’ Miss Cheery agreed. ‘Excellent restraint.’
Morrigan didn’t say anything. Restraint had nothing to do with it. It was just lucky she’d been so depleted from her afternoon lesson, or she might have unwittingly obliged.
While the others raged around her, dreaming up appropriate punishments for Scumbag St James (as they