is how catastrophic that will be.’
Morrigan thought about what Jupiter had said about Squall. We can’t stop him from entering Nevermoor on the Gossamer, but we must stop him from getting into your head.
Was this all just an elaborate mind game?
She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you!’
‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe me, your predicament remains the same. If Steed doesn’t keep the Free State border closed, there will no longer be a Free State.’
‘And how exactly am I supposed to convince him to do that?’
‘You can’t. The only thing you can do is strike first. Make his solution obsolete. You have to destroy the Hollowpox yourself.’
She let out a short, incredulous bark of laughter. ‘How?’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘Oh, of course,’ she said, scowling. ‘Let me guess, you want to make a bargain? You’ll cure the Hollowpox for the low price of me becoming your apprentice? Pretty sure I’ve heard this somewhere before—’
‘No bargain.’ His face was solemn. ‘No price. I will give you everything you need to obliterate the Hollowpox. You will owe me nothing in return. All I want is for that border to remain closed.’
Morrigan squeezed her eyes shut. Her brain ached from the effort of trying to understand him. ‘But you … you want to come back into Nevermoor! You told me it was agony to be apart from it.’
‘I want it more than anything,’ he agreed. ‘I want it more than life itself.’
She watched him warily. This was undoubtedly the strangest conversation she’d ever had. Ezra Squall wanted her help … to keep him out of Nevermoor and to cure the Hollowpox, with no demands, no negotiations, no strings attached?
‘Let me be very clear.’ Squall’s jaw tightened. His voice was low and ugly, his face twisting with hatred, but in his black eyes there was a cold clarity. ‘I would do anything to return to Nevermoor. I would raze entire cities, end civilisations. My body may be on this side of the border, but every other part of me – my mind, my heart, my soul if I have one – every bit of me worth anything is there, in Nevermoor, and I would kill every living creature in the Republic if I thought it would bring me home.
‘So when I tell you not to let me in, when I tell you you’d be welcoming a far greater threat than I, you might do me the favour of taking it seriously. I would rather stay out in the cold forever than grant her even a moment of its warmth.
‘You think I’m the dangerous one,’ he continued in a whisper, ‘and you are correct: I have done terrible things. I am a ghoulish man, a maker of monsters. But Wintersea is a monster. Always hungry. Never satisfied. If you let her into our city, she will devour it.’
Morrigan shivered. Her breath made clouds in the cold, dim hallway.
‘Why should I believe you?’ she asked finally.
‘I’ve never lied to you, Miss Crow.’
‘All you ever do is lie!’
‘I have never lied … to you.’
And to Morrigan’s profound surprise, she realised that once again, she did believe him. An Ezra Squall experiencing a sudden, benevolent change of heart, ready to gift her a cure without asking anything in return, was not remotely convincing. But an Ezra Squall motivated by deep-rooted hatred and a spite so strong it thwarted his own ambitions? That she could believe.
‘How do I destroy the Hollowpox?’
He gave a short whistle, low and eerie. The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow instantly appeared, swarming the hallway and wrapping around them both like a thick, black fog, until all she could see were Squall’s eyes, gleaming in the darkness.
‘By doing every single thing I tell you.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Summoner and Smith
‘Wunder is everywhere.’
Almost a year had passed since the last time Morrigan found herself standing on the rooftop of the Hotel Deucalion with Ezra Squall. She felt only slightly better equipped to handle it this time around.
‘… Eventide’s child brings gale and storm,’ she sang under her breath. Threads of gold swam through her fingers, quick and curious, shimmering with light.
‘And when you call some of it,’ Squall continued over the top of her song, ‘you are calling all of it, because everything is connected. You’re activating it, signalling it to be ready – like turning a key in the ignition of a motorcar and letting the engine idle.’
‘… where are you going, o son of the morning?’
Morrigan frowned in concentration. Wunder bristled in the air around her, drawing close,