balustrade and peered down onto Humdinger Avenue. ‘The Hollowpox is intelligent, but only to a degree, and you confuse it. On the spectrum of Wundrous energy, it knows you are somewhere between a Wunimal … and me, the person who made it and could therefore unmake it on a whim. Which means you are either an object of prey, or a predator. Now, look down at the street. What do you see?’
Morrigan peeked cautiously over the edge of the rooftop, keeping some distance between her and Squall. ‘Nothing. It’s dark.’
‘Mmm. Now do something Wundrous. Anything.’
She breathed a tiny spark of fire into one hand and let it grow into a flame. Then, recalling her last lesson with Gracious Goldberry, she transformed it into the image of an unnimal – a horse this time – and sent it galloping into the sky. It blazed brightly for a moment against a backdrop of stars, then burned out to embers and floated away.
She’d been showing off, of course, and was secretly gratified by the tiny arch of Squall’s eyebrow that hinted he was impressed. But then he tilted his head down towards the street, and when Morrigan looked over the balustrade again, she jumped backwards in fright.
Several dozen pinpricks of green light blinked into view on the street below. Shadowy figures from the surrounding streets began moving towards the Hotel Deucalion, gathering in the forecourt. They were looking up at her, she could feel it.
Morrigan heard a deep growl. A harsh, screeching cry. She hunched her shoulders, feeling a sudden chill on her neck. A cluster of silhouettes moved beneath a gas lamp; she could just make out something dark and hulking with huge, spiralling horns, and the unmistakeable slither of an enormous snakewun as it crossed the pool of light.
‘They know you’re not me. They can tell you’re nowhere near as powerful,’ said Squall. There was no smugness about him; he spoke matter-of-factly. ‘But you do have a whiff of something familiar. The monster inside perks up when you’re around, like a sleeping dog that doesn’t know if it’s caught the scent of its master, or the scent of a rabbit. It’s desperate to figure you out, and so it fights to be free of the prison it’s taken for itself – the body it possesses. Tell me, do you have your umbrella?’
Morrigan nodded, lifting her brolly absently. She’d been holding on to it since she met him in the hallway. ‘What now?’
‘Now we let them hunt you.’
And with that unsettling declaration, Squall held out his arms, leaned forward and fell straight through the balustrade as if it wasn’t there at all. Before he could hit the ground, he was caught by a formless black cloud of shadow and smoke that, as if echoing Morrigan’s earlier creation, resolved itself into the shape of a horse and galloped off into the night with Squall at the reins. When he was a block away, she saw him turn and look back at her expectantly.
Morrigan felt panic tightening around her throat. What was she supposed to do, exactly? Follow him? Open her umbrella and jump off the rooftop, like on Morningtide? What then, would she just … float down into the forecourt and be attacked by a bunch of rampaging Wunimals? This felt very much like a trap.
Clutching her brolly tight, she whispered to herself, ‘I don’t know what to do.’
And the Hotel Deucalion answered.
Morrigan watched as a long, shimmering golden cable grew from the edge of the balustrade, stretching out into the streets so far that she couldn’t see where it ended, or if it ended at all.
That decided it, Morrigan thought. She didn’t trust Squall. But she trusted the Deucalion.
She pulled herself up onto the balustrade, heart thumping wildly, and swung her legs over the side. She reached out to hook her brolly onto a loop hanging from the cable, tugging it to test that it was really there, that it was real.
Then she heard the door to the stairwell crash open, and the cry of a familiar voice behind her.
‘Morrigan! There you are, what are you – NO! STOP!’
She turned to see Fenestra emerge from the doorway, wide-eyed and fearful. Fen reared back and then pelted across the rooftop towards her. Holding tight to her umbrella, Morrigan closed her eyes, leaned forward, and let herself fall.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Courage Square
There was always something thrilling about riding the Brolly Rail. Soaring across the skyline, dipping low and sailing through streets, then climbing high above rooftops,