Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,25

book bound in blood-red cloth called One Hundred Gruesome Deaths in the Age of the Nightwalkers. There was a delicate amethyst bracelet from Dame Chanda, a pair of jodhpurs and a promise of horse-riding lessons from Charlie, and a large dead pheasant without a gift tag, which Morrigan presumed was from Fen. (It’s the thought that counts, she reminded herself as she tried to delicately push the feathered corpse off her bed with one toe.)

But the most interesting present was hanging from the bony wrist of her skeleton coat rack: a pair of ice-skates made from crimson leather, their laces loosely knotted together. There was a small handwritten card that Morrigan couldn’t read from this distance, but she knew instantly who this present must be from.

Tumbling awkwardly out of the sleigh, she crossed her bedroom floor and took the skates down from the hook. Sure enough, the card read:

Jolly Christmas, Mog.

–J.N.

Morrigan grinned, shaking her head. They were shiny and beautiful, but she had no idea how to ice-skate.

Still, she thought, holding up the skates to admire the fine red leather and stitching. Very pretty. As the skates spun in a circle, a glint of reflected light caught her eye. Attached to the laces was a small, old-fashioned silver key.

Ah! An excited little tornado of moths began to flutter in Morrigan’s stomach. This wasn’t, after all, the first time that Jupiter had given her a slightly odd gift. It wasn’t the first time he had given her a key.

A memory came to her of a strange locked door on a quiet floor of the Hotel Deucalion. The tip of her oilskin umbrella – a birthday present from Jupiter – turning in the lock with a satisfying click. An enchanted lantern-lit room full of shadow monsters within.

A strange but splendid present, from her strange but splendid patron.

There was a sudden knock on Morrigan’s bedroom door. She ran to open it, Jupiter’s gift still clutched tight in one hand, and was greeted by a confused-looking Jack. His pyjamas were rumpled, eye patch crooked and hair an absolute mess … and he, too, was holding a pair of ice-skates. His were made of rich forest-green leather.

‘Right,’ Jack said, blinking down at Morrigan’s red ones. ‘Thought so. Weird though, ’cos there isn’t any—’

‘—skating rink nearby?’ she finished for him. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. But did you also get—’

‘—a key?’ He held out his other hand, where a silver key sat, catching the light. ‘Yep. You?’

She held up her identical one, grinning. ‘Do you think we should—’

‘Definitely,’ he agreed. ‘And bring the skates.’

It was still early, and the Deucalion was mostly quiet but for the occasional rustle of someone in a pink-and-gold uniform hurrying down a hallway. Jack and Morrigan tried at least a dozen doors throughout the hotel (avoiding guest bedrooms and places they already knew) before at last finding their present on the ninth floor: a large oak double door with two locks. They each tried to open it separately first, to no avail.

‘Ugh, I knew it,’ Jack groaned as they turned both keys simultaneously and the door opened with a soft click. ‘I knew he’d make it so we had to cooperate, or something. That’s so Uncle Jove.’

The doors swung open and a gust of icy wind hit them fair in the face. Morrigan and Jack stood still, both entirely speechless for once as their brains tried to make sense of the room’s vast interior.

The room was not a room, it was a lake. A proper, for-real lake, inside the Hotel Deucalion. Frozen solid and surrounded by rolling snow-covered fields. The far opposite wall, on the horizon beyond the fields, was made of floor-to-ceiling arched windows, frosted over and letting in enough wintry sunshine to light the whole gargantuan space. Morrigan would never even have guessed the hotel was big enough to contain such a thing.

And in the middle distance, twirling and spinning across the lake like he’d been doing it all his life, was Jupiter North in a pair of smart blue ice-skates.

‘Took your time, didn’t you?’ he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. He swept over towards them at high speed. ‘Come on, then. It’s a very good lake. Get your skates on!’

Jack didn’t hesitate; within moments, he’d laced up his boots, tottered out onto the ice, then glided away like a professional athlete.

Typical, Morrigan thought, making a face at the two of them as they circled each other, skating backwards and then switching direction seamlessly to go forward