Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,30

tunnel-like shaft at one end of the platform, another would arrive at the other end to replace it. Like gigantic beads being threaded on a wire.

‘Where’s your first class, should we take a pod together?’ Hawthorne asked her.

‘Oh, no. I’m just going down the hall.’ She glanced towards the Scholar Mistresses’ office, and a feeling of dread swelled up inside her. ‘Free period this morning, so I’m … I’m going to go see Murgatroyd.’

Morrigan swallowed, picturing the Arcane Scholar Mistress warping into her ice-cold Mundane counterpart, Ms Dearborn. The transformations were unscheduled and unpredictable – like a roll of the dice. If you sought out one, you were just as likely to get the other.

‘Really?’ asked Hawthorne, grimacing. ‘You sure you don’t want to come down to the arena and watch me train instead?’

It was tempting.

‘I’m moving up a weight class today,’ he went on. ‘Fingers Magee wants to try me on a Low Country Luminescent – their scales glow in the dark!’

Luminescent dragons were beautiful to watch. Morrigan supposed she didn’t have to see Murgatroyd first thing. She could wait until lunchtime, perhaps. Or tomorrow …

She opened her mouth to say so, but shrieked instead as she felt a hand grasp her white collar, yanking her backwards.

‘You,’ said a harsh voice. ‘Come with me.’

Morrigan turned to see the Scholar Mistress herself, as if summoned there by telepathic thought. ‘Mrs Murgatroyd! I was … I was just coming to—’

‘Yes, I’m sure you were. Do shut up,’ grumbled Murgatroyd. She grabbed Morrigan’s arm and pulled her to the front of the queue.

Morrigan looked back at Hawthorne. He winced in sympathy but stayed very still, like a small woodland unnimal hiding in the grass while a hungry bear went on a rampage.

At the front of the queue, Murgatroyd kicked a bespectacled older gentleman out of his pod and propelled Morrigan inside, following close behind.

‘I say! How very dare— Oh, pardon me, Mrs Murgatroyd,’ he said, cringing away from the Scholar Mistress and bowing his head in capitulation. ‘Please, take my pod, you’re very welcome, do take it.’

‘Just did, dummy,’ Murgatroyd snarled, and then shut the door in his face.

She pressed her imprint to a small golden circle on the wall, then instantly began operating the chains, buttons and levers in a pattern Morrigan would never remember. The pod rocked forward at great speed, then felt suddenly as if it was freefalling from a height. Morrigan grasped at a loop hanging from the ceiling, trying to steady herself.

‘Um … Mrs Murgatroyd … what are we—’

‘It’s time.’ Murgatroyd’s cracked lips retreated from her brownish teeth in a terrifying leer. ‘Now you’ve had your first C&D gathering, it’s time for you to learn what you need to learn to become a productive Society member … before you explode like a human volcano and take us all down with you.’

Morrigan felt a little flip of excitement somewhere in the realm of her diaphragm (although it might have been nausea; the pod was travelling in a violently erratic manner). This was it. She was finally going to learn the Wretched Arts. Properly. Not on her own in her bedroom, with barely a clue what she was doing.

No. She was going to learn them where she should have been all along: in a classroom. With an actual teacher! With books and desks and exams and definitely no imminent danger.

Ever since Murgatroyd had promised her a chance to learn the Wretched Arts, Morrigan had wondered who there could possibly be to teach her? Supposedly the only people who could use them were Wundersmiths. Ezra Squall was the only other living Wundersmith, and she would have bet her favourite boots, her beloved umbrella, and the Hotel Deucalion itself that Squall had not been hired as her teacher.

She’d finally worked up the courage to ask when the pod came to a sudden, aggressive halt, and the door swung open onto …

Nothing.

They’d arrived at a tiny platform surrounded by darkness, at the end of which was a set of stairs that led down to … who knew?

‘Well,’ said Murgatroyd, cracking her neck to the side as they stepped out onto the platform. She nodded at the stairs. ‘S’down there.’

‘What’s down there?’

‘Sub-Nine.’ Murgatroyd sniffed, as if she’d just said something of no real importance. As if she hadn’t just brought Morrigan to the one place in Proudfoot House that was off-limits to all scholars. ‘Good luck.’

Morrigan felt her stomach lurch. ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’

The Scholar Mistress chuckled, then instantly winced. ‘Me? Not