Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,49
told her the tale of their strange encounter with the leopardwun on the Wunderground, slightly hampered by Hawthorne jumping in to add extra drama.
‘—and she pounced onto this man’s shoulders—’
‘Hawthorne, don’t stand on the bed, this is a hospital.’
‘—then she lifted her head and howled—’
‘No, she didn’t. Cats don’t howl, you’re thinking of—’
‘AAAROOOOOOOOOOO!’
‘Please stop howling.’
When they eventually made it to the end of the story, Cadence said exactly what Morrigan had been thinking, even before she remembered they’d both had green eyes.
‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it – two Wunimals just attacking people out of nowhere? That’s not what Wunimals do.’ She’d abandoned her book entirely and was leaning forward. ‘Do you reckon they’re connected somehow?’
Morrigan nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeah. Maybe. Jupiter told me nobody’s seen Brutilus Brown since Golders Night … and Juvela still isn’t awake yet, as far as we know. What if nobody’s seen Brutilus because—’
‘Because they haven’t found his body yet,’ Cadence finished for her.
‘Yes! Well – no, not his body, that makes it sound like … I mean … Juvela isn’t dead.’ She turned to Hawthorne. ‘You really didn’t see the green eyes?’
‘Well to be fair,’ he said, ‘I was a bit more worried about Baby Dave getting her face chewed off by a vicious leopardwun. Had my mind on other things, didn’t I?’
‘Right,’ said Morrigan, scratching behind the puppy’s ears. ‘I guess so.’
She made a mental note to tell Jupiter about it next time she saw him.
The novelty of being in hospital had well and truly worn off towards the end of the week. The food was boring, the bed was uncomfortable, and Morrigan found it almost impossible to sleep through the night.
Most annoyingly, her injury was sufficiently interesting that every student cohort from Mundane medics to Arcane healers wanted to poke their noses into it. Nurse Tim managed their comings and goings with a stoic resignation that suggested this was all merely business as usual – making sure the sorcery scholars sterilised their healing amulets, dimming the lights for the clairvoyant who came to check how Morrigan’s aura was mending, and so on. He’d barely blinked when an excited group of surgery and engineering scholars came in on the third day, offering to remove the injured leg and put in a new one that could think for itself. (Jupiter kindly showed them the door.)
After nearly a week of every kind of treatment imaginable, Nurse Tim declared that the patient was fit to go home.
‘I suppose they probably all helped, really, in their own ways,’ Morrigan concluded as she was packing up her gifts and cards to leave the hospital. She examined the almost-healed claw mark, hoping it would leave at least a bit of a scar.
‘Oh aye, maybe,’ agreed Nurse Tim, rolling his eyes. ‘Or maybe it were old muggins here who stitched you up, kept your wound clean and changed your bandages twice a day. I mean, who can possibly say?’
Morrigan left him all her flowers and chocolates.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Happenchance and Euphoriana
Spring of Three
On the opening night of famed composer Gustav Monastine’s newest opera, The Maledictions, the foyer of the Nevermoor Opera House looked like the society pages come to life. Members of the aristocracy rubbed shoulders with celebrities, while darlings of the theatre scene swanned around with fashion industry icons. It was precisely the kind of guestlist Frank would drool over.
The city’s thriving Wunimal communities had come out in force too, to support the lead playing opposite Dame Chanda, celebrated moosewun tenor Theobold Marek – who was, in Dame Chanda’s words, almost as famous as she was.
‘There’s a handful of other Wunimal performers among us, of course,’ Dame Chanda told Morrigan backstage, as she helped the soprano into her glitteringly elaborate costume. Somewhere outside the dressing room, a stagehand gave the fifteen-minute call, and the distant sounds of an orchestra warming up filtered through the closed door. ‘The wolfwun Hebrides Ottendahl, you might have heard of him. We did Lilibet’s Lament together, back in Winter of Six. Mrs Beverly Miller, the famous duckwun mezzosoprano. Now there’s a talent! She’s left the opera now, we lost her to a touring cabaret, of all things. Can you believe?’
Morrigan was struggling with a row of tiny, fiddly opal buttons, and not really listening. She was starting to regret her decision to volunteer as Dame Chanda’s last-minute replacement dresser for the evening (the girl who usually helped her had been struck down with a dreadful cold). She’d learned upon arriving backstage at the opera house that Dame