Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,72

know all this?’ asked Morrigan.

‘My Great-Aunt Iyawa was an officer in the Sea Force before she retired – Admiral Iyawa Akinfenwa, you can look her up, she was really famous in her day. She has a whole library of books about seafaring vessels.’ In his enthusiasm, he reached out to open the door wider, but Thaddea slammed it shut.

It was the Juro, Morrigan realised. The River Juro that snaked through the middle of Nevermoor, dark and deep and meandering – that was the familiar smell.

‘Sometimes people travel from the Highlands all the way to Nevermoor via the river,’ Thaddea told them. ‘Doesn’t mean they’re spies.’ She walked around the vessel in a circle, knocking on random parts of the outer shell.

But Francis was convinced. ‘All that technology – it’s much too expensive to be for ordinary people. Anyway, nobody else would be desperate enough to travel underwater in the Juro when there are venomous river serpents and Great Spiny Demonfish and Bonesmen and Waterwolves and all sorts.’

Thaddea stood between Francis and Morrigan, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. Her eyes were suddenly shining. ‘Guys, this is it. This is what we’re stealing.’

Morrigan stared at her. ‘Thaddea … you cannot be serious. That thing is huge. How are we going to carry it out of here?’

‘There are three of us! And I’ve easily got the strength of three people, so technically there are five of us.’

‘Technically still three,’ Francis disagreed.

Thaddea’s face had turned bright pink with excitement. ‘Come on, can you imagine everyone’s faces when we show up back at Wunsoc with this thing?’

‘Back at Wunsoc?’ Morrigan gave a short, incredulous laugh. ‘You think we’re going to get that thing all the way back to Wunsoc? Thaddea, how? That’ll take us all day, and I’ve got to be back on Sub-Nine by—’

‘Ugh, not Sub-Nine again,’ Thaddea groaned.

‘What?’

‘Shut up about Sub-Nine, will you? It’s all you ever talk about lately.’ She kicked at an old table-leg in frustration. ‘Sub-Nine this, Wundrous Arts that. Whiny Binky this—’

‘It’s Owain Binks actually—’

‘I’m sick of hearing about it!’ said Thaddea, her eyes flashing. ‘How you’d rather be down in your secret school on your private floor while we’re all trying to get better at this stuff – you know, the stuff that the Wundrous Society actually exists for? It’s like you don’t even care.’

Morrigan gave an indignant sputter and looked around at Francis for support, but he had suddenly become very interested in the floor. ‘I’m so sorry that crawling around in the sewers isn’t my idea of a good time. We can’t all be Thaddea No-Retreat of Clan Macleod.’

‘It’s not supposed to be about having a good time, though, is it? We have a job to do. We’re supposed to be working hard and making ourselves useful and doing some good in the realm!’

‘We’re THIRTEEN.’

‘I asked Gavin Squires if I could join the Beastly Division and you know what he told me?’ Thaddea barrelled on. ‘He said we had to start proving ourselves if we want to join the big kids. All of us. We have to prove ourselves as a unit.’

‘I don’t care what Gavin Squires said!’

‘Well, maybe you should,’ she spat. ‘Since out of all of us, you’re the one who’s got the most to prove. Wundersmith.’

She said the word with so much venom that Morrigan flinched.

Francis looked nervously from her to Thaddea and back again. ‘Maybe … maybe we should go back and find that mannequin—’

‘Oi! You three – get out here, quick!’ Hawthorne stood at the entrance of the shop, face red and chest heaving from running, and waved them urgently out into the street. ‘Come on, hurry. You’ve got to hear this.’

The rest of Unit 919 was already waiting for them in the sunshine on Grand Boulevard, a little knot of black cloaks gathered at the outer edge of a crowd.

‘What’s going on?’ Morrigan asked a glowering Cadence as they approached.

Cadence shook her head. ‘Listen to this fool.’

The fool in question was a smartly dressed man standing on a crate and shouting into a megaphone at the assembled audience. It was an angry, booming, unpleasant sound, and the things he was saying were even more unpleasant.

‘This is simply a matter of nature righting itself! These so-called Wunimals are UNNATURAL. They are an AFFRONT TO HUMANITY. They were never meant to walk among humans as our equals!’

Morrigan scowled. It seemed to her that the crowd’s response to this was an even split of cheering and booing, but everything was