her notebook of ghostly hours; there was a promising one tomorrow that she was dying to see – a lesson in the art of Masquerade. The last thing she wanted was the day off school, when she was about to go a whole summer without any ghostly hours.
Thaddea gasped as if she’d just had the most important revelation of her life. ‘Miss! This is destiny. There’s a fight on at the Trollosseum tomorrow between Grimsgorgenblarg the Mighty and Fladnak the Fit. Can we go, Miss? Please?’
‘Nah, let’s go to the pool!’ said Hawthorne. ‘It’s meant to be scorching tomorrow.’
‘The pool?’ Thaddea looked as if he’d just suggested setting fire to an orphanage.
‘Oh!’ Mahir sat up ramrod straight. ‘Can we go to the Gobleian Library? Apparently they have the only existing copy of Fitherendian’s Compendium.’ He looked around for a reaction but was met with blank stares. ‘Fitherendian’s Compendium? The illustrated collection of all seventy-seven syllabaries and alphabets of the known elvish languages? Handwritten three thousand years ago by a silent order of monks—’
‘CAN WE GO TO THE POOL PLEASE, MISS?!’ Hawthorne interrupted loudly.
But Miss Cheery was looking thoughtful. ‘Actually, the Gobleian’s not a bad idea at all, Mahir. An old girlfriend of mine works at the Gob. She just got promoted from bookfighter to librarian.’
‘Really, Miss, a library?’ said Cadence, making a face. ‘I thought this was supposed to be a treat, not the opening ceremony of the Boring Festival of Things That Are Boring.’
Mahir frowned. ‘The Gobleian’s not boring, Cadence.’
‘Said the Boring Master of Ceremonies.’
‘Master of Boremonies,’ Hawthorne amended.
Cadence reluctantly granted Hawthorne a high-five.
‘It was founded by the Wundrous Society itself,’ Mahir went on, undaunted, ‘and there’s a whole private section dedicated to the history of Wunsoc. Members only,’ he finished, holding up his index finger and wiggling the tiny gold W tattoo.
Morrigan perked up. If there was a section about Wundrous Society history, surely that included Wundersmith history? Maybe even real Wundersmith history, instead of the propaganda they were peddling at Proudfoot House.
She put her hand up. ‘I vote for the Gobleian.’
Cadence and Hawthorne looked at her as if she’d gone mad. Thaddea scowled.
‘Hmm.’ The conductor had a coy, slightly dreamy expression when they pulled into Station 919. ‘Be great to see Roshni again. I bet she’d give us a tour if I asked nicely.’
‘Miss, I don’t think you understand,’ said Thaddea as they all disembarked. ‘Grimsgorgenblarg and Fladnak—’
She was interrupted by the short, sharp shriek of the Hometrain whistle and a whoosh of white steam.
‘See you bright and early!’ Miss Cheery called over the noise, waving them off as Hometrain disappeared into the tunnel.
Thaddea gave Mahir a swift, hard punch in the arm.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Gobleian Library
‘Miss, please,’ whinged Hawthorne, for the fifth time that morning. He’d been dragging his heels the whole walk from Wunsoc, in the North Quarter of Old Town, to the Gobleian Library in the West Quarter. ‘Can’t we go to the pool instead? Unit 918 went to the pool. It’s scorching.’
‘But we’re going somewhere better than the pool, Hawthorne,’ Miss Cheery called back to him, also for the fifth time, from her spot at the front of the group. ‘We’re going to the Gob. Come on, keep up.’
‘She can give it a cool name all she wants,’ Hawthorne muttered to Morrigan. ‘Doesn’t make it any less of a library.’
The walk through Old Town (Miss Cheery insisted on walking) was long and sweaty. On the way, they saw several ice-cream wagons swamped with customers, a group of nursery-aged children squealing and running under a fountain, and packs of picnickers in the Garden Belt, looking cool and content as they sipped lemonade beneath the shade of enormous fig trees. With every scene of summertime bliss they passed, Hawthorne let out a doleful whimper, and Morrigan had to haul him along by his arm to keep him moving. Thaddea was even worse, walking at a snail’s pace in silent protest. (She still hadn’t spoken to Mahir or Morrigan. ‘Macleods Don’t Forgive,’ apparently.)
At last, they arrived at an imposing sandstone building on Mayhew Street that Morrigan had passed many times but never visited. They went in groups of three through the enormous revolving door. She entered last with Hawthorne and Mahir, pushing through together and filing out the other side into … Mayhew Street.
At first Morrigan thought they’d done a full circle and come back out the way they’d gone in, but … no, that wasn’t it. They were outside again, they were standing in front of