if it’s not really a disease?’ she finished in a breathless rush.
Jupiter’s forehead wrinkled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Remember when I asked you about the posters, and why you didn’t tell people about the green eyes? You said if we described the infected as having glowing green eyes, people would claim they’d been possessed by demons. But Jupiter, that’s exactly what it acted like! Like something living inside them, squatting inside them like a toad, like a … what do you call it, a living thing that takes over another body—’
‘A parasite?’ suggested Jupiter.
‘Yes!’ Morrigan snapped her fingers. ‘Or a – a monster. It acted like one. I think it wanted to take me over, but it couldn’t because I’m not a Wunimal.’
‘A living parasite that acts like a disease,’ Jupiter said thoughtfully. ‘It would explain the strange pattern of infection, why the Hollowpox seems to spread so haphazardly. If it can think for itself, it can seek out the most hospitable host.’ He fell silent for a moment, and Morrigan could almost hear his brain whirring.
But she wasn’t finished speculating. ‘And Jupiter, what if … what if it was Squall who made it and sent it into Nevermoor? That’s what he does, he makes monsters! He can’t come in himself, but maybe—’
‘It’s possible,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll need to discuss this with the task force, but in the meantime, this conversation does not leave this room. Understood?’
Fen peered at him closely. ‘Jove. Don’t you think the Wunimal community deserves to know—’
‘It’s them I’m thinking of.’ He stared miserably into the dregs of lilac water in the bottom of his glass. ‘Fen, last night those guests thought you were an infected Wunimal. Why? Just because you were angry. They could have hurt you, they could have attacked you—’
‘Pfft, don’t worry about me—’
‘I do worry about you, Fenestra! And I worry about our friends and guests and every Wunimal in this city!’ He looked from Fen to Morrigan to Jack, wide-eyed, trying to make them understand. ‘Because if that’s how people act when they think it’s a disease, imagine what will happen if we tell them it might be a monster, or that Squall might be involved! It would be as good as telling them that Wunimals are monsters. We’d be declaring open season on the whole lot of them.
‘Just – please – promise me you’ll keep this quiet for now.’
They promised. Even Fen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
From Bad to Worse
Autumn of Three
‘You can’t do this, Jove. I won’t stand for it. I’m not coming down until you take it back!’
Frank was swinging from the chandelier, and Morrigan wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d been threatening drastic action all day.
‘You’re being ridiculous, Frank,’ Jupiter called in a tense, weary voice from where he lay on top of the concierge desk, ankles crossed and fingers intertwined across his stomach. He added under his breath, ‘As standard.’
‘Come down, Frank, there’s a good chap,’ said Kedgeree coaxingly. He, Martha and Charlie were running back and forth beneath the chandelier, holding the four corners of a bedsheet up as high as they could, hoping to catch Frank when he inevitably fell. ‘Come on now, we’ve got you.’
‘NEVER!’ Frank roared. His black cape billowed in the slipstream as he swung wildly, casting light and shadows across the lobby.
Morrigan and Jack sat at the bottom of the spiral staircase, watching the spectacle unfold. Between the flickering light from the chandelier and the whole dramatic cape situation, the scene should have had the soothing sort of mad-ghost-haunting-an-abandoned-theatre aesthetic that Morrigan enjoyed. But the past twenty-four hours had given her a growing sense of unease.
As Jupiter had predicted, within hours of the gala’s abrupt ending, the newspapers were already ablaze with news of the famous Hotel Deucalion. Its famously mad ginger proprietor, a mysterious incident AND Wunimals behaving badly all added up to excellent tabloid fodder. It didn’t seem to matter that Jupiter wasn’t even there.
The Concerned Citizens of Nevermoor were louder than ever. Their spluttering, fist-slamming founder went head-to-head with prominent Wunimal rights activist Senator Guiscard Silverback – himself a gorillawun – in a fierce debate about the dangers of allowing Wunimals in public spaces ‘in these troubled times’.
The mood in Nevermoor was tense; it felt like everyone was simply waiting for the next attack. Jupiter made the decision to close the Deucalion’s doors until the Hollowpox was under control. Frank had, predictably, been wailing ever since.
‘Jove, do something,’ Dame Chanda urged, pushing Jupiter’s feet off the desk and forcing him to sit up with