he explains himself.” Then to Briac: “You tried to steal from us.”
“I don’t sit!” Briac said, ripping his shoulder away from Nott, and forgetting his wound again. He punched his own leg in an attempt to formulate a coherent thought. “We can’t—sit! We must—we must find her. Get that athame.”
His words sounded more focused than most Nott had heard out of him. The sparks floating about his head were quite visible now that he was in shadow, but they were dancing more slowly than they had been. Maybe Briac’s recent few minutes in the helm had done something lasting for him—not that Nott cared.
He found the sewing kit in his own rucksack and pulled out the thick black thread and dull needle they used to stitch themselves up after particularly bad fights.
“You take us to find one girl, then you run away from another,” Wilkin said to Briac. “Why?”
“She’s, she’s, she’s…she’s dangerous, that one. Young Dread…”
“What does it mean, ‘Young Dread’?” asked Wilkin. “I’ve heard you call our master ‘Middle Dread’ before.”
When Briac didn’t answer, Wilkin slapped him to help him focus. “Yes,” the man responded, holding up a hand so he would not be hit again. “She’s like him in some ways. Dangerous.”
Briac screeched as Nott poked him with the needle and pulled the thread through his skin. The knife wound was producing an unexpectedly large amount of blood, but it was only a shallow slice. Nott had seen worse.
“We’re not supposed to be looking for girls, or athames, Wilkin,” Nott said, for what felt like the hundredth time—but he was trying not to whine. He leaned over Briac and poked the needle in again, doing a terrible job of it. “We’re supposed to be following our master’s orders, waking the others, and searching—”
“Quiet, Nott. We will…” Wilkin’s face was going through a series of contortions as he considered his options.
The last time their master had come to them, he’d told them to search him out in twenty-four hours if they didn’t hear from him again. Twenty-four hours later, they’d made their way to their usual meeting place in London, only to find the entire city swarming around that great crashed ship in the park. And there, in the middle of it, was Briac Kincaid. They recognized Briac because they’d seen him in their master’s company several times. They’d used the helm on Briac late at night in the madhouse to which he’d been brought, and eventually he’d started talking some sense—though not much.
If their master—the man Briac called the Middle Dread—was lost, they knew exactly how to search for him. It was their whole purpose as Watchers, to find their master if he was lost. It was the reason they existed and why their master woke them in turns to live out in the world. They were to keep him from disappearing There, as his enemies would want him to do. But Briac had said he already knew where their master was, so there was no need to search. And Wilkin—idiot!—loved the idea of finding him quickly and by themselves. He’ll praise us, Nott. He’ll know we’re the best out of all his Watchers.
When they’d arrived at the London hospital, it was obvious Briac had taken them to find their master’s athame, not their master himself. But once Wilkin had seen that athame, he’d been dead set on getting it back. Our master’s going to want this athame back, Nott. If he found out we saw it and didn’t retrieve it—well, he’d put us in our caves for that, wouldn’t he?
As Nott sewed, Briac begged, “I can’t think straight. Put the helmet on me again…”
Nott pulled the thread tight and tied off the final stitch, then whispered to Wilkin, “He wants to get his hands on our master’s athame and take it for himself, Wilkin. We should—”
“I know what we should do,” Wilkin snapped. “We should do what I say we do, because I’m in charge.”
Wilkin picked up his own rucksack and began digging through it. Nott realized his partner was going to put the helm back on the crazy man and then continue following his lunatic advice. Without warning, hot tears welled in Nott’s eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was aching for the cool touch of the helm as it slid over his head and the buzz of his thoughts as it started to work, but Wilkin wouldn’t let him wear it, and Wilkin wasn’t listening to sense and Nott would be the one punished.