Scar Night Page 0,88
the Blue Hall instead, under table napkins.
Today he had a full bucket, nearly a hundred snails, and was wandering the dusty passages near the acolytes’ stairwells, looking for suitable places to deposit them, when a stooped, grey-faced priest struggled by with an armful of scrolls, shoving Dill’s wings aside. “Must you always get in everyone’s way?”
“I’m sorry.” Dill flattened himself against the wall.
“Can’t you bind those things up?” the priest snarled. He scurried on down the passageway, cassock swishing the flagstones underfoot, grey head shaking like a stone working loose from those around it.
The priest threw a dismissive final word over his shoulder. “If you must collect snails, for God’s sake don’t let Fondelgrue near them.”
The kitchen? Dill hadn’t thought of that. It would be warm in there. Perhaps the snails would like the heat and stay put. He snapped his wings out and stormed away, his feathers brooming dust from the walls.
I’ll take up just as much room as I like.
So he raced through passageways and arches, wings spread wide, drawing them in only as he passed each of the wall-mounted torches. He left a trail of snails as he went.
By the time he reached the stairwell to the ivy-tower, his bucket was empty and he felt victorious. He hadn’t yielded to another priest. Then again, he hadn’t met one either, but that wasn’t the point. He snatched up a brand and tore up the stairs.
A hundred steps higher the narrow windows began. Dill slotted the brand into an empty sconce, set down his bucket, and pounded up the rest of the stairs. If anyone was coming down, they’d just have to move out of his way.
The trapdoor opened to endless blue sky. Underneath crumbling arches, the gargoyles sat hunched, facing outwards, indifferent.
Rachel wasn’t here. Dill flopped to the ground.
No one had time for him any more. Why were they always in such a rush? If the city was preparing for an attack, shouldn’t he at least be informed? Was he not still an appointed guardian of the temple?
He jumped to his feet, flapped his wings irritably. Are you watching? The windows in the surrounding spires were all closed, the priests too busy threading through the corridors inside, too busy weaving their big secret to notice or care. Dill beat his wings harder, lifted an inch from the ground, before he panicked and let himself drop.
But a door open an inch is still an open door. Right then, Dill decided to do something he knew was forbidden. He decided to teach himself how to fly.
His initial attempts were dire. Worried that someone would emerge from the tower, he found a beam of wood to secure the trapdoor. Even then, he fretted and paced for a while before he felt confident that nobody would suddenly appear. Each time he beat his wings and felt himself begin to rise, he would pause, nervously listening for someone climbing the steps below. Eventually, he plucked up the courage to rise a full foot in the air. Then three feet. Then six. But he always descended again quickly to press his ear against the trapdoor.
Turning became a problem. He found he could hold himself static in the air quite comfortably, but when he attempted to move left or right, forward or backwards, he would lose his balance, panic, and crash to the stone surface before he knew what had gone wrong. He could hover, raise and lower himself, but what use would that be except for replacing candles in the temple candelabra? How had Gaine done it? Dill had never seen his father fly, but knew the angel had flown with the churchships into battle in his youth. If only his father were here to show him.
Days passed. Dill returned each morning to the ivy-tower to practise. He held himself aloft for longer each time, hovering above the centre of the circular roof, with the stone gargoyles shunning him, yet mocking him, and he dreaded the turns he would try to make, and the inevitable tumble to the flagstones that would follow. His hands and knees were constantly grazed, his clothes always dusty and torn. Nobody seemed to notice. The temple staff remained preoccupied with their secret dilemma. Rachel, meanwhile, did not appear. Dill persisted alone.
And then one morning, it came to him.
He was hovering some six feet above the roof, hearing finches twitter among the arches, when he noticed a tiny flower sprouting from a gargoyle’s neck. On impulse he decided to pluck