THE CHILDREN OF THE LOST

David Whitley was born in Chester in 1984. At the age of seventeen he was shortlisted for the Kathleen Fidler Award for a children’s novel and at twenty he won the Cheshire Prize for Literature for a children’s short story. In 2009 he published his debut novel, The Midnight Charter, which sold in eighteen countries and twelve languages around the world and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2010. The Children of the Lost is the second in the trilogy.

You can visit David online and read more tales of Agora at david-whitley.co.uk

Books by David Whitley

THE MIDNIGHT CHARTER

‘Particularly ingenious and shocking … a promising debut in the world of fantasy’ – Daily Mail

‘Deft world-building and crafty plotting combine for a zinger of an ending’ – Kirkus Reviews

‘The crescendo will captivate thoughtful readers, perhaps the same ones drawn to the more subversive … elements of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy’ – Booklist

‘Exciting and gripping from the first heart-stopping line’ – School Library Journal

‘Charity, greed, freedom, fate and political scheming are all woven through debut author Whitley’s richly conceived world’ – Publisher’s Weekly

As when, upon a tranced summer-night,

These green-robed senators of mighty woods,

Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.

John Keats

DAVID WHITLEY

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Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Chapter One

FORAGING

Shielding her eyes against the low winter sun, she swept her gaze over the gnarled, bare trees that stood grey and silent around her.

But still she couldn’t shake the feeling that, somewhere, a huge pair of eyes had turned upon her.

When Lily had first glimpsed the forest, a couple of days before, it had looked forbidding – a silent, dark mass at the foot of the mountains, far below her. The leafless, twisting branches clustered so thickly together that the light barely penetrated.

But as she took her first steps on the soft leaf-mould beneath the trees, she had begun to hear it – the rustling in the undergrowth, the flap of wings overhead, the occasional birdcall, so harsh in the still air that she would jump and turn, catching only a glimpse of black feathers. The earth shifted beneath her feet, and yielded up things that moved, and writhed, and scuttled. Even the trees themselves, within their thick, cold bark, were alive. She had always known that; she had seen a few trees in the orchards of the city, but those trees were tamed, urbanized. These looked as if they could reach for you.

Something moved in a nearby tree and Lily jumped, letting the mushrooms she had been gathering fall to the ground. She looked closer.

Two dark, round, shining eyes peered back at her from the ancient bark. She caught her breath.

Then a faint ruffle of feathers. Lily breathed out, her breath misting in the cold air. The eyes belonged to a large, grey owl, which sat, brooding, on a branch just next to the trunk, its mottled plumage making it almost invisible against the mossy bark.

The owl regarded her with a penetrating stare and Lily returned it, unblinking. She tried to imagine what it would make of her. Would it see this dark-skinned human girl, wrapped in a mud-streaked apron, as a curiosity, or a threat? Was she a guest here, or an intruder? She felt ridiculous for imagining that the tree itself had been watching her. But even if it had been, even if it had spoken to her that instant, she could not have been more fascinated than she was right now, staring at this owl. In all her fourteen years of life she had never been so close to a wild animal.

She didn’t belong here, in the owl’s noiseless kingdom. But she had left her home, left behind the crumbling streets of Agora where the air was filled with the cries of market vendors, hawking their wares night and day. Everyone lived in a maddening rush there – wanting, needing, grasping. And everything was for sale – not just goods, but thoughts, emotions, even children. Escaping from that frantic city to this empty forest was like plunging beneath the surface of the river: the sudden silence was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.

The bird swivelled its head, ruffled its wings, and swooped down and away, breaking the stillness. As it did so, the breeze began to stir, and Lily shivered, wishing she had not left her cloak at the camp. Now was not the time for nature-watching. Wearily, Lily gathered up the small pile of mushrooms again and, feeling the ache of the cold in her steps, made her way back through the forest.

After a few minutes she began to smell the smoke from the campfire. This guided her through the knots of trees until, in the evening gloom, she saw its flickering glow. As she grew nearer, she could make out a dark shape against the brightness – the silhouette of a boy of roughly her age, the firelight darkening his blond hair. He sat hunched against the cold, his legs drawn up to his chin, Lily’s cloak tight round his shoulders. Unlike Lily, who was wrapped up in many layers of dress, petticoats and apron, the boy wore only a shirt and breeches, which looked as if they had once been of fine quality, back when they were clean and new. Every now and then, he poked the fire with a long stick. He did not look up as Lily approached, or when she sat beside him. His grey eyes stared into the flames, his expression grim.

Lily spread out her apron on the ground, showing the pile of mushrooms. She hoped she had brought enough. They were not appetizing, but they had been eating them for three days and had not been poisoned yet.

‘I brought some food,’ she said cautiously. The boy didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled his stick out of the fire and, without looking at her, speared a mushroom and held it over the flames.

Sighing, Lily did the same. She was not especially talkative herself, but this endless silence seemed magnified by the forest. Every tiny rustle or distant call of an unknown animal seemed huge and terrible.

It had not been so bad at first, back in the mountains. But then the first couple of days were a blur in her mind. She remembered being ushered through tunnels beneath the city, seeing the door opened for her, and the light streaming through, and then …

It wasn’t seeing Agora from the outside that had shocked her, even though it was an amazing sight. From this side, without the buildings pressed up against them, the stark grey mass of the city walls had loomed over her. She had spent her whole life believing that Agora’s walls were the limit of the world, and for the first few minutes she found herself touching the stone, unable to accept where she was. But even so, she had prepared herself for that. She had made the decision to leave the city.

No, it was when she turned away from the walls to look outwards that her senses deserted her.

It was the scale. The mind-numbing grandeur of the mountains, rising up on all sides, shielding Agora in a deep, wide valley. Lily had seen the most incredible sights of Agora, from the Directory of Receipts to the Astrologer’s Tower, but beside the rugged peaks, silhouetted against the dawn, they were nothing at all. By the time she heard Mark shouting – screaming to be let back in – she could barely speak. She thought that she had mumbled something about it being ‘beautiful’.

At first, they had tried to find the River Ora, walking round the city until they reached the place where it flowed out through a vast, rusty grille set into the base of the walls. Mark had insisted that they stop, to see if there was any way of lifting it, of getting back into the city that had been their world. But although huge, ancient chains plunged into holes in the walls, there was no way to move it from this side. Even so, they camped there the first night, huddling together for warmth, just in case anyone appeared, to tell them that it was all a mistake and welcome them home. No one did.

The next morning, they had turned their backs on Agora, and Lily had told Mark everything. Everything about the agreement she had made with the Director of Receipts, the ruler of Agora. Everything about why they had been banished from their home. After that, Mark had stopped talking. But at least, in the mountains, it had been a passive quietness – almost as if he were elsewhere. It had been as though the shock of this new world had left him without anything to say.

But over the last couple of days, that had all changed. He was still tight-lipped, but now one look at his face told her that he had plenty to say. And once he started, she knew that she wouldn’t like what she heard.

The last of the evening light slowly faded. As they ate, the world around them shrank, until it extended only as far as the circle of light cast by the campfire. Lily glanced up again at her companion and, tentatively, she reached out a hand to him.

He snatched his hand away and turned, hunching his shoulders. He was taller than her, and could sometimes be taken for older than his fourteen summers, but, sitting like this, he seemed so like a child.

On previous evenings, this had been how it had ended. Lily had scanned the clearing for dangers, and then settled down by the fire and tried to sleep.

Neither of them had slept well. Not that Mark told her, but she could see from the dark circles forming under his eyes. It was as though the tension of the days, the oppressive atmosphere between them, was seeping into their nights. The next day, they would take turns to search. Lily said they were looking for food, but both of them knew the real reason. They were looking for any signs of another human being.

But tonight, perhaps because her nerves were frayed from lack of sleep, Lily jumped up, and stalked round the fire, until she was facing Mark again. She knelt down in front of him, forcing him to look at her.

‘Go on then,’ Mark replied, staring back at her, his eyes cold in the firelight. Lily, taken aback, lost her resolve, and sat back on the ground to gather her thoughts. She knew what she wanted to talk about, and also knew that if one thing was guaranteed to make Mark worse, it would be that.

‘We need to keep moving,’ she ventured, after a moment’s thought. ‘We should try to find the river again. If anyone lives out here they must live by the river, there’s no other fresh water –’

‘Seen anyone yet?’ Mark cut across her fiercely. ‘Or is this another guess?’

‘There must be someone else,’ Lily said soothingly. ‘The Director said that others had left the city before …’

‘Pity he didn’t tell us what happened to them,’ Mark said, and then added, in a strained voice, ‘Sorry, pity he didn’t tell you.’

For the hundredth time, Lily wished that she had not been quite so quick to tell Mark about her meeting with the Director. But she could never have predicted that he would react like this.

It had seemed so perfect – the chance to leave the city, to escape those dreadful streets. The chance, moreover, to find out the truth behind the dark secrets that had plagued their lives, plots that had already led to the death of their friend Gloria. The possibility, somewhere in this strange world, of finding her own vanished parents. It had been a once-in-a-lifetime offer, and the price had seemed so tiny – that Mark should accompany her. At the time, Lily had been sure he would leap at the chance. How could he complain, when he had lost everything? When Lily had last seen him, he had been rotting in a prison cell, dying from fever, and being watched over by a man he hated, a man who had sold him when he was younger – his father.

If his fever had only lasted one more day, Lily would have been his saviour. If he hadn’t had the chance to meet his father, to talk, and to forgive him.

‘I’ve told you,’ Lily said, as gently as she could, ‘I didn’t know he was going to offer a way out, Mark. I never thought he’d give you the chance to escape from jail –’

‘Don’t pretend you did it for me,’ Mark growled. ‘You talk to the ruler of Agora, and he drones on about some ancient secrets, and suddenly nothing else matters.’

‘This is something bigger than us, Mark,’ Lily said intensely. ‘Didn’t you always want to be important? The Director said they’ve been waiting for us ever since the city was founded. Hundreds of years, Mark, long before the Golden Age began …’

‘He said it might be us,’ Mark replied. ‘It’s possible that we’re these legendary judges they’ve been waiting for. You said that they’d been wrong before.’

‘But what if they’re right, Mark?’ Lily interrupted, with sudden passion. ‘Think about it. The Director said that we would make a real difference. That we’d change Agora forever! Wouldn’t that be worth it?’ She sat forward, letting the firelight shine full on her face. ‘We could change it for the better, Mark. We could make it a place where children don’t get sold by their parents, where secret societies don’t kill our friends without a second thought, where no one has to sell their own emotions to survive!’ Lily was getting heated now. ‘You were thrown into prison without even being allowed to speak at your own trial, Mark, thanks to Mr Snutworth. My friends spend all their time running an almshouse, a charity, that’s always on the verge of collapsing, and why? Because people don’t care. Agora is our home, Mark, and it’s sick. It’s broken. And the Director told me that we, the two of us, can make it better! All we had to do was leave the city.’

‘And you believed him?’ he said with scorn. ‘He spins some story about ancient prophecies and documents from the foundation of Agora, and you do whatever he says?’ Mark leaned forward. ‘I was an astrologer for over a year, Lily, I built my life on making up stories like that. And let me tell you something – prophecies are worthless. They’re all just big words and guesses. I thought you didn’t fall for that sort of thing.’

It was Lily’s turn to be silent then. She so wanted to tell Mark that she believed every word the Director had said. It had certainly felt real when she had been standing in his presence, with the weight of history pressing down upon her. At that moment, it had been so easy to accept that she and Mark were the legendary judges that the great Midnight Charter had predicted – the ‘Protagonist’ and ‘Antagonist’ that would, without realizing it, shape the future of Agora. But now, they had spent days in this bleak and empty landscape, and they had found nothing. No sign to tell them where to go; no guide to explain what they should do to fulfil their destiny. And when she thought back to what the Director had said – really thought, away from the awesome grandeur of the Directory – she realized that he had told her nothing. Given her no guidance, no idea of what they needed to do.

‘Why would the Director bother to trick us?’ Lily said reflectively. ‘Why would the most powerful man in the city need to banish us?’

‘Us!’ Mark said, his anger flaring. ‘There isn’t any us about it. He wanted to get rid of you, Lily. You were popular. The whole city was talking about your Almshouse, about how it was a new way of life. You were already making a difference, don’t you see? Do you think the Director wanted that?’ Mark shook his head in exasperation. ‘Did he even show you the bit in his precious Midnight Charter which mentions us?’ Mark stared into the fire. ‘Think like him for a moment, Lily. He couldn’t stop you openly. Not after one of his receivers tried to kill us.’

‘He didn’t organize that,’ Lily said, defending the Director, but Mark’s look silenced her.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Mark continued. ‘You threatened his power, Lily. So when you go to see him, he dangles this “great quest” in front of you, and off you go. Problem solved.’ Mark’s eyes filled with bitterness. ‘Only the stars know why he wanted you to take me too. Then again, if he and Snutworth really were working together, maybe I had to be silenced too.’

‘No,’ Lily said hastily, trying to ignore the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach that what Mark was saying made sense. ‘No, you’re wrong. There has to be more to it than that.’ She looked at Mark, her calm evaporating under his relentless stare. ‘You’ll see, we just need to keep going for another day or two.’

‘Where?’ Mark leapt up. ‘Where are we going, Lily? Are you still expecting there to be a welcoming party for us, the Great Judges?’ He flung his half-eaten mushroom to the ground. ‘I certainly hope they bring food.’ Before Lily could respond, he threw his head back, and shouted into the night sky. ‘Hey! We’re over here! The Protagonist and the Antagonist! Did we miss the party? Anyone out there? Hello? HELLO!’

‘Why are we here, Lily?’ Mark ignored her, shouting louder than ever. ‘Who do you think is out here in this forest?’

There was dead silence. Mark stared back at her across the campfire. The anger that had been there a moment ago was gone; now his eyes showed only pained shock. Lily tried to say something, to tell him with all her heart that this was not the only reason, that she really meant what she had said about making Agora a better place. But it was Mark who spoke first.

‘You don’t really care about any of this,’ he interrupted, his voice growing in power. ‘You’re pretending it’s all about these high ideals of yours, but really you just want to find your parents. You tore me away from my father because that was the price of finding your own.’

‘I rescued you, Mark, remember?’ Lily said, the words coming out harsher than she had intended. ‘Yes, I want to find my parents. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d react like this, but I also wanted to get you out of that prison cell –’

‘But you didn’t ask me!’ Mark shouted with rage. Lily felt herself take a step back. ‘You didn’t even try to get a message to me! Did you think I wouldn’t have understood? I spent two years thinking my father was dead, thinking the last thing he did was to sell me. I had twelve hours back with him in that cell. I was just getting to know him again –’

‘You wanted to stay in prison?’ Lily snapped, the last of her patience ebbing away. ‘Locked up for crimes you didn’t commit, dying from fever and nearly going mad? What would it have been like after a week, a month, a year? In the end, you’d have had to face the fact that your father was your jailer, keeping you locked up in a stinking cell. I set you free.’

‘Free?’ Mark replied. He turned his head away, his voice quiet again. ‘I’m not free, Lily. I used to be locked up. Now I’m locked out. Cut off from the only home I’ve ever known.’

And in one painful moment, Lily understood why he was so angry. Despite everything that had happened to him there, despite its flaws and corruption, Mark loved Agora in a way that Lily never had. In hopeless sympathy, she reached out a hand to him.

Mark turned his head away, and Lily pulled her hand back, shaken. She had never seen a look like that, not even on the faces of the worst debtors who had come to the Almshouse. His eyes seemed hollow, as though he had lost something that could never be regained.

He moved to the edge of the circle of light cast by the campfire, his face half in darkness.

‘Where are you going?’ Lily asked. There was no response. ‘We have to stick together, Mark,’ she pleaded. ‘We’re all we’ve got.’

‘Home,’ he said, his voice steady, almost detached. ‘I’m sorry, Lily. I’m going home.’

A few seconds later, Lily heard him break into a run, his feet crunching on the dead leaves.

It was only a minute before Lily overcame her surprise and shock. Only one short minute before she began to call after him, her voice rising thin and desperate in the night air.

But, by then, Mark’s own sounds were gone, swallowed in the silence of the forest.

Chapter Two

RUNNING

Mark leaned heavily against a tree, his head spinning. Already his legs had begun to ache, and his chest to heave. He braced himself, trying to clear his thoughts.

The night closed in around him, utterly black. Against the clouded sky, one shade lighter than the forest itself, the branches bore down on him, crooked and accusing, like claws.

He shut his eyes and concentrated, listening. For a moment, the only noise was his own breathing, and the thud of his heart echoing inside his head. But as that grew quieter, he heard what he was listening for. The distant sound of running water.

The river was not too far away. That same river that wound its way through Agora, miles upstream. Maybe if he set off now, he could be back in the mountains before next nightfall. Maybe this time, if he waited long enough, the door in the walls would open again. He was prepared to sit there until it did.

Mark walked on, his feet sinking into unseen moss and mud, already picturing his trek up the mountain passes that he and Lily had half skidded down. It was hard to remember exactly where Agora was, but the river would be his guide, his ally. There were lots of warehouses near the river, back in Agora. He could hide there, once he got back in. Find himself a new name, forge a signet ring, contact his dad through his old fishermen friends. There had to be people who did that for escaped prisoners.

Mark held out his hands ahead of him, and his fingertips brushed cracked, ancient bark. The sense caused a sudden stab of memory, so sudden and painful that he found himself pulling back as though burned. He felt again his own raw fingers, scrabbling at the door in the city walls, begging to be let back in, and hearing only Lily’s voice, telling him to turn his back on Agora, on his home. She had done everything except drag him away.

Mark buried the memory and strode on, barely noticing the scratching of thorny undergrowth on his bare shins – breeches were not designed for forests. But still he kept on, towards the hiss of rushing water.

It hadn’t been so bad in the mountains. But ever since they had arrived in this dark, endless forest, it was as though he couldn’t avoid his worst thoughts. Every night, he dreamed about striking Lily down, about screaming at her for stealing away his home. And every day, he had bitten back his words and accusations, leaving them to fester and grow strong. By the time he ran away from their camp, it had felt as though his mind was on fire.

Mark stopped, feeling the rough fabric of Lily’s cloak round his shoulders. As he stood there, the cold prickling his arms, he listened.

He turned his head again. Still nothing. Had he been going the wrong way? The river had to be in this direction. Perhaps if he kept on moving …

Mark flung up his hands in front of his face, darting his eyes around into the utter blackness that hung, thickly, about him. There it was again, that noise, piercing the night. An inhuman sound, like a cry of pain.

Mark sank to his knees, barely noticing the mud. It had just been an animal, some strange creature that he would never see. Not a person.

He realized that this was not a comforting thought. Even in the midst of his fear, there had been a tiny hope. An idea that it might be a human voice, calling out. But out here there was no one. No one but ghosts. Hadn’t they always said that to leave the city was the same as death?

Mark sat back on his haunches. He knew that he should keep moving, but his legs were already numb from the cold, and the pain of his feet had dulled into a throbbing ache that spread through his entire body. Even his thoughts, which up until now had been racing, slowed to a trickle. He was tired, so very tired.

Gently, he lay down on the frost-covered earth. Maybe he would rest for a few moments. Or perhaps sleep. It would be easier to find his way back in daylight.

Lily was coming, with a torch from the fire. She’d find him; she’d take him back. Suddenly, he didn’t care about being alone in the darkness.

Before he was even conscious of it, Mark was up on to shaking legs – legs that grew stronger with every step. First he was walking, then running, faster and faster, pounding across the ground, dodging between trees that loomed out of the murk. No time to think, no time to wonder, only time to run away from Lily.

Roots rose up to grasp his ankles; branches lashed across his eyes. Blinded, he plunged into a mass of thorns like a thousand tiny knives, but still he had to keep moving.

A hideous howl filled the air around him. Mark heard a panting, the sound of something bursting from the bushes that he had disturbed, and felt a rush of hot, stinking breath. He fell to the ground, his momentum carrying him forward, and tumbled over and over, jamming his foot against a tree in a bright flash of pain. Grimacing, he turned back, but even here, where the branches were thinner, he saw little more than a wild shadow, slipping through the trees.

Mark grabbed a stone from the ground. His hand trembled, but he was determined not to go without a fight.

He was running again, but this time back towards the light. He squeezed the rock in his hand, but had little idea of what he would do with it. All he knew was that it was his fault. He had disturbed it; he was the reason Lily was out in the forest, away from the campfire. The thought of it made him shudder with fright.

As he raced towards the torch, the shadows of trees seemed to dance before him. Every bound felt as long as three, yet at the same time he never seemed to move forward. A flock of birds flew down and next to him, their caws ringing in his ears. Except, somehow, the next moment they were gone, and the trees closed about him, poking and scratching with long, knobbly fingers. The howl returned, blasting out from all around him. He was shouting now, shouting Lily’s name. And she was answering, but she seemed so very far away – too far. The only other human voice in this fiendish night.

And then the trees parted. And Mark was staring across a clearing at Lily. She was holding the torch high in the air, staring back at him with an air of annoyance and relief.

Hidden in the shadows of a tree, its breath misting, curling out of its long muzzle, as though there was a fire lit within it. Very slowly, Mark raised the stone, motioning Lily to move sideways, away from the creature.

It was only a glimpse, just long enough for Mark to see his face, scarred and rough, and with a glint of wildness in his eyes. Just long enough to see him raise his arm. There was something in his hand. Something like a short metal truncheon.

Mark stood for a moment, paralysed with fear, watching the beast lying there. Then, tentatively, he came forward, picking up the torch that lay guttering on the damp earth.

The creature didn’t move, even as Mark approached and reached out a hand to touch the matted fur.

His fingers came away sticky with blood. Mark looked – the creature’s eyes were already beginning to glaze over.

‘Lily,’ Mark said, his voice hoarse but excited. ‘Lily! It’s dead! The man, he …’

Mark looked up, trying to find their strange saviour, who could kill beasts from many yards away. He saw nothing but the shifting shadows. Whoever the man had been, he was gone.

Mark turned back to Lily’s prone form, and tugged at her sleeve, babbling in relief.

‘We’re safe! Don’t you see? You were right, they’ve come for us! We’re not alone, Lily, we’re –’

Mark stopped. Something felt wrong. Lily hadn’t answered back. She hadn’t even moved.

Chapter Three

THE SECRET

Verity pushed her way through the early-morning crowds, her cloak drawn tight round her shoulders against the chill, her ears ringing from the cries of vendors.

As I grow older, memories of my youth become so vivid. It was the first time I had ever walked down a deserted street – the first time my only company had been the ringing of my footfalls on the cobbles, and the misting of my breath in the air. I was a young man – proud, energetic, ambitious. I had just seen my twentieth summer and my whole life lay before me.

My path was set that day, sixty-five years ago. One day, one meeting, can change everything.

The stench of sewage filled the air, and Verity was forced to stop, leaning on a pile of discarded crates. It had been so long since she had been out of the Directory that the common streets turned her stomach, and in all her thirty summers she had never ventured into this part of the city before – where the stone-clad barracks of the Scorpio Quarter met the curious stalls of Sagittarius. It was not the slums, but only vendors whose fortunes were failing tried to do business in the shadow of the prison.

I lingered a little amidst the elegant buildings of the Virgo District before going to meet him. In that moment of half-light, when the sky glowed, but before the sun had quite risen above the rooftops, I could believe the city empty, and I her ruler. It was something I liked to imagine, when I opened the shutters in my tower room in the university.

Now, I can climb the tall towers of the Directory any time I feel able to make the ascent, but I rarely do. The secret dream of power was just a young man’s fantasy; the reality is so much harder.

Verity turned her face to the wall as a squad of receivers, decked out in their midnight-blue cloaks, marched past. She could not risk being recognized. She had disguised herself – letting down the black hair that she normally kept so tightly braided, and even rubbing powder into her dark skin to make it lighter. If this ever got back to the Directory, she would have nowhere to run.

He was waiting outside the house. Even here, where there was no one to see, he held his tall frame stiff and proud. He was a little younger than I, and yet the frown lines were already carved into his brow.

‘So, you’re here,’ he said. Normally, his tone was confident, almost arrogant, but this morning he whispered.

‘You think I’m not capable of walking across the city on my own?’ I asked, with a wry smile. ‘As I recall, I wasn’t the one with the sheltered upbringing.’

‘You’re sure you weren’t followed?’ he muttered, glancing around. I had never seen him scared before. Never even considered the possibility that he could be scared.

‘I’m sure, Stelli,’ I said reassuringly. ‘Now, come on, tell me what this is all about …’

The guard squinted down at the smooth glass ball, tiny in his large, grubby hands. Verity held her breath. The others had refused it, even though the offer was a good one. In fact, it was too good. Prison guards knew when to be suspicious.

He flicked it with one finger. A swirl of shimmering mist danced within it, leaving a pale, milky glow.

‘It’s a memory,’ she said at last, just to break the silence. The guard wasn’t stupid, he knew what it was: a perfect moment of another’s subconscious, her own – resonant, affecting. They said it was a high like no other: a chance, for an hour or two, to be someone else.

She would have called it priceless, but that would be ludicrous. In Agora, everything had its price.

‘Doesn’t look like much,’ I muttered, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my topcoat, and gazing up at the modest house of red sandstone. ‘Hardly the place for your family to keep their darkest secret.’

‘Perhaps I should suggest to my father that they invest in a cobweb-hung mausoleum, complete with sinister music,’ Stelli replied bitingly, ‘or maybe, just maybe, the family thinks that something like this is best kept out of sight.’

‘On that subject,’ I said, hearing footsteps approaching from behind the door, ‘are you ever planning to tell me what this great secret is?’

Stelli put his head on one side. And then, for the first time, I saw him smile, pleased to know more than I did for once.

Verity walked away from the prison. In a way, she felt relieved. She had tried to follow her conscience, despite the danger, but fate was against her. As always, she was at the mercy of greater forces.

She wished again that she could have used the tunnels. They would have brought her here directly from the safe and silent halls of the Directory, without braving the open streets.

Distractedly, her fingers closed round the tiny glass sphere. She would keep hold of this. She hadn’t wanted to give it up. It was a precious memory, from when she was a little girl of ten summers. Before she ever came to work at the Directory. Back when she was happy, and her parents took her to play in the sun.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. She tensed, but made herself turn slowly, as if she was doing nothing wrong.

The man was tall and lanky, but stood slouched. At first, he looked just like anyone else on the streets around the prison – his clothes threadbare, his chin unshaven and his stringy blond hair matted. But the eyes were quite different. They had a presence that stopped Verity from walking away.

‘Need to get in?’ he said lazily, jerking his head over his shoulder towards the prison.

Cautiously, Verity nodded. He didn’t have the look of an undercover receiver, and Verity had briefed a few of those in her time. The man’s hand reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a leather pouch. He opened it. Inside, Verity saw the soft shimmer of several more memory pearls.

Verity hesitated, not liking the thought of this stranger taking her memories. She pictured him sitting in some alleyway, his head lolling and eyes vacant, living her life. Feeling what it was like to be her, back when she was a child, and the world was so very different. It made her shudder.

A few minutes later, a shriek of ‘Thief!’ rang out. The lanky man ran from the scene of his crime, a bag of stolen chestnuts still hot in his hands. Three guards sprang forward to apprehend him. The crowd of vendors craned forward to get a better look.

In the confusion, none of the guards saw Verity slipping in through the open door.

I held my tongue until the servant had left us in an antechamber, panelled in funereal black oak. By then, the words were almost bursting out of me.

‘Your great-grandfather?’ I whispered incredulously. ‘But, if he’s still alive, shouldn’t he be the Count? Instead of your father?’

‘He was declared insane and stripped of his title,’ Stelli said, almost casually. ‘The family never mentions him. They say he knows a secret that the Libran Society wants buried. It certainly wouldn’t be beyond their power.’ He gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘No wonder Father kowtows to them all the time, despite his opinion of secret societies. They took everything from my great-grandfather, even his name. If the family ever speak of him, they just call him the Last.’

‘So you’ve invited me to a family reunion?’ I replied. He looked back at me then, a long look, and I felt as if I was being tested. Even so, his next words shocked me.

‘No. If I were to speak to him, my family would cast me out into the streets. Officially, I’m here with a friend to check the family records. I don’t even know about the Last.’ He drummed his fingers on a panel, reflectively. ‘You will chance across him completely by accident.’

I could barely speak, not sure whether to thank him for this opportunity, or curse him for assuming that I would do his dirty work for him.

‘Well?’ he said, as the measured step of the servant could be heard outside. ‘What do you say?’

She made her way past the cells, past the rows of thieves and debtors, until she reached her goal – an alcove containing an empty desk. He was away from his post. Verity was glad. After everything she had done, she didn’t want to look him in the eye.

Instead, she reached deep inside her cloak, pulled out a letter and slipped it into the pocket of his coat, left hanging on an old wooden chair. Stamped, and sealed with her personal sign – a mountain, rising from a forest, its trees picked out in tiny flecks of wax.

He didn’t ask at first. Not as we walked away from that accursed house. Not as we pushed our way through the Central Plaza, and back into the broad avenues of the Gemini Quarter. I barely noticed. In my mind, I was still running from those eyes. Not the eyes of a madman; not eyes that saw something that wasn’t there. Far more terrible than that. The eyes of the Last saw only the truth.

It was not until we were back in my rooms in the university that Stelli looked expectant. But I kept silent, my lips clamped shut lest the poison spill out.

‘Well?’ he said at last, looking almost boyish in his impatient eagerness. ‘What is it? What did he say?’

‘He said …’ I answered, and stopped. My tongue felt heavy, my lips thick, as though I had been drinking. There was so much power in these words. I realized that, even among my whirling thoughts. Some little part of me tasted that power, and liked it.

I looked up, looked into a face that I would never see again after that day. It seemed as if I knew everything then, on that bright winter morning, when the world became horribly clear. For a moment, I considered lying, considered sparing him. But some people can bear the deepest hell, if someone will give them a fire by which to see.

The Director looked up. Miss Verity stood before him, the ledgers he had asked for in her arms. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his memories of Stelli, and secrets, and distant days vanishing back into the shadows of the chamber where his little pool of candlelight could not reach.

‘Yes, sir. He has been confirmed as a member of the Libran Council, as you requested. Lord Ruthven and Lady Astrea have been informed. Snutworth’s reports will be coming in soon.’

The Director picked up his pen. Verity noticed that because she had almost never seen him put it down.

‘I hope,’ she began, placing the books on his mahogany desk, trying to seem unruffled, ‘that I did not disturb your thoughts.’

The Director looked at her. The expression on his lined, ancient face was hard to place. It could have been regret.

‘Nothing that I have not thought about before, Miss Rita,’ he said, his voice quiet. ‘So many times before.’

Verity turned, the click of her shoes on the stone floor and the heartbeat thudding in her ears magnified by this cavernous space. She was almost at the door to her own little office. Almost safe.

If there was a time to confess, it was now. Perhaps he would understand; who could say? Even she, personal secretary to the Director of Receipts, ruler of the City of Agora, knew so little about her master.

But she was right to keep that thought to herself. Because her master, sinking back into his memories, was thinking just the opposite.

Chapter Four

BREATHING

Mark’s head swam. He felt his heart jump in his chest, and his hand shook enough to nearly drop the torch.

He stopped himself, gripping the burning branch fiercely, forcing himself to look again. He held the light close to Lily’s face, driving the end of the torch into the earth to free his hands.

The cuts were bleeding, but not deep. As he looked closer, he could make out a wide, spreading bruise on her forehead that had been hard to see at first against her dark skin. Beside her, rising out of the ground, a rock bore smears of blood. When the creature had leapt on her she had struck her head as she fell to the ground.

Mark slumped, clinging to her numbly. He felt as if he should be crying, or shaking her, anything. But his limbs seemed to have lost all feeling.

A memory jumped into his mind, as sharp as a blade. His own last words before being pushed out of the city. That strange woman who had opened the door, Verity, begging him to take care of Lily. He had promised with all his heart.

Lily had been coming after him. Only trying to help, to do what she thought was right.

He stopped, hardly daring to hope. There it was again – her chest moved. Eagerly, he looked up, peering at her mouth.

Mark felt about her neck. This time, his cold fingers found a pulse, though he couldn’t tell how strong it was. He felt his own heart begin to pound. She was still alive, but for how much longer?

He went to shake her, but stopped. What if some of her bones were broken? How could he tell? Bitterly, he cursed his lack of skill. Lily would have known. She had spent months learning the healer’s arts.

Mark realized he was shouting, and pulled back. Lily didn’t stir. This was no natural sleep.

Panicking now, he glanced about. That man. The man who had killed the beast. Surely he must be somewhere nearby. Maybe he could help.

Mark leapt to his feet. The man couldn’t be far away. Maybe Mark could catch up with him.

He reached out his hand for the torch, and stopped. When he was little, back in the slums, he had known children who had frozen to death on winter nights. He couldn’t move Lily; he was sure that would make it worse. But if he left her lying here on the freezing ground, he might as well never come back.

Quickly, he slipped Lily’s cloak off his own shoulders and covered her, but now it seemed thin and useless. In desperation he looked around, and saw the beast, lying a few feet away.

Bracing his feet against the tree roots that burst through the earth, Mark dragged the furry corpse across the ground. Illness and hunger had left him weak. His muscles ached with cold and strain, and his vision blurred, but eventually he lugged the warm body next to Lily. Panting, he covered both with the cloak, attacker and victim sharing the last of their warmth. Then he drove the burning branch a little deeper into the ground near her, pleading with fate not to let it fall and set fire to her cloak. It was dangerous, but he needed a way to find her again.

‘Just … just stay here, Lily,’ Mark muttered helplessly. And then, in a more desperate tone, he said it again. ‘Please stay here.’

At some point, he started shouting. His voice rasped with the cold air, but still he called as loudly as he could, filling the silent forest with his noise.

The wind began to blow, rustling through the branches and the dead leaves, buffeting him this way and that. But still he shouted louder and louder, the words of his promise to Verity ringing in his ears louder than the howl of any gale.

A tree branch caught him across the throat, and he fell pitching and coughing to the ground. He dragged himself to his feet.