voice. ‘None.’
Last hope drips from me into the water like spots of blood, and washes away.
‘There is a stillness where I try to sense her. But Little-Bones, where is your own life-blood? Why are you so long a ghost?’
She puts another picture in my head – my sleeping body, dusted with frost on the floor of the turret cell at Hackles. Then she fades – down, down, down into the depths – leaving me alone.
I fly fast as I can towards the aft-deck hatch, even though I can feel my dream-dance rubbing thin. I need to find Da’s message.
Before the hatch I reach a pulling point, where I feel like the cord between my spirit and my body is gonna snap. Maybe I’ve been a ghost too long, like Rattlebones said. Fright clangs through me and though I ent ready to give up I’m suddenly rushing through the night, terrorised, away from my ship, spirit-belly brushing against rock.
That’s when I see it – a shimmering spirit snagged on a tree root on the side of the mountain.
My dream-eyes widen ’til they feel like hollow pools. Another dream-dancer? I flit closer to it.
But this spirit is unrestful and it wails wretchedly into the wind. Every mote of my being prickles in shock. I’ve never seen another human spirit dancing free of its body. This one looks stuck. Its eyes snap onto me, huge black holes of loss. My heart is awash in darkness! it calls. It reaches out spindly-silver fingers and brushes my cheek.
I turn away but the fingers curl around my ankle. I twist to look behind and the spirit wrenches itself free from the tree root, then streaks past me. I soar quick quick quick towards the prison in the sky, where my body waits. Dimly I can hear my brother singing.
The lost spirit squeezes through the hole in the wall but I zip after it and grab a fistful of its scraggy hair. We struggle; a storm of force and feelings, slamming against each other. It thrashes away and then pings towards my body. The amber amulet of protection begins to glow in the hollow of my throat – it’s proper strange to see my own body from above. The spirit tries to pull the amulet over my head but I shove it away and my feet slip into my sleeping self and I wake up tasting blood. I’m on my back on the floor in the dark cell, shouting and cursing and crying with a voice strangled by the mountain.
My voice is the thing I could always make bigger and louder when I felt too small. Now the sky’s shrunk it.
When I’ve raked a breath the truth presses hard on my shoulders. My body ent safe when I dream-dance. That thing just tried to thieve my bones.
Crow warned me at Castle Whalesbane that things might get in while I’m dream-dancing, or I might not be able to get back. He said I needed a binding – some kind of spirit anchor.
I start to shudder, scanning the air for signs of a spirit, but nothing’s there that I can see. The Opal is still in my hand and my fingers are cramped from holding onto it so tightly. I fold into a ball, dragging the thin blanket over me.
I unlock each stiff, sore finger from around the Opal. The gem is warm against my palm and if I focus I can almost feel a pulse inside it. Then I snatch my breath. The Opal is casting swirling patterns of light on the grey blanket, a miniature dance of the fire spirits, just for me. My hair crackles with charge.
Golden flecks twist and flutter under the Opal’s skin. They settle my bones and help me remember. Rattlebones told me the merwraiths and my Tribe need my help.
But – you are his weakness. What did the old wraith mean?
There’s a sudden rustle and the sound of something scraping over the stone floor. I gasp and pull the blanket off my face. In the foggy moonlight my breath is a white cloud.
And near the far wall, another cloud steams.
Something is in here with me.
I scramble into a crouch, every muscle tensed. My pulse booms in my ears as I remember the thing that tried to steal my body, and I grip Bear’s amber amulet.
Something rushes towards me, so I whip a merwraith scale from my pocket and tuck it between my knuckles. I raise my fists. ‘Stay back!’
‘Noooo, shhh, oh the gods, no fretting,’ a girl husks. Her words have a sweet, songlike tilt to them. ‘I stole you a mug of hot goat’s milk, from the Protector’s own night-cauldron—’
‘Not that flaming Protector again!’ I splutter.
‘I’ll spice the milk,’ she begs. ‘And let you have the last cheese and garlic pancake on the mountain. But please be calm!’ Her breath has puffed closer, and the shadowy outline of a tall figure lurks behind it.
My head’s stuffed with confusion, and my wound throbs, dull-sharp-dull. Why is this shadow garbling on about pancakes? ‘Who are you?’ My lips bleed when I move them, and my teeth chatter. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘They left you with nothing to keep you warm – you could have frozen to death. I snuck in to watch over you. But what do I find?’ Her voice sharpens. ‘That you’ve been night-flying.’ She speaks like I’ve done the stupidest thing in the world, but her words are snagged with envy, too.
‘How do you know?’ I snap, before I can guard my tongue.
‘When you fly, the smell sticks to you. The memory of flight is tell-tale.’
She can smell my dream-dancing?
She strides closer. Her arms are full of shaggy white goat skins that she dumps next to me. I grab one and tuck myself into its musty folds. The warmth shocks tears of relief into my eyes.
The girl squats in front of me. She closes her eyes, a smile spreading over her face.
I shrink away from her. ‘What you doing?’ In the weak moonlight all I can see are snow-goggles and a headful of messy braids.
She lifts the goggles onto the top of her head. Her green eyes slant up and out like a cat’s. She’s the girl I saw when we landed – the one garbed in a cloak of feathers. ‘Remembering,’ she answers, weary sadness weighing down her voice.
Then comes another wrenching crack-crash-BOOM-roar-rush-splinter as Hackles spews more ice. I bury my face in the goat skin.
‘Our stronghold is more agitated than usual,’ says the girl thoughtfully, when the turret stops rattling.
I swallow. ‘Aye. There’s something making the world wild—’ I stop myself cos I don’t know a thing about this girl.
She lunges close and grabs my wrist. ‘Yes. Every beat that the draggles’ wings brought you closer, the weather raged fiercer. Something is stirring.’ Her light brown face is covered in splodgy rust-coloured freckles and she’s got the same gold bull-ring through her nose as the others. ‘Where did you fly?’ she asks urgently. ‘What did you see? What is it like ?’
I stay silent, watching her. Part of me wants to tell her how it’s like there’s two of me – the me in this world, and the me in the world of shadows. She stares back and takes a breath to say something more but I cut her off, a whip-stroke of defence burning my insides. ‘Don’t know what you’re babbling about.’
The girl cocks her head and looks at me like I’m denying the tide will come in. Then she shrugs and plucks a moonsprite from her pocket.
I curl my lip, remembering the heart-sore sprites held prisoner in the passageway lanterns. But the girl’s long fingers are gentle as she drops the sprite into a cracked glass jar.
Lamp-snoozings,