Page 21 of The Neverfear

‘Yes! Tell him that there’s … a colony of injured unicorns in Atidina. Nothing dangerous. Tell him we went with her. To keep her safe.’ The words hurt him. ‘And then every day until we’re back you’re going to have to pretend to have had another message from us. From the ratatoskas, or the other gaganas. Will you do it?’

Gallia jerked her head upwards, and sideways: Gaganan for Yes, if I must. But she halted in the air.

‘Koo!’ Gallia said. ‘He was with Irian! In her jacket.’

‘Oh!’ cried Anya. ‘I forgot! I forgot he was with us!’

‘He’ll be safe,’ said Christopher. ‘Anya! You can’t cry now. There isn’t time. Listen – if he’s with her, it means Irian isn’t alone.’

Anya threw back her head, her nostrils flared. It was something he admired about her – she had the muscle that could hold back tears when she needed to.

‘Gallia,’ she said, ‘you’d better go, before he starts expecting us back.’

Gallia cocked her head left and right, checking for stymphalian birds. She bent her beak, and whispered in Anya’s ear, and Anya took her and held her close. She stroked the old bird’s back, and kissed her fervently on the head. Then the bird gave Christopher a peck on the hand, and she was gone.

Christopher turned to Anya, who was watching Gallia’s soaring wings, biting her lips together.

‘Where do we find a Cerberus dog?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Anya. ‘There are none on Dousha.’

‘And we can’t just ask people on the street,’ said Christopher.

‘But,’ said Anya, ‘this is the City of Scholars.’

‘So?’

‘So, if we can’t ask a person, we can ask a book.’

The Wild Library

They scrubbed themselves clean of blood, and Anya wrung out her shoulder-length hair. She pulled it up in a bun, and dusted her clothes. ‘The more normal we look, the fewer questions people ask,’ she said. ‘And librarians notice things.’

The libraries were well signposted: the Philosophy, Natural History, the Political Sciences and – the largest – the Ferox Library. ‘That’s the ones!’ said Ratwin. ‘The Ferox; it has the rarest bookses.’

They followed the signs at the swiftest walk they dared. The streets grew crowded with summer hordes as they moved past theatres, cafes, shops with their Midsummer decorations still hanging in the windows. A coin in her mouth, Ratwin darted into one as they passed, and came out with two white sugared doughnuts slung around her horn.

‘Sugars for shocks,’ she said. ‘Eat. It’s medicinalising.’

The doughnuts were hot from the stove and they tasted optimistic.

We can do this, Christopher told himself. They had faced down death together before, he and Anya Argen, and they had won. They could do it again. He licked sugar from his fingers. Not just that they could – they would do it.

He kept an eye on the sky as they walked. It was alive with the sweep and call of birds – the sky always was in Glimouria. Firebirds passed in a flock overhead and a phoenix dipped and wheeled around the spires of the ancient city. Higher still, two black spots circled in the clouds.

‘Are those stymphalians?’ said Anya.

‘Impossible to know,’ said Christopher. Privately he was sure they were.

‘Do you think the bandits knew?’ said Anya. ‘That Irian was going to report them to the Senate?’

‘I don’t know. I think so. Why else take her, and not one of us?’ said Christopher.

‘Exactlies,’ said Ratwin. ‘So they cans stop her knowledges, and they cans takes a ransom. Killing two birdses with one stones.’

‘An unfortunate phrasing in the circumstances,’ said Jacques. He sat on Christopher’s head, his claws digging aggressively into his skull.

‘Jacques, can you stop that? You make a bad hat.’