Authors: Rosie Best
“Fran’s still out there, and so’s Ryan.”
“Victoria knows our hiding places. She knows where we live.”
“She’s still got the Conspiracy stone,
and
the actual Conspiracy.”
We nodded at each other some more.
“I was so scared,” he said. “I didn’t want to die without… without telling you that I… think you’re a great artist.”
I felt a laugh bubble up inside me.
Mo, you are secretly a coward. Well, fine. If you’re not going to do it, I bloody will.
“She picked you to torture because she knew I had feelings for you.” I opened my hands, offering up my statement of surprisingly obvious fact.
He smiled.
It’s quite hard to kiss and smile at the same time. Your teeth tend to get in the way, and they did, a little. It didn’t seem to matter. Mo tasted of warmth and spices and blood and someone else’s tongue, which isn’t really a taste but more of an experience. His knees tangled with mine and my hands went wandering over the back of his shirt.
We pulled away and he planted another kiss, soft and sweet, on my left temple.
“All of this has been a shit first date, let’s have a better second one, OK?” He straightened his T-shirt, and then mine, apparently just for something to do with his hands. I nodded, because if I opened my mouth my heart might have fallen out and gone splat at his feet and that’s just not attractive at all.
Susanne met us at the bottom of the stairs with Thatch’s cup of tea. I sipped it gratefully.
“I think they’re all hoping you have a plan,” she warned me, with a glance back at the crowded sitting room.
“I don’t,” I said. “But that’s OK. We can make one together.” I smiled up at Mo and he put his hand on my shoulder. “Although,” I added thoughtfully, “There is one thing I definitely want to do.”
My wings sliced the night air and I circled the Tower of London in a wide arc, riding the current of warmer air that rose from the buildings, my feathers fluttering as I turned my whole body to steer myself in closer. The stones rushed past in a blur and I veered away again, chickening out from attempting to land.
This sounded like such a good idea when I was telling the assembled shifters in Susanne’s house – or maybe it was just that they knew they didn’t have to come so they were all for it. The top of the White Tower wasn’t exactly a small target, but perhaps I should’ve done a bit more flying practice first.
No, I could do this. I circled the Tower a couple more times, and then let myself gently float down to land on the roof. I stumbled and fell at the last minute, tumbling over and over in a confused mess of black feathers. But nobody had seen me, so at least I my dignity was intact, if not all of my plumage. I hopped to my talons and settled in to wait.
I didn’t have to wait long. A cawing started up down below. The ravens were sounding the alarm. They knew I was here. Only another minute or so passed before the first black shapes zipped past the edges of my vision. A raven shot past me with a tearing sound, and then I was surrounded. Five Yeoman Warders in the shape of birds. I twitched my tail feathers. Maybe that meant they hadn’t found the sixth yet – the security guard who discovered Blackwell’s body. Maybe I could still get to him first. But that was a task for another day.
“Who are you?” demanded one of the ravens. “What are you doing here?”
I tilted my head to one side in amusement.
Thanks for the perfect lead-in, Chief Yeoman Warder Phillips.
“My name is Meg, and I’m here because you’re all traitors and thieves,” I cawed, holding my head high and hopping around so that I could look at each of the corrupt Warders in turn. “I’m here to tell you that we know what you did. We know you sold your stone to Victoria. We also know that she doesn’t care about you, or your Tower, or your traditions. I came to tell you that no matter what she does, we’re still here, and we’re still fighting. I came to say: we’re going to win this fight. You need to make sure you know which side you’re on.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Some very heartfelt thanks:
To Catherine Pellegrino, the greatest agent, for believing in me and Skulk and for being patient and kind and generally wonderful throughout the whole agent-finding and submissions process.
To my brilliant editor Amanda, for saying all the things I knew deep down and helping me figure out how to make the book so much better. And to the Strange Chemistry team and all the other writers for being incredibly welcoming and helpful. (And for the Skulk symbol – I’m still not over how much I love that thing.)
To my Mum and Dad and Lizzie, thank you all for not really minding that I spent my teenage years shut up in my room writing on a very loud keyboard at all hours of the night. Thanks Mum for Wodehouse and Discworld, Lizzie for Sandman and Hellblazer, and Dad for everything.
To the entire Working Partners crew, for the support and the opportunities to write and improve, and for all the drinks. Thanks for still being interested even when my answer to “how’s the book going?” was just “aaaaaaaaaaaaargh”. You are all the actual best.
To the Scoobies and the Undiscovered Voices team, especially Sara O Connor and Sara Grant for giving me and so many others the biggest and best career boost ever. I probably wouldn’t have ever actually finished Skulk if it hadn’t been for UV2012, and I would definitely not be where I am now if it wasn’t for Sara G’s incredible talent for cheerleading and being wonderful.
To Imogen, who is the best audience, for fifteen years of nerd joy and unconditional writing love. You should write things. It’s in a book so it must be true.
And obviously to Jessie, who was always there when I needed her and away when I needed to be alone, who read and helped with so many things, who had to live with me while I was writing and rewriting this book and still loved me even when I was stressed and horrible and didn’t do the washing up. Thank you. (And Goph.)
STRANGE CHEMISTRY
An Angry Robot imprint
and a member of the Osprey Group
Lace Market HouseAngry Robot/Osprey Publishing
54-56 High PavementPO Box 3985
Nottingham NG1 1HWNew York
UKNY 10185-3985, USA
www.strangechemistrybooks.com
Strange Chemistry #18
A Strange Chemistry paperback original 2013
1
Copyright © Rosie Best 2013
Rosie Best asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work.
Cover art by Argh! Oxford
Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
All rights reserved.
Angry Robot is a registered trademark and the Angry Robot icon a
trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is
coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsoldand destroyed”
and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
UK ISBN 978 1 90884 469 9
US ISBN 978 1 90884 470 5
Ebook ISBN 978 1 90884 471 2
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Table of Contents