City of Lies - Lian Tanner [2]
But then she ran away and took refuge in the Museum of Dunt. And in the months that she spent there, she grew up. More than that, she became an accomplished thief and a skilled liar. She learned the Three Methods of Concealment, and the First Song, and how to act with a steely courage, even when she was almost overwhelmed with fear.
The lessons fed some deep need inside her, and the museum quickly came to feel like home. The only thing missing was Ma and Pa. They were locked up in the House of Repentance, imprisoned by the Fugleman, the leader of the Blessed Guardians.
And why were they imprisoned?
Goldie turned the corner onto Gunboat Canal. “Because of me,” she whispered.
In the Jewel of ten months ago, running away was a crime. The Fugleman could not get his hands on Goldie, but it was the easiest thing in the world to pluck Ma and Pa from their beds and drag them before the Court of the Seven Blessings. There they were tried and sentenced for being the parents of a criminal child.
It was my fault, thought Goldie. Everything that happened to them was my fault.
It had rained earlier in the night, and the footpaths of Gunboat Canal were slick with mud. Goldie stopped outside Toadspit’s house, took a deep breath and threw a pebble at the window above her head. Then she slipped back into the shadows and waited.
She had lied when she told her parents that the Museum of Dunt didn’t need her. The museum did need her, to help guard the dangerous secrets that lay within its walls.
But Ma and Pa needed her too, and she could not leave them.
She wrapped her fingers around the enamel brooch that she wore on her collar—the brooch that had once belonged to her long-lost auntie Praise. But the little blue bird with its outstretched wings brought her no comfort.
Pa thought that there had only been one message from the Museum of Dunt. He was wrong. In the last few months Goldie had had more than a dozen messages, each one asking when she was going to take up her position as Fifth Keeper.
Tonight she would reply.
Never.
“Never?” said Toadspit, in a tone of utter disbelief.
Goldie swallowed. She had known that this would be hard, but it was even worse than she had expected. “No. Never.”
As she spoke she felt a prickle between her shoulder blades. She glanced back and saw a small figure duck out of sight. Someone was following them.
Toadspit hadn’t noticed. “But you want to be Fifth Keeper,” he said. “I know you do!”
“Yes, but—”
“So what’s stopping you?”
“I told you! Ma and Pa—”
Toadspit interrupted her. “Apart from me, there hasn’t been a new keeper for a couple of hundred years! How can you just throw away an invitation like that?”
“I’m not just throwing it away—”
“Yes you are! Look at this!” Toadspit waved his left arm in front of her. “No cuff, no guardchain! We got rid of them! We’re supposed to be free, but now you—” He broke off, glaring at her in disgust. “This is so stupid!”
Stung, Goldie glared back at him. “You don’t understand!”
Toadspit’s face closed in a scowl, and Goldie wondered why she had bothered to wake him up. She hadn’t seen him for months, and she had forgotten how annoying he could be. She should have gone straight to the museum.
In the back of her mind a little voice whispered, But he is right. You were born to be Fifth Keeper. It is your destiny.
Goldie ignored it, just as she ignored Toadspit. She couldn’t leave Ma and Pa, and that was the end of it.
The two children continued on their way in angry silence. Goldie saw no one on the streets—except for the shadowy figure that still crept in their wake.
But as they crossed Old Arsenal Bridge and began to climb the hill that led to the museum, the quiet was broken by heavy footsteps stamping down the road toward them. Goldie hesitated, suddenly uneasy. There was something threatening about those footsteps, and if she had been by herself, she would have slipped into the nearest doorway until whoever it was had passed.
But Toadspit’s scowl was like