City of Lies - Lian Tanner [43]
“They won’t bite her, will they?” said Toadspit.
“Course they will,” said Pounce. “They’re man-eaters, they are. They dragged an old lady in ’ere earlier, and there’s nothin’ left of ’er now but false teeth and undies.”
Toadspit rolled his eyes. Bonnie laughed and stroked one of the mice with the tip of her finger.
Goldie wrapped her hands around the hot mug. “They don’t tell fortunes.”
“Can they tell ours?” asked Bonnie.
Mouse whistled again, and the mice raced back to the pram and returned with a dozen scraps of paper. The boy rejected them one by one, until there were only three left.
The first was a picture of a cat. The second said, too much water. The third said, at the last minute, a lady of high birth.
Bonnie’s face fell. “It doesn’t—I mean, it does make sense.”
Mouse laughed. He picked up three of the mice and gave one to each of the children. Goldie closed her fingers around the small quivering body. “Good,” she said. “Now we can tell the truth.”
She stared at the bits of paper. “The first one—it might mean the cat’s coming with us when we leave here. Maybe that’s important for some reason.”
The cat blinked slowly and leaned closer to the fire.
“The second one is probably the sea—perhaps that’s how we’re going home. It’d be much faster than going by road. And the third one—I think the third one must be the Protector.”
“High birth?” said Toadspit. “That means a queen, or someone like that. Royalty.”
“But we haven’t got a queen,” said Goldie. “So it must be the Protector. Maybe she’s going to find us!”
Bonnie’s eyes were worried. “But what about the Festival? Didn’t you say everything’s a lie? Maybe the fortune’s a lie too.”
“Is it?” said Goldie to Mouse. “Do the fortunes lie during the Festival?”
The white-haired boy cuddled one of the mice against his cheek and shook his head.
Goldie felt a surge of relief. Even without one of the Big Lies, she had managed to get her friends away from Harrow. And now they had a fortune—a true fortune. A good fortune!
But they were not safe yet, she reminded herself. They would not be safe until they were far away from Spoke and Harrow could no longer get his hands on them.
He’s probably out there right now, searching for us.
And despite the warmth of the fire, she shivered at the thought of what would happen if he caught them.
Deep in the back rooms of the museum, Sinew and Broo were stalking the slommerkin. Sinew had not yet seen the creature. In fact, he had never seen one—they had been driven to extinction long before he was born. But he had heard about them. Heard how fast they were, how ferocious. Heard about their enormous bulk, and the way they liked to roll on their victims to soften them up for eating.
It would be a disaster if such a creature escaped into the city. And so the keeper and the brizzlehound had been on its trail for hours, following the smell that it left in its wake. Now at last they were closing in.
“It is halfway through Old Mine Shafts.” Broo’s hackles rose. “We will trap it there and I will kill it!”
“No,” whispered Sinew, inching toward the door that led to Old Mine Shafts. “We’re not killing it.”
“What else can you do with a slommerkin?” said Broo in a low growl. “They are very stupid. All they think about is food.”
“It doesn’t matter. This creature is probably the last of its kind, like you. We’re going to try to drive it toward the Dirty Gate. Dan and Olga Ciavolga are up there waiting for us.”
Broo flattened his ears. “Slommerkins cannot be driven like geese.”
“You’re probably right, but we have to try nonetheless.” Sinew stifled a sneeze. “Whew, it does stink, doesn’t it!”
He pulled a kerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around his face, covering his long nose. “I hate to think of what must be happening to the children to bring something like this out of the woodwork. I keep hoping it’ll go to sleep in a corner somewhere and we’ll know that everything’s all right, that the children are safe.” He grimaced. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.