Sky. Sarah Driver

and draped in the feather cloak. A bright half-band of gold circles her neck and stripes of gold paint flash on her face, from the middle of each lower eyelid down to her jaw.

      ‘What’s that paint on you?’ I ask.

      ‘It means I am a sawbones; a curer. I can only wear it when my mother isn’t watching, mind.’ She gives a low chuckle.

      I flood my eyes with scorn. ‘Don’t need no healer.’

      ‘Would you prefer to let the rot hunker down in that wound, and eat away half your face?’ She shudders. ‘Trust me – I’ve seen it happen. Though lately, injured prisoners disappear before I can even sneak a check of their wounds.’

      A flurry of arrowheads storms my blood. ‘Wait – if you’re a healer, have you been helping my brother, too?’ I blurt. ‘Did the guards tell you about his shaking fits, like I asked?’

      Her smile gutters out. ‘I have not been allowed near him. But I listened at the pipes – your message was delivered. He has a broken arm, and a fever.’ She holds up a hand and signals for me to wait. ‘He may not wake for some time, but they are treating him with success. He is safe, for now. In fact, his sickness is what protects him. She wants all her prisoners well enough to be tried.’ She gabs it all in a rush, like she’s been waiting moons and moons for someone to talk to.

      ‘What? I ent letting some loon woman put him on trial!’

      ‘Be quiet!’ she hisses, fright tightening her face. ‘Hackles has ears. The Protector of the Mountain is not some woman. And all three of you will be judged. If she finds you guilty, the punishment will be – severe.’ She looks away and stands up.

      I don’t wanna think too hard on what severe might mean. ‘But we ent done nothing!’ Then I fall forwards and put out a hand to catch myself on the stone floor, bile rushing into the back of my throat. When I’ve finished retching I look up and the girl’s watching me with a face full of sorrow.

      ‘I don’t need your pity,’ I bite out, wiping my mouth.

      She chinks a tiny smile. ‘I have something better than pity.’ She rummages in her pocket and pulls out some yellow petals. ‘You have the mountain-sickness. These will help calm it.’

      I twist my mouth and don’t move, but she holds them closer to me. One of her hands is sprinkled with fine white scars, and the knuckles are bloody. On the other she’s wearing a dark grey glove. ‘Take them,’ she says gently. ‘They will make it better.’

      I blow the air out through tight lips and reach for the flowers. The petals are cool and smooth between my fingers. When I crunch them a bitter, earthy taste fills my mouth.

      ‘Heart-thanks,’ I stutter, mouth ash-dry. Then a thought squirms in my belly. She’s gifted me kindness. Maybe I can get her to help me escape.

      ‘Oh!’ she exclaims, making me startle. Then she winces at her own noise. ‘I almost forgot your milk,’ she whispers. ‘Hope it’s not bone-cold.’ She searches the floor behind her, then presses a steaming clay mug into my hands. A delicious warmth spreads through my fingers, all the way up my arms.

      ‘Wait, it’s better with this mixed in.’ She takes a vial from her pocket and pinches some rust-red powder into the cup before I can snatch it away. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says quickly. ‘It’s nutmeg and cinnamon – I’m not in the business of poisoning! You should be glad of a little flavour. These days it’s just goat’s milk, goat’s cheese, tough old goat’s meat and bog myrtle.’ She ticks them off on her fingers. ‘We’re on lock-down. No trade, because of the war.’ She speaks fast and tight, like she’s afraid someone’s gonna spring out of the shadows and gag her.

      ‘Ent never met someone before that can babble faster than me.’ I take a sip of the drink. It warms me from chest to toes, and the spices tingle on my tongue.

      ‘Suppose I have many trapped words to spill.’ She turns again and places a dented silver platter by me. There are two fat lumps of dough on it.

      I raise my eyes to her face. ‘Will you help me, for real? Can you—’

      ‘Eat,’ she says, cutting me off. ‘The food will give you wondrous fire-in-the-belly.’

      My hope fades painfully, just as one of the pipes in the wall starts to rattle and clank like a crazed thing. I scuttle backwards and my foot skids out in front of me, kicking the food platter across the floor. The noise spreads through the pipe to a small chute that enters the turret from a hole in the roof and ends in a rusty metal door.

      ‘Ah, here he comes, at long last,’ the girl says grimly. She turns towards the chute, skirts swirling. Her hem is fire-licked, like she’s too close to the hearth.

      ‘Who?’ I ask, filled with dread. ‘And who are you?’

      She stares down at me, a mix of emotions that I can’t read swirling behind her eyes. ‘I’m Kestrel.’ The way she says it fills me with a fresh burst of hope that I cling onto with all my might. I can feel the heart-strength she had to summon just to tell me her name.

      The chute rumbles and clangs, gives a thud, then falls silent. Kestrel scowls at it, fiddling with a chain hooked to her belt, then steps towards the chute and starts wrenching her key back and forth in a keyhole set in the door.

      The chute flies open and a small, fat shape gushes out, trilling latelatelate! Latequickhelpcarryoooooooosnacks!

      The creature darts for the plate of food on the floor, but Kestrel gives it a sour look, ducks low and grabs it in cupped hands. ‘Squidges don’t eat pancakes!’

      They do! it chatters desperately, oozing a puddle of black stuff – like ink – into Kestrel’s hands.

      ‘Oh, Ettler! Calm your silly self. Anyone would think you a fat princeling, not a sawbones’ helper.’ When she lets the creature go again, it stares at me, chatters oddbeastfrightfulfeathers! and slams itself into the wall in distress, oozing more puddles of ink. I swallow my beast-chatter, cos I don’t want Kestrel knowing about it.

      The beast is all kinds of oddness. It looks like a tiny round squid, no bigger than a sea-hawk’s egg, covered in shiny gold feathers. It moves through the air by wiggling and flapping, pooing ink behind it that grows an icy crust on the floor.

      ‘Ettler, you must learn to hold your ink!’ Kestrel scolds. ‘You know I need it. Use an ink-pan if you want letting out.’

      ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘You called it a . . . squidge?’

      She nods, eyeing the not-quite-squid. ‘We’ve scores of the grumblesome things, working in the pantries, but this one kept stealing food—’

      Not true! shrills the offended squidge, hooting anxiously at the girl. Then mischief gleams in its round black eyes, and it chortles.

      ‘And so,’ she says to me, wrinkling her nose, ‘when trouble came sniffing he hid in my clothes chest. By the time I found him, all my things were covered in ink, but he was too afraid to leave my room. So I took him on, as my so-called assistant. What a fantastic decision that turned out to be.’ She turns back to the chute and rummages inside the hatch. ‘So shall we stitch that foulsome wound on your face?’ she asks, voice muffled. ‘You’ve been up to strugglings, huh?’

      ‘I was trying to save my brother,’ I tell her, curling my tongue over the edge of my teeth. ‘Not that it even worked.’ It don’t matter if you save Sparrow, cos you ent never gonna save him from his sickness, snickers a wicked voice in my head.

      Kestrel pulls an oiled leather bag from the chute and sits cross-legged in front of me. She roots through the bag. The squidge farts anxiously around her, dripping ink into her hair. ‘Aagh, Ettler !’

      He flaps stickily away and hides in the chute, whimpering.

      ‘Here are the things we need,’ chirps Kestrel. ‘A tear-vial, for catching