.

ou should not have gone through the Dirty Gate!’

Sinew had been pacing up and down the office. Now he stopped and glared at Goldie and Toadspit. ‘You could’ve been killed! And not just you, but Broo and Morg as well. They’re not bulletproof, you know. You shouldn’t have gone!’

‘Of course they should not,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘They were brave, and very clever at the end. But at the beginning they did not show a scrap of wisdom between them.’

Goldie blushed. It was true. She and Toadspit were lucky to have escaped with their lives. She half-wished that Olga Ciavolga would scold her, but the old woman merely said, ‘It is done now. And so we must decide. What next to do?’

‘Herro D-Dan said Sinew has to g-go to the Pro- tector,’ said Goldie. She hadn’t stopped shivering since she and Toadspit had dragged the Dirty Gate shut behind them.

‘And the Protector has to stop G-Guardian Hope and Guardian C-Comfort making their floor p-plan,’ said Toadspit, who was shivering just as hard.

Sinew nodded impatiently. ‘Yes, yes, we should’ve taken the Blessed Guardians more seriously right from the beginning. They’re not here at the moment but I’m sure they’ll be back before long. I’ll go to the Protector. But what do we do about Dan?’

‘And Broo,’ said Goldie. ‘And Morg. Do you think they’ll be all right?’

‘I certainly hope so,’ said Sinew. His expression softened. ‘They can look after themselves in most circumstances. I expect we’ll see them back here soon enough. As for Dan . . .’ He ran his hand over his face. ‘Perhaps I should try and get him out.’

‘After what has happened,’ said Olga Ciavolga, ‘the soldiers will be even more on their guard. And Dan’s leg is broken. You would have little hope of stealing him without being caught.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of stealing him,’ said Sinew. ‘I was thinking of buying him.’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a coin. ‘Blood and gold, that’s what those soldiers love more than anything. We won’t give them blood if we can help it, but we have gold sovereigns enough to turn their heads. I could have Dan safely back with us by nightfall.’

‘I think not,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘You would only stir things up further.’

‘But—’

‘No!’ The old woman’s face was pale with worry, but she held up her hand. ‘We shall do what Dan tells us. You go to the Protector and ask her to stop the Guardians and get them out of the museum. I think if she can do this, then the war rooms will calm down a little and Dan will be safe.’

‘What if the Protector can’t stop them?’ asked Goldie.

‘Then,’ said Olga Ciavolga, ‘we must do it ourselves.’

Sinew pulled on his coatee and left for the Protectorate. Toadspit returned to the back rooms to wait for Broo and Morg.

Goldie didn’t want to go with him. ‘Can I stay here with you?’ she said to Olga Ciavolga.

‘Very well,’ said the old woman. ‘But you must remain close. And if the Guardians come back, you must hide immediately.’

She sat down at the desk and began to write in a large book. The midday sun shone through the office window. Goldie leaned against one of the bookcases and pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her smock until she found her compass.

She took it out and ran her fingers over the metal casing. It was hard to believe how much her life had changed since she had come to the museum. She had longed to be free and now she was. And although the museum contained many terrors, she would rather face them all, one after the other, than go back to the way things used to be.

There were different sorts of fear, she realised that now. There was the awful fear of having a musket held to your head, or having black oily water try to snatch you into its depths. There was nothing easy about that fear. It made your heart nearly tear itself out of your chest, and weakened the long bones in your legs so that you could barely stand. It made you want to vomit with fright.

But there was another sort of fear, the fear that you would never be allowed to be who you really were. The fear that your true self would have to stay squashed up, like a caged bird, for the rest of your life. That fear was worse than any soldier.

She put the compass back in her pocket and took out the blue enamel brooch. She stroked the little bird’s wings. I’m not really free, she thought, not while Ma and Pa are locked up in the House of Repentance . . .

Somewhere nearby, heavy feet trod across wooden floors. Olga Ciavolga threw down her pen. ‘Quickly, child! Hide!’

Goldie scrambled into the space under the desk and pressed herself against the wood. Outside the office the feet stamped to a halt.

‘The Guardians have returned,’ murmured Olga Ciavolga out of the corner of her mouth. ‘And they have brought many others with them.’

‘What are they doing?’ whispered Goldie.

‘I do not know, but they carry coils of rope and wooden planks. I do not like the look of it. Stay here. Do not make a sound.’

Olga Ciavolga hurried out of the office. Goldie heard her say loudly, ‘What is the meaning of this? What do you think you are doing?’

‘We are on the Seven’s business,’ said a voice that Goldie recognised as Guardian Hope’s. ‘So you had best keep out of our way, old woman.’ Her voice rose. ‘Pay attention, under-colleagues! I want this done quickly and I want it done properly. You, you and you. Hammer duty.’

There was a rustle of robes and a shuffling of feet. Goldie pressed herself close to the floor and peeped around the corner of the desk.

She couldn’t see Olga Ciavolga, but the corridor was full of young Guardians. They seemed to be laying planks in a horizontal line along the wall at waist height, each one touching the one that came before it.

Goldie heard a cry of outrage, and Olga Ciavolga strode into sight, her eyes blazing. ‘I do not believe it! You are trying to stop the rooms moving! You fools, you will kill us all!’

‘We are simply following the orders of the Fugleman,’ said Guardian Hope.

‘Be damned to the Fugleman!’ said Olga Ciavolga. There was a gasp of horror from the Guardians, but the old woman took no notice. ‘Your master has no authority here! The museum answers only to the Protector!’

Guardian Hope shook her head pityingly. ‘My master answers to the Seven Gods. They are greater than any earthly authority.’

She crooked her finger and two of the young Guardians hurried to her side. ‘Get rid of this obstacle,’ she snapped. ‘Lock her in the office.’

Goldie ducked back beneath the desk. She could hear Olga Ciavolga struggling, then the door banged shut and the key turned in the lock. A moment later, the hammering began.

It seemed to Goldie that, when the first blow fell, the museum cried with outrage, just as Olga Ciavolga had done, but a hundred thousand times greater. She found herself holding her breath, waiting for what would come next.

A second hammer blow fell – then a third.

The whole museum shuddered.

‘Quickly!’ whispered Olga Ciavolga. ‘Help me, child!’

Goldie scrambled out from underneath the desk and put her hand on the wall. The wild music exploded around her. She tried to sing, but the music drowned out her voice. She sang louder, and louder still, until at last she could hear herself. From somewhere deep within the museum, Toadspit’s voice joined with hers and Olga Ciavolga’s.

I wonder if he can guess what the hammering is, she thought. I wonder if Broo and Morg are back yet, and if they’re all right—

And then she was swept away by the maelstrom, and there was no time or space to think about anything. The wild music crashed in upon her from every side. Her voice rode it like a tiny boat on a monstrous ocean. She could feel herself bobbing and spinning and nearly sinking, over and over again.

At one point, both Olga Ciavolga and Toadspit ran out of breath at the same time. The music surged up wilder than ever. Goldie clung to it by a thread of sound. She could no longer see the office. She could no longer hear anything except those deep, terrible notes.

But just when she thought she couldn’t hold on for a second longer, Olga Ciavolga’s voice rang out again. Goldie grabbed it like a lifeline. Then Toadspit was back too, unseen but singing for all he was worth. Gradually the wild music wove itself to their song and began to settle.

Olga Ciavolga took her hand off the wall. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. ‘We have held it for now,’ she said. ‘But I fear it will not last.’

Outside the door, the hammers rang. The museum twitched like a giant tormented by swamp flies.

‘Can’t they feel it?’ said Goldie. ‘Can’t they hear the wild music?’

‘Apparently not,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘But even if they did, I fear they would continue. There is wickedness behind this.’

She took her kerchief out of her pocket and tied it around her neck. Then she hurried over to the desk and began to pull out the drawers one by one.

‘If the war rooms were on the move before,’ she said, ‘they will be seething now. Sinew was right after all. We must get Dan out before it is too late.’

She scooped a handful of gold sovereigns out of each drawer and dropped them into her pockets. Goldie looked at the locked door. ‘How will we get out of here?’

‘Pff!’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘Those imbeciles know nothing about this place!’

She patted her bulging pockets, then strode over to the corner of the room and sank to her knees with a grunt. She lifted the edge of the carpet. Underneath it was a trapdoor.

‘This tunnel will take us to the back rooms,’ she said. ‘We have not used it for many years, so it will be full of dust and spiders.’ She looked hard at Goldie. ‘But I do not imagine that a girl who has been through the Dirty Gate will be stopped by a few spiders.’

Olga Ciavolga was right. There were spiders in the tunnel, and not just a few. Goldie couldn’t see them, but the strands of broken webs clung to her face, and whenever the hammering paused she thought she could hear brittle legs scuttling up and down the walls.

Her skin crawled and she pushed the webs away with a shudder. A little way ahead of her, Olga Ciavolga’s dry old voice was like an anchor in the darkness.

‘The people of Jewel,’ said Olga Ciavolga, ‘treat their children like delicate flowers. They think they will not survive without constant protection. But there are parts of the world where young boys and girls spend weeks at a time with no company except a herd of goats. They chase away wolves. They take care of themselves, and they take care of the herd.’

She stopped. Goldie could hear the hammers, behind her now, rapping and tapping like someone knocking at a distant door.

‘Fools!’ muttered Olga Ciavolga. ‘Imbeciles!’

She began to shuffle forward again. ‘And so, when hard times come – as they always do in the end – those children are resourceful and brave. If they have to walk from one end of the country to the other, carrying their baby brothers and sisters, they will do it. If they have to hide during the day and travel at night to avoid soldiers, they will do it. They do not give up easily.’

The tunnel took a sharp right-hand turn, and for a moment the old woman’s voice was lost. Something dropped onto Goldie’s arm, and she opened her mouth to yelp – and thought of those children carrying their baby brothers and sisters through the night – and closed her mouth and kept going.

She rounded the corner in time to hear Olga Ciavolga murmur, ‘Of course, I am not saying that it is a good thing to give children such heavy responsibilities. They must be allowed to have a childhood. But they must also be allowed to find their courage and their wisdom, and learn when to stand and when to run away. After all, if they are not permitted to climb the trees, how will they ever see the great and wonderful world that lies before them – aha, we are here!’

She stopped short and began to fumble with a latch in the roof of the tunnel. There was a shout, then someone grabbed the trapdoor and dragged it open from above. Toadspit peered down at them, Morg on his shoulder.

‘What’s happening?’ he said. ‘Why did you use the tunnel? What’s that hammering sound? Why is—?’

A huge dark head nudged him aside. ‘Someone is doing bad things to the museum,’ rumbled the gravelly voice of the brizzlehound. ‘Can I go and kill them?’