The skull curved way above the ship’s tallest mast, high as a cathedral dome, empty eye sockets staring at the sky. The Trouble surged out of the skull into a wide bay, flat and dark blue in the dusk.

The last ray of the sun flashed across the sky, green and strange. It signalled the sealing of Cordelia’s fate.

The anchor was dropped.

Cordelia, still tied to the mast, craned her neck to see a beach, bone-white in the rising moon. Shrieks echoed from the shadowy jungle beyond. The island reared above, forbidding in the half-dark, a jagged silhouette against the purpling sky. A single star appeared directly above its highest ridge, a cold fiery eye.

Cordelia thrust her chin in the air as Thorn stalked up to her. With a whisper of steel, the pirate drew her curved cutlass.

Cordelia’s whole body shivered like a Jiggle Fruit quivering on a branch, even though she was trying very hard to be still. Suddenly she folded on to the deck as her knees gave way. Thorn had cut her loose.

One of Thorn’s red boots poked her with its sharp toe.

‘Bring the Maker.’

The boots tramped away. Rough hands grabbed Cordelia. Before she could find words to voice her indignance, she was upended into a large sack.

Several minutes later, she was tipped out of the sack on to the sand. She could feel magic all around her; the air crackled and fizzed with it. Her fingers, which could detect even the quietest magic, tingled so much it was painful, like she had pins and needles. The island was positively violent with magic.

She scrambled to her feet to find the Troublemakers staring at her, the rustling jungle black behind them. She counted eight of them in total, including their pirate-queen leader.

Show them no fear, she told herself sternly. They probably eat fear for pudding.

Thorn Lawless prowled forward, a hand poised on her cutlass hilt and her eyes dancing with malice.

‘A real Maker,’ she said menacingly. ‘We’ve finally got ourselves one.’

‘My father will rescue me and defeat you all!’ Cordelia growled.

Thorn bared her teeth. ‘Your father can search and search until he’s a grey-haired old man, but he’ll never get here.’

Cordelia knew this to be true. The fact settled like a stone in her stomach and she clenched her fists.

‘You lied to me!’ she shouted. ‘You said they’d go free if I gave myself up!’

She was dizzy with fear for everyone aboard Little Bear.

‘Quit your bellyaching!’ Thorn spat. ‘You’re ours now, Maker.’

A wild-haired pirate stepped forward. ‘Miss Hatmaker, please excuse our ferocious captain,’ he said, his voice plummy beneath the gravelly rasp created by years at sea. ‘What she means to say is: you’re our guest now.’

Cordelia hesitated for a moment, thrown by this unexpected behaviour from such a fearsome villain. ‘Guest?’ she repeated. ‘Guests aren’t carried about in sacks – I’m not your guest!’

‘Fine then, you’re our prisoner,’ Thorn snapped. ‘Have it your way!’

‘That isn’t my way!’ Cordelia objected.

Thorn’s hand clamped on her cutlass, but the wild-haired pirate stepped between her and Cordelia.

‘Perhaps you’d feel better if you were properly introduced, Miss Hatmaker?’ he suggested smoothly. ‘As you know, we are the Troublemakers, notorious pirates of the high seas and infamous creators of chaos in London on several occasions. You’ve heard of the disaster at the Winter Ball and the St James’s Park fiasco?’

‘I witnessed both of those,’ Cordelia said through gritted teeth.

‘Excellent!’ The pirate smiled at her. ‘We’ll have lots of questions, I’m sure.’

He was behaving as though they had all happened to meet during an afternoon stroll down the Avenue. His smile, Cordelia thought – despite his terrifying jagged teeth – was meant to be polite.

‘Introductions!’ he insisted. ‘You already know Thorn Lawless, our fearsome leader and pirate queen.’

In the interest of not being skewered by a sword, Cordelia decided it might be best to play along with this bizarre display of good manners. She wondered, seeing as Thorn had been introduced as a queen, if she was expected to curtsey. Thorn Lawless’s hat was strangely crown-like, with twisting fingers of scarlet coral spiking up from it, studded with dozens of rough barnacles. A sea urchin made a black-spiked rosette, holding a ribbon of slimy seaweed on the brim.

Cordelia settled on a dignified nod to the pirate queen.

The wild-haired pirate walked down the line of the Troublemakers, his blazing torch throwing ugly shadows that made the pirates even more frightening. They were a band of rogues, each ghastlier than the last, all wearing gnarly tricorns decorated with spiky grey barnacles to match their leader’s.

‘This is Annie Stoneheart, Vinegar Jim and Bad Tabitha.’

Glaring, looming and alarmingly moustached in turn.

‘Smokestack Doogray, Billy Bones and Shelly.’

Smokestack Doogray’s beard had recently been on fire – it wreathed him in smoke, making him look like a chimney pot. He’d been the one to ‘welcome’ Cordelia aboard the Trouble. Billy Bones had a very unnerving grin, rather like an enthusiastic axe-murderer. Eyes were the only part of Shelly that were visible. The rest of her was covered in seashells, and perched on her head was an enormous conch, large as an admiral’s bicorn but gnarly with barnacles.

‘Oh, I almost forgot to introduce myself!’ said the wild-haired pirate with a grin. ‘I’m Never.’

‘You’re never what?’ Cordelia asked.

‘That’s my name. My name is Never.’

‘Why?’ Cordelia demanded.

A forbidding expression suddenly closed over Never’s face. His eyes glowed red in the lantern flame.

‘Cos I’m Never going back,’ he said darkly.

Cordelia stared. She thought she recognized something about him – perhaps the way his wind-blown hair curled around his ears, or the slightly wonky line of his mouth.

‘Where do I know you from?’ she asked.

‘Nowhere!’ Never growled.

‘Never from Nowhere.’ Cordelia couldn’t help raising her eyebrows, but she thought it best not to press the question. Instead, she glared at the Troublemakers, trying to look fearless.

Fifteen eyes leered back (Smokestack wore an eyepatch). These were the ship wreckers and the soul sinkers, the terror spreaders and the chaos makers. What did this dangerous band of villains plan to do to her?

Cordelia stood, chin up, waiting for Thorn to growl a fate-sealing order.

‘You caused such trouble in Parliament!’ Annie Stoneheart said, a little admiringly.

Cordelia’s belly swooped. ‘How do you know about what happened in Parliament?’ she gasped. ‘That news hasn’t even officially reached St Freerest yet.’

The other pirates nudged Annie, muttering, ‘Shut up, shut up.’

‘Where did you hear it?’ Cordelia had to raise her voice to be heard. ‘From the Duchess?’

The pirates fell silent.

‘You won’t tell me?’ she asked loudly. She was surprised to find such a fierce voice within her as she stared up at these terrifying pirates. Defiance and fear were having an arm-wrestle somewhere in her ribcage. Defiance won.

‘You’ve done dreadful things!’ she growled. ‘You terrorize London! You burn ships and leave no survivors! You hurt innocent people and – and you kidnapped poor Prudence Oglethorne!’

‘Arrr!’ a pirate howled triumphantly. ‘OUR REPUTATION IS FEARSOME!’

The pirate queen, blazing with rage, pushed her face right into Cordelia’s. Her words sizzled with hatred.

‘Piers Oglethorne will never see his daughter again!’ she hissed. ‘That snivelling wretch Prudence is gone and she’s never coming back! And if you’re not careful, Hatmaker, the same will be true for you. The Sea Dragon is always hungry!’

Thorn seized Cordelia’s arm in a barnacle-rough hand and plunged into the jungle.

It was all Cordelia could do to stay on her feet as she was dragged through the undergrowth. Howls and jungle shrieks sent shudders across her skin, and the scraping of a million insects grated on her very bones. Her fingers were on fire with all the magic she could feel.

The pirates marched after her, following through the dark like nightmares come to life. She glimpsed their faces, terrible in the torchlight.

Was she going to be fed to a ravenous creature right now?

Thorn pulled her into a clearing and Cordelia stumbled to a stop, trying to catch her breath. Strangely, there was a small rowing boat lying nearby on the jungle floor. Without warning, Cordelia was thrown into it. The boat bucked beneath her and she was dragged upwards through thrashing vines. The boat rocked violently, nearly tipping her out, as she twisted to look over the edge.

Cordelia let out a mewl of shock, rearing back. She was high, high in the air, and the height did something strange to her guts: she felt them shrink with fear. Faces looked up from the jungle floor far below.

‘Sleep well!’ Thorn’s voice drifted up mockingly. ‘We’re such kind hosts that we’ve even supplied a nightdress for you!’

Cordelia gritted her teeth as the pirate queen and her fellow Troublemakers pushed their way back through the jungle, laughing.

So, she was going to be left in this boat all night long. She took several deep breaths, reminding herself that at least she wasn’t about to be something’s supper.

Cordelia could see vines attached to the bow and stern, silver lines in the starlight stretching away into the dark. The boat trembled with her slightest movement as she inched along until she could lie down. It was lined inside with spongy moss, which was surprisingly comfortable. She carefully laid her head on the mossy pillow.

That was when she saw, directly above her, almost near enough to touch, a purplish star shining beyond the treetops. It was the star she had gazed at between the wooden ears of Little Bear. The star that had been summoning her.

It hung serenely in the sky, exactly where it was meant to be. It calmed her with whispers of safety. She felt her belly unclench slightly, and she tentatively stretched out her hands. A cloth was folded neatly on the mossy boat bottom.

Cordelia unfolded it.

It was a frilly white nightdress.

As Cordelia held it up, she saw a name embroidered on the front, picked out in silver:

Prudence