The next morning, Cordelia woke with a knot of worry in her stomach.

She sat bolt upright, causing her boat-prison to lurch sickeningly, but the fear coursing blackly through her was not for herself but the crew of Little Bear.

How could she have been such a fool? Goose’s desperate cry – ‘Don’t believe them! They’re PIRATES!’ – echoed in her head and she cursed her own stupidity.

Her sacrifice hadn’t saved Little Bear. The last thing she had seen was the flaming sails being attacked by vicious Sun Eaters. She was sick with worry for her father, for Goose and Sam and Melchior and Davey, and bitter with blame for herself. Her thoughts swirled darkly downwards.

As her mind spiralled, the air began to thrum with wingbeats. A flock of indigo birds descended upon her through the green leaves, and Cordelia felt the dark thoughts being pulled gently out of her. She looked up, trying to see the creatures clearly, but they flashed away like fish, quick and shy, and swam off through the air, carrying Cordelia’s dark mood with them.

Cordelia’s gaze followed them as they disappeared beyond the trees.

She had never seen creatures like these before. Half-bird half-fish, swimming through human thoughts, breathing them like air, tasting a mood before easing it gently away.

‘I don’t know!’

A voice came from somewhere in the trees. And it was not the gravelly voice of a sea-bitten pirate. It was young and musical.

A girl’s voice.

‘I said, I don’t know!’

There it was again!

She turned, trying to figure out where it had come from, and realized that her boat-prison was hanging near an old shipwreck, also suspended high in the air by rope-like vines. She had not seen it by the light of the stars, but in the morning rays it loomed huge among the ancient trees.

Cordelia stared in amazement. The ship was not intact – it had been broken apart and spread through the jungle. Living bridges made of vines strung between decks, linking up a dozen different bits of ship. Ladders and stairways reached across the air, between curved pieces of hull and broken-open cabins accessed by webs of rigging. There was even a mast, topped with a crow’s nest, that poked out above the canopy. Everything swayed gently in the greenish light of the jungle, giving the curious impression that the wreck was rolling in the tides at the bottom of the sea.

If Cordelia had had to give this sprawling structure a name, she would have called it a treehouse. But that hardly seemed to do it justice.

‘Because I can’t!’

It was the girl’s voice again! Coming from somewhere within the bizarre treetop maze of vines and decks, mid-air staircases and rigging.

Cordelia remembered she had been using the white nightdress, with the name Prudence embroidered on it, as a blanket. With a shudder, she recalled the story about how Prudence Oglethorne was kidnapped – she had been snatched from her bed, the word Troublemakers scrawled on the wall. This must be the very nightdress that Prudence had been wearing when she was kidnapped!

She heard the girl’s voice again in the trees.

‘PRUDENCE!’ Cordelia yelled. ‘PRUDENCE, IS THAT YOU?’

The girl’s voice abruptly stopped, as though someone had clapped a hand over her mouth.

‘I’M CORDELIA HATMAKER!’ Cordelia shouted. ‘THEY’VE GOT ME PRISONER TOO!’

She stopped herself from adding: ‘I’m going to rescue you and get us off this island!’ because she thought it would be best not to alert the pirates to her plan.

Prudence’s voice was replaced with the harsh growls of pirates.

Prudence must be scared. Well then, Cordelia would have to be brave enough for both of them.

The suspended shipwreck shuddered as someone stomped along it and the grinning faces of Bad Tabitha and Billy Bones poked through portholes in the nearest hull. They looked just as terrifying in daylight as they had by torchlight.

‘Good morning!’ Bad Tabitha growled.

‘Sleep well?’ Billy Bones enquired.

‘Not really,’ Cordelia answered pertly.

Her belly clenched as the little wooden boat suddenly lurched. The pirates were dragging her towards them using a grappling hook on the end of a rope.

When she got close enough, they pulled her out of the boat. The deck rolled beneath her feet as the pirates marched her along the platform. It was strangely like being aboard a ship bobbing on the ocean. But when Cordelia looked over the rail, there was no sparkling blue sea – just a shock of air and a deadly drop.

Cordelia was forced to scramble up a ladder, tooth-squeakingly high, and clamber through a wonky cabin crowded with thick branches. She kept a sharp lookout for Prudence, but saw no sign of her until they edged along a swinging vine bridge past a large-windowed cabin.

The entire back end of a ship – the captain’s cabin – was held in the arms of a particularly tall tree. Heavy curtains behind the diamond-paned windows twitched as Cordelia went past.

‘Prudence?’ Cordelia called.

Billy Bones whirled round, widening his eyes.

‘I warn ya!’ he growled. ‘Don’t bandy that name about! You’ll be thrown to the Sea Dragon!’

Cordelia thrust up her chin defiantly but shut her mouth.

Prudence is in there! she thought.

If she attempted a wild dash to Prudence’s cabin, she would be caught before she could get there and probably thrown to the Sea Dragon.

I’ll cause a distraction somehow and come back, Cordelia promised herself.

They led her through the treehouse, along bridges and branches, to a polished mahogany dining table hanging in mid-air amid the jungle leaves. It looked as though it had been stolen from the captain’s cabin of a treasure galleon. Vines held fancy chairs all round it, dangling like swings.

Several Troublemakers were already at the table, drumming their fingers and rattling the silver cutlery. Cordelia (though she would never have admitted it out loud) was relieved that Thorn Lawless was nowhere to be seen.

‘BREAKFAST!’ the pirate called Never announced, appearing at the top of a nearby mast that poked through the very top of the jungle canopy. He was carefully carrying a small crate in his arms. The Troublemakers cheered his arrival in a rather bloodthirsty manner.

They must keep their food in the crow’s nest, Cordelia thought. Strange! Perhaps that’s the only place it’s safe from some ravenous island-dwelling beast.

She felt the pirates’ eyes on her as she was hoisted on to a chair, and glared along the table at them all. Acting fierce was the only way Cordelia could make sure she kept on feeling brave.

‘Hello!’ Annie Stoneheart rasped.

Shelly waved.

‘Good morning, Miss Hatmaker,’ Never growled, setting the crate down on the table.

‘You’re all monsters,’ Cordelia growled back.

Being rude to pirates was probably not recommended for anybody who wished to survive in their company for long. But every time she looked at their flint eyes and craggy faces, she thought of how they had broken their promise to let Little Bear sail away safely, and a hot surge of anger leaped straight from her belly right out of her mouth in the form of blistering words.

‘Where’s my father’s ship, you villains?’ she demanded.

‘Little Bear is safely anchored at St Freerest again,’ Never muttered.

‘Why should I believe you?’ Cordelia said witheringly.

Never ignored both Cordelia’s words and her glare. ‘Watermelon!’ he announced, rolling several stripy green cannonballs down the table.

They were set upon by pirates and hacked to pieces within seconds. Never salvaged some shards of the pink fruit and handed them to Cordelia on a battered silver plate.

‘For mademoiselle,’ he said.

Cordelia flashed her most poisonous look at him. But her belly grumbled hungrily, so she ate.

The pirates munched the watermelons down to the rind and held a competition to see how far they could spit the pips.

‘Now we’ve all eaten some fruit,’ Never said, plunging his hand back into the crate, ‘it’s time for … CAKE!’

The pirates burst into excited yowls as Never began throwing cakes to them.

‘CAKE!’

‘CAKE!’

‘CAAAKE!’

Smokestack, Billy Bones and Annie Stoneheart fought over one, which ended up a mess of crumbs that nobody got to eat. Bad Tabitha stuffed three in her mouth at once, then Vinegar Jim clapped his hands on to her cheeks, spraying cake everywhere. Shelly systematically ate her way through a pile, undisturbed by the others.

When presented with cake, the Troublemakers seemed more like feral cats than battle-hardened buccaneers. But perhaps that was what happened after years of having the sea as your mother and fret winds for a father: perhaps a fully grown adult became a wild child.

Never placed the last cake on Cordelia’s plate.

‘Eat up,’ he advised. ‘You’ll need your energy today.’

‘Why?’ Cordelia asked suspiciously. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

Never grinned a flesh-eating kind of grin.

‘Thorn has a plan,’ he said.

Though Cordelia barely dared admit it to herself, she was terrified of Thorn Lawless. She felt the place where the pirate queen had grasped her arm last night. It was tender and raw, as though her skin had been scorched.

‘If you’re not going to eat that, I think Shelly would like it,’ Never added.

Shelly’s eyes blinked out from her clinking shell armour, staring fixedly at Cordelia’s plate.

Cordelia studied the cake. It was studded with currants and glistening with honey. She frowned. She thought she had seen cakes like this for sale in the marketplace on St Freerest.

A barnacle-knuckled hand flashed under her nose and the cake disappeared beneath Shelly’s conch bicorn. Billy Bones licked crumbs off the table as Bad Tabitha gnawed on a watermelon rind.

‘Well, that’s the end of breakfast!’ Never announced. ‘Come on, everyone – it’s time for …’ He slid his eyes sideways at Cordelia. ‘Time for you know what!’

The Troublemakers roared. The dining table swung violently as the pirates left breakfast in a howling pack, racing away across a long vine-rope bridge. Never and Smokestack were soon the only ones remaining.

‘Come along, Miss Hatmaker,’ said Never.

‘What is you know what?’ she demanded, her voice stronger than her trembling knees.

‘You’ll soon see,’ Never taunted. ‘You’re the … guest of honour.’

Never turned and followed the other Troublemakers. When Cordelia hesitated, Smokestack took her by the shoulders and marched her along the vine-rope bridge, which swung from side to side with every step they took.

Cordelia conjured disasters in her mind. Would they force her to walk the plank off the edge of the treehouse? Feed her to the Sea Dragon? Take her fingernails and teeth and toes, and use them to make some terrible piece of trouble?

Thorn had kept calling her Maker. But she had said it like a kind of curse word.

They came to a stop on a wide deck where a ship’s wheel creaked as it turned in the breeze. The Troublemakers waited beside a heavy curtain of vines covered with flowers that snarled like hungry mouths.

Was she going to be sacrificed to the vines? Would those gnashing flowers devour her?

There was no way she could escape: Smokestack blocked the bridge behind her and there was a sheer drop on either side of the platform.

She decided to face her fate with her head held high.

Never strode to the vines and carefully drew them aside. Beyond was a piece of wreckage that had once been the stern of a ship. But there was no dreadful piratical torture chamber to be seen.

Instead, heaps of fancy clothes were strewn everywhere.

‘This is our workshop!’ Never announced.

Cordelia blinked.

A workshop?

It was nothing like the workshop at Hatmaker House, which was full of magical ingredients stacked neatly on shelves, and kept strictly spick and span. This place was a mess of clothes and chaos.

But, Cordelia realized as she peered closer, it was clearly a place where magical things were made. And not just any magic. She stepped forward and picked up a cloak that was stitched with tiny green beads –

‘Turbidus turbida!’ she whispered. ‘This is where you make the Trouble Clothes!’

The cloak wriggled. She dropped it quickly, remembering how the last Trouble Cloak she touched had swirled her round like she was caught in a tornado.

Never cleared his throat.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

Cordelia was so surprised by the question that she forgot to be frightened. She turned to the pirates to find their faces hopeful beneath the broad brims of their hats.

‘I – I mean, in your expert opinion,’ Never went on haltingly, ‘as a Maker from the London Guildhall itself. Is our workshop … good?’

Cordelia hesitated. The word good seemed a strange one for these pirates to care about. ‘It’s very –’

‘HAH!’

With a swoosh and a thud, Thorn Lawless landed on the deck in front of her.

‘The London Guildhall itself,’ Thorn parroted Never in a spiky, high voice. ‘All those Makers poncing around making Good-Manners Hats and Well-Behaved Boots and Uptight Timepieces. We’re pirates! We don’t need a Maker’s approval!’

She poked Cordelia in the chest.

‘But, Thorn, it was your idea to –’ Annie Stoneheart began.

‘QUIET, ANNIE!’ Thorn roared.

Annie Stoneheart’s mouth clapped shut like a clam.

Cordelia, on the other hand, opened her mouth to object to the claim that any Maker would bother making Well-Behaved Boots (the very idea would have Goose up in arms).

Thorn turned to Cordelia. ‘We kidnapped you –’

‘Invited!’ Never interjected.

‘Because you’re useful to us.’ Thorn ignored Never, bearing down on Cordelia and shoving her backwards.

‘I’ll never do anything to help you!’ Cordelia declared.

Thorn pushed her again. ‘Then we’ll throw you to the Sea Dragon.’

Cordelia felt the end of the deck beneath her heels. One more step back and she would plunge over the edge.

Thorn’s eyes blazed.

‘You’re going to teach us Making.’