Cordelia could see the curse in Thorn’s eyes: it was in the particular way they blazed. Some fires warm the soul; some burn with destruction. Thorn’s eyes flickered with sparks that could start an inferno.

A moment later, fire and water clashed as tears welled up in Thorn’s eyes.

Great-aunt Petronella had once taught Cordelia that each individual teardrop has its own unique magical properties. Tears can comfort broken hearts or speak feelings when words won’t come; tears have the strength to restore hope and seal promises. That is why some people are so frightened of shedding them, Great-aunt Petronella had said, because tears contain the power to change everything.

Thorn closed her eyes and several precious magical tears rolled down her cheeks.

Before she had even realized what she was doing, Cordelia quickly pulled out the Secret-Keeper Shell from inside her pocket. She held it up to catch a single teardrop dripping from Thorn’s chin.

Thorn dashed her hands angrily over her face, wiping the remaining tears away as Cordelia tucked the Secret-Keeper, brimming with the shimmering tear, safely back into her pocket.

‘How did you escape Miss Prim’s?’ she asked quietly.

‘Sometimes, when you realize nobody else is going to rescue you, you have to do it yourself,’ Thorn said grimly.

Cordelia had to admit that this was excellent logic.

‘So … you definitely weren’t kidnapped,’ she said.

‘No.’ Thorn shook her head. ‘I suppose Father preferred to tell everyone I was a victim of kidnapping rather than a runaway. He believes girls are much less disgraceful if they’re victims not vagabonds, and a girl with her own opinions is a dangerous person.’

The curse bloomed like wildfire across her face again.

‘I’m going to make sure I get revenge on everyone who’s hurt me!’ she vowed. ‘Everyone!’

She strode away into the jungle. The Sea Dragon turned iron grey and headbutted Cordelia firmly after her.

‘Wait!’ Cordelia cried, speeding after the pirate queen. ‘Thorn! Revenge is not how you break a curse!’

Thorn grabbed her hat out of a spiky shrub and whipped round, ramming it on to her head. Her face got craggier, like barnacles growing on rocks at lightning speed.

‘My father told me I should be like a flower. Like a rose without a thorn,’ she growled. ‘Girls are always being told not to be sharp or spiky. They tell us it’s our duty to be pretty and sweet. Because the truth is, we’re easier to control that way, aren’t we? But I’d rather be a thorn in my father’s side than a rose in his buttonhole.’

Before Cordelia could respond, Thorn gave a sharp whistle. Vines snatched Hatmaker and Troublemaker off the ground, dragging them upwards and flinging them through the trees.

The air was knocked from Cordelia’s lungs as she was dropped on to the treehouse deck. Before she could get her breath back, Thorn had stalked across the bridge into her cabin and slammed the door.

‘Thorn, please listen!’ Cordelia yelled, scrambling to her feet.

But the door was firmly shut.

‘She didn’t feed you to Rainbow!’ came Never’s voice from behind her. ‘That’s such good news!’

Cordelia turned to see the rest of the pirates arriving on the deck, looking surprised to see her still uneaten.

‘It’s not that she didn’t try,’ Cordelia told them drily. ‘But it turns out I’m not the most appealing snack for the Sea Dragon, after all. Not enough leaves on me and too many bones.’

Cordelia scrutinized the Troublemakers in their huge pirate hats laden with craggy barnacles.

‘Are you …’ she began shrewdly, stepping forward.

The Troublemakers took a step back, crowding closer together.

‘Are we what?’ Never asked defensively.

‘You are!’

‘What?’

‘Wearing disguises,’ Cordelia said. ‘I know Thorn’s secret … or should I say Prudence’s secret?’

Several Troublemakers hushed her, frantically but silently, casting anxious glances towards Thorn’s cabin.

But Thorn’s voice drifted from the window. ‘It’s true. The Maker knows.’

Never’s eyes widened, and he pulled the pirates into a huddle.

Cordelia watched with her eyebrows raised. She heard mutterings coming from the huddle. A minute later, they turned back to her, shuffling into a line.

Never looked at them all, and solemnly nodded. Then simultaneously the Troublemakers reached up to remove their hats.

Never, Annie, Tabitha, Jim and Billy all changed.

Without their hats, the Troublemakers were revealed to be children.

‘What a RELIEF!’ Billy sighed, scratching his head. ‘Those Rockface Barnacles are so itchy! They’re the reason I’m always saying “AAAARGH!”’

Billy, it turned out, was a round-faced boy of about ten.

Annie and Tabitha were even younger, their smiles much less frightening now they had shed their disguises. Jim was still looming, but in a much less cadaverous way. He loomed only the way gangly twelve-year-old boys, who have grown a lot in a short space of time, tend to do.

It was hard for Cordelia to tell if Shelly’s face had changed, because all that could be seen of her were her eyes. She was still covered with shells and blinking silently.

Only Smokestack remained old. His eyes twinkled in his lined face as he smiled at Cordelia.

‘So, you know our secret,’ Never said. ‘This is who we really are.’

Cordelia turned to Never, recognizing his lopsided smile at once.

‘You’re the boy I met at the Kingless!’ she cried.

Never nodded. ‘That was me,’ he admitted.

A sparkling constellation of understanding came together in Cordelia’s mind.

‘And you decided to kidnap me because I told you myself that treason was easy!’ Cordelia gasped.

Never had the good grace to look slightly shamefaced.

‘Kidnapping isn’t something we’d like to get a reputation for,’ he muttered. ‘It was really meant to be more of a polite invitation –’

‘Everyone in London already thinks you’re kidnappers,’ Cordelia told him. ‘They believe a wicked band of pirates called the Troublemakers kidnapped –’ here, she wisely dropped her voice to a whisper to continue – ‘Prudence Oglethorne. And you’re keeping her prisoner.’

‘We’re not kidnappers!’ Tabitha burst out. ‘We’re escapers and survivors!’

‘We are,’ Never said, looking at Cordelia defiantly. ‘And actually I don’t really care if the whole of London thinks we’re man-eating crocodiles. We had to save ourselves from Miss Prim’s prison.’

‘Wait – you were all at Miss Prim’s?’ Cordelia asked. ‘Then how come only Prudence was reported kidnapped?’

There had been no news of other pupils going missing from the school. No word on the London streets nor in any newspapers about more kidnappings.

‘Miss Prim probably hated admitting that even a single prisoner had escaped!’ Tabitha said wryly. ‘But she could probably keep the rest of us escapers quiet because it was a secret we’d been sent there anyway.’

‘They probably had to say Thorn was kidnapped because “escaped” would have raised too many questions!’ Never pointed out. ‘Lots of Miss Prim’s prisoners are the children of important politicians and noblemen who don’t want their reputations ruined by the scandal of having their children’s illegal Making skills revealed.’

‘My real name’s William Borington,’ Billy Bones admitted. ‘My father runs the Boring Ton newspaper. And Jim is really James Leech: his father’s the one who sent most of us to Miss Prim to be “cured”.’

Cordelia stared at Jim. ‘Doctor Leech is your father?’

Jim nodded glumly.

‘Annie and I are really the Ladies Annette and Tabitha of Slough,’ Tabitha explained. ‘Our father’s the Earl of Slough.’

‘And my father’s Lord Carp,’ Never added ruefully. ‘He says, Lords don’t learn trades, especially illegal ones. I was never allowed to Make. Now I’m never going back.’

‘All your parents are in the Sensible Party!’ Cordelia realized.

She remembered the line-up of unsmiling politicians at Speakers’ Corner. There could not have been a greater contrast between those grim grown-ups and this ragtag bunch of scruffy children standing before her now, bright-eyed and rebellious, their hearts blazing with defiance and their fingers full of magic.

‘And who is Shelly?’ Cordelia asked.

The Troublemakers grew quiet as they turned to Shelly, clinking in her crustacean armour.

‘Shelly’s the reason we escaped,’ a voice came from behind Cordelia.

Thorn appeared in the doorway to her cabin. She had taken her hat off again, and her face looked strangely vulnerable in its youth.

‘One evening, months after my father left me in Miss Prim’s cold courtyard, I heard the sound of his carriage over the cobbles outside,’ Thorn said. ‘I thought – I hoped – he was there to take me away from the prison. When he and Miss Prim went into her parlour, I sneaked along to listen in at the keyhole.

‘When I heard what my father was saying to Miss Prim, I realized he wasn’t there to take me home at all. He was telling her about something he’d heard in Parliament: one of the Guildhall Makers had reported to the politicians about this very dangerous thing: a bit of metal that had the power to destroy magic –’

‘That was Father!’ Cordelia interrupted. ‘Back in September he told them about the soul lead that Lord Witloof turned himself into. It’s in the British Museum now, under lock and key. But if its special cage is opened, it’s really dangerous –’

Thorn nodded grimly.

‘I could tell from the sound of my father’s voice he was excited,’ she continued. ‘He said the key to a Sensible Britain was within his reach – the thing was being moved that night and he’d have access for an hour or two at most. He thought it was a way to stamp out magic, once and for all. To drain magic from all ingredients … and … a way to drain the magic out of people too.’

Cordelia remembered her father telling her the same thing, months ago. But Prospero Hatmaker hadn’t been excited about this dark power; he had been extremely grave.

‘My father said he needed someone to experiment on, to make sure it would work,’ Thorn continued. ‘He said he wanted to be sure it was safe before he tried it on – on me. So he needed a child with strong magic, like mine …’

Cordelia went cold. Such a wicked thing could not be true.

‘Shelly was wild and wayward and rebellious and boisterous when she arrived at Miss Prim’s,’ Thorn went on through gritted teeth. ‘She’d run around turning cartwheels among the geese when we paraded in the park. She’d make flower crowns out of weeds, woven with hope and strength, and kept nettle leaves in her shoes to give herself clever defences. She pulled faces at Miss Prim behind her back and sang funny songs about clouds. She was small but fierce and funny and full of defiance.’

Cordelia looked at the person blinking mildly at her, covered in shells. It was hard to believe this was the same person Thorn had just described.

‘The day my father came to see Miss Prim, Shelly had got in trouble for making rude noises whenever Miss Prim opened her mouth during prayers, and she’d been locked in the castle dungeon since morning. I think Miss Prim was delighted at the opportunity to finally subdue the wild child: Shelly was so defiant that not even the Malwood cane had worked on her. I rushed into the parlour and begged Father not to take Shelly away. But he wouldn’t listen.’

Thorn clenched her fists.

‘I tried to stop them taking her – I fought like a wild thing – but Father and Miss Prim were too strong. They locked me in the dungeon and took Shelly away.’ Thorn swallowed. ‘I don’t know exactly what happened to her – but –’

‘I do,’ Cordelia croaked. ‘My father told me: anyone who hears the scream of the leaden soul is drained of their magic.’

She turned to Shelly. ‘Sir Piers unlocked the case, didn’t he?’ she asked. ‘You heard the sound that thing makes, didn’t you, Shelly?’

Shelly slowly nodded.