‘WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?’ Sir Piers bellowed.
‘WE DEMAND MAGIC BACK!’ Cordelia cried, balancing on the branch as faces turned to her in astonishment. ‘People of London – Makers, prisoners of Miss Prim – everyone! Sir Piers has a terrible weapon that he’s about to use TO TAKE OUR MAGIC AWAY!’
Her lungs burned; her heart blazed.
‘Come down here, you little brat!’ Sir Piers screamed. ‘I ordered the admiral to kill you all!’
‘He didn’t manage to kill any of us!’ Cordelia told him defiantly. ‘DOUBLE, DOUBLE!’
All around the room, the frozen dioramas came alive. Troublemakers emerged from beneath the wings of huge birds, rustled out of grasses, rolled aside fungus puffballs and unfolded from corals. Annie shook off a multitude of musical birds that swam away through the air in a blue fugue. Jim appeared atop a giant snail as it moved ponderously into sight, and Shelly uncurled from an enormous clam shell, rising like a sea goddess.
Exhibits awakened – vines stretched as though they had cramp from staying still too long. The dodo, who had been poised on a plinth, shook his tail and honked. Sun Eaters turned their heads imperiously, while flowers snapped their petals, crystals clinked, huge hermit crabs flashed lightning from their shells, butterflies flurried through the air and spiders uncurled their legs and scurried to work.
Sir Piers stared around in terror, cowering against the one plinth that showed no sign of life: the one holding the Sea Dragon’s head. Wild magic was everywhere, bursting into chaos around him! The large pearly egg rolled on to the floor as birds arced overhead and giant spiders scuttled around him. He clutched the cold cabinet key in his sweaty hand.
The Troublemakers grinned at the gasping crowd below them. They had smeared shining nectar on to their skin and stuck feathers in their hair. Sam had an entire flock of dragonflies flexing their wings on her head, and Goose was completely covered in green succulent plants.
‘We are the Troublemakers!’ Never announced. ‘And Prudence Oglethorne is our captain!’
Several people in the audience tried to flee, but a spider scuttled across the doorway, lacing the exit shut.
Cordelia blew through an enormous trumpet-like flower, shivering the room into silence.
‘We can’t change your minds with magic!’ she announced. ‘I learned that lesson, and I’m sorry for the mistakes I made. Your Majesty, I should never have put a Meddling hat on your head.’
The king’s eyes bulged in surprise as Cordelia gave him a deep bow from her perch on the tree. Princess Georgina blushed and shuffled beside him.
‘Please, before Sir Piers unleashes his terrible weapon,’ Cordelia continued, ‘let us show you the magic we have, and allow it to freely change your minds.’
The king raised an eyebrow. Without waiting for royal permission, Cordelia cried, ‘Welcome to the least sensible party of the year!’
Hearing the cue, the Troublemakers sprang into action.
There was an explosion of colour and joy and noise. Magic – something Londoners had been starved of – burst into exuberant mayhem around them.
Troublemakers led magical creatures to meet Londoners in a jubilant reunion of magic and humans. The guests tasted music blooming from bugle flowers as the air was bejewelled by a charm of hummingbirds. Vines raced across the floor, and flowers burst open like fireworks. Moss velveted a wall, while insects winked and buzzed through the air, leaving trails of bliss. Goose trailed ribbons of rainbow across the room, and the king himself played in a stream of bubbles being released by an enormous clam that was opening and closing like a musical box.
But amid the chaos of a crowd erupting with joy, Cordelia saw Thorn, standing as still as stone. Something was wrong with the pirate queen.
She scrambled down the branches of the Soulhope Tree and leaped to the floor, landing knee-deep in poppies. She waded across the mini meadow, hurrying through a swoosh of birds, under banners of spiderlace, over a highway of glowing snails and past a thrum of dazzling insects.
Cordelia shouldered through Miss Prim’s pupils, who ran from their teacher as indigo birds descended upon her to feast on the horrible thoughts swirling around the headmistress’s head. She bypassed Shelly and her army of scuttling knife-clawed crabs, who were busy rounding up several terrified members of the Sensible Party.
‘Thorn!’ Cordelia called, glimpsing her through a rumble of fungus puffballs. ‘Come on!’
But Thorn didn’t move. Cordelia had to get to her –
She dashed past Never, who was rolling politicians up in tumbling shrubs, and narrowly dodged the bellowing Admiral Ransom as he tripped over a snapping flower vine snaking round his ankles. Meanwhile, as Sam’s sunlight faded, the moths that had devoured the candle flames closed themselves into glowing cocoons that hung from the ceiling like wild chandeliers.
Cordelia finally reached Thorn through the joyful frenzy of magic. But the magic itself could not reach Thorn.
The young Hatmaker grasped Thorn’s hands and gasped in shock as she brushed against the Malwood cane and saw the necklace of hangman’s rope. The Sensible Party and Miss Prim claimed to reject all forms of magic, but they were using it now to control Thorn!
Furiously Cordelia tugged the cane. A second later she reared back. The Malwood was full of grim, burning coldness. It must have been agonizing to Thorn, bound so tight to her hands.
‘Thorn, can you hear me?’ Cordelia whispered, peering into her eyes.
Exactly what Thorn had feared the most had happened to her: there was no light left in her eyes.
Tears spilled down Cordelia’s cheeks and she dashed them away.
‘I have to get this cane off you!’
She gritted her teeth. The Malwood hissed as Cordelia wrapped her hands around it. Somehow, the cane was weakening. Something on Cordelia’s hands was splintering the wood.
‘Tears!’ Cordelia exclaimed. ‘Of course, they’re very powerful!’
The wood creaked, but it was still strong. And Cordelia remembered something that had lain forgotten for days. She stuck her hand into her pocket –
‘YES!’
Miraculously, the Secret-Keeper that Shelly had given her had stayed tucked in her pocket all through her journey home.
She tipped the shell. A single tear glistened on the tip of her finger, bursting round and fat with powerful magic. It was the tear she had collected from Thorn, back on the island. A tear full of grief and hope and love.
Cordelia trickled the teardrop on to the Malwood cane. It slipped between Thorn’s fingers and –
CRACK!
– snapped the Menacing wood in half.
Cordelia pulled the pieces apart, dropping them to the floor with a clatter. She dragged the frayed hangman’s rope from Thorn’s neck, looking for the fire that had always lived in her eyes.
‘Thorn?’ she whispered. ‘Are you there?’
It was like calling somebody far away in the dark.
‘Thorn!’ she said again, this time louder.
But Thorn was staring in horror at something over Cordelia’s shoulder.
Cordelia swung round and felt her heart drop.
Sir Piers was turning the key in the cabinet door.