16 
For the next week Ottilie barely laid eyes on Alba. She had locked herself away with the two books, determined to find answers. Ottilie returned her own focus to hunting. She was now sitting in fifty-first place. It wasn’t enough!
She was determined to do better. Not just to improve her ranking, but for other, more dire reasons. Not only had she and Leo found another isolated patch of the withering sickness – this time further east, not far from the Arko zone – but that morning they had flown over the Withering Wood, and the growth was clear. If the sickness began to spread from other spots too, the Narroway would be a festering, blackened waste in no time.
Ottilie couldn’t help feeling that their work was achieving nothing. The whole situation put her in a hopeless mood, which was somewhat lifted when Ned knocked on her door that afternoon. He had the petition in his hand. The room brightened.
‘It was less than I hoped,’ he said, holding out the parchment for her to see. Including Ned, only six elites had signed. ‘You know, I think a lot of them agreed with me, they just –’
‘Didn’t want their name on it.’ Ottilie frowned. If taken badly, this would essentially be a list of troublemakers – rebels. She knew the elites must be scared the Hunt would react negatively and they would fall out of favour with the directorate. But it was so much safer for the boys than the girls. They were unlikely to throw huntsmen in the burrows or banish them from the Narroway just for marking their name.
The boys probably feared that they would be docked points, consigned permanently to wall watch and singer duty or, worse, the shovelies. She also understood, from personal experience, that those things were not as trivial as they seemed.
The elites had been at Fiory a lot longer than she had. The Narroway Hunt was their family, their whole life. Scoring points was the driving force behind their day’s work – it was how they marked their achievements.
But this was so much bigger than that. It was worth the risk; how could they not see? The more huntsmen
that signed, the more likely the directorate would agree, and the less likely they would all be punished.
Ottilie didn’t know how she felt. Six was better than nothing, and six elites at that. Her friends signed it that afternoon. Scoot, possibly trying to make up for their fight, was overly enthusiastic and smudged the ink across the page, covering Gully and Preddy’s names, so they both had to sign again.
Ottilie tried once more with Leo. She found him napping in his room. They weren’t ideal circumstances. Not only was he annoyed at being interrupted, but he seemed embarrassed to have been caught resting. He liked to maintain the illusion of invulnerability. Predictably, he refused once again, and the whole thing ended with Leo throwing a pillow hard at her face and Ottilie calling him spineless and slamming the door.
Skip had far better luck with the custodians. After the wyler attack, many of them were enthusiastic about learning to defend themselves against the dredretches, and willing to risk the consequences of marking their name.
Ottilie was not an elite – she couldn’t just ask for an audience with the directorate. Her plan was to pass the petition to Wrangler Morse, the wrangler she trusted most, and ask him to take it higher. She was hoping to catch him in the training yards and was just cutting through the grove when Gracie and Maeve appeared. A mouldy dustplum squelched beneath her boot. Ottilie stiffened and stopped. This could not be good.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Gracie smiled her cold little smile, and Ottilie found herself thinking of Yosha Moses, the girl who had jumped from the tree.
Gracie was looking a little better, she thought. Still pale, but more yellow than grey. Ottilie’s eyes darted to Gracie’s arm but the scar from the wyler bite was hidden beneath her sleeve.
Ottilie was surprised to see that Maeve, on the other hand, looked awful. Her dark hair was matted, and she had purple smudges under eyes. It looked like she hadn’t slept in days. What was going on with those two?
‘Are you doing it today?’ Maeve demanded.
‘What?’ She felt shaky and wasn’t sure why.
‘Don’t play dumb, you’re taking the petition to the directorate today?’ pressed Maeve, flicking hair away from her strangely fraught face.
‘How did you … yes. Why?’ Ottilie regarded her with wide eyes. Maeve seemed angry. Her mood radiated from her in a way that Ottilie had never felt before.
‘We’d like to sign, please,’ said Gracie with her usual false sweetness, her mouth quirking up.
‘You … really?’ Ottilie had not expected this.
‘Of course,’ Maeve snapped, glowering. ‘Isla didn’t even ask us.’
Ottilie wasn’t surprised. They had only asked people they trusted and Ottilie considered these girls two of the least trustworthy people at Fort Fiory. She held out the petition with narrowed eyes. What if they tore it up? Or ran off and took it to Wrangler Voilies? But then Ottilie remembered Maeve on the night of the wyler attack. She had been fearless – and angry. It did make sense that she wanted to sign.
‘I’ve only got this with me,’ said Ottilie, pulling a stick of charcoal from her pocket.
‘That’ll do fine,’ said Maeve, scratching Ottilie’s hand as she snatched it.
Ottilie blinked. She had the oddest sensation of wind sweeping across her face, but the day was perfectly still.
The petition was out of Ottilie’s hands for only half a day before they had their answer.
‘Insubordination!’ spat Wrangler Voilies, his face the colour of rotting meat.
Wrangler Morse had promised to pass on the petition to Captain Lyre – after that, Ottilie didn’t know what had happened. She could only guess that the directorate had rejected their request and sent Voilies to deal with them.
He had called everyone who had signed to a small chamber, well out of the way of the rest of the fort. They wanted to keep it quiet, thought Ottilie, keep it contained. She swallowed the lump in her throat. This was not the moment for tears. Gully stood beside her, gripping her wrist hard.
‘It is a disgrace!’ hissed Voilies.
Ottilie felt Gully twitch. Skip was on her other side, hard-faced, with fire in her eyes.
‘A devious attempt to undermine our operation.’
Heat began creeping up Ottilie’s neck. Her disappointment morphed into anger and she ground her teeth and fixed her eyes on the tapestry hanging behind Voilies.
‘Sneaking. Manipulation. I’ve thought for years that there should be no women allowed in the fort at all. A noxious distraction! But there are jobs that need to be done. Ingratitude, that’s what this is!’
Skip cracked her knuckles, and Ottilie quickly linked her arm – more a gesture of restraint than support.
‘My elites … I am deeply disappointed.’ His gaze lingered on Ned.
She studied his face. How did he feel about this? Was he regretting helping her? His shoulders were square and his brow furrowed in quiet defiance – it didn’t seem so.
‘The custodian chieftess has been informed. She is rightly outraged. Every custodian in this room is to report to her chambers the moment this meeting is over.’
A tiny fraction of the weight lifted off Ottilie’s shoulders. The custodian chieftess was going to handle the girls, not the directorate. They would be punished, she was sure, but not locked up, not sent away.
‘And as for the huntsmen,’ said Voilies with a dangerous hiss. ‘You are all on probation, and if I hear a word about this again you can pull on a shovelie suit, because I WILL NOT HAVE IT! This is the natural order, and I will not have it disrupted!’ he said, sending spit flying in their faces.
‘These are dangerous times. If you girls are concerned about your safety you should focus on your jobs. Keep the fort in order, keep the huntsmen comfortable and well fed, so that they are in the best condition to go out and do the job that you are not capable of doing. We will protect you. There is no need for you to learn to protect yourselves.’
His eyes fell upon Ottilie and strange white patches blossomed on his dark red cheeks. He had not targeted her specifically, so that must have meant that Wrangler Morse had not named her as the instigator. Even so, he would never accept her as a huntsman, and any fool could see that the question of training girls had not been raised before a girl had infiltrated the Hunt. Ottilie would have to be very careful. People would be looking for a way to silence her.
Voilies was still rambling on and on. ‘An attempt to destabilise the natural order is an act of rebellion!’
There was a loud bang. The tapestry directly behind Wrangler Voilies fell to the ground and burst into flame. He shrieked and hopped sideways.
For a moment everyone froze, then the two closest, Bayo and Alba, hurried forwards, ripped another tapestry from the wall, and smothered the fire. It sparked and licked, catching on one of Alba’s braids. She flicked it like a bothersome fly and kept stamping until there was only smoke.
Wrangler Voilies was clutching his heart, breathing hard. His eyes darted accusingly around the room. But none of them had caused it. How could they? A fire like that, from nothing? Not even bone singers could pull a trick like that. The tapestry must have caught on a candle when it fell. But still Wrangler Voilies observed them, mouth gaping, his eyes darting manically from girl to girl.
‘Witchcraft,’ he hissed, his eyes rolling back. ‘WITCHES!’
Ottilie’s heart sped to a gallop. Her gaze found Gracie. She was utterly calm, her face absurdly peaceful. Once again, Ottilie pictured Gracie under the hood. But she had been bitten, Ottilie reminded herself. It couldn’t be her. Beside Gracie, Maeve was white as salt, her eyes wide with fright and fixed on the embers sparking and drifting from the smoking tapestry.