Chapter 10

Cordelia woke up with her teeth chattering and ice coating her eyelashes. Cabal was still next to her, his fur clotted with snow. She sat up, pulling on her jacket with trembling fingers.

It was just after dawn. The room was filled with long shadows the color of ash. Sometime in the middle of the night, it had begun to storm. Snow had flowed in through the broken window, extinguishing their fire. Gregory was still sleeping, but his lips were blue and he was shaking underneath his coat, which he was using as a blanket.

The dragon wasn’t moving.

Cordelia searched the room for the driest twigs and leaves she could find. She piled it all together, as she’d seen Gregory do the night before. His matchbook was still poking out of his pocket. There were two matches left, and neither one felt dry. She put both match heads together and struck them as one, a trick she’d learned from her father. A small flame sputtered to life. She cupped it carefully with one hand and dropped the matches into the collection of dried twigs and leaves.

For a second, nothing happened. Then the kindling caught, and flames soared upward, and Cordelia could breathe again. She pulled the dragon into her lap, rubbing her hands against his knobby spine, kneading his thick skin, willing him to wake.

Eventually, after what seemed like forever, he opened one eye, and then the other.

After another minute he yawned, revealing a mottled pink tongue.

Cordelia exhaled. She blew gently on the fire, stoking it a little higher, and saw the dragon squirm happily in the warmth.

She was just debating whether it would be safe to try to sleep for a few more hours when she heard footsteps from the hall. Her heart stopped.

“Gregory,” Cordelia whispered, as she smothered the fire with her jacket and stamped out the embers that still glowed. “Gregory, wake up.” She took his shoulders and gave him a shake, but he only moaned and swatted her off. The footsteps were getting louder. Someone was heading straight for them.

She seized her bag and fished out the jar of dung beetles, which had the most awful smell, somewhere between dirty sock, spoiled milk, and rotten cabbage. She opened the jar and shoved it under Gregory’s nose.

He woke with a start, choking and gagging. “What the—?”

She clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shhh.” She gestured to the door with her chin. Outside in the hall, they could hear muffled conversation. Gregory’s eyes went wide. Cordelia withdrew her hand.

“First things first, we got to make a clean sweep o’ the place,” a man was saying in a rolling accent. “Start at the top, head straight to the bottom. There been hobos and crooks makin’ a home in these halls for too long. Crafty as rats after dark, they is.”

There was a pause. Cordelia thought she heard a snarling sound. Then the man spoke up again.

“Well, you’re exactly right, o’ course you are. Round ’em up and throw ’em in prison, or ship ’em straight back to where they came from. Turnin’ the station into a muck pit, that’s what they is.”

There were another few seconds of silence, and then the man laughed—a dry, rattling sound, like leaves blown against glass.

“Now, now, don’t get upset. There might be one or two juicy morsels for you in it. I’ll make sure you get your feed, boy, never you worry. Who’s to miss a hand or arm or foot from these filthy little night crawlers? That’s one more hand they can’t be thievin’ with, I say.”

Slowly, careful not to make any noise, Cordelia inched across the room and raised herself onto her knees, so that she could peek through the dirty window that overlooked the hall.

A man so old and skinny he looked like a walking cadaver was stomping down the hall, pausing every few feet to kick open doors and make a sweep with his lantern.

With him was the largest, meanest-looking dog Cordelia had ever seen. Its fangs were long, protruding, and webbed with spittle. It kept its nose to the ground, sniffing and snuffling, loud with a wet and excited hunger that made her shudder.

Cordelia backed quickly away from the door, as if the dog might smell her sooner if she remained where she was. She knew it was only a matter of seconds before they were found. There was no chance of escaping through the hall. She looked frantically around the room and saw, immediately, that there was nowhere to conceal them. Then her eyes landed on the broken window, high in the wall, which was still admitting swirling flakes of snow.

The window. With any luck, they’d be able to reach it.

She pointed to the window. Gregory nodded to show he understood. Cordelia shoved the jar of dung beetles back into her bag and put on her jacket. She managed to ease the dragon into one of her larger pockets, ignoring his hiss of pain and simply hoping that his wing wouldn’t get further damaged, then swept Cabal up into her arms. He was stiff with fear; it was like carrying a block of ice. Gregory eased Icky onto his back, and Icky looped his long arms around Gregory’s neck. Gregory wore the rucksack in reverse, across his stomach.

“Patience, Crunch, patience, m’boy,” the man was saying. Cordelia assumed Crunch was the name of the dog—it didn’t take much imagination to figure out where he’d gotten the nickname, and she shivered, thinking of the bones in her hand snapping in the dog’s jaw. If only the dragon were full-grown.

Gregory wiggled a chair underneath the window. Cordelia set Cabal down and maneuvered onto the chair. If she stretched on her tiptoes, her fingers just grazed the icy windowsill. She would need help. Gregory stepped up next to her, and the chair shifted under their weight. Cordelia’s heart stopped. Had they been heard? But the man was still blabbering on. “What’s that yer got, Crunch? Picked up a trail? Lead on, lead on, m’boy. Maybe we’ll catch a big one.”

“You go first,” Gregory whispered. He webbed his fingers together and gave Cordelia a boost. She hooked both arms around the windowsill and heaved. For a second, her legs flailed uselessly in the air, and the dragon squirmed in her pocket, and her feet scrabbled against the wall, and Cordelia felt a desperate rush of terror. Then Gregory took hold of one of her feet and pushed, and she managed to swing a leg up and out, so she was straddling the windowsill.

“Cabal,” she whispered, perched half in and half out the window. Gregory jumped lightly off the chair, scooped up Cabal, and passed him to Cordelia. It was only a short six feet to the street, which was piled high with new snow. Cordelia launched the zuppy out the window. Icky was next. He was evidently afraid of heights. He whined and clutched Cordelia’s chest and hair.

“Sorry, boy,” Cordelia said. Down he went. He belly flopped with a whoompf, leaving a filch-shaped imprint in the snow when he managed to right himself.

The footsteps were right outside the door. “Somethin’ special, is it?” the man was crooning. “Somethin’ large and meaty for you?”

“Hurry,” she whispered to Gregory. He stood up on the chair, pinwheeling his arms for balance. He stretched a hand up to Cordelia. She wrapped a hand around his wrist. She pulled at the same time that Gregory jumped. The chair toppled and clattered to the ground. For one terrible second, time seemed to freeze, with Gregory’s wrist slipping, inch by inch, from her hand, his feet dangling in midair, and the knowledge, heavy and horrible, of what was waiting for them just outside the door.

Then the door burst open and time sped forward.

“Get ’em, Crunch!” the man roared, his mouth wide to reveal blackened teeth, his eyes wide and wild. “Get those filthy, thievin’ rats! Slurp ’em up like stew! Crunch ’em like cookies!”

The dog, big as a horse, was halfway across the room in two bounds. Gregory was still twisting in the air like a fish caught on a line, eyes wide, face white and terrified, his fingers just grazing the windowsill.

Cordelia was gripping Gregory so hard she worried that his wrist would snap. Just before the dog lunged, Gregory got his arm over the windowsill. Cordelia leaned back and he rocketed upward as the dog’s jaw closed on the space where Gregory’s foot had been only a second earlier.

Cordelia lost her balance. Suddenly she was falling, tumbling backward. She landed in the snow, and the air was driven out of her. She saw a massive bird above her, tumbling through the snow, blotting out the early morning sky. Then she realized it wasn’t a bird, but Gregory, who had leapt out of the window after her, coat flapping behind him. He landed next to her and hauled her to her feet. She gasped in a breath. From inside the station came sounds of furious barking, and the man cursing and shouting.

As the snow spiraled through the air and light seeped back into the streets, Gregory and Cordelia took up their monsters and ran.