CHAPTER 37

IT WAS QUIET AND EVERYTHING WAS GENTLY rocking.

“Which way do we go?” Goose’s voice came out of the shadows.

Keep wildness in your wits and magic in your fingertips! Cordelia closed her eyes and opened her nostrils.

The Rage Clothes reeked of evil: a mixture of rotten Firechicken eggs and burned dreams.

“It’s that way,” she said, pointing.

“What way?” Goose’s voice came back. “It’s too dark to see.”

In the gloom she felt for Goose’s hand. Holding tight, she led him down the rolling corridor, following the vile smell wafting through the ship.

A shout rang out and they froze. Cordelia pulled Goose against the wooden wall a second before a crowd of people thundered past, bellowing.

“Intruder on board!”

“Trespasser!”

“Actor!”

Hearts hammering in the dark, Cordelia and Goose froze until the people stampeded away toward the deck. Cordelia breathed a sigh of relief. Then she wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh!”

The stink was stronger than before. She pulled Goose around the next corner and suddenly it was overpowering.

“Phew!” Goose huffed. “That’s horrible!”

Cordelia pushed gently and a door swung open. Bright sunlight flooded the dark and they saw twinkling windows and sparkling waves. A golden crest hung in the entranceway.

The royal cabin!

It was quiet.

“Everyone must be on deck,” Cordelia whispered.

They crept into the cabin and sure enough, there on the four-poster bed lay—

“The Rage Clothes!”

Goose recoiled. The Rage Clothes were grotesque. Hate came off them in waves.

The cloak was made from the shredded pelt of a scarlet Vampire Squid, dripping with Eelweeds, studded with the angry spikes of sea urchins and—Cordelia squinted—

“Are those children’s teeth?”

Goose clapped a hand over his mouth.

The gloves were made of warty toad leather, the knuckles gnarled with knotty barnacles. On the end of each finger were stitched—

“Orcus Fox claws!” Cordelia could hardly believe it.

The boots had rusty nails spiking out of their pointy toes. The laces were twisted from putrid guts and—

“Wrath Ribbons!” Goose gasped.

Peering at the hairy brown watch, Cordelia realized with a jolt of alarm that it was made of a dead tarantula, its legs curled beneath it, finger-thick and bristly.

Goose grabbed her hand.

The hat was a tall black chimney, contorted with iron wires that crackled and sparked, humming with Lightning Strife. Three filthy feathers sagged on it and a single orange whisker curved like a scimitar around the crown, which Cordelia knew could be only one thing:

“The whisker of a Sabre Tiger!”

Most disgusting of all, a thousand live millipedes twisted and wriggled on the brim: the hat was alive with malice.

The children stared in horror. Around them, the ship creaked as though it was straining to contain these terrible secrets.

“Harpy feathers on the hat!” Cordelia exclaimed.

“And Lightning Strife!”

“Goose, these clothes are really dangerous. Even just putting one of these things on could be really bad.”

There was a tiny squeak behind them and Cordelia and Goose whirled around. There, pale as a marble statue, stood—

“Princess Georgina!”

She was so perfectly still that they had not noticed her when they crept in. The glass crown glistered on her head and her eyes were strangely glazed.

Before Cordelia could reach up to remove the crown, the door handle turned. “Goose, hide!”

She dived behind a carved wooden screen as Goose wrapped himself in the velvet curtains of the four-poster bed. He covered up his feet as Lord Witloof strode into the room.

Cordelia put her eye to a hole in the screen and saw the lord smiling unpleasantly at the princess.

“I have arrested that ridiculous actor,” he said. “He is being locked in the hold with some bilge rats.”

The princess remained frozen as Lord Witloof continued, “Delilah suspects there are two stowaway children aboard: a Hatmaker and a Bootmaker. When we find them, we will throw them in a leaky row boat and push them out to sea. I am having some holes drilled in a small boat as we speak.”

Cordelia saw the bed curtains quiver.

“Now, Princess, the time has finally come for you to order the cannons!” Lord Witloof’s eyes were shining. “Your father refused to sign this commission. Then you refused. But you will sign it now, and my Ironfire Cannon Factory will begin to churn out weapons at a rate mankind has never seen before!”

Lord Witloof unrolled a scroll of paper on the desk, dipped a waiting quill in ink, and grasped the princess’s hand. She had no choice but to write her name as his fist guided her fingers. As soon as it was done, Lord Witloof snatched up the paper and pulled his glass pocket watch out of his waistcoat.

“Drat, stopped again,” he muttered, tapping the silent watch.

He carefully unscrewed the lid of the timepiece. Where the beautiful blue butterfly had been, there were now just a few flakes of black ash. Lord Witloof tutted, tipping the ash onto the floor. He took a small wooden box out of his pocket and opened it. Inside were several jewel-bright butterflies, twitching their wings in the sunlight. One ruby-red butterfly took to the air but Lord Witloof caught it by a paper-thin wing.

“You’ll do,” he said, as it struggled in his fingers.

He laid the butterfly on the watch, snapping the lid down over it and trapping it behind the glass. It thrashed and fluttered in its prison. Cordelia was sure if she could have heard the butterfly’s voice, it would have been screaming.

The watch began to tick again. Cordelia felt sick.

The door swung open and Miss Starebottom slunk into the room.

“Ah! Most punctual, Delilah!” Lord Witloof announced. “Time for Her Highness to dress for the peace talks.”

Cordelia wondered how she had never noticed how cruel her governess’s twisted mouth was. She looked nastier than a hundred algebra problems as she smiled at the princess and picked up the Rage Cloak. Cordelia shuddered silently as Miss Starebottom slung the rubbery cloak over the princess’s shoulders and pinned the tarantula-watch at her waist. She tugged the lumpy gloves onto the princess’s pale hands and yanked her silver shoes off, then pulled the new boots onto the princess’s little feet and tied the slimy laces in knobbly double knots.

Cordelia noticed that Miss Starebottom did not put the Rage Hat on the princess. The glass crown was still holding her in its cold power, like a strong arm holding somebody underwater.

Miss Starebottom stepped back, as if to admire her work. The princess was a sickening spectacle.

Lord Witloof smiled. “What a splendid job. I’m sure the peace talks will go perfectly.”

“She’ll declare war, and every Maker will be hanged on the hill,” Miss Starebottom hissed gleefully to Lord Witloof. “And I will so enjoy watching their necks snap!”

It was all Cordelia could do not to cry out in horror.

And then she saw the velvet curtains move.

‘“STAND AND DELIVER!” Goose’s voice shouted, as fiercely as he could, flailing the curtains in outrage.

For a moment, Lord Witloof looked terrified at the prospect of being attacked by vengeful soft furnishings. Then Goose’s round face appeared, ruddy with fury, as he wrestled to free himself from the curtains. He lost the fight, got tangled up, and thudded to the floor in a heap of torn velvet.

“That’s the Bootmaker,” Miss Starebottom sneered. “And the Hatmaker will be close by! Where are you hiding, Cordelia?” she hissed, swatting the remaining curtains with her cane.

“GUARDS!” shouted Lord Witloof.

Three guards came clattering into the room.

“Arrest this child!” Lord Witloof ordered, poking Goose with his foot.

“There’s a girl hiding somewhere too. She’s trying to sabotage the peace talks!” Miss Starebottom shrieked. “Find her NOW!”

Cordelia saw a guard lurch toward her hiding place and she was almost discovered when—

“YOU!” Goose bellowed, pointing an accusing finger at Miss Starebottom. “YOU are the most twit-faced, nose-bogey, arse-farting villainess from hence to hence!”

It was such a strange string of insults that everyone in the room turned to stare at Goose. Cordelia took her chance and dived into the one hiding place where nobody would think to look.

All around her chaos unfolded, as the room was torn apart in the search. The wooden screen she had been hiding behind was knocked over and she heard Goose being dragged away, still tangled in the curtains.

It was hot and stuffy. The weight of the Rage Clothes closed around her and she could barely breathe. But Cordelia was safely hidden under the princess’s skirts.

She crouched beneath tiers of cloth held by stiff hoops. Her fingers brushed a greasy bootlace, making a tremor of rage quake through her. Feeling the hatbox in her jacket, with the Peace Hat waiting patiently within it, calmed her a little.

“She’s definitely not in this room, Lord Witloof!” a guard barked, his feet an inch from Cordelia’s hand.

“Search the whole galleon! Find her!”

The guards trooped out. Cordelia felt the floor shaking beneath their boots.

“Princess, follow me,” Lord Witloof ordered. “It is time to begin!”