The air was damp and chilly and through the patches of fog, Robert glimpsed the first stars already out in the night sky. As he followed Lily, Tolly and Malkin along the path that wound round the side of Brackenbridge Manor, a sudden thought struck him.

“How are we going to get to the circus and back before nine?” he asked. “It’ll take at least forty minutes to the village each way – or more, considering we’ll get lost in this weather – and then the show lasts an hour, and we need to be back in time for your da’s speech at nine. We can’t possibly make it.”

“We can if we’re not on foot,” Lily replied.

“What are we going to do, fly?” Malkin sneered.

“No.” Lily led them onto the front drive. “We’re going to take one of those.” She pointed at the long line of steam-hansoms sitting wheel-deep in the mist and waiting to take Papa’s guests back to the Brackenbridge airstation.

Robert wondered why he hadn’t thought of that as they clambered aboard the first machine.

“Budge up!” Tolly said, climbing into the passenger compartment beside Robert and Malkin as Lily negotiated with the driver. When she’d finished, she climbed in as well, slamming the door behind her and settling into a seat. Then she banged on the roof to signal they were ready to depart. In a moment the steam-hansom had chuffed to life and they set off at a rattling pace. Malkin jumped onto her lap and lay down, resting his front paws and snout across her knees. Lily stroked the top of his head.

They barrelled through the open gates at the end of the drive, the night mizzle thickening and rolling across the fields towards them.

Robert wedged his cap on straight, his fingers fumbling with its brim. Then he shoved his hands deep in his pockets and wrapped his coat close around him, snuggling into the soft collar.

The coat had once belonged to his da. Its thick wool felt warm and cosy, and far more comfortable than the smart suit he had on beneath it. A few flakes of old tobacco lined the pockets. They must’ve fallen from Da’s pipe, which he’d kept in there sometimes.

For years the coat had hung on the rack in the back hall of their old shop, Townsend’s Horologist’s. Da would scoop it on whenever he went out to deliver a clock he’d repaired. He’d been gone almost a year now and Robert still missed him every day. The coat was one of the few things that remained of him.

“I ain’t never laid eyes on a proper circus before.” Tolly shifted about excitedly in his seat. “I seen a few street arteeestes round Camden Town and some music-hall turns in the penny gaffs, not to mention that spiritualist show of your ma’s, Robert – but none of that’s the same as the whole Big Top number, is it? What do you think this Skycircus is going to be like?”

Lily cast a glance at Robert. His face looked flush with nervous excitement. She too had a few anticipatory butterflies in her stomach – or was that the lurch of the cab?

Robert shrugged non-commitally. “I’ve no idea. These kind of shows never normally come to Brackenbridge.”

“I can’t wait to see the girl with wings,” Tolly chattered on. “I wonder if she’ll fly for real, or whether it’ll be some kind of swing-and-wire trick?”

Malkin’s ears pricked up and he shifted, his claws digging into Lily’s lap. “Human bone density makes it highly unlikely she’ll actually take off,” he told them.

“Seems a lot of effort to make mechanical wings if they don’t work,” Robert said.

“Chickens,” Malkin replied.

“What about them?” Tolly asked.

“They have wings but can’t fly.”

“You think she might be like a chicken?” Robert asked.

“Chickens are a bit clucking stupid, aren’t they?” Tolly said. “That’d be a rum do if she ran around like one of them.”

“I disagree with all of you,” Lily interrupted. “This girl’s going to be a marvel!”

She got out the red notebook, pulled the ticket from beneath its cover, and flipped through some of the strange diagrams and drawings of winged creatures held within its pages.

Would Angelique turn out to be a real winged hybrid like these drawings? A hybrid like her. And was there some link between Angelique and Mama? Lily couldn’t be entirely sure, but a small part of her felt that the connection wouldn’t just be coincidence. She couldn’t wait to meet Angelique and ask her. In the meantime, she would have to content herself with reading more of the notebook.

Monday, 9th September 1867,
Histon College, Cambridge University

My first day studying Mechanics, specializing in Ornithopters. Histon is the first ladies’ college in the country. They have a Latin motto on their crest, which I recognize as the same one that was above the door at my old school:

VINCIT OMNIA VERITAS.

Truth conquers all.

I feel it’s an auspicious beginning. One should always strive to be authentic, especially to oneself.

Lily scratched her head. How curious. Truth Conquers All had been the motto of her school too – Miss Scrimshaw’s Finishing Academy. Had she and Mama studied at the same place and she hadn’t even known it?

Tuesday, 10th September 1867,
Histon College

Last night, to celebrate our arrival, I and some of the other girls from the dorm on West Quad decided to visit a circus that was in town.

Lily pursed her lips and stopped reading again. This was even stranger. She was on her way to the circus, and here was Mama talking about one.

I saw the most amazing trapeze artist! It was almost as if she was flying through the air on her swing. It made me think about my thesis – to make someone fly with mechanical wings. In all honesty, it will be difficult to bring to fruition.

That’s not to say it’s an impossibility, and I am willing, above everything, to give it a try.

That was the end of the entry, but the coincidences were such that Lily could not resist turning the page and reading the next one too.

Tuesday, 17th September 1867,
Histon

I had my first tutorial today. My tutor says we can discover the universal truth of things in science, numbers and equations, just as we can in the fossils of the past, or in the written word. My mother used to say something similar: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Back then I never knew the answer, but now I do: Tell my truth.

And today my truth lies in the Flyology project.

The Flyology project… Had Mama really gone on to create a winged person in the years before her death? Lily had never heard tell of such things, not from Papa or anyone, so it seemed unlikely. Then again, before tonight she hadn’t even entertained the idea that a flying hybrid girl could exist. And yet, here they were, perhaps on their way to see one.

It was possible, she supposed, that there were others, who were kept secret – hadn’t the professor at the party told Anna such experiments were banned?

Lily wondered whether the rest of the pages would reveal the whole story… If not, Angelique might know more.

She closed the red notebook and replaced it in her pocket, then glanced over at Robert and Tolly, who were both staring out of the window.

The interior of the cab had filled with condensation. Robert wiped the window glass with his handkerchief so they could see better, but outside was only darkness.

A bump made Tolly jump in his seat.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s all right,” Robert said. “We’re crossing the Bracken Bridge.” And, indeed, his words were accompanied by the chatter of water as the river ran beneath them.

They swept on up Bridge Lane and onto the High Street, where Robert pointed out five small halos hanging in the air which illuminated the clumped silhouettes of buildings, submerged in the mist.

“Those street lamps mark the edge of the village green,” he explained to Tolly. “And there’s my shop – where I used to live.”

Tolly stared out at the blackened carcass of Townsend’s Horologist’s, sinking into the fog like a shipwrecked galleon. “You were lucky to get out of a place like that.”

“It wasn’t so bad before it burnt down,” Robert replied. “Besides, I’ve got plans. Sometime soon, me and John are going to start fixing it up.” Though the reality was that since their meeting with Jack Door there at the start of the summer, he hadn’t had the heart to return to Townsend’s.

As the hansom left the green and proceeded up Brackenbridge Hill, Robert had second thoughts about this evening’s adventure. But he figured if things looked bad at the other end, he could make Lily turn the cab around and take them home. He was just contemplating how to broach the subject, when they jerked to a stop.

They’d arrived.

THUD! The driver leaped down from his seat and crunched around the side of the cab to pull open the door.

Eerie music and flickering coloured lights drifted through the fog from behind the hedgerow of the nearest field. Pinned to the slatted wooden gate in front of them was a wooden arrow-shaped sign, painted with bright white letters:

Robert scrunched up his eyes and jumped down from the footplate behind the others. The spectral foggy emptiness of the lane made his belly flutter with anxiety. Where were all the people he’d seen queueing through the telescope? Had they gone in already?

For a second, he considered the possibility that they had come to the wrong place and wondered again if sneaking out of the party had really been such a good idea. If something went wrong John would have no idea where they were.

“We should get the cabbie to wait,” he mumbled, but it was too late – the hansom had already turned round and was trundling off up the road through the thick fog. “Now how are we going to get home?” he complained.

“Robert’s right,” Tolly said, watching the steam-hansom vanish into the night. “It’s too dangerous to walk back in this weather.”

Malkin looked at them crossly. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“I didn’t think,” Robert said. “It was Lily’s plan and I assumed—”

“Never assume anything,” the fox said snootily. “Assumptions are always a mistake. Look at Lily – not one of life’s planners, and yet she assumes everything will turn out rosy because—”

“Quiet!” Lily snapped. But the truth was Malkin was right. She hadn’t thought her plan through and already it was going wrong. She had expected at least a few hansoms and steam-wagons belonging to the earlier crowds to be parked here, and she had hoped that one of them might offer them a lift home later. But there was no chance of that. The place was deserted.

Beside her, Robert and Tolly shrunk into their coats, and even Malkin was on high alert, his hackles raised. She took a great gulp of air to try and calm herself, but her fear still fizzed and fizzled in her. She couldn’t let her sudden sense of dread distract her from her earlier excitement over the chance to find out more about Mama’s work. Someone at the Skycircus – maybe Angelique, maybe another act – had sent Mama’s notebook, and they must be able to tell her more about it. She took out her pocket watch and checked the time.

“It’s already seven twenty-nine. We’d best hurry, if we want to catch the start of the show.” She pushed open the gate and stepped into the foggy field beyond.

“Wait for me!” Malkin cried, rushing behind her with his tail down.

Tolly glanced at Robert. “Come on,” he said apprehensively, and together they both followed the others through the gap.

A narrow path, lined with flickering candles in glass jam jars, led them down into the dell they’d seen earlier from the tower, where the high circular wooden fence of whitewashed slats stood, plastered with bold posters of circus folk. Behind it was the striped canvas Big Top and, behind that, was the gigantic red-and-white hot-air balloon – big as a harvest moon and twice as bright.

Lily was relieved to see through the mist that a last handful of villagers were standing beside the ticket booth and a gated entranceway in the fence, paying for their tickets. She and the others joined the line behind them. When they’d finished, they pushed through the high spike-tipped iron gates one by one and disappeared beyond the fence.

Then Lily found herself at the front of the line.

Inside the kiosk was a man in clown make-up and a frilly collar. His ghostly face was white with powder. A black make-up snake squiggled round one eye and a painted teardrop fell from the other, making him look positively frightening.

Lily smiled at him, and got a grimace in return. Then he reached up and began pulling a metal grille down over the window. “Sales are closing,” he explained through the bars. “The show’s about to start – if you want to join the crowd, you’ll have to be quick-smart.”

“We’ve a VIP ticket. A personal invite.” Lily placed their ticket on the counter in front of him. The clown examined it.

“So you do. This looks fine! And since you’re in line, you’re most assuredly on time!” He ripped the ticket into tiny pieces and giggled, throwing them over his head like confetti. Then, leaping out of a side door of the booth, he tipped his triangular white hat at them and bowed so low that the red pom-poms on the front of his polka-dot clown suit squashed together about his tummy. Coming up he was all smiles, which was disconcerting as there was already a sharply outlined grin painted on his lips.

“Come along, good fellows, follow me. Outside the Big Top there’s nothing to see!” He ushered them through the iron gates, locking them behind him, and was only slightly taken aback when Malkin slipped through the bars and joined the rear of the line.

The mist had yet to penetrate beyond the fence. A red carpet, edged with more glass-jar lanterns, and furry as a tongue, had been unfurled across the grass and between the taut guy ropes. It ended at a wide-mouthed archway hung with lanterns, where the last few stragglers they had just seen were making their way into the Big Top. A jingle of accordion, drum and fiddle music accompanied them, mixed with a chatter of expectant voices that drifted from the tent.

“My name’s Joey the clown,” Joey said. “I smile more than most, but sometimes I get down.” He pointed to a painted teardrop on his cheek and gave a leering approximation of a sad face.

Robert thought Joey very odd indeed. The clown’s sing-song jabbering was not putting him any more at ease. It had an awkward nervous quality to it, beneath the light jokey tone. He wondered if everything the clown said was always in rhyme. Surely that would drive him crazy, if he wasn’t so already?

As they neared the canvas entrance, a mechanical man lumbered into view, his limbs creaking like the screech of un-oiled brakes. He was about eight feet tall – taller than any human, and bigger and wider too.

The mechanical man turned his head and stared at them as they passed, and his neck joints made a horrible crunching sound. His eyes were as big and dead and empty as the round headlamps on a steam-wagon, while his mouth ran straight across his face in a flat expression that was neither a smile nor a frown. His bulky body looked like it was made from discarded parts of heavy machinery, and his arms clanged as he folded them across his chest. Robert shivered. They were as thick and square as brick pillars, with hands that looked big enough to crush a skull. Lucky that mechanicals were programmed not to hurt humans.

“That’s the Lunk,” said Joey. “He stands guard. Guards the stand. He’s our mechanical strongman. He creaks the whole time because he never uses an oil can.”

Lily and Tolly stared worriedly at the Lunk, but they didn’t have the opportunity to consider the mechanical any more, for Joey was guiding them down a short canvas tunnel into the Big Top, where the smoky aroma of roasting chestnuts and burned candyfloss mixed with a smell of canvas, wood shavings and stale sweat.

They passed a gaily painted cart in the entranceway, behind which stood a second clown, whose face looked entirely different from Joey’s. White rings surrounded his eyes, red lipstick splurged around his mouth, and his hair, which stuck out at every angle from beneath a battered bowler hat, was dyed a bright orange colour that reminded Lily of a raw carrot. To top it off he wore a suit of loud, mismatching checks draped over his squat body like an oversized tablecloth. It looked like it had been assembled from the remains of an explosion in a tartan factory.

“Roll up! Step right this way!” he called out, waving at the jars of sweets laid out on the counter of his cart. “Tracks and sneats! Gine wums, shemon lerberts, stickerish licks, drocolate chops, fandycloss and choast restnuts – you too can taste these trondrous weats…”

Robert didn’t know what any of those were but they sounded quite disgusting!

“This is Auggie,” Joey said. “He’s a bit of a spoonerist, gets his words all mixed up, but if you listen carefully you’ll get the gist.”

“We don’t have money,” Lily told the clowns.

“That’s ferfectly pine.” Auggie reached out one big-gloved hand, plucked a small, red-and-white striped heart-shaped box from beneath the wagon’s counter and passed it to Lily. “Another gift yor fou.”

“Oh, I forgot to say…” Joey added. “Compliments of the house, since it’s your birthday.”

“Thank you.” Lily’s grin couldn’t quite hide the confusion she felt inside. She took the box of chocolates and handed them to Robert. She didn’t recall telling the clowns it was her birthday, but somehow they seemed to know. Could they be the ones who’d sent the first present?

Joey led them past rows of tiered wooden benches, which were arranged five deep around the tent and filled with everyone from the village who hadn’t been invited to Papa’s party. Lily recognized various local faces among them. The schoolmistress, out with the butcher’s boy from the High Street, was trying to ignore a gaggle of her pupils sitting directly behind her. The baker and his wife and their two children were sharing a box of popcorn, the littlest one dropping half of his on the floor. Beside them, the old man whose job it was to light and snuff the five street lamps around the village green was busily puffing on his pipe.

Other notable local faces filled the rest of the stands. People who nodded to Lily and Robert, but then immediately turned to their neighbours to gossip about them when they’d passed. Lily imagined they were probably wondering why she wasn’t at Papa’s party scoffing platefuls of the food Mrs Rust had been out purchasing in their local shops all week.

“Here we are!” Joey stopped at a handful of empty wooden chairs beside the central sawdust ring that had been cordoned off by a red ribbon. “The Vee–EYE–pee area!” he said, pulling his left eye wide with one finger, and rolling the eyeball about. Then he blinked. “Sorry! Feeling a bit sick – bit of a tick… Tick-tock! Ha-ha… Wondering what it is that makes you tick…”

Lily stiffened. He’d said exactly the words from the card, that had rhymed too. She was starting to suspect he’d written it, and she was beginning to have terrible misgivings about this whole adventure, but Joey was already whisking the ribbon from the aisle and ushering them into their seats.

While they were taking off their coats, he pointed out the red velvet curtains on the far side of the ring. In the shadows stood the four-piece band – three men and a woman dressed in patchwork suits – who were playing their jangle-sharp warm-up tune on their instruments as the last of the audience settled in for the show.

“This spot might not look like much to you,” Joey explained, “but rest assured it has the best view. Happy birthday, Lily, on our behalf, and look for me in the very first half.” With that, he saluted and was gone.

Lily looked anxiously around, uncertainly trying to determine what they’d let themselves in for. One thing the clown had said was true; they were in the best seats in the house. She could see everything from where she sat.

A quartet of poles around the ring held up the roof. From them radiated swathes of canvas hung with black, white and yellow bunting. Smaller side-poles around the edges were hung with individual oil lamps. Gradually, the babble of the crowd died away as the two clowns, Joey and Auggie, moved among them, laboriously and with much slapstick, snuffing out each of the lamps.

Finally there was only one flame left. It guttered and died and the entire tent was plunged into darkness. The band stopped playing their jittery tune and Lily found she was holding her breath.

She wondered if the next hour would give her the answers she hoped for, or if coming here had the makings of a grave mistake.