Granma Sylvie slid onto the bench opposite Ivy, Seb and Valian, placing a bowl of soup on the table. All around, the dining room throbbed with activity—families chatting at tables, people serving drinks and collecting plates. The air smelled like a better version of Ivy’s school canteen—gravy and roast meat without the stark after-smell of disinfectant.
“I hoped I’d catch you three in here,” she said, smiling. “I checked your room before I left this morning, but you were both still asleep. And I used that pepper pot yesterday afternoon. You were buying ice cream, I think.”
The tourist information bureau. That had been lucky; if Granma Sylvie had looked in on them at any other time of the day, the scene would have been far more incriminating.
“What are you doing here?” Seb asked, looking up from his chicken sandwich. “I thought you’d still be at the mansion.”
“I’ve only come back briefly,” Granma Sylvie explained. “Ethel made the underguard agree to give us a lunch break. We began cataloging the first floor this morning; then it’s the study and the library, and finally the third-floor bedrooms.” She examined Ivy’s jacket and red neck scarf. “Hobsmatch?”
Ivy brushed down her dungarees, smiling. “You like it?”
“It suits you.”
Granma Sylvie’s outfit was similar to the one she’d been wearing yesterday—a stiff pencil skirt and crisp blouse.
Ivy hesitated before saying, “I have to ask you something; it’s about the postcard again.”
Granma Sylvie straightened. “Fire away.”
“Is the name Amos Stirling familiar?”
“Amos Stirling…” She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve never heard it before.”
Ivy looked at the others, her shoulders slumping. If only Granma Sylvie could remember.
Outside, Ivy peeled off her jacket and stuffed it into her satchel.
“It’s heating up,” Valian said, pulling a newspaper out from under his arm.
“Tell me about it.” Seb’s mandarin coat was tied around his waist.
“Not the temperature,” Valian groaned. “The Grivens contest.” He showed them the newspaper: the contest was the top story, splashed across the front page. “Famous players have been arriving from all over the world where the game is still played legally. Late last night four people drank from the contest master’s cup and two again this morning. Add those to the other four who’ve already entered, and we have ten contestants so far.”
The photo accompanying the main article showed a man with a chiseled jaw and slick black hair taking a sip from a huge brass cup. He was surrounded by snow globe photographers and screaming fans. Ivy swallowed, trying to dispel the bitter taste at the back of her throat. If they wanted to stop the Dirge from opening the Jar of Shadows at the contest, they were running out of time.
Hearing a clatter across the street, she glanced around. Brewster’s Alehouse was packed, as always—revelers released flaming burps as they lounged at picnic tables outside. Ivy spied a scrawny figure hunched over a row of metal bins in the alley beside the building.
Alexander Brewster. He swayed on the spot, a mountain of bulging bin bags in his arms. His thin legs wobbled as he took a step….
“Hold on!” she called, hurrying over.
Alexander’s pale face poked out from behind the black bags. “I think I’ve picked up too many,” he fretted.
Ivy grabbed the top bag, and together they unloaded the rest into the dustbins.
“There’s no time to take the rubbish out,” Alexander said, sighing once they’d finished. “We’re so busy that Pa is having to whip up batches of Dragon’s Brew overnight. Every day we’re selling out.”
Ivy brushed her hands clean on her dungarees. “That’s good, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s a great achievement. Everyone wants your dad’s ale.”
Alexander’s mouth twitched. “I guess.” He set the last lid back on a dustbin. “Thanks for helping, er…”
Ivy held out her hand. “It’s Ivy—Ivy Sparrow.”
He shook it with old leather gloves the color of oxblood.
Ivy helped him collect the glasses from the outside tables before wishing him luck with the rest of his shift and going back to join Seb and Valian. The featherlight mailhouse was only a short walk away.
“Isn’t this better than skyriding?” Seb asked as they came to a fork road off the Gauntlet. “We have our feet on the ground, our lunch still in our stomachs….”
Standing on the corner in front of them was a dilapidated wooden hut. A mosaic sign propped up behind the dusty window said POTTER’S POINT. The weedy garden was packed with eager customers and stallholders selling empty plant pots of all different shapes and materials—terra-cotta, plastic, glazed pottery and glass.
As Ivy searched for some indication of what they did, her eyes picked out a face among the shoppers and she froze. “No way…” She pointed with a shaky hand. “Is that…?” She was too shocked to finish the question.
Seb followed the line of her finger and his brow crinkled. “The chief officer of the Outlander ship?”
Ivy examined the man’s features carefully, making doubly sure that it was the same person. White line through his eyebrow, curly blond beard…“It’s definitely him,” she decided. “I don’t understand—he’s dead.”
Valian narrowed his eyes. “We have to follow him. Judy can wait.”
Head down, the chief officer shuffled away from the plant-pot sellers, his hands in the pockets of his smart black uniform. As he turned toward the East End, Ivy, Seb and Valian kept their distance, using trees and clusters of crowd as cover. The shabby quarter had undergone a spring transformation into a patchy forest of silver birch trees, complete with ramshackle cottage shops and ragged tents. Scarlet toadstools poked out of the ferns in the undergrowth, and wind rustled through the spindly branches.
The traders here all wore a similar style—their Hobsmatch was Victorian and tatty: mud-stained tailcoats, threadbare trousers and moth-eaten petticoats were the favored choices.
The chief officer emerged from the forest at the edge of a vast swamp. Ivy squinted into the thick white mist. Small groups of men and women sat fishing in the tall reeds. In the distance, on the far bank, lay the misshapen silhouettes of shepherds’ huts. The chief officer trudged around the swamp and entered a green hut, third along from the left. There were dim lights on inside.
Ivy approached one of the fishermen. “Excuse me,” she asked politely, “do you know whose hut that is?”
The fisherman lifted his cap to see. “The green one? Not sure, love, sorry.” Ivy was about to step away when he added, “Only two fellas have gone inside since I got ’ere, and that was hours ago. Both of ’em were dead: one sticky and yellow; the other ’ad an extra arm.”
Ivy had a horrible feeling she had met those two characters before. “Why is the chief officer meeting them?” she asked Seb and Valian.
Valian glanced at the fisherman’s rod. “Can I borrow that for a minute? I’ll owe you one grade.”
The man shrugged and shook his hand. “I haven’t caught a bite for a while anyway.”
Valian took the rod and started around the edge of the swamp. “Come on—we can use this rod to find out what’s being said inside.”
They snuck up to the green hut, ready to spring into action. The frilly curtains at the windows were all drawn, but smoke rose steadily from the chimney.
“Uncommon fishing rods catch bites,” Valian explained, keeping his voice low. “It can be a bite of anything: cake, data…even a bite of conversation.” He raised the rod toward the chimney and lowered the hook into the smoke. In seconds, something was tugging on the line. Carefully Valian reeled it in toward where they were crouching. A set of voices emerged from the hook as if it was a speaker:
“Glad you got my message,” one said. It sounded like Mick the Stretch. “I received your payment. Here’s what you asked for: coordinates for where my sources think this jar of yours is being hidden.”
There was a pause, then another familiar voice. “There? How did you find it?”
Jack-in-the-Green. Ivy shivered.
“Squasher’s friendly with one of the guards,” Mick answered. “The jar was smuggled in there last night.”
Suddenly the front door of the shepherd’s hut swung open and Jack-in-the-Green stepped out. Valian lowered the fishing rod onto the ground, and they all ducked.
Huge yellow eyes scanned the mist over the swamp. Jack-in-the-Green adjusted his emerald suit before taking a feather out of its pocket. Ivy squinted, desperately trying to make out what he was writing, but only one word at the top was clear: Selena.
“He’s sending her the coordinates,” Valian hissed.
To Ivy’s annoyance, the broken soul of one of the dead flitted into her ear, making her skin prickle. She tried to ignore it, but it was close by….
Jack-in-the-Green suddenly shook himself like a dog with wet fur. In an instant, the seven-foot green-skinned creature was transformed into a man with a curly blond beard. The chief officer of the MV Outlander.
Ivy, Seb and Valian remained quite still until he had tramped most of the way back around the swamp. Then, very quietly, they left their hiding place and began to trek after him. Ivy sensed the dead creature start to move too, following.
“We’ve got to get those coordinates,” Valian said. “If the Jar of Shadows—”
“Shh,” Ivy hushed, raising a finger to her lips. “There’s someone else here.” She tried reaching out with her whispering, this time focusing on her immediate surroundings. Perhaps all the adrenaline running through her system had sharpened her senses—because it worked: she could pinpoint the presence of one of the dead approaching through the long grass. She spun on her heels and stamped into the bog.
“Ouch!” cried a shrill voice. A wobbly red and blue jester’s hat loomed out of the shadows. “What do you think I am? An ant?” Johnny Hands had a scowl on his face and a hand to his chest.
Ivy squared her shoulders. “You were following us! And you were hiding outside the shepherd’s hut.”
Johnny Hands folded his arms. “What if I was? A ghoul has to work. There are several parties interested in Jack-in-the-Green’s whereabouts, I’ll have you know. I don’t suppose you saw what he wrote in that featherlight…? My patron would be very interested to find out.”
Ivy narrowed her eyes, wondering who Johnny Hands’s patron was. Still, if Johnny was spying on Jack-in-the-Green, at least he wasn’t working for the Dirge.
“I can pay you for the information,” he added. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy-pink plastic yo-yo.
Ivy gasped. “But that’s mine!” The yo-yo had saved her life on several occasions. She hadn’t forgotten the confident feeling it gave her.
“I’m afraid, my dear, that it was yours,” Johnny Hands said. “You lost it and I claimed it. Uncommoners pretty much invented ‘finders keepers.’ ”
“What will you trade for it?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“I’m only exchanging it for one thing,” Johnny Hands told her. “The contents of that featherlight.”
Ivy kept her face blank. There was a way to intercept featherlight messages, she knew. “The yo-yo first, then I’ll tell you what was in that message.”
Johnny Hands smirked. “The message first, then I’ll hand over the yo-yo.” He held out a gloved hand.
“I don’t technically have the message yet,” Ivy admitted. “We’re on our way to get it. Do we have a deal or not?”
Johnny Hands’s dark-ringed eyes narrowed. “Well played, Ivy Sparrow.” He shook her hand and slammed the yo-yo into her palm. “But I’m coming with you.”