| |
The night lengthens and my eyelids start to grow heavy. I try to stay awake, but then Inez yawns and lies down, so I figure I might as well give in and have a nap too. I look around for a good spot to snooze, but I’m so tired that I fall asleep sitting up while looking.
I jolt awake some hours later, still in that same position. Inez is sitting nearby, awake again, staring at the palms of her hands while no doubt trying to think of a way forward. I’ve been thinking about that too, even while I was sleeping, and start lobbing ideas at her in the middle of yawning, before I’ve properly woken up.
“Maybe we could get someone else to be remoulded, and they could serve as the distraction.”
Inez shakes her head. “I have friends I could ask, but it would take too long to remould them. Plus we’d have to find someone to play you — now that you’ve been clocked by Orlan and Argate, their allies will be watching out for you.”
“What if we hire someone to sneak into camp and bring Baba Jen to us?” I try again a few minutes later.
Again, the shake of the head. “The SubMerged will keep the thesps under wraps until after the vote. No one will be able to get in or out of the lot.”
I chew my lip, refusing to let the plan perish. “We could disguise ourselves. Dye our hair, paint our faces, wear different clothes. They’ll expect an intricate remould. We might fool them if we go a simpler route.”
Inez doesn’t dismiss the idea immediately. “That’s one to consider. I can’t quit. Even if it’s hopeless, I have to try. Do you still want to try with me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I huff.
“Now that you know how slim our chances are...”
I wave that away. “I’m in this to the end, whatever the odds.”
Inez’s eyes fill with tears again, like they did before we fell asleep, but they’re happy tears this time.
“Don’t turn into a gibbering wreck,” I growl uncomfortably.
She laughs. “At least Kurtis won’t get into too much trouble now.”
“You’re worried about the would-be duke?” I ask with disbelief.
“I felt bad involving him,” she says. “He’s a nice guy. Did you see the way he almost stepped in to help us?”
“Almost,” I sniff. “That’s the key word.”
“It took a lot for him to even do that much. If Orlan or Argate had seen him showing the slightest sliver of support for us...”
“That wouldn’t have bothered me,” I say stiffly, then frown. “What did you mean when you said you felt bad for involving him?”
Even though it’s dark in here, I see Inez blush. “I knew who Kurtis was the first time we met. I’d seen him at a function years ago, with his uncle Noah.”
“You were playing him!” I exclaim.
Inez winces. “I knew he’d be attending the vote. If he’d offered to take me as his guest, I might have been able to slip past the guards without a distraction — the SubMerged aren’t suspicious of their own nobles, so they wouldn’t have paid much attention to a guest of Duke Noah’s.” She sniffs and points a finger at me. “You criticised me for spending time with Kurtis instead of focusing on a plan B. Well, Kurtis was that plan B.”
I stare at Inez, feeling guilty but also happy. “You don’t have the hots for Kurtis,” I hoot. “You were using him.”
Inez looks sour. “It’s nothing to be proud of.”
She feels bad about what she’s done, but I can’t stop beaming. To hide that from her, I look out of the window and act as if I’m focusing on Canadu. I push myself forward and prop my elbows on the crumbling windowsill, to stare at the massive tree while I wait for my gleeful grin to fade.
As I’m staring at Canadu, rising majestically above the other trees, there’s movement close by. It’s a vine rat, a scrawny girl, cheerfully scurrying along as if this was the middle of the day rather than the dead of night. She doesn’t see me and snaps out of sight in an instant.
Jogged by my sighting of the rat, my thoughts turn to Winston and his parting riddle. If he comes to the vine at the end of the line, a wise dog barks. Once again I try to work out if there was a hidden meaning, if there might be anything in those words that could prove of use to us in our current predicament.
But although I try to focus on Winston, something keeps driving me back to the rat. She reminded me of someone else, and I find myself flashing on an image of a cheeky, grinning boy. For a while there’s nothing more, just memories of when we met, and how I came to his aid when he ran into trouble. But then I fix on an image of a returned typewriter, and a little bell pings inside me.
Suddenly, as simply as that, everything clicks.
“Inez,” I say, turning from the window to face her.
“Hmm?” she replies absently.
“I might have just had a very good idea,” I mutter shyly, then start to talk her through my quickly forming plan.