“Spot on. We got seven days. You can save Arborium when yer head’s clearer. I’ve gotta get home for tea or me dad will kill me. Meet us outside work. I’ll find an excuse and get out an hour before lunch. We’ll think up a plan. And I promise if I see that Petronio, he’ll be sorted.” Mucum thumped Ark on the shoulder, almost knocking him over, then stalked off, his massive feet making the whole woodway vibrate.

It was time for Ark to go home.

5• DEAD AND ALIVE

Despite himself, Ark managed a smile. At least he wasn’t alone, though describing Mucum as a friend might be stretching it.

He was nearly back. Down here, between the branches, a thousand shanty homes had been erected, built from uppercanopian leftovers. There were trunnels, bark boards, and treepaulin, and pieces of cheap sheet resin for windows. Reworked iron sprouted and supported a thousand chimneys, now smoking away as if each house were secretly puffing on a cheroot. The twinkling subsettlement on the outskirts of Hellebore was strung on a precarious network of fraying ropes and vines. Ugly to some, but in his eyes, the dusklight revealed a winking, flickering necklace of beauty. Who needed stars in the sky when you could have this?

Ark trudged along the branch, trying to work out what on earth he could possibly tell his parents. The truth? Right— so he’d overheard a plot that would destroy their home and country, had nearly been murdered, then almost eaten by a bird straight out of the Ravenwood, was now believed to be dead … oh and, by the way, he’d brought no money home for food or rent and wouldn’t be able to earn any more for the foreseeable future. Yes, that story would go down a treat.

He wove his way down a wood-alleyway between the densely crowded homes. Smoke swirled around the branches, its aroma mingling with the verdant leaves and resinous bark. Ark breathed in the smell of home.

“Whoa!” His foot paused midair. There in the middle of the woodway stood a bunch of bristles. The tiny hedgehog curled into a spiky ball, determined to defend its territory. As Ark stepped carefully around the creature, he frowned. If the empire had its way, the animals of Arborium would be no more than pests to be dealt with.

A minute later, he rounded the corner and his heart lit up. A tethered, somewhat grubby, curly-haired child played with a pile of twigs, dropping one, then another, over the edge of the branch. She had a look of rapt wonder on her face as the sticks spun down into the fathomless dark. Though she was already four, her imagination still lived in the wild wood.

“Hello, Shiv!”

“Arky-Parky!” cried his little sister. Her smile was even bigger than his.