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Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Chapter Forty-Four
  47. Chapter Forty-Five
  48. Chapter Forty-Six
  49. Chapter Forty-Seven
  50. Chapter Forty-Eight
  51. Chapter Forty-Nine
  52. Acknowledgements
  53. About the Author

And that’s when they pounce. It feels like ten, twenty guards have all descended as one to subdue me – as though I am a bear, a wolf, a witch. The microphone slams on to the ground, the percussive blow cracks through the speakers like a slaying. My head is held against the wood of the staging platform, and between legs and clomping feet, I see something that gives me one tiny beacon of hope.

Gull and Verity are gone.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-six

So much for being in control of my own life. Sitting in a prison cell with only a mattress and a bucket for company doesn’t feel much like autonomy. But if this is what it takes to keep my friends safe, then I would do it again and again.

I am in a cell next door to Connor’s, with Obel diagonally opposite me and, as I sit cross-legged with my forehead resting heavily on the bars, he starts to talk.

“I’ve not been a good man, Leora.” I don’t look his way, just let his words come like the buzz of a fly trapped inside. “When I came to Saintstone I thought I saw my chance to be free. Here was this town where I could fulfil my dream of being an inker – I achieved my greatest ambition the day I opened the studio. But every day I was terrified.” I lift my eyes at this. “All it would take was one person discovering my secret and everything I’d worked so hard for – everything I had earned – it all would have been lost. I thought I’d found a place I belonged, but the only way I could live was by lying every day. When I was trying to be the real me, it meant I didn’t belong in Featherstone, and when I found a place that felt like home, the only way I could be safe was by covering up the real me in paint and lies. A precarious state, but I thought it was freedom. I heard the news coming from Featherstone. I knew what was happening – the suffering and misery – but I couldn’t stand up for them without risking all that I’d worked for. So, when I met you, I saw an answer.”

“Oh don’t, Obel. I can’t listen to another talk about me being the special one. Look where it’s got me.”