He broke down laughing, and his laughter was infectious. Soon nearly all of us were giggling—even Enoch. “I suppose I did glamorize it a bit,” he admitted.
“I don’t see what’s so amusing about London,” Olive said with a frown. “It’s dirty and smelly and full of cruel, nasty people who make children cry and I hate it!” She scrunched her face into a scowl and added, “And I’m becoming quite peckish!”—which made us all laugh harder.
“Those people in the station were nasty,” said Millard. “But they got what they deserved! I’ll never forget that man’s face when Bronwyn stuffed him into the phone box.”
“Or that horrible woman when she got stung in the bum by a bee!” said Enoch. “I’d pay money to see that again.”
I glanced at Hugh, expecting him to chime in, but his back was to us, his shoulders trembling.
“Hugh?” I said. “You all right?”
He shied away. “No one gives a whit,” he said. “Don’t bother checking on old Hugh, he’s just here to save everyone’s hindquarters with no word of thanks from anybody!”
Shamed, we offered him our thanks and apologies.
“Sorry, Hugh.”
“Thanks again, Hugh.”
“You’re our man in a pinch, Hugh.”
He turned to face us. “They were my friends, you know.”
“We still are!” said Olive.
“Not you—my bees! They can only sting once, and then it’s lights out, the big hive in the sky. And now I’ve only Henry left, and he can’t fly ’cause he’s missing a wing.” He put out his hand and slowly opened the fingers, and there in his palm was Henry, waving his only wing at us.
“C’mon, mate,” Hugh whispered to it. “Time to go home.” He stuck out his tongue, set the bee upon it, and closed his mouth.
Enoch patted him on the shoulder. “I’d bring them back to life for you, but I’m not sure it would work on creatures so small.”
“Thanks anyway,” Hugh said, and then he cleared his throat and wiped his cheeks roughly, as if annoyed at his tears for exposing him.
“We’ll find you more just as soon as we get Miss P fixed up,” said Bronwyn.
“Speaking of which,” Enoch said to Emma, “did you manage to get through to any ymbrynes on that phone?”
“Not a one,” Emma replied, then sat down on an overturned trash can, her shoulders slumping. “I was really hoping we might catch a bit of good luck for once. But no.”
“Then it seems the dog was correct,” said Horace. “The great loops of London have fallen to our enemies.” He bowed his head solemnly. “The worst has come to pass. All our ymbrynes have been kidnapped.”
We all bowed our heads, our giddy mood gone.
“In that case,” said Enoch, “Millard, you’d better tell us all you know about the punishment loops. If that’s where the ymbrynes are, we’re going to have to stage a rescue.”
“No,” said Millard. “No, no, no.”
“What do you mean, no?” said Emma.
Millard made a strangled noise in his throat and started breathing weirdly. “I mean … we can’t …”
He couldn’t seem to get the words out.
“What’s wrong with him?” said Bronwyn. “Mill, what’s the matter?”
“You’d better explain right now what you mean by ‘no,’ ” Emma said threateningly.
“Because we’ll die, that’s why!” Millard said, his voice breaking.
“But back at the menagerie you made it sound so easy!” I said.
“Like we could just waltz into a punishment loop …”
Millard was hyperventilating, hysterical—and it scared me. Bronwyn found a crumpled paper bag and told him to breathe into it. When he’d recovered a bit, he answered.
“Getting into one is easy enough,” he said, speaking slowly, working to control his breaths. “Getting out again is trickier. Getting out alive, I should say. Punishment loops are everything the dog said and worse. Rivers of fire … bloodthirsty Vikings … pestilence so thick you can’t breathe … and mixed into all that, like some devilish bouillabaisse, bird knows how many wights and hollowgast!”
“Well, that’s fantastic!” said Horace, tossing up his hands.
“You might’ve told us earlier, you know—like back at the menagerie, when we were planning all this!”
“Would it have made any difference, Horace?” He took a few more breaths from the bag. “If I’d made it sound more frightening, would you have chosen to simply let Miss Peregrine’s humanity expire?”
“Of course not,” said Horace. “But you should’ve told us the truth.”
Millard let the bag drop. His strength was returning, and his conviction with it. “I admit I somewhat downplayed the punishment loops’ dangers. But I never thought we’d actually have to go into them! Despite all that irritating dog’s doomsaying about the state of London, I was certain we’d find at least one unraided loop here, its ymbryne still present and accounted for. And for all we know, we may still! How can we be sure they’ve all been kidnapped? Have we seen their raided loops with our own eyes? What if the ymbrynes’ phones were simply … disconnected?”
“All of them?” Enoch scoffed.