The panic hardens, turns to anger, my insides still raw from my run-in with Alice. ‘You think I wanted this? To come to this awful place and get strung up by that controller, and nearly assaulted by a squaddie, and watch Nate almost get his hands cut off, and get called an ape and treated like I’m barely human and get no sleep and be permanently hungry and watch my best friend betray me.’ I tug at my clothes. ‘And these God-awful overalls, how can you even bear them, it’s like having nits or something.’
The skin around her eyes tightens. ‘Steady now, princess. The way you’re talking anyone would think you’re not really an Imp.’
‘Of course I’m an Imp. I’m five foot bloody four!’
‘We leave on the next bus. Now gather your things.’ She storms from the hut, slamming the door so hard it groans on its hinges and dislodges the dust and muck from the beams.
‘What things?’ Nate gestures to our empty bunks, his voice sarcastic, full of bravado, but he leaves his hand on my shoulder like I’m some sort of crutch.
Matthew disappears behind a cloth divider. I hear him roll on to a bunk. ‘The next bus isn’t till dawn, better get some sleep. We’ve got some walking ahead.’
Even though I’ve hardly slept, I don’t feel tired. I can still feel the remnants of the adrenalin, and my body’s forgotten whether it’s night or day. Eventually, I move to the kitchenette. Nate follows, and we begin stuffing bread in our pockets, filling bottles with cloudy water.
‘How could she do this?’ I whisper over the rumble of the taps.
‘What? Alice? Do something completely selfish? Shag the man of her dreams? It’s a mystery.’
‘Nate, language.’
He laughs. ‘Shag doesn’t count.’ He screws the lid on to one of the bottles, his knuckles blanching, and when he looks up, he looks serious. ‘She clearly wants to stay.’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘You talked to her?’
‘More like yelled.’
He nods in approval. ‘Did you remind her about Katie?’
‘Yeah. She’s hell-bent on ruining the canon so she can stay.’ I think about the paper chain, the glinting scythe, the Dupes suspended in fluid. ‘How could she want to be one of them?’
Nate sighs. ‘It’s like those Zimbardo experiments Dad told us about.’
I shake my head, slightly irritated by the tangent.
‘You know, they took a bunch of students and made half of them prisoners and half of them guards. Within days, they were acting like it was real.’
I smile. ‘How do you remember this shit? You’re only fourteen.’
‘Because I clear my brain of all other clutter, like where I live and what my name is.’
For a moment, it feels normal again – just me and Nate carrying on. But it quickly fades. I sigh. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Baba will know.’
‘She didn’t know this.’
He doesn’t reply.
We leave the estate on the first bus that morning, the four of us shivering in the dew-soaked air. I stare at the battered headrest in front of me, letting the fibres pixelate before my tired eyes, and I don’t risk glancing out of the window until the Harper estate lies far behind – a world spun from sugar. Beautiful, sweet, and yet painfully brittle.
I’d tried to find Ash, but he’d done his vanishing act again. I never got the chance to tell him goodbye, or even part of the truth. Now, he will always think I wanted Willow. I swallow back the tears.
The hypnotic rhythm of the bus eventually rocks me into a world of dreams. Alice, Katie and I stand on the school stage – the one in the sports hall which never gets used because it’s too small and manky. Alice wears this amazing Elizabethan gown, all silvers and greens, like she’s the Queen of Slytherin. She really does look like an hourglass – the fullness of the skirt narrowing into her tiny waist, only to flare out into an elaborate, white lace collar. Katie and I look more like wenches, dressed in dour black smocks and aprons, our dirty hair tucked into equally dirty mop hats.
‘Come now, servants,’ Alice says, addressing us in a regal tone. ‘Do not keep the audience waiting.’
I notice for the first time that spectators fill the hall, each one of them gawping at us. It’s my line. I know it’s my line, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I’m supposed to say.
‘Vi,’ Katie hisses. ‘Vi, come on, I’m depending on you.’
The crowd begins to whisper, but they’re quickly drowned out by the pounding of my heart. I prise open my jaw, force down some air, beg the words to form in my brain and migrate to my tongue. But it’s like my mind has been stripped down, left bare.
The crowd begins to laugh. That’s when I spot Mum, standing in the midst of the audience. She shakes her head like she’s disappointed, that same shake she did when I came home drunk and puked on the sofa. Then, her lips begin to move. And even though she’s thirty-odd feet away, it’s as if she whispers straight into my ear. Come on, sweetheart. Say something. For me. Please just say something and wake up.
I wake with a start, Nate beside me.
‘You OK?’ he asks.
‘Yeah.’ My hand settles on my overalls, just above the place where Katie’s letter should nestle. I left it at the Imp-hut, stuffed down the back of a crumbling sideboard. I was worried the guards would find it when we crossed the borders. It would rouse suspicion and put us in the firing line, a supposedly illiterate Imp carrying a letter. But it seems those words sunk through my skin and into my veins, like my blood would flow ink-black if you cut me open. I feel like crying. All the world’s a stage, and I am the shittest actor ever.
Leaving the Pastures proves a lot easier than entering. There’s no decontamination process, because you can’t contaminate a city already filled with disease and raw sewage. Just a quick pat down from some apathetic squaddies, who throw my bread in the bin and laugh when my stomach snarls.
We trail through the city gates with the rest of the slaves and I brace myself for that rotting bird smell. But this time, rather than overwhelm me, it seems strangely reassuring. At least it knows it stinks. And being surrounded by the misshapen, badly proportioned physiques of the Imps, not a Gem in sight, I get this strange feeling like I’ve returned home from the zoo.
Regardless, the trudge through the city is soul destroying. I spend half of the journey recalling how at this point in canon, Willow was secretly following Rose across the city – dressed in a pair of grey overalls, hair mussed up and dirt rubbed into his face – and the other half preparing for my future conversation with Thorn. I knew you wouldn’t be able to replace Rose. It’s a good job I sent Alice too. Now you will all have to stay in this place for the rest of your lives.
At least I’ll see Katie again. I’ve missed her soft Scouse accent, her grounded approach to life, the way she always makes me laugh. I want to tell her about Ash, about the Dupes, about what a bitch Alice has been. Katie will call her a twatwomble, and I’ll momentarily forget how crap everything is.
Katie, I suddenly think. Thorn will kill Katie. I begin to unravel – my hands begin to shake, my joints seize up, my gut clenches. I’ve always known this was true, but only as we near headquarters does the reality sink in. Maybe, just maybe, Alice was right, and he fancies her too much to hurt her.
‘Violet? What is it?’ Matthew asks.
‘Katie,’ I say. ‘I failed the mission.’
‘We’ll try and talk to him,’ Saskia says.