Read Online Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve - Free Book Online Page A

anything that flew, and most of the city’s temples now sported these swags of torn kites, like ugly bunting. On the wall behind the statue something glistened: a red circle with a blue line slashed through its centre. Charley had been seeing that symbol on walls all over London lately, or at least, in all the bits of London where walls still stood. It was the mark of the London Underground, and this particular one was still wet. He reached out quickly and touched it and his fingers came away smeared with fresh paint.
    Voices echoed under the portico. He turned, hearing the crunch of the misshapes’ boots as they came down the steps into the precinct and started towards the altar. So they weren’t superstitious after all. Charley started to realize what a poor bolt-hole he had chosen. He pulled out Bagman’s old knife and unfolded the blade, and the feel of the rough handle in his hand gave him some comfort, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to win a knife-fight with those ’shapes. If one of them came round one side of the statue and one round the other he’d be caught between them with nowhere to run. . .
    All of a sudden a hand came from behind him and went over his mouth, while another seized him by his knife-arm and dragged him backwards. He didn’t even have time to struggle; it all happened too quickly. It turned out there was a little secret doorway in the base of the wall, and someone pulled him through it and shut it tight behind him, so that when Borglum’s misshapes came around St Kylie’s skirts they saw no sign of him at all.
    “I told you he wouldn’t come in here, Quatch!” said the young snowmad. “It’s a dead end, isn’t it? Only an idiot would hide in here.”
    “Well, I heard something,” said his hairy friend, and sniffed the air suspiciously, but any trace of Charley’s scent was buried under the fresh-paint smell of that sign on the wall. He shrugged, and the two of them turned away and went to continue their hunt among the maze of tents.

7
NEWS FROM THE NORTH
    he main cabin of the Knuckle Sandwich was a cosy place, warmed by a big iron stove, where the carnival’s fighters and musicians sat about drinking from tin mugs and helping themselves to slices of pie. It was all so neat and small and cosy, and so rational in the clever way that so many cupboards and lockers and fold-down seats fitted into the tight space, that Fever could almost have imagined herself back aboard the Lyceum , except that the occupants were so strange, and so many of them wore bandages and sticking-plasters over fresh wounds, and there was such a smell of sweat and liniment mingling with the odours of the pie. Also, weapons hung on the walls instead of plates or pictures, and items of spiked and studded armour dangled from a line above the stove, steaming gently where the blood had been sponged off them. The Stalker stood motionless in a corner, draped with damp laundry.
    Even though she had worked out that most of the wounds the fighters had suffered were pretend, Fever was still startled to see just how unharmed they were. That small, dark man, the Knave of Knives – she was sure she’d seen him torn across the face with Lady Midnight’s flail, but there wasn’t a scratch on him anywhere now.
    “Look who’s here!” said Borglum loudly, showing his guests in.
    Some of the misshapes cheered as Wavey entered, some just smiled, but they all looked happy to see her. These people were a family for each other, and Wavey was a part of it. It seemed that Fever and her father could be part of it too, if they wanted, for the misshapes greeted them both with huge kindness when Borglum explained who they were. But they could not join in the conversations which were flowering around Wavey, the “how have you been”s and “how you’ve changed”s of old friends meeting. They stood uneasily at the edge of the gathering, listening without really understanding while Wavey joked with Borglum’s bowler-hatted