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about Moth Club doings, people will yawn and not think any more of it. Only we’ll know it’s important. That’s a super way to keep a society secret.’
    Frecks saw sense. ‘The Moth Club it is!’
    ‘I liked The Scarlet Slippers,’ said Light Fingers, weakly.
    ‘We’ll have another society called that,’ said Frecks kindly. ‘A pretend secret to cover up the real one. A good name should not go to waste.’
    Amy felt a sense of purpose. After the worrying, dizzying helplessness of the afternoon, it was a relief, almost an intoxicant.
    Something was being done.
    Now they had a name, the Moth Club needed a charter. Amy turned her Book of Moths upside down, and opened the blank last page. She fetched out pen and ink and wrote ‘the purpose of the Moth Club is to study moths in their habitats, to list and sketch any species found on the grounds of Drearcliff Grange School, to defend the honour of moths against the calumnies of the supporters of trivial butterflies and to take steps to prevent the wanton murder of moths by certain boys who stalk them with poison and kill them in jars for the empty achievement of building a collection of dead things.’
    ‘Phew,’ said Light Fingers.
    Amy pressed pink blotting paper to the page. She held it up and saw the charter in mirror-writing.
    ‘That’s the
official
story,’ said Amy. ‘Now, pass me that pencil.’
    Pressing firmly, writing between the lines of the previous passage, she wrote ‘the true purpose of the Moth Club is to oppose the Hooded Conspiracy, no matter who their agents or masters might be, to rescue Princess Kali Chattopadhyay from their vile clutches and return her to safety. We vow not to rest until this purpose has been achieved, and that none of the undersigned shall betray her cell-sisters on pain of death by strangulation. We shall triumph.’
    She showed this to Frecks and Light Fingers, who approved.
    Then, using an India rubber, Amy wiped away the pencil – rendering invisible the secret charter of the Moth Club. Its imprint remained on the paper and would emerge if anyone were to rub a pencil-nib over the seemingly blank spaces between the lines.
    Amy signed her name in ink under the official and shadow charter, and passed the book to Frecks, who signed with a flourish, and Light Fingers, who had to think hard to make her signature.
    ‘We should take code names,’ said Frecks. ‘Secret
secret
handles. Moth names. Thomsett, you’re the expert. You pick.’
    ‘Where are your people from?’
    ‘Lincolnshire,’ said Frecks.
    ‘Willow Ermine,’ she said, printing it in small letters under Frecks’ swish of a signature. ‘Its wings look like little Lords’ robes, white with tiny black spots. Light Fingers?’
    ‘I’m not from anywhere. Mum and Dad were theatricals, on tour all the time.’
    ‘Where were you born?’
    ‘The Theatre Royal, King’s Lynn. Between houses.’
    ‘Large Dark Prominent.’
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘It’s a moth. Very rare. The only specimen known in the British Isles was bred in Norfolk, near King’s Lynn.’
    She wrote down the name.
    ‘What about you?’ asked Frecks.
    ‘Kentish Glory,’ said Amy, lettering it under her signature.
    ‘But you’re from Worcestershire,’ complained Light Fingers.
    ‘So is the Kentish Glory,’ she said. ‘
Endromidae: Endromis versicolora
. Catalogued by Linnaeus in 1758.’
    She flipped back the pages to show the sketch – mostly in brown pencil – she had made. The Kentish Glory was the rarest moth she had catalogued to date. It had visited her grandmama’s garden two summers ago, and had held still on a leaf as if posing for Amy’s pencils, fluttering off as soon as the sketch was finished.
    Light Fingers produced a needle from her sewing box. They all pricked their forefingers, stuck little full stops of blood after their names to seal the pact, and sat on their cots, sucking their fingers.
    The Moth Club was founded.

X: Midnight Retribution
    T HE NEXT NIGHT ,