When she raised herself to her hands and knees, she could see almost nothing: her human eyes were defeated where her hawk’s eyes had been so clear. The vague outlines of trees, the fluttering of birds, their warning-caws urgent◦– and a boxy wooden crate the size of a suitcase.
That was it. That was what they’d come for. She crawled her way to it and lay over the top, scratched and torn.
‘Hey,’ she remembered to call. ‘Hey, I’m over here. I’ve got them. I’ve got the maps.’
Crows had vanished. Of course he had. He also wouldn’t have gone far. He’d be crouched in the deepest shadow, watching to see whether she was bluffing, waiting for a chance to get his maps back.
There came an answering shout, and she yelled all the louder. Crows might try something in the seconds it would take for them to find her, and he’d be desperate.
Nothing. No attempt to knock her aside, open the chest, grab a handful of maps and run. She thought she could feel the shadows around her shift and swim, but they did that wherever she looked.
Luiza burst into view first, out of breath, hair ragged. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s here, hiding.’
She turned around, and around again.
‘You won’t see him until he wants you to,’ said Mary. ‘Careful.’
Then Mama and Elena appeared, and it looked like they might actually get away with this. Crows wasn’t going to fight them all, was he?
‘Where’s Dalip?’
‘He’s coming. Slowly, but he’s coming.’ Mama put her hand to her chest. ‘The Lord knows I’m not made for running, girl, but he’s like a wet rag.’
Because she was watching for it, Mary could see part of the shadow beside the tree Mama was leaning on split away and move on its own, back in the direction they’d all come.
‘I see you, Crows,’ she said. She levered herself up off the map box and pointed. ‘If I can see you, I can stop you.’
The shadow hesitated. Dalip was visible in the distance between the trees, uncertain of which way to go.
‘We’re over here,’ she waved. ‘We’re all over here.’
The shadow fell away, although Crows was scarcely more visible without his cloak of night. His nervous, uncertain smile was his only discernible feature. Above them, the moon still dominated the dark sky.
‘You appear to have the advantage, Mary,’ he said.
‘Too fucking right.’ She waited for the crows to settle in the branches above their heads, their glassy black eyes watching everything that happened. ‘You stole my map,’ she said.
‘A moment of weakness on my part. I would be glad to return it to you.’
‘Not so fast, you bastard. That map is mine, and you don’t get to decide whether you give it back or not. But we’re taking all these maps: Bell’s and yours too.’
Crows gasped like a thwarted pantomime villain. ‘Would you beggar me, Mary? Would you leave me poor in this world?’
‘You left me to fight Bell on the mountain, while you ran back to the castle and stole my map.’ She could feel her fingers twitch, and the leaves and sticks around her grow light. ‘Yes. Yes, I would leave you with nothing.’
‘I saved you on the mountain. I gave you the chance to escape. I taught you to fly. Your harsh treatment of me does not repay my good deeds, Mary.’
Dalip came up behind Crows and stood at his shoulder.
‘Is this him?’
‘I’d introduce you, but he doesn’t have many reasons to stick around any more. Right, Crows?’
Crows seemed to realise that he was in trouble. He spread his hands wide. ‘Perhaps, then, we can come to an arrangement? My maps can be part of any deal.’
‘You mean our maps,’ said Dalip and went to sit on the roughly finished wooden crate.
‘You see,’ said Mary. ‘We can take it from here. We don’t need you.’
She listened to her own words, and saw how Crows’ smile slipped and faded, an eclipse of his own making.
‘How much◦– how many maps◦– are in the box?’
‘Wealth unimaginable,’ said Crows.
‘I can imagine a lot,’ she said, thinking back to the jeweller’s window with its bright lights and pretty stones. She watched Crows’ own fingers flex. Would he fight her now? Did she care enough to want to avoid that?
‘Is it enough for six?’ she asked.
‘More than enough,’ said Crows. ‘But…’
‘Mary,’ said Luiza, ‘we cannot trust this man.’
‘I know, I know. I know what it’s like to pitch up in an unfamiliar place with no friends. Better make them quick or you’ll get thrown to the wolves. In our case, that’s literally what happened. What we should do is ditch him and find someone who won’t screw us over the first opportunity they get. The problem is, where do we get them from? Everyone here is on the make, or working for someone who is.’
‘If it will help, I apologise for my past actions, and look to make amends in the future.’ Crows bowed low to them all.
‘You serious, girl?’ said Mama, stepping forward to examine the man minutely. ‘This weasel? He hung you out to dry, and we don’t know exactly what happened between him and that woman Bell, either, that let him get her maps too. Something shifty, I don’t doubt. Isn’t that right, Mr Crows?’
‘Madam, I want to explain.’
‘Oh, save your explanations. I don’t believe a single word that comes out of your mouth, and neither should anyone else.’ She jabbed him in the chest, just in case there was any doubt who she was referring to.
Crows stayed silent as Mama circled him, grunting with disapproval.
‘So what do we do?’ asked Dalip. ‘We’ve got his maps. Do we need him too?’
Mary gnawed at her knuckle. If only Crows wasn’t such an inconstant bastard. She liked him despite that, despite everything, but it wasn’t up to her. Crows could be useful to them, if they could tame him and stop him from trying to steal the maps back at every opportunity.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘This White City,’ said Luiza. ‘The maps, and your sight, will tell us which direction to take. We do not need him.’
‘Crows: where were you going?’
‘The White City,’ he said.
Mary pursed her lips. If they were all going in the same direction, then why not travel together? There were still five of them to one of him.
Dalip sat up and drummed his heel on the side of the crate. ‘It’s not any of us who are really going to White City. It’s the maps that are going: we’re just accompanying them. Who actually owns them is… Look, if we can get paper and ink we can copy them, as many times as we want.’
‘No, no, no,’ started Crows.
‘Shut up,’ said Mama. ‘Go on, Dalip.’
‘Granted that their value goes down with every copy that we make, but we’re not primarily interested in selling them and using them as wealth. What we want is the information the maps contain, and whether we can use it to get back home. That doesn’t degrade, no matter how many times we copy the maps, and if we can make a bigger, better map that contains all the details from the smaller maps, then we might even make it more valuable.’ He shrugged. ‘If Crows wants the originals after that, then he can take them, and it won’t bother us at all. How does that sound?’
Crows sounded incredulous. ‘You would give me the maps? All of them?’
‘After we’d made copies and checked them, why not? Like I said, we don’t want to spend them. We want to use them to find our way. In the meantime, you can make sure we’re not mugged by some other bunch of thieves.’
‘Why not copy the maps here?’ asked Elena.
‘It’s not like we can pop to the shops for a pad of A4 and a packet of biros,’ said Dalip. ‘Paper-making is going to happen in only a very few places here. We may as well go to one of them.’