The Uncommoners #2 Page 20

  Ivy recalled Seb finding an American football helmet in his suitcase.

  “Bells are the weird ones,” Valian added. “I’ve been reading about famous Grivens games, and bells can mess with your mind. Some of them have hypnotic voices—they make you so disorientated you can’t defend yourself.”

  Johnny Hands cleared the board. “If you survive your first visit to the Krigvelt, you play again with your remaining two pieces. Occasionally, games aren’t over even after three rounds—so you keep picking pieces until one player is victorious.”

  Ivy tried to store the information into her memory. It was like cramming for the world’s worst exam.

  “It’s a pity there’s no way to cheat,” Seb remarked. He was holding up the saltshaker. “I can only see shadows with this. I guess the mansion is blocking it somehow.”

  Ivy’s forehead crinkled. She hoped Granma Sylvie was safe.

  “Actually there is a way to cheat at Grivens,” Johnny Hands announced. He pointed at the wooden pieces on the board and Ivy looked at them again. “Grivens pieces are made of common materials—paper, stone, plastic. However, you can use uncommon materials—the marble from an uncommon statue, the wood from an uncommon table leg. Playing with an uncommon piece puts you at an advantage because it tends to be more powerful in the Krigvelt.”

  “If only there was a way for us to smuggle some into the stadium,” Ethel muttered. Ivy wasn’t sure if she was being serious.

  Seb placed a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “Hey, we’ve faced worse situations than this…right?”

  She forced a smile, thinking of the one thing everyone seemed to be forgetting: it wasn’t her surviving the Grivens contest they had to worry about—it was the Dirge opening the Jar of Shadows in the stadium.

  The light from the cave ceiling had faded and the evening air was cool. As the five of them made their way through the West End, Ivy’s feet felt like lead. Underguards stood at street corners, directing the last few spectators toward the Grivens stadium. She could hear the noise of the crowd—like a distant storm—growing louder as they approached.

  She rubbed her neck. “I guess I should say thank you,” she muttered to Johnny Hands, floating beside her. “For the Grivens advice.”

  He tipped his hat at her. “You’re welcome. I forgot to mention—Selena Grimes doesn’t know that you’re a whisperer. Perhaps you can use that to your advantage.”

  Ivy didn’t know how. She peered into his dark eyes, something puzzling her. “Can I ask you a question? It might sound stupid….” With her attention focused on the contest, Ivy hadn’t had time to analyze what she’d seen in 1967. She was still trying to understand why Selena would have gone to the Dirge to be turned into a ghoul. “Do you like being dead?”

  “Do I like it?” Johnny Hands chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye. “You are funny.”

  “Well…?” Ivy was still waiting for an answer.

  “Being dead has allowed me to see much more of this fine world than is possible in one lifetime,” Johnny Hands said. “And I’ve been fortunate enough to call some extraordinary people friends.”

  Ivy could feel a “but” coming.

  He pointed to his shoes, which were hovering over the dusty road. “And yet despite all that I haven’t felt grass under my feet or sand between my toes for five hundred years. I can’t sleep, which means I can no longer dream, and everyone I once loved is Departed.” His expression hardened. “The answer to your question—whether I do or do not like my situation—is irrelevant. This is my forever.”

  Ivy looked away, worried that her question had been insensitive. She hadn’t meant to upset him.

  All at once they saw lights flickering at the end of the road and Johnny Hands stopped. “The stadium is only a block away now. It’s time for me to go.” He raised a hand over Ivy’s head, unsure what to do, then ruffled her hair. “Farewell, Ivy Sparrow, and good luck.”

  Johnny Hands dissolved into thin air, and at the next corner the Grivens stadium came into view. It looked like a huge conservatory with a domed roof, the colored shapes of thousands of people moving behind the misty glass. Spiky-leafed exotic plants were arranged on the lawns outside, depicting the three Grivens pieces—the glove, the bell and the suitcase.

  There was a massive throng of people still lining up to go in, and a bank of reporters stood beside a green carpet, shaking snow globes at glitzy stars in outrageous Hobsmatch who glided past, waving to the masses. Stationed around the stadium, platoons of underguards observed everything stoically, toilet brushes strapped to their chests rather than tucked into their belts.

  Ivy took off her satchel and gave it to Valian for safekeeping. “I’ll be watching,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You can do it. I know you can.”

  “And I’ll keep trying your gran,” Ethel said, patting the top pocket of her overalls, which was stuffed with feathers.

  When Ivy turned to Seb, he hugged her so hard she almost fell over. “I’ll see you at the table.”

  Ivy was shown into a room furnished with iron patio chairs and tables topped with teacups, saucers and pots of tea that smelled of honey and lavender.

  The fifteen other contestants were already there. Some were sitting twiddling their thumbs, while others paced to and fro or chatted nervously with their opponents.

  On a table in a corner stood an ornate bronze trophy. The contest master’s cup—Ivy recognized it from the newspaper. A ribbon floated above it, writing again and again:

  Contestants: you may collect your returned gloves.

  Ivy pretended to be interested in a cup of tea. The contents of one pot smelled a bit like Raider’s Tonic, so she poured herself a cup and sipped it slowly as she skirted the room, trying to stay out of people’s way. She went to examine a notice board:

  ORDER OF PLAY

  TABLE 1: Marcia Bow, Carson Crevitch, Ferdinand La Garde, Hui Hang

  TABLE 2: Emiliano Agustin, Claudia-Rose Winters, François Filigree, Sid Irons

  TABLE 3: Alexander Brewster, Bruno Cartwright, Lei Chang, Jorgen Valentine

  TABLE 4: Lady Margaret Crammington, Ivy Sparrow, Colin Mint, Captain Macintosh

  FINAL TABLE: winner of table 1, winner of table 2, winner of table 3, winner of table 4

  Ivy did a double take as she read through the names.

  Alexander Brewster…?

  But—after the fire at the alehouse, why would Alexander want to be involved in the contest? Another name caught her eye too.

  François Filigree.

  She spotted his strange white mask as he spoke to two women in satin ball gowns, and it set her worrying. François Filigree was the only other person who had seen her glove being damaged; he could have been involved in the plot to enter Ivy’s name in the contest. She needed to be wary of him.

  She scanned the room and saw Alexander sitting on his own. His apron was missing; instead he was wearing a smart gray suit with rubber boots. His scruffy red hair had been combed and flattened against his head with what looked like cooking grease.

  Ivy took the seat next to him. “Hey,” she said. “I didn’t know you’d be playing.”

  Dark circles ringed Alexander’s eyes. “My pa entered me,” he groaned. “He taught me how to play when I was little. He said we could use the publicity…even if it was dangerous.”

  Drummond Brewster was so cruel, Ivy thought. Did he not care about his son at all? She hesitated before saying, “It was you who really invented Dragon’s Breath Ale….I don’t know why your dad kept it secret; I think it’s amazing.”

  Alexander’s shoulders slumped.

  Ivy bit her lip, searching for something less awkward to talk about. “Er—how’s the alehouse?”

  “I’m in charge of the cleanup. It’s taking ages. Pa’s been selling Dragon’s Breath Ale from a temporary stall out front, but
the customers aren’t interested in buying anything from us now. They keep saying he’s a fraud.”

  A man with freckled apricot skin and floppy black hair entered the room and cleared his throat. He was dressed in a burgundy and yellow uniform with sponsorship logos plastered all over it.

  “Who’s that?” Ivy asked.

  “The contest master,” Alexander told her. “Nix Wolf. He’s a nine-time American Grivens champion. Oh, and a ghoul.”

  “All right, ladies and gents, time to head into the arena,” Nix Wolf said in a smooth Texan drawl. “Those of you who have spotters—it’s forbidden for you to look around or talk to them after we leave this room.”

  Ivy followed Alexander and the other contestants into the stadium. She blinked in the glare of the harsh uncommon lights as the thud of a thousand snow globes filled her ears. The tiered seating climbed the walls of the glass house, screening out anything happening in the undermart outside. The noise from the spectators was deafening.

  In the center of the arena stood four high tables, spaced sixty or so feet apart. Each had a chalk circle drawn around it and a varnished wooden chopping board sitting on top.

  Ivy steeled herself as Nix Wolf directed contestants to their respective tables. She took her place at table four, her hands sweating inside her gloves. As her opponents gathered around her, she felt a growing sense of unease. It was fairly straightforward to match each of the faces at her table with the names on the notice board.

  On her right, a neatly dressed gray-haired gentleman in a red bow tie was, she guessed, Colin Mint—but only because the man on her left—who had blond dreadlocks and an eye patch—was surely Captain Macintosh. Lady Crammington, opposite, was a bejeweled woman with a pinched face and wearing a peacock-feather hat.

  A small fanfare sounded, and then a woman carrying a flag decorated with Grivens pieces appeared on the arena floor. Behind her followed a line of excited uncommoners who were jumping up and down and waving to the audience. Only one of them looked unhappy to be there: Seb.

  When the spotters reached the Grivens tables, they took their places. Captain Macintosh was the only other player on table four to have a spotter, so Ivy knew he must be alive. She stretched an arm out behind her to see whether Seb was within touching distance, but felt nothing. Assessing the positions of the other spotters, she gathered that he was standing more than an arm’s length away….

  But not so far that she couldn’t hear him.

  “You’re gonna be fine,” he murmured. “Just try to think clearly. You’re good at that.”

  Easier said than done when you’re in this stadium, Ivy thought.

  “See the second row of the stand in front of you?” he added quickly.

  Ivy scanned the seating and picked out Judy and Mr. Littlefair. They had made a banner from a strip of uncommon wallpaper, which kept folding itself into different messages: YOU CAN DO IT, IVY SPARROW! WE BELIEVE IN YOU!

  She gave a glum smile. She was either about to prove them right or come to a decidedly messy end playing the world’s most dangerous board game.

  “Valian’s in the stand on our right,” Seb said. “Third row back in the middle. Next to a woman with a yellow hat.”

  Ivy searched and found Valian sitting hunched over with his hands in his pockets, scowling. The woman beside him kept waving toward the arena, shaking the feathers of her yellow bonnet in his face.

  “I can’t see Mr. Punch,” Seb added flatly. “I’ll keep searching.”

  When all competitors had taken their seats, Nix Wolf picked up a conch shell and announced the opening of the contest. There was a huge round of applause and everyone stamped their feet. Ivy’s legs shuddered as the vibrations worked their way up through the floor. Her heart was racing.

  The spectators hushed as four frilly tablecloths flopped down from the conservatory roof and hovered in midair. Everyone turned toward them as images appeared on their surface. Materializers. Ivy glimpsed herself in HD and resisted the temptation to cover her face with her hands. Her eyes were puffy and her messy curls were sticking to her pale forehead; it looked as if she had a fever. She wouldn’t have blamed the audience for assuming she was a race of the dead, if she hadn’t had a spotter with her.

  She lowered her gaze to the chopping board and ran over what Ethel and Johnny Hands had told her. Nix Wolf passed by each table with a box of approved Grivens pieces. When it was Ivy’s turn to choose, she shakily pushed her gloved hand inside and wiggled it around. It was easy to tell which piece was which: suitcases had sharp corners, bells were round and gloves had fingers. The stadium was nearly silent now. Ivy could feel the eyes of a hundred thousand uncommoners on her as she made her decision. Hoping that luck was on her side, she removed one of each piece and placed all three on the black area of the chopping board.

  She started when she realized what she’d chosen. The glove piece was ornate, carved from a glassy purple stone a bit like amethyst. The bell had been turned from pale wood and the suitcase appeared to be made of stiff lightweight cardboard.

  She studied her opponents’ pieces as each placed them on the board. Some were fairly plain, while others were covered in gold leaf or studded with gems. Each time a piece was laid down, an “Oooh” rang out around the stadium and a close-up appeared on the materializers.

  Nix Wolf cleared his throat. “Players, choose your first piece.”

  Ivy steadied her nerves and tried to ignore Colin Mint, who was flexing his fingers while sizing up his pieces—before finally choosing his suitcase. The other opponents made their decisions without hesitating, each pushing a piece forward. Lady Crammington chose an ebony glove while Captain Macintosh picked a wicker suitcase. A chorus of gasps and boos filled the stadium. Ivy hastily nudged her bell forward.

  Nix Wolf grinned as, still standing outside the chalk circle, he used a long stick to spin the chopping board. Ivy tried to catch a glimpse of Seb on a materializer before she entered the Krigvelt, but all too soon the stadium, with its bright lights and roaring stands, vanished.

  The air shifted.

  Ivy found herself in a large glass tank, somewhere underwater. Outside, she could see shoals of fish flitting through the glittering depths, but beyond them everything faded into shadow. The Grivens table and chopping board were bolted to the floor, the chalk outline smeared on the outside of the glass. The muffled echoes of the ocean filled her ears, while a salty tang permeated her nostrils.

  She gripped the Grivens table for support. Her head felt woozy, as if she might faint at any moment, but her opponents showed no sign of discomfort.

  The Grivens pieces wobbled—and then there was a disturbingly loud crack, and seawater began trickling through fractures in the glass onto the floor.

  Ivy’s chest constricted. She knew she wasn’t the strongest swimmer; if the room filled up, they’d have to do combat in water.

  Before she had time to really panic, the two suitcase pieces on the chopping board unfolded like origami boxes, reminding Ivy of the matchbox archive at the Barrow Post.

  A miniature gleaming metal sword appeared in Colin Mint’s suitcase, while a burning branch rose out of Captain Macintosh’s. The items flickered like images on a TV and disappeared before reappearing full-sized in the hands of Colin Mint and Captain Macintosh. Both players’ faces were set as they swung the objects defensively to and fro between Ivy and Lady Crammington.

  Ivy leaned away as heat from the burning branch swept past her cheek. She splashed her way toward the chalk line, but when her foot came into contact with it, she felt herself being pushed back and went sliding over the wet floor. Johnny Hands had warned her about this. She wouldn’t be able to leave the circle, even if someone was wielding a burning branch. Seb was the only one who could pull her out.

  Come on, little bell, she thought, glancing at her Grivens piece. Please do something awesome.

&nbs
p; Opposite, Lady Crammington’s ebony glove flexed its fingers. It wiggled them in the direction of Captain Macintosh, and a jet of water shot toward him, dousing the burning branch. As the flames were extinguished, the jet grew stronger. Captain Macintosh gasped for air and staggered backward, arms flailing.

  There was a loud pop, and then he disappeared. As there was no trace of him in the Krigvelt, Ivy reasoned that his spotter must have pulled him out.

  She looked at her feet. The seawater was up to her knees now, the icy cold making her toes numb.

  Ignoring Ivy, Colin Mint turned his long sword on Lady Crammington. As he lunged forward, her glove piece made a “stop” sign and the sword simply froze. Colin Mint tugged on the handle, desperately trying to move the blade, but it was as if it had become lodged in the air.

  Lady Crammington grinned maliciously and slammed her fist down on the chopping board, her glove piece mimicking her. Colin Mint stumbled back through the rising water as from out of nowhere a swinging blade appeared in front of him, cutting forcefully through the air and disturbing the water below.

  Ivy turned her head away just before the blade hit home. She expected some sort of gruesome noise to follow, but instead there was another loud pop.

  When she looked around again, Colin Mint had vanished and Lady Crammington was glowering at Ivy—the last player standing between her and the final.

  Ivy stared at her bell piece, willing it to do something. The water was almost at her waist now and she was freezing. She wasn’t sure she’d even be able to move, let alone swim. Lady Crammington made a punching action with her fist and the glove piece copied her, aiming for Ivy’s bell.

  Ivy thought of Seb before squeezing her eyes shut and preparing for the impact.

  Where is he?

  The force hit Ivy’s bell and then crashed into her, leaving her winded. She bent over, holding her stomach, the pain spreading to her chest.