Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardinge

Author:Frances Hardinge [Hardinge, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780230759138
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers UK
Published: 2011-03-04T06:00:00+00:00

At a corner Mosca stopped, and hopped, and hooked off her clogs, then ran again. The cobbles bruised her feet, but did so silently. Behind her, she could hear other footsteps ring out, then muffle as they headed down the wrong street.

Her only hope of finding the Leaps’ house was to reach the town wall and follow it until she saw somewhere she recognized. As she ran, her quick black eyes caught one scene after another.

A line of skinny men and women mending the town wall, a long chain linking their leg irons, perhaps one of the ‘toil-gangs’ Jade had mentioned. Two youths squatting either side of a prone and motionless man and wiping something dark off his pocket watch. A ragged little alley unexpectedly full of a surging throng wrestling one another for meagre bundles of firewood.

Everywhere Mosca went, she felt more spider-thread gazes adhere to her, as quickly as she could throw off the old. There were footsteps behind her again now. Perhaps they were Yeeeaargh and Waaah, perhaps not. It did not matter.

There! She recognized the Leaps’ narrow house, the scribble of creepers against the wall. The door was half open, Mistress Leap emerging from it cautiously with her bundle on her back. She was speaking in furtive, urgent whispers to a young

man who held a dark-lantern in one hand and kept the other tucked under his armpit out of the cold, all the while shifting with nervous impatience from one foot to the other.

‘. . . Nearly ready to burst with the baby . . .’ A few of his murmured words were just audible.

‘Mistress Leap!’ screamed Mosca, hearing pursuing steps gaining behind her. The two figures at the door froze, and Mistress Leap took a startled pace backwards through the still-open door, pulling the young man after her. Horrified, Mosca realized that she was in danger of finding herself pounding on a closed and bolted door.

She put on a fresh spurt, the cobbles biting into her soles. The door was not shut yet, she might be able to hurl herself in at the same time as the young man, by ducking low and squeaking past his legs . . .

This plan might have worked perfectly if the young man had not turned in the doorway to stare out into the darkness with bemusement. As she streaked into his pool of lantern light, Mosca saw his thin, pocked face grow taut with surprise and apprehension. She almost fancied that she could see herself and Saracen reflected in miniature in each of his widening eyes.

‘Tway!’ she screamed. It was a lot shorter than ‘out of the way’ but unfortunately was not a real word, and so the young man did not step to one side, or backwards, or anything useful. Thus when Mosca doubled up and dived forward she did not slide past him. Instead, she planted her head firmly in the middle of his stomach with great force.

He made a thyuck! noise, and there was a tinkle as something metallic fell to the ground.

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