“Only thing I care about is, can they rob?” said Wreck. “I need muscle. I need lookouts.”
“I need chameleons,” said Dogface. “My crew have been getting noticed by normals lately, and we’ve had some close shaves.”
“You could surely use one,” Wreck said, laughing.
“This one’s invisible!” said Frankie. She spun around and poked Millard with her baton, and he squeaked.
We still couldn’t talk.
“Hmm,” said Wreck, drumming his fingers together. “I could be interested . . .”
“They ain’t ugly enough for your crew,” said Dogface. “Better leave ’em to me.”
“I need weatherfolk, as ever,” Angelica said with a sigh. “Wind-shifters, cloud-seeders. Competent ones.”
“All right, talk,” said Frankie, waving her baton in our direction. “Tell ’em what you can do.”
I felt my jaw slacken and my tongue, which had nearly gone numb, suddenly go all pins and needles as the feeling flooded back. It was hard to talk at first. Bronwyn tried to speak, too, but it sounded like we had forgotten how to form consonants.
Dogface tossed up his hands. “What are they, idiots?”
“Of course they are, why d’you think Frankie was able to catch ’em in the first place?” said Wreck.
“Lose my telegraph number,” Angelica said, and stood up from her chair.
“Their tongues are just tired!” Frankie pleaded. “Don’t leave!”
Frankie started to beat Bronwyn with her baton and scream, “TALK RIGHT!”
Seeing that made me so furious that something jarred loose in my head, and I found my voice again and shouted, “STOP IT!”
Frankie turned, enraged, and came at me with the baton. She had to pass Emma to reach me, though, and Emma had burned through her wrist restraints without anyone noticing. Though her feet were still tied to the chair, she was able to lunge at the girl with the top half of her body and tackle Frankie to the floor.
Emma got Frankie in a choke hold, one arm around her neck and a flaming hand held beside her face.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Frankie screamed, wriggling and writhing. She seemed to have lost her telekinetic grip on Emma, and though she was trying mightily, she couldn’t get it back.
“Let us go or I’ll melt her face off!” Emma yelled. “I mean it! I’ll really do it!”
“Oh, please do,” said Angelica. “She’s such a pain.”
The others laughed. They seemed surprised, but not particularly upset, by the sudden turn of events.
“Why are you just standing there?” Frankie shouted. “Murder them!”
Dogface crossed his ankles and laced his fingers behind his head. “I don’t know, Frankie. This just got interesting.”
“I agree,” said Angelica. “For once, I’m glad I got out of bed today.”
Emma looked annoyed. “None of you cares if she dies?”
“I do,” the tutor said halfheartedly.
“You can’t do this to me!” Frankie shouted. “You’re mine! I caught you!”
I was starting to feel control returning to my arms and legs as well as my tongue. The girl’s spell had been broken. I looked at my friends, and I could see them beginning to move their limbs as well.
“I say we split them evenly,” said Wreck, and he drew a fat-barreled pistol from his waist belt and cocked it. “One each for you, two for me.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Dogface. He dropped onto all fours and snarled ferociously. “I get all of them.”
“That won’t work out so well for you,” Angelica warned him. Her cloud flashed bright white, then rumbled. What I had thought was smoke was really a storm cloud. “And don’t even think about using that fire on us,” she said to Emma.
“Nobody’s taking us,” I said. “Nobody’s buying us, either.”
“When the Ymbryne Council finds out what you’re doing, you’re all in serious, serious trouble,” said Millard.
That comment prompted a few raised eyebrows. Wreck stepped forward, his tone suddenly a bit more respectful, and he said, “You’ve misunderstood us. We don’t buy people. That sort of trade has been illegal for a long time. But we will occasionally make monetary bids to post bail for peculiars guilty of criminal offenses. If we like said peculiars.”
“What criminal offenses?” Millard said. “You’re the criminals.”
“Trespassing on Frankie’s turf,” said Dogface, and Frankie, who was too scared to talk, nodded vigorously.
“She trapped us!” Bronwyn said. “Drugged us with food!”
“Ignorantia legis neminem excusat,” said the tutor. “‘Ignorance of the law excuses no one.’”
“We post your bail,” Wreck continued. “You skip jail, then repay us with your service for a period of three months. After that, many people decide to stay on with us.”
“Those who are still alive,” said Dogface with a sly grin. “Our initiations ain’t for the faint of heart.”
“You, miss, are very talented,” said Angelica, taking a cautious step toward Emma and bowing slightly. “I think you’d feel right at home with my clan. We’re elementals, like you.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Emma said. “I’m not going anywhere with you, and neither are my friends.”
“I think you are,” Dogface said.
There was a loud snap as Bronwyn’s ropes broke and she stood up from her chair.
“Don’t you move!” Wreck shouted. “I’ll shoot!”
“You shoot, I burn,” said Emma.
“Do what she says!” Frankie whimpered.
Wreck hesitated, then lowered his gun a little. Despite their tough talk, they really didn’t want Frankie to die. Or they didn’t really want to kill us.
Bronwyn went to Noor’s chair and snapped the ropes binding her.
“Thanks,” Noor said, standing and rubbing her wrists. Then she swatted her hand through the air and scooped away the blinding spotlight. It was still on, shining up in the catwalk, but now its cone of light stopped high above our heads. “There. That’s better.” She pushed her hands together, compressing the handful of light she’d collected, then tucked it into her cheek, where it bulged like a glowing lump of chewing gum.
“Mother Mary,” Wreck muttered under his breath.
“Who are you people?” said Dogface.
Bronwyn had just snapped Millard’s ropes, and now she was coming over to free me.
“They can’t be from around here,” said Angelica. “With peculiarities like that, everybody would know their names.”
“Remember the wights?” said Millard.
“You must be joking,” said Wreck.
“They’re dead or in jail now because of us.”
“Because of him, mostly,” said Bronwyn. She snapped the rope that held my wrists and then held up my arm like the winner in a footrace. “We’re Miss Peregrine’s wards. And when she hears about what you people are doing, she and the other ymbrynes are gonna bring such hell down on your heads, you won’t know what hit you.”
“That’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” said Wreck.
“Then I think they’ll fit in just fine,” said Dogface.
The dynamic in the room had changed. We had earned some grudging respect from them, and the balance of power had evened. But the clan leaders were still wary of us—and of one another—and no one had let their guard down. Wreck was still aiming his gun, Emma was still holding her flame to Frankie’s face, Dogface was crouched on all fours, ready to pounce, and Angelica’s cloud was now quietly storming, pellets of rain wetting her head and shoulders. It felt like we were dancing around a stick of lit dynamite.
“I got one question to ask you, and you’d best answer it true,” said Wreck. “People like you don’t come through town without a good reason. So what are you doing here?”
I suppose I thought I could talk to them like equals, but thinking back, I don’t know why I said it. I was feeling proud and reckless, and the truth just came tumbling out. “We came to help her,” I said, nodding at Noor. “She’s a brand-new peculiar who’s in danger, and we’re taking her home with us.”
There was a moment of tense quiet as the clan leaders digested this, then looked at one another.
“You say she’s new?” said Dogface. “You mean . . . uncontacted?” He leaned back on his heels, his voice rising from a snarl back to normal.
“That’s right,” said Emma. “What’s it matter?
Angelica was shaking her head, rainwater dripping off her chin. “That’s bad.”
“Damn it!” said Wreck. He punched the air. “Damn it, I really wanted the fiery one on my crew.”
“What are you talking about?” said Bronwyn.
“Yeah, what just happened?” said Noor.
Frankie started laughing. “Oh, you’re in trouble,” she said.
“You shut up,” said Emma.
“Kidnapping an uncontacted peculiar is a serious crime,” said the tutor. “A very grave offense.”
“No one’s kidnapping me,” said Noor.
“You’re outsiders,” said Wreck, “and you’re transporting an uncontacted across territory lines. And that means—” He let out a loud breath and stamped his foot. “I hate this!”
Dogface stood up and brushed off his hands. “We’ve got to turn you in,” he said. “Or we’ll be accessories to the crime.”
“Must we?” said Angelica. “I like them more and more.”
“You must be joking.” Dogface started pacing nervously. “If we don’t report this and Leo hears about it? Our lives are worth nothing. Less than nothing.”
“I thought you weren’t afraid of ‘nobody, no man, no nothing,’” Angelica said.
Dogface spun toward her and yelled, “Only an idiot wouldn’t be afraid of Leo!”
Wreck turned away, and when he turned back he was holding something that looked like a small cell phone. “I hate to do this. I really do. I was looking forward to working with you. But I’m afraid I have no choice.”
He punched a few buttons on the device. A moment later, a siren began to blare. It seemed to come from everywhere at once—the walls, ceiling, the air itself. My friends and I looked at one another, then at the Americans, who had lowered their weapons and were no longer making threatening moves toward us at all anymore. They just seemed disappointed.
Emma let go of Frankie. She fell to the floor. “Where’s our friend?” she shouted at the girl. “What did you do with Enoch?”
Frankie scurried away toward the Americans. “He’s part of my collection now!” She peeked out between Wreck’s knees. “You’re not getting him back, either!”
With that, there seemed no reason left to stay, and nothing compelling us to. The siren blared. My friends and I looked around.
“I think we’d better go,” I said.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said Emma.
Emma, Noor, and I helped Bronwyn, who seemed almost her old self again but was still a little woozy, and we ran down the stairs and up the aisle toward the back exit as fast as we could—which wasn’t very. Neither the Americans nor their flunkies made the slightest attempt to stop us. We burst through the doors and out into the fading day.
Running toward us were a half-dozen men in 1920s-era suits carrying antique machine guns. They raised them and shouted for us to stop. A spray of bullets ricocheted off the concrete behind us.
One of the men kicked my legs out from under me, and then I was lying facedown on the pavement with a shoe grinding into the back of my neck.
A gruff order was given. “Wink ’em.” A hood was pulled over my head.
Everything went black.