Twelve-year-old Carmen has a secret: she can talk to her cat Grim. But the powerful Brotherhood has banned pets, and the penalty is death.
Ward is the most wanted boy in the world. The only thing standing between him and the hangman's noose is maste...
It was a tunnel the Scowerers rarely used. In sections it was blocked by fallen rubble. Snokeys raced along the walls ahead of the lamplight; Grim pounced after them but was too slow, yowling with frustration as they squeezed into cracks and vanished.
The tunnel emerged into the open air from a blackberry thicket, in which Slops, typically, became entangled. Nick had to hoist him free as a fisherman would a fish.
Ward blinked as he came out into the daylight. The sky was a featureless blue but for a faraway high bank of cloud to the west. The sun was already beating down, broken glass twinkling in the glare, midges rising in clouds from standing pools of green water. It was a Sinday, and the city lay silent; the shutters were pulled up at the market and no wagons moved on the streets. Bedlam Prison rose dourly to the west. Carmen watched it, her mouth set in a line. Her parents would be there. Ward had heard whispers of the Brotherhood's interrogations. It didn't bear thinking about.
"I forgot where that tunnel fetched up," Mildew said as they picked their way through the waste.
Nick nodded beneath the hood of his cloak. He was disguised as a Brother. "It's come in handy from time to time. People stay clear of Killing Field."
"Why?" Ward said.
Nick didn't answer straight away. He clambered down a rubbly heap and waited for them at the bottom, on a mud-cracked bed that would have been a bog in winter.
Once they had moved on Nick continued. "After the Revolution there were many prisoners to house – supporters of the old King, nobles and their families. They were left in Bedlam to rot. But then the Brotherhood captured a famous sorcerer, a kind of folk hero of the Royalists. They tried to execute him, but he escaped."
"David Nassar," Carmen said.
Nick nodded. "His escape sparked a riot in Bedlam. The prisoners overcame the wardens and fled – hundreds of them, some still shackled together, some too weak from starvation to run."
He stopped and picked up a potsherd from the ground. It was fluted on one side, no bigger than his palm, and Ward could see faint writing on its flat side.
Nick tossed it aside and went on. "The Reds were originally the King's guard. But they turned on their own king and killed him. They became the State police. They were trained soldiers: in those days they carried swords and shields, not truncheons like they do now. It was the Reds the Brotherhood sent to Bedlam to quell the riot. They came upon the escaped prisoners right here." He pointed at the ground. "Nobody knows how it started. Perhaps some of the prisoners tried to run. Maybe someone threw a rock. Whatever the case, the Reds descended on them and cut them down. Men, women, children – nobody escaped alive.
"The Brotherhood quickly distanced themselves from the incident. The Reds had been acting of their own accord, they said. Years passed, and they began to speak of it as a legend – a story invented by anarchists to discredit the Republic. But they couldn't get rid of the name. It's been called Killing Field ever since. Centuries have passed and hardly anyone remembers what the name means, though they know it's sacred somehow. But look, here are the gates – we should get out of the open."
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