CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Trinket drew another arrow and put her eye behind it, ready. A moment later she released the tension and lowered the bow. The Governor (and Borrowdale) were bleeding out onto the floor. The Governor's fingers twitched for a moment then became still. Borrowdale's lungs sighed as they expelled dead air.

Trinket re-slung her bow, and re-quivered the arrow then went back to cutting through the last bar. She worked furiously with her green hand shooting in and out of the window. Sawdust sprinkled in all directions. The Governor would have soldiers waiting, and they would arrive as soon as they suspected something had gone wrong.

Jane put two fingers on Borrowdale's throat … but there was no pulse. A large cavity, the shape of a diamond, was cracked into his skull where the hammer had hit.

The final bar clattered on the floor and Trinket came through the window, head first with her hands out. She hit the floor and sprung off her hands, the spring going through her shoulders and torso, pushing her into spinning blur of green that landed her on her feet.

Jane stood.

Trinket said, ‘We can grieve later. Now we must go.’

Jane said, ‘This is how my father died. I did this to my own father.’

Trinket furrowed her brow as her mind ran around this information. ‘I’m sure there is a story here, but we don’t have time for it.’

Crouching beside the Governor's body, Trinket slipped her fingers across the back of his neck. She uncovered the leather strap that held the key that the Governor had taken from her in the tavern. With a yank the strap came free.

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‘Let’s go.’

Trinket went to the window, and she bounded up and landed on the sill, all bunched up. She rolled forward and sprang, uncurling through the window into the night.

Jane wasn't capable of this kind of gymnastic voodoo. She hauled herself up and turned so that her bum sat on the sill while her legs dangled inside the room. She did a swivel on her bum and got herself into several odd angles to get her feet outside the window.

Midair, Trinket stood on the spongy underside of a giant mushroom tethered by a thin rope to a branch. The mushroom was huge, the size of a rowboat. It pulled against the rope in an anti-gravity effort to climb, the way a hot air balloon struggled against its tethers when the furnace was burning.

Trinket held out her hand.

Jane sat on the window sill and looked at the terrifying drop below.

A voice came from behind, in the room:

‘The Governor has been clipped.’

Trinket spoke with quiet urgency, ‘Jump.’

For one instant Jane forgot about the huge drop and the weirdness of trusting a floating mushroom and the fact that she didn’t really trust Trinket. She lunged across the gap and landed on the mushroom’s spongy underside, her knees sinking into the foamy flesh.

Behind, from inside the room, a man’s voice shouted ‘Stop.’

Footsteps clattered.

‘Crawl to the centre and hold the stalk,’ said Trinket.

Jane crawled with her knees and hands sinking into the earthy flesh. She wrapped her arms around the stalk.

Trinket un-tethered the mushroom just as a face appeared at the window. The face belonged to an Empire soldier. He reached through the window and managed to get a grip on the mushroom.

Once again Trinket’s bow jumped into her hands, and while the mushroom bucked and strained against the soldier’s grip, she strung and let fly an arrow that embedded itself into the soldier’s hand.

The soldier yelped in pain, then let go.

The mushroom bucked and swayed, then began to rise.