The Unknown Spy Read Online Free Page A

speak to you later. It’s breakfast time now, however, and I’m sure you’re hungry. Most of the pupils have gone home for the holidays, but there are still a few here with whom you are acquainted. Skip along to Ravensdale and have something to eat. I’m sorry that your first hours back have been so distressing.”
    In spite of the shocking sight of the dead woman, Danny was in fact very hungry, and he was delighted to take himself off to the little village called Ravensdale, some of whose houses had been converted into canteens for the pupils. He made his way along a maze of corridors, remembering to look out for signs indicating the way, such as the ravens painted on the floor pointing south. When he reached the curtained entrance to Ravensdale, he took a deep breath before entering.
    He found himself on an ancient street with old houses on either side. Above his head a raven cawed. Otherwise nothing moved. He glanced at the names on the house doors as he walked: T HE J EDBURGHS . T HE K AMIRILLA . If you walked to the top of the deserted street you would find a gallows. But Danny wasn’t going that far. He saw a door with C ONSIGLIO D EI D IECI on it and gratefully plunged in. The Consiglio was his assigned dining place.
    The first thing to greet him was the smell of frying bacon. The second was squabbling voices.
    “You’d eat it if it was a blood sausage,” a thin raggedy-looking boy with wings was saying to a pale-faced girl whose prominent incisors made her look like a vampire.
    “Leave Vandra alone, Les,” said a blond girl with a slightly absent look on her face, while a dark-haired boy with sallow skin studied a piece of bacon suspiciously.
    “Er, I’m back,” Danny said. The reaction was instant. The blond girl ran over and threw her arms around his neck, covering him in crumbs and butter. Les, the winged boy, leapt up with a huge grin on his face, while Vandra, who was a physick, a healer with a vampiric appearance, bared her incisors in a smile that if you didn’t know her would be truly terrifying. (Although if anyone had been looking, they would have seen a hint of color creep into her cheeks at the sight of Danny.) Even Toxique, the trainee assassin, thrust the piece of bacon he had been studying into his mouth so that he could shake hands with Danny.
    Dixie, the blond girl, disappeared and reappeared at the other side of the table beside the physick, who glared at her crossly.
    “Do cut that out, Dixie.”
    “I can’t help it; I’m excited. We didn’t know if you were going to come back,” Dixie explained to Danny.
    “I wasn’t sure myself,” Danny said. “Devoy sent for me to come back early, I still don’t know why.”
    “I see blood,” Toxique said suddenly, “blood and death.”
    Toxique had the Gift of Anticipation and could often tell what was just about to happen.
    “Give it a break, Toxique,” Les said.
    “Honestly,” Vandra said, “I thought you’d gotten over all that blood and death stuff.” Toxique looked abashed, but Danny grasped his arm.
    “You’re right,” he said quietly, “there
is
blood and death in the air.” He told them about the Unknown Spy’s wife.
    “Blimey,” Dixie said, “things have a habit of happening around you, did you ever notice that?”
    “Least it makes life interesting,” Les said. “It’s been pretty boring around here since the holidays started and everyone went home.”
    “Boring, boring, boring.” Dixie rolled her eyes.
    “Christmas was nice,” Vandra said. “Devoy got us all presents, as usual, and we had a nice meal.”
    “Except the meal was in Brunholm’s rooms,” Les said. “Toxique was convinced the man was going to poison the lot of us. We had to listen to Brunholm sing ‘Good King Wenceslas.’ Not for the fainthearted.”
    “The lady was murdered,” Toxique said quietly. “We need to find out who did it, and why. Could be one of us next.”
    “He’s right,” Vandra said. “If Devoy brought you