Free A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge Page A

exclaimed Zouelle. ‘It’s just Wine. Madame Appeline often orders Wine to help her forget something – you know how people do. This will just
help her forget an extra memory, that’s all. One that might be upsetting to her.’
    When Zouelle put it like that, it all sounded quite straightforward. Neverfell knew that special Wines could be blended that allowed you to forget specific things or times, and that they were
popular among the rich and bored who felt they had seen everything. They cleared out useless or ugly memories the way some threw out cracked china, so that their minds creaked less under the burden
of the years.
    ‘Anyway, once you have your cheese back, you sneak back to the other girls and leave with them. Can you do that?’
    Neverfell’s eye kept straying to the frosted glitter of the taller girl’s brooch. It looked like sugar, and Neverfell wondered what it tasted like. Thoughts tried to crowd out of her
mouth, but there were too many of them and they jammed in the door. Of course I will , she wanted to answer. You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met and you’re calm and
wonderful and any minute now I’m going to say something really stupid . . .
    ‘Your gloves have stripes on!’ was what she actually said.
    ‘Ye-e-es. Yes, they do.’ Zouelle wet her lips. ‘But you understand what you have to do, don’t you?’ Neverfell hesitated, then gave a slow, firm nod, and
Zouelle’s shoulders relaxed a little.
    ‘What are we going to do about . . .’ The shorter girl glanced at Neverfell and tapped meaningfully at her own nose. ‘Everybody will notice. ’
    ‘Cloves,’ her friend answered promptly. ‘Oil of cloves, so everybody thinks she’s trying to treat herself for pimples. That should have a strong enough fragrance to mask
the . . . problem.
    ‘Now, the most important bit.’ The taller girl leaned forward, holding Neverfell’s gaze. ‘The most important bit is that if you see either of us you have to
pretend you don’t know us. Whatever happens, you don’t know us. Otherwise . . . everything will go badly for everyone. Understand?’
    Right at that moment, Neverfell would have given her two new friends the world. She wanted to give them her buttons, or Master Grandible’s rabbit, or iridescent ballrooms, or mountains of
figs. But what they seemed to want was a nod, so she gave them that instead.
    Tucked between the luggage on the back of the cart, Neverfell knew that she was supposed to be completely covered by the blanket, but she could not resist lifting it just
enough to give herself an arrow-slit of vision out between the great trunks. Passage by passage, lane by lane, the boundaries of her world were pushing back.
    After a time, the wheels of the pony cart ceased to bounce and jolt, and she noticed that the tunnels were floored in smooth flagstones. At a glance, she could see that these tunnels were not
part of a natural cave system, but had been carefully excavated. The walls were regular and square-cornered, and wooden struts helped reinforce the ceiling. Black iron trap-lanterns blazed from
brackets, and along the tops of the walls ran hefty, shuddering hot- and cold-water pipes.
    Then they entered busier thoroughfares, filled with voices, wheel judders, whinnies and footfalls that echoed and mingled until they roared like rapids. She glimpsed swift messenger boys
teetering past on unicycles, arms spread for balance. Dusty miners’ carts trundled by, filled with rubble. Muscled men heaved on great wheels to haul pearl-coloured flying sedans up through
shafts in the ceiling. In one of the larger caverns, pony carts for hire clustered greyly around a vast clock set in the rocky wall, so old that it wore a crust of limestone and a frail fringe of
stalactites. Stiff-faced pannier-bearers flounced past in dun-coloured linen, and she could smell the grease in their hair, the dirt under their fingernails.
    The cart headed off down a quieter, green-lit lane