Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor, #1)

by Jessica Townsend

I’m sorry, Morrigan rehearsed in her head, but I’m on the Cursed Children’s Register. I’m going to die on Eventide. Thank you for your time and interest.

“Ezra Squall is the nation’s greatest hero,” he continued. “More than that—he is their benevolent god, the source of their every comfort and happiness. The only living person with the ability to harvest, distribute, and command Wunder. Our Republic relies on him totally.”

She could imagine it. She had imagined, a hundred times over, how it would feel to be liked instead of feared. To see people smile instead of flinch when she walked into a room. It was one of her favorite daydreams.

“Sign.” He nodded at the pen. “Sign, and I promise you: One day you will be able to buy and sell every person who has ever made you unhappy.”

The room was quiet but for the soft scratching of silverware against china. Morrigan was conscious of every mouthful of food she swallowed, every cool sip of water. She heard each tick of the clock on the wall like a drumbeat in a marching band, marching her ever closer to the moment when she would cease to exist.

Ginger of the Year or King Ginger or Big Gingery President of the Ginger Foundation for the Incurably Ginger would have been more accurate.

Morrigan stared at him. She wondered, at that moment, if it was wise to have traveled through a clock to a strange city to live in a hotel with a madman.

I’m alive, she thought, and the idea was so absurd and so wonderful that a laugh spilled from her mouth, cutting through the quiet. Morrigan didn’t care. She felt expansive, bursting with a new joy and temerity that could only come from having cheated death. It’s a New Age, she thought with disbelief. And I’m alive. A

“But within Society walls you’re expected to earn that privilege. Not just in the trials, not just once, but over and over again, for the rest of your life, by proving that you’re worthy of it. Proving you’re special.”

“Now, listen here, North. The Free State has strict border laws, and if you’re harboring an illegal refugee, you’re breaking about twenty-eight of them. You’re in a lot of trouble here, sonny. Illegals are a plague, and it’s my solemn duty to guard the borders of Nevermoor and protect its true citizens from Republic scum trying to weasel their way into the Free State.”

‘A child who is participating in the entrance trials for the Wundrous Society shall for all legal purposes be considered a member of the Wundrous Society for the duration of said trials or until he or she is removed from the trial process.’ All legal purposes. That means she’s already ours.”

DACA dreamers

Hawthorne was giving his friendship as if it meant nothing. He couldn’t know that it meant everything.

How do you find a shadow in the shadows?

Morrigan held her breath. Would she get a chance to go back to the Deucalion, she wondered, before they deported her? Would she be able to say goodbye to the residents, and pack her things, and—Hawthorne! They couldn’t make her leave without saying goodbye to her friend, could they? She looked frantically around Courage Square, trying to see him one last time. Had he hit a target? she wondered. And the Hunt of Smoke and Shadow, said a small, panicked voice inside. Will they be waiting for me at the border?

morbidly obese trespasser and enslaver of elves?”

Lol

Republic and enjoying unlawful refuge in the den of a criminal element.”

“The point is—as far as the Society is concerned—if you are not honest, and determined, and brave, then it doesn’t matter how talented you are.