Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve

shouting behind the Heart of Glass as it pulled in, and for a moment Fever was reminded of other arrivals in other towns, when she had travelled aboard Persimmon’s Electric Lyceum . But those journeys had been in southern lands, nothing like the damp plains of Doggerland, and Ambrose Persimmon would never have brought his theatre to a place as grimy and desperate as Three Dry Ships.
    There were not enough people there to warrant setting up the arena and staging a proper show, but the carnival fighters sparred with one another in the light of the campfire while Borglum’s cook prepared the evening meal, and the people of the place gathered round to watch.
    Fever watched too, for a little while. She had not meant to, for she was alarmed by the carnival people, with their strange looks and costumes and their easy laughter and all the memories they lit in her of her old life in Summertown. At first she stayed in her own small cabin aboard the Heart of Glass and tried to read Wintervale’s History of the Northern Peoples , because she wanted to learn something about the places that she would soon be seeing. But trying to follow the alliances and fallings-out between those ever-shifting nomad empires was like trying to map smoke, and the clang of weaponry from outside was distracting, so at last she put the book aside and stepped out into the chilly night air, which was filled with the smell of the gorse-root fire and the grunts and war cries of the sparring fighters. The huge, hairy one they called Quatch was crossing blades with the Knave of Knives. Fever watched them, trying not to disapprove, and ate stew from a wooden bowl that someone handed her. She looked across the fire at the lad called Stick and remembered what Wavey had said about him, and he did look handsome in the firelight, but he was sitting beside Lucy the lobster-girl and it was it was quite obvious that he was her boy or her sweetheart or whatever the silly expression was, and that made her feel suddenly very lonely.
    Quatch gave a great roar, swinging his cleaver in a blow that should have lopped off his opponent’s head, but the Knave ducked under it, tripped him, somersaulted over him as he fell and ended up astride him with his knife at Quatch’s throat. The onlookers clapped and cheered. They knew it was a friendly bout so there was no need for fakery and butcher’s shop blood. The fighters stood up, bowed, and went to find their own bowls of stew.
    Next came something special: a new act that Borglum was trying out. Lady Midnight swaggered out on to the fighting-ground. She chose a long blade from the weapons rack and stood there swinging it, splashing glints of firelight over Borglum’s face as he warned the audience to keep quiet, so that the blind woman could hear her foe approaching. Then he left her and hurried into the knot of fighters and crewmen waiting by the barges, grinning at Fever as he came. “This’ll be good!” he said. “This is something special! Oh, but it’s grand to have your mother back. . .”
    Fever looked around and saw that her mother was no longer watching the fight. She must have gone back aboard the barge. . . Or aboard Borglum ’s barge. For a moment she had a horrible feeling that Wavey was going to emerge in the boiler-plate bikini of which the dwarf had spoken so fondly. But what actually came down the ramp of the Knuckle Sandwich and stepped out into the firelight was something far, far worse. For a moment nobody could work out what it was. When they did, a murmur of surprise ran through the watchers.
    “’Tis a paper dolly. . .”
    “A cut-out man. . .”
    “But how’s it moving then?”
    Flat as an outline chalked around a corpse, blank face flickering with firelight and shadow, the paper boy stood and looked around, turning its flat white head from side to side, until it saw Lady Midnight waiting on the far side of the fire.
    “Oh!” said Fever, and put a hand up to her face. She was well able