“Then it seems the dog was correct,” said Horace. “The great loops of London have fallen to our enemies.” He bowed his head solemnly. “The worst has come to pass. All our ymbrynes have been kidnapped.”
We all bowed our heads, our giddy mood gone.
“In that case,” said Enoch, “Millard, you’d better tell us all you know about the punishment loops. If that’s where the ymbrynes are, we’re going to have to stage a rescue.”
“No,” said Millard. “No, no, no.”
“What do you mean,
Millard made a strangled noise in his throat and started breathing weirdly. “I mean … we can’t …”
He couldn’t seem to get the words out.
“What’s wrong with him?” said Bronwyn. “Mill, what’s the matter?”
“You’d better explain right now what you mean by ‘no,’ ” Emma said threateningly.
“Because we’ll
“But back at the menagerie you made it sound so easy!” I said.
“Like we could just waltz into a punishment loop …”
Millard was hyperventilating, hysterical—and it scared me. Bronwyn found a crumpled paper bag and told him to breathe into it. When he’d recovered a bit, he answered.
“Getting
“Well, that’s fantastic!” said Horace, tossing up his hands.
“You might’ve told us earlier, you know—like back at the menagerie, when we were planning all this!”
“Would it have made any difference, Horace?” He took a few more breaths from the bag. “If I’d made it sound more frightening, would you have chosen to simply let Miss Peregrine’s humanity expire?”
“Of course not,” said Horace. “But you should’ve told us the truth.”
Millard let the bag drop. His strength was returning, and his conviction with it. “I admit I somewhat downplayed the punishment loops’ dangers. But I never thought we’d actually have to go into them! Despite all that irritating dog’s doomsaying about the state of London, I was certain we’d find at least
