Author: Charlotte E. English

‘You made it!’ said Jay, smiling, once we had finally crawled our way to the top of the cliff.

Fortunately for him, I was a bit too out of breath from the climb to make any immediate reply. I occupied myself instead with gazing out over the water. A town was distantly visible on the horizon, but I was insufficiently familiar with Scarborough to be able to tell whether or not it looked the same.

‘Uh huh!’ said Zareen brightly and added, with deceptive casualness, ‘And where exactly have we made it to?’

‘Oh, the fifth Britain. This is Whitmore, centre of magickal government for the North.’ He eyed me in my slinky evening gown and added, ‘Nice dress.’

Faced as he was with four identically pole-axed expressions, I suppose he could be forgiven the smug smile. ‘There’s lots to tell,’ he conceded.

‘Wait,’ said Baron Alban. ‘The fifth Britain? Five?’

‘Yes,’ said Jay. ‘There are —’

‘Five?’ Zareen and I yelped in concert.

‘Well—’ said Jay.

‘Five worlds like ours,’ I said, and folded my arms. ‘You cannot be serious, Jay.’

‘I’m not,’ he said, and folded his arms right back at me. ‘There are nine.’

Nine that are known, came Melmidoc’s voice. The door to the Starstone Spire stood open, and we had all paused only a few feet away. Many scholars believe that there are more yet to be discovered.

Zareen threw up her hands and took a step back, signalling her incapacity to cope with the conversation just then. I didn’t blame her. George Mercer hadn’t said a word; he stood a little apart from the rest of us, stony-faced and silent. From the look of him, I suspected his behaviour was prompted in large part by simple exhaustion. Zareen’s too, probably.

‘Which scholars?’ said Alban.

Whitmore is also a centre of learning, said Melmidoc. Academics from more than one of the nine have gathered here. Even one or two from your Britain, Baron.

‘Well, this is…’ Alban left the sentence unfinished, and looked helplessly at me.

‘How many did you know about?’ I said shrewdly, for he alone had been little surprised by the general substance of Fenella’s speech.

‘Three are known to the Court. Not, I think, including this one.’

Considering the unique obstacles posed by your particular Britain, that is a respectable achievement, Melmidoc remarked.

‘Thank you.’ The Baron’s voice was wintry.

‘How are there nine?’ I put in, my mind reeling. ‘Are they all the same? Did they all come into being at the same time? How did you get here — what is this island — what became of the Whitmore of our Britain — what did you mean about the magickal government for the North — the North? Is there a separate one for the South? Why? Is that the fifth Scarborough over there? I—’

Peace, interrupted Melmidoc, and I stopped gabbling with a gulp.

‘Sorry. But when we’ve finished with those questions I have about two thousand more.’

Melmidoc gave a dry chuckle. Questions are the product of an enquiring mind, and should never be apologised for. Let me begin with the first. How are there nine? Multiple theories upon that point have been proposed, but none have yet been proved beyond all doubt. They are not thought to have come into being all together, but that, too, is the subject of debate. Melmidoc’s dry voice warmed with enthusiasm as he continued. I will be happy to hold a more detailed discourse with you upon those topics, should you like to hear about the leading theories. Now then, how do we get here? It is a sideways step, nothing more. Simple in explanation, difficult in practice, for your young friend here has not yet contrived to master the ability despite two days of practice. Perhaps, in your Britain — ours, I should say — it is by now a lost art. I should be sorry to think so. The Whitmore of your Britain sank, I am afraid. Rather an inconvenience to us at the time, but our removal here has turned out very well indeed, for we have been able to build the kind of magickal government in the North of this Britain of which we could only dream under the conditions prevailing in the sixth.

‘That’s ours?’ I put in. ‘The sixth Britain?’

Yes.

‘What is the fourth like?’

Of the nine worlds, said Melmidoc patiently, three are no more, including the one we think of as the fourth. In two, magick has met a permanent death and cannot now be revived at all. Of the four remaining, two have succumbed to fear and irrationality and outlawed magick entirely. That leaves your world, where magick survives in a diminished and hidden capacity, and this one, the fifth Britain, where magick thrives and need never hide.

I thought briefly of Fenella Beaumont, and Ancestria Magicka. To build so powerful an organisation in a single year, she must have had an equally powerful motive. Was this it? Had she somehow discovered the fifth Britain, a vision of a world where people like us could practice our magicks openly, and with unabated power?

It was a seductive prospect, that I could not deny. But what did she now plan to do?

I hesitate to call a close to this instructive interlude, said Melmidoc, but was it strictly necessary to bring so large a party hither?

Startled, I looked down over the cliff. For a little while, I’d forgotten about the rest of Fenella’s guests. They had made their way out of the transplanted castle by now and were milling about on the beach — staring around at everything, exclaiming and, in short, looking like a pack of excited tourists.

Which, I suppose, we all were.

‘They pose a problem,’ I said, and outlined the events of the past few hours — for Jay’s benefit as well as Melmidoc’s.

And you do not think they are here in good faith?

‘In a spirit of happy exploration, with the best of intentions and no nefarious motives in mind? No.’

Then they will be disposed of, said Melmidoc mildly.

‘Not chilling at all.’ As I watched, Fenella took up a spot partway up the cliff and began, once again, to hold forth. From this height, I could not hear what she was saying, but it involved a fair amount of pointing and gesturing up to the top of the cliff, and over the water to the huddle of buildings clinging to the far shore. I could not see Rob or Val in the mass of people, or any of our folk. Wherever they had gone, it wasn’t with Fenella.

‘Let’s go in,’ said Jay, and the door of the spire creaked open a bit wider in invitation. ‘I can see we’re going to need a cunning plan.’

I stared hungrily over the island of Whitmore, spread before us like a birthday buffet. I had a fierce lust to explore its plethora of shining buildings, their architecture so intriguing a mixture of the familiar and the strange; another spire rose somewhere in the distance, so similar in style to Melmidoc’s that it had to be related, and was that Drystan’s? Another set of people wandered the narrow streets of the town, similar to and yet different from us in the same way as their homes and shops and offices. What must it be like, to grow up here, live here, work here right out in the open? As part of an organisation known to, and accepted by, every denizen of this world whether magickal or not? What feats were they capable of, that we had forgotten long ago?

But now was not the time, for we had a more pressing problem on our hands: Fenella. I’d have to trust that my opportunity to explore would come soon, if not today. ‘What’s become of Millie?’ I asked as I preceded Jay into the Starstone Spire.

‘She’s dozing,’ he answered, ushering Zareen and George inside. The Baron brought up the rear, uncharacteristically quiet. I wondered just how many questions were buzzing through his mind at that moment, and how many worries. He rewarded my look of enquiring concern with a smile and the barest trace of a wink.

‘In the hopes of warding off a beating,’ said Jay as we trooped up the stairs, ‘I did try to find a way to get word to you, but phones from our Britain don’t work here — big surprise — and Millie can’t go back and forth all that often. It tires her.’

I am afraid I declined to be pressed into service as a messenger, Melmidoc put in, though Mr. Patel is tiresomely persuasive. In another day, perhaps two, I would have been dispatched quite against my will, I am sure of it.

‘Ves worries,’ said Jay, with a shrug.

She appears to me the very picture of a composed young woman.

‘All a lie. Underneath that calm exterior, she’s stewing over at least a dozen things.’

I blushed, for this I could not deny. ‘Maybe not a dozen…’

‘Anyway,’ Jay continued, ‘I wanted to share. Who wouldn’t?’ We reached the top of the spire, where the cosy library had once been. The room was still bare in comparison with before, but Jay had acquired a few chairs from somewhere and hauled them in — somehow — and he now collapsed into one. ‘It’s amazing,’ he enthused. ‘You have to get a look around, Ves. This is what our world could’ve been like, if we hadn’t screwed everything up.’

‘You know,’ I said, taking the chair beside his. ‘That’s more or less exactly what Fenella Beaumont was saying before she kidnapped us all here.’

‘Uh huh. And who is she?’

I explained.

Jay looked nonplussed, but he shrugged. ‘Never thought I’d be in agreement with Ancestria Magicka, but she’s not wrong.’

‘No, indeed. But what of it? It’s too late to turn our Britain into this one.’

‘Is it?’ One of Jay’s brows went up.

The world shifted under us, but subtly. Melmidoc had moved us, but it came in a smooth, unobtrusive feeling of motion, nothing like Ashdown Castle at all. The effects of practice, I supposed.

‘It is,’ said Alban. ‘Well — it is too late to come out of the shadows. Can you imagine the result if we tried?’ He had eschewed the chairs in favour of perching on the windowsill, and he did not look at us as he spoke: his attention was fixed upon the island flying by outside.

‘Total uproar,’ I said, for I had to agree.

‘True,’ Jay conceded. ‘But all our lost arts? What could we relearn, with help from the fifth?’

‘You did not have much luck learning to jump sideways, right?’

Jay rolled his eyes, and slouched disconsolately in his chair. ‘I’ve had only two days to practice. It took more like two years to learn to jump at all, as you put it. If I could stay here—’

‘Wait.’ I stared, shocked. ‘You want to stay?’

Jay avoided my eyes. ‘Think about it, Ves. All the things we could learn. All the things we could do.’

I had been thinking about it, pretty much without cease ever since Fenella had opened her big mouth and let all these delicious and dangerous secrets come tumbling out. It was, as I have already said, a seductive prospect. ‘But.’ I rallied, with a struggle. ‘This is exactly why we have to go home. We’re needed there. We aren’t remotely needed here.’

‘And we could do our work much better there if we’ve been properly trained here. I don’t propose to stay forever, Ves. Just long enough.’

‘How long is long enough?’

Jay just shrugged.

‘Melmidoc,’ said the Baron, finally turning around. ‘I don’t think we should leave that lot roaming around Whitmore for very long. Certainly not without supervision.’

Do not be concerned, said Melmidoc coolly. They are not unsupervised.

‘Oh?’

Almost every house on Whitmore has its own occupants with my general characteristics, he supplied. Most have more than one. I am receiving regular reports as to the movements of your friends.

‘Not our friends,’ Zareen said coldly.

‘Hey,’ said George. ‘Some of them are mine.’

‘Yes, about that?’ Zareen threw him a challenging look. ‘You need better friends.’

‘So you’ve said.’

I held up a hand to forestall further argument. ‘Are you saying every building on the entire island is haunted?’ I said to Melmidoc.

Haunted. His dry, aged voice registered amusement. If you wish to call it by such a term.

‘It’s the best I’ve got,’ I apologised. ‘I come from the diminished sixth, remember? These things are rare and weird back there.’

Rare and weird. Melmidoc was definitely laughing at me.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘What are their movements?’ interrupted Alban.

At present they are nearing the top of the cliff. They seem to be engaged mostly in pointing at things and saying the word wow unnecessarily often.

Tourists.

Which raised an unpleasant prospect for the fifth Britain, for this was what Fenella’s decisions would initially condemn them to. Endless trips from starry-eyed magickal tourists. Whitmore awash with wistful and marvelling magickers from the sixth Britain, eager to see and experience every single little thing they could — and to take as much of it back with them as possible.

What’s more, Jay would not be the only person who’d try to stay. Far from it. Our own, beloved Britain would be half emptied of magickers by the time the excitement died down, which would only cripple it further.

We had a full-scale emergency on our hands.

Turn page ->

The ballroom was already crowded by the time we arrived. We were among the last to squeeze our way into the vaulted chamber, and there was barely space enough for us. I was relieved to find Rob just inside the door, apparently on the watch for us. ‘Is she all right?’ he said at once, already reaching for Zareen.

‘I’m fine,’ said Zar, and she was recovering by then, though still rather weak. She straightened up, shaking me off, and lifted her chin. Her eyes, thankfully, were normal again.

Mercer had revived after a couple of minutes, but refused to come with us. He’d staggered off into the bowels of the castle, and we had let him go.

Rob nodded. ‘Trouble?’

Zareen gave him a quick account of the ten (or more) Waymasters she had sensed locked into the walls, and I watched as Rob’s face grew very grave. ‘Ten Waymasters ought to be enough to move a castle, wouldn’t you think?’ he said when she had finished.

‘Fair chance of it.’

A small stage occupied the far end of the ballroom, raised up very high. A smattering of applause broke out as a woman strode out onto it, dressed in a dazzling gown that glittered like the night sky. When her identity became clear, the applause became thunderous.

I was too astonished to move.

‘That’s Fenella Beaumont,’ I hissed.

Let me tell you about the Beaumonts. They were a powerful magickal family some few hundred years ago, and Ashdown Castle had been their principal seat for many generations. But they’d withered away down the ages; their powers and their fortune had declined at about equal rates, and most of them had died out. Fenella Beaumont was one of only two surviving members of the family — and she had not been seen or heard from in so long, some had begun to say she, too, was dead.

Well, she wasn’t. With her silvery hair swept up in a fairy-tale style and her still slender figure encased in sparkling velvet, she was causing a sensation up on the stage.

‘Welcome to my ancestral home!’ she said, when at last the applause began to die down. ‘It is a pleasure to see my beloved Ashdown Castle not only restored to its former glory but also hosting such a distinguished set of guests. I hope you have all been suitably supplied with champagne?’

A roar of assent.

‘Her home?’ I whispered to Rob. ‘Ancestria Magicka bought this place last year.’

‘From Everett Beaumont,’ said Rob. ‘Her uncle.’

Everett Beaumont was famously destitute, hence the appalling state of disrepair the castle had fallen into — and its sale. Fenella Beaumont was as broke as the rest of them, so what was she doing up there in a designer gown, diamonds flashing at her ears and throat?

‘Let me introduce you to Ancestria Magicka,’ Fenella was saying, flashing a charming smile. ‘Many have called for a progressive, forward-thinking organisation for the magickal among us. Many have chafed against the needless restrictions laid down by our sisters and brothers at the Ministry, among the Courts of the Fae, and the many other establishments tasked with the protection and preservation of our kind. And they do fine work, do they not? But it isn’t enough.’ Fenella began to pace back and forth across the stage. A good move, I had to admit: she had a fluid, graceful stride, and the sparkle sent up by her gown and her jewels had a nearly mesmeric quality. ‘It isn’t enough to be safe. It isn’t enough to be careful. If we want to regain what we’ve lost, well, somebody has to take risks!’

She stopped, and looked seriously out over her audience. ‘We all know what we’ve lost, don’t we? Our arts have declined with every passing century, smothered by the relentless rise of modernity and technology. Even the greatest of our living practitioners has nothing to compare with the witches and sorcerers, the waymasters and necromancers, of ages long past. This isn’t right. Where will we be in another hundred years? Another two centuries? Will there be anything of magick left?

‘And that isn’t all. My friends, my colleagues, we have lost far more than any of you realise. More than that: it has been taken from us, hidden from us. You are all being lied to, every single day, by those you look up to. Our leaders have swaddled us in comforting half-truths and outright lies, all in the name of safety! Of miserable caution! In so doing, they collude in our destruction.

‘We cannot go on this way.’

She paused here for effect, and you could have heard a pin drop in that room. Some of the people near me did not even seem to be breathing. The woman had presence, I’d give her that. ‘A year ago today, I founded Ancestria Magicka,’ continued Fenella. ‘To fight back. To find a new way forward. To reclaim our lost heritage. I see a brighter, more magickal future ahead and it is my dearest wish to share it with all of you.’

The tension in the room became palpable, and I sensed that the first of those “scintillating surprises” was about to be dropped on us. (If we weren’t counting the involvement of Fenella herself. Even the purchase of Ashdown Castle, of all places, hadn’t tipped me off about her).

‘We may have left the best of our arts behind us, but what if I told you they are not lost? What if I told you there is a way to get them back?’

It was my turn to stop breathing. I clutched the Baron’s arm so hard it must have hurt, but he didn’t move. His attention was riveted upon Fenella Beaumont.

‘Look at our world,’ said Fenella. ‘Half drained of magick, and what little is left must be hidden away. We are forced to hide in the shadows. Why, there is an entire Ministry devoted to no other purpose! But why? Why must we hide? Why has magick declined?

‘It is claimed that this is a natural and inevitable process — that there is nothing we could have done to slow or halt this decline. That as the world progressed, as technology improved, we and our magick must necessarily be left behind.

‘This is false. It is through our own poor choices, our own weaknesses, that modern magick has arrived at this condition. We, and our ancestors, have betrayed everything we have, everything we are, and we continue to do so, day by day. But it doesn’t have to be this way.’ Fenella stood dead centre of the stage, now, staring out at the audience. She stood tall and proud and majestic, glittering with magick, her eyes alight with fervour; every word she uttered struck me deeply. ‘What we have broken, we can mend. We can! And we will!

‘How do I know this? Because, my friends, I have seen the proof with my own eyes. Some of those around you have seen it. I have travelled far beyond the borders of Britain. I have travelled far beyond the borders of this world. And I have seen another Britain. Another world. One where magick has not declined. A world where magick and its practitioners co-exist, peacefully and without conflict, alongside the very same technologies we enjoy in our own reality.’

She was obliged to pause, here, for the ballroom was by then in uproar. I felt like screaming myself. ‘What the bloody hell?’ I gasped. ‘What nonsense is this?’

Baron Alban alone had neither moved nor spoken. He just looked at me.

‘It’s true? It cannot be.’ I was shaking all over, I wasn’t sure why. Shock? Horror? Awe? I wrapped my arms around myself and took a steadying breath, though it was difficult to muster a state of calm when everyone around me was losing their wits. ‘Explain?’ I said beseechingly.

‘Later.’ The Baron looked back at Fenella. ‘Methinks the lady isn’t finished with us yet.’

He was right. Fenella raised her voice to shout above the tumult. ‘I see scepticism in many faces!’ she shouted. ‘Lies, I hear you call! It is a difficult idea to believe, is it not? It has been hidden from us, hidden by our own leaders, our own guiding lights. Well, the time for secrets has passed. I bring you truths, and I shall prove that this is no lie.’ Her lips curved in a saucy smile. ‘How, you ask?

‘Why don’t I just… show you?’

With splendid theatricality, most of the lights went out, leaving the ballroom in an atmospheric gloom.

And then, too many things happened at once.

Zareen, at my elbow, began abruptly to babble, six or eight voices at once streaming from her lips. Her eyes had gone solid black again, and every muscle in her body was rigid. Her voices rose to a screaming pitch and she clapped her hands over her ears as though to shut something out; her gaze, locked on mine, was wide and desperate.

She collapsed.

‘Zar!’ I fell to my knees beside her, but there was nothing I could do. She lay shuddering uncontrollably, still babbling in an endless stream of words, her hands clutching helplessly at me.

Then George Mercer was there. He looked little better himself, and his lips moved in concert with Zareen’s, uttering the same words which poured still from her mouth. But he bent and hauled her up, steadying her somehow. They clung to one another.

The ground began to shake.

‘We’re going somewhere,’ I gasped, and almost fell as the earth gave a convulsive shudder beneath my feet. A dull roar began as the ancient bricks of Ashdown Castle rattled and shook, as though an earthquake passed through.

‘We’re going a long way,’ said Alban grimly, and I was grateful when he took hold of me, for with his superior weight and bulk he was a lot more stable than I was. I clung to him like he was a tree in a storm and shut my eyes. How did I really feel, in that moment? Terrified, appalled — but afire with excitement, because, good gods, if Fenella spoke the truth… I had no words to express the impact her revelation would have upon everything I knew and cared for.

Rob surged out of the crowd. His dark hair was dusted white with fallen plaster and he had a shield up, a field of magickal energy which flickered darkly around him as he moved. ‘Ves!’ he bellowed. ‘Where’s Val?’

I pointed in the direction I’d last seen her, though who knew if she was anywhere near that spot anymore.

‘Take care of Zareen!’ he shouted, and plunged into the crowd in, hopefully, Val’s general direction.

I summoned a shield of my own, taking care that it encapsulated Zareen (and George) and the Baron as well as me. Rob was right: at this rate, Fenella’s mad scheme would bring the roof down on us.

The roar of rumbling brick and stone grew louder still, the earth rocked wildly under another tearing shock, and then — then we were gone, hauled bodily through space like the worst of all rollercoasters. Dizziness overwhelmed me, and Alban too, for we went tumbling to the ground and lay there stunned as the world broke into whirling pieces and faded away.

It seemed a long time later when the tremors stopped at last, and the ground ceased to shudder and buckle beneath us. I opened my eyes, tentatively, to find my shield still intact around the dishevelled little group of us, toppled like bowling pins.

‘Are we alive?’ I croaked.

‘Breathing,’ said Alban from about three inches away. The pale bluish tint to his skin had developed more of a greenish air, but otherwise he looked hale. He managed, somehow, to smile at me.

Zareen and George were twined tightly together not far from where I lay. Both appeared to be breathing, which was good enough for me at that moment. With a groan, I hauled myself to my feet, and looked around.

The roof had not come down, but plenty of plaster had. Ancestria Magicka’s guests were liberally dusted with it, their splendid evening attire nicely ruined. Nobody appeared hurt, or not more than a little. All about me, dazed guests were struggling to their feet.

‘Any idea where we are?’ I muttered to the Baron.

‘Some,’ he said. ‘Let’s find out.’

I looked at Zareen, but she waved a hand weakly at me. ‘Go,’ she whispered hoarsely, and her lips quirked in a tiny smile. ‘Save yourselves…’

I rolled my eyes, and held out a hand to her. ‘Come on. Don’t you want to see this vision of magickal marvels?’

‘I do,’ she said, and began to shiver. ‘My legs don’t, and I’m really not sure about my stomach.’

George dragged himself up and stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. When he did not fall, he held out his hand to Zareen. ‘We’re okay.’

‘Speak for yourself.’ But she rallied and got herself up somehow. Her eyes were still coal-black, which I tried not to notice, and a trickle of drying blood marred the blanched skin beneath her nose. At least they had both stopped babbling.

I kept the shield up as we left the ballroom. Fortunately we had maintained a station near the rear door, and few people yet stood between us and the questionable safety of the outdoors. Our pace was slow, and I became aware of several hitherto undiscovered bruises as we staggered through the corridors of Ashdown Castle to its main doors. They were closed, but they swung slowly open as we approached, and fresh air rushed in. I took a great, grateful lungful of it.

The sun was up, and it should not have been, for darkness had fallen by the time Fenella began her spectacular speech. We had somehow gone back (or forward) to the middle of the afternoon, or thereabouts, and that fact caused a violent fluttering in my stomach — part excitement, part anticipation, part terror.

‘What the fuck is going on,’ muttered Zareen, and I agreed whole-heartedly with the sentiment, for beyond the doors of the castle was a sight both unfamiliar and unfathomable.

A sandy beach strewn with stones stretched before us, and beyond that came the deep blue glitter of a sunlit sea. A cliff rose in jagged stages to a height of some hundred feet, a winding roped-off pathway snaking its leisurely way up to the top. Little houses were tucked into nooks and corners at intervals up the cliff, and their architecture was mostly of a type I recognised: timber-frames, whitewashed walls, steeply gabled roofs covered in thatch. But one or two were odd. It took me a moment to realise that their pale, pearly walls were built from starstone, and they bore some of the same whimsical features as Melmidoc’s Striding Spire. One of them even had a short, round tower of almost identical design.

My gaze made its way slowly up this bizarre and inexplicable cliff and when I at last took in what lay at the very top, I received another shock, for there was Melmidoc’s own spire. It stood casually at the edge of the cliff, a pale, elegant shape against the deep blue sky, and just to round the day off nicely there was a familiar figure coming out of the door at its base.

Jay looked down at the group of us huddled on the beach, shading his eyes against the sun. Then, curse him, he gave us a cheery wave.

‘What,’ I said slowly, ‘the fuck is going on.’

Jay beckoned.

‘Right, then,’ I said, squaring my shoulders. ‘All ready for another dose of strange beyond all reason?’

‘Bring it on,’ said Alban.

Turn page ->

I had paid a visit to Ashdown Castle before, only a few weeks past. On that occasion, the place had been half a ruin, with parts of its roofs fallen in, glass missing from the windows, walls tumbling down — a wreck, in short. What a pity, too, for it was a large, rambling old place, five centuries old, with appealing higgledy-piggledy architecture all built from unusual brown brick.

The several sloping roofs were all intact, now. The windows glittered with bright, new glass, every rickety wall had been rebuilt or stabilised, and there had even been some cleaning done to its decorative stone embellishments. How they had achieved so much in so short a space of time was beyond me to imagine; I could only gape in astonishment, and marvel again at just how much money these people had to throw around.

‘I really, really want to know who’s funding this lot,’ I muttered to the Baron.

‘Yes,’ he replied, grimly. ‘We were thinking the same thing.’

By we I supposed he meant himself and Their Majesties. It wasn’t just the money, either. They behaved with the splendid insouciance of people who think that laws are beneath them, and are confident of there being no conceivable way any unpleasant consequences could ever be brought to bear for breaking them. I’d wondered before how many connections they had in advantageous places, especially since Lord Garrogin’s duplicity had come to light.

Probably that had occurred to Their Majesties, too.

Our invitations were accepted at the door by a pair of young women in blue uniform robes — or mine was, anyway. The Baron needed no invitation. He had only to announce himself and his eminence did all the work (with a little help from his best and most charming smile, perhaps). The girls on the door looked thrilled as they waved him in. Was it because he was handsome, or because his presence here was another coup for Ancestria Magicka?

In the great hall — whitewashed walls inside, high ceiling, remarkable painted murals depicting forest scenes — we found a large number of our fellow guests already milling about, many of them with champagne glasses in hand.

We also found Zareen, loitering near the door, with George Mercer in tow. He wore a black tuxedo; she was devastating in a slim column of a black dress, her eye make-up dramatic.

‘Half the Society’s coming,’ she hissed as she drew us aside. ‘They’ve invited everyone.’

‘So I learned from Val. You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?’

We both looked at George Mercer, who had the grace to look uncomfortable.

‘They’re looking to expand,’ said Zareen in disgust. ‘At our expense, obviously.’

The same conclusion Milady and I had reached in our separate deliberations, but I was no longer certain that was all that was going on. There was too much show, the party was too big, the guests too varied. What Zareen had said was probably true enough, but what other motive lurked behind all this effort and expense?

‘I’d like to know where Jay is,’ I said to George, as pleasantly as I could manage considering that I wanted to choke the information out of him with my bare hands.

He grunted. ‘You’ll find out.’

‘Once we’ve given you the information you want, you mean?’ I was ready to do that if it meant getting Jay back.

But Mercer rolled his eyes. ‘No.’

I thought Zareen was looking a bit shame-faced. Had she already spilled everything?

She caught my look, and sighed. ‘They know all about that bloody island already, all right?’

‘They do?’ That shed some interesting new light on things. ‘All about it?’

‘As much as we know, anyway.’

Mercer, to my interest, looked like he wanted to say something, but he hesitated and Zareen swept on. ‘Last recorded position off the coast of Scarborough, vanished since to an undiscovered location.’

He was definitely looking shifty. ‘Do you also have an inkling as to where?’ I said — politely, I swear!

The man sighed, ran a finger around the collar of his shirt as though it was choking him, and walked off, muttering something about a drink.

Zareen’s smile grew satisfied.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ she said, but then amended that to: ‘Mission almost accomplished.’

‘What mission?’

‘My secret George Mercer mission.’

‘Does it have anything to do with getting Jay back?’

‘Sort of.’

I gave up. I’d always known that Jay and Zareen did not altogether get along, but I hadn’t expected to find her so unmoved by his mysterious plight. Remonstrating with her was useless. I walked away.

The Baron leaned down to whisper in my ear. ‘I think that she has not had the success she was hoping for with Mr. Mercer, but is embarrassed to admit it.’

Hmm. Was she embarrassed or just hopping mad? Either way, uttered in his smooth, calm tones, the idea sounded reasonable, and some of my irritation and dismay dissipated. He was probably right.

I came to a dead halt halfway across the hall, because a familiar figure approached from the other side of the room: an extremely tall figure, clad in robes. ‘Lord Garrogin’s here?’

The Baron looked about as pleased to see him as I was. ‘Bloody cheek,’ he muttered.

I was better pleased to see Rob and Nell there, and Val arrived shortly afterwards. I didn’t see Miranda, though I was on the watch for her.

I began to feel bad about turning my back on Zareen like that. I knew she was in a difficult position between the Society and George Mercer, and could hardly be blamed for having slightly confused loyalties. She would be doing her best. I ought to be a better friend.

But when I turned to go back to her, she was not where we had left her a few minutes before. It took me a few seconds to locate her among the mass of sumptuously clad guests; they were as curious about the castle as I was. A ceaseless flow of party-goers streamed from door to door, disappearing into the depths of the building and coming back again, probably in search of more champagne.

I would join them in exploring before long, but first… ah, there was Zareen, in a corner by herself. She had her eyes closed. As I drew nearer, I saw that she was pressed into the walls, one hand laid palm-flat against the pale plaster. Her face was pale and drawn in that way I was beginning to dread seeing.

I approached carefully, wary of startling her. ‘Zar?’ I said softly.

Her eyes snapped open. They were only half filled in with black, yet, but the colour was spreading into the whites. ‘Ves. You know the…’ she trailed off as Alban came up beside me.

‘Carry on,’ I murmured. ‘The Baron’s all right.’

‘I’d rather not.’ The look in Zareen’s eyes too nearly resembled fear for my liking, so I was glad when Alban took this in good part, and moved quietly away again.

‘The Greyer cottage,’ Zareen continued, pitching her voice lower. ‘And how George and Katalin almost beat us to it.’

‘Yes.’

‘We thought they were trying to purloin the services of Wester, and maybe one of the Greyers, for themselves. And we were right.’

‘But you exorcised them, so that put paid to that plan.’

‘But it didn’t. It’s something George said earlier today…’ Her eyes fluttered shut again, and she visibly swallowed. I couldn’t imagine what was going on in her mind at that moment. ‘There are more Waymasters like Wester. Millie Makepeace, for one, and George claims they’ve another tame one in some building somewhere, he wouldn’t say in any more detail. But I think that’s not the half of it. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’

‘Once, a few weeks ago.’

‘Notice anything different about it?’

‘Only everything.’ I told her about the castle’s formerly derelict state.

‘Building works,’ Zareen whispered, and said hoarsely: ‘Ves. There are at least seven spirits loose in here.’

‘Seven?’

She nodded. ‘Perhaps more, I am having trouble separating them. Some of them are… really not happy.’

I’ve a notion my face turned as paper-white as Zareen’s. Seven spirits, most or all of them conveyed here with or without their consent, their bones sealed into newly rebuilt floors or walls. Possibly more than seven. ‘Are they all Waymasters?’

‘At least two of them are. One is called Bonnie Bishop. I know this because she keeps shrieking her name at me. She was a healer in a village called Combe Greening. Edward Visser kept a charms and cantrips shop in Amesbury. Harriet Theale was a vicar’s wife in a parish called Bodwell. Two of them are talking in languages I cannot understand and the rest are just— I can’t distinguish.’ Zareen gripped her head, her eyes wide and staring now, and black from edge to edge. ‘Eight,’ she said with forced calm. ‘Toby McNeal, Kinross. Waymaster and baker.’

‘Zar.’ I took hold of her hands, and tried to make her look at me. ‘Zar, stop. Where is this coming from? You were fine a few minutes ago.’

‘They were silent until a few minutes ago. I didn’t know they were there. They woke up, all at once.’

That boded poorly. The party was just getting underway, pretty much everyone was here who was going to be here, and now the ghosts in the walls woke up?

‘I need George,’ said Zareen shakily, and tried to pull free of me.

I hung onto her. ‘We’ll find him together. Come on.’

Baron Alban, bless him, had not been oblivious to this. He was at my side in an instant as I set off across the hall, supporting Zareen. He took up a position on her other side, his bulk helping to shield her from unwanted attention, and with his superior height he was the first to spot George Mercer slipping through a half-concealed door at the back of the hall.

We followed.

‘Stranger Arts?’ murmured the Baron to me as we passed through the door.

‘Mm.’

He looked more sympathetic than repulsed, and duly went up yet another notch in my estimation.

‘George!’ gasped Zareen. ‘Stop. Please.’

For a moment I thought he would ignore her, but to his credit he slowed, and turned around. He looked every bit as bad as Zareen, if not worse, his face chalk-coloured and his eyes pitch. Shadows crept across his skin, giving him a chilling, cadaverous air. ‘I told you to stay away,’ he said, his voice rasping like rusted metal.

‘And that’s why I came. You’re holding them here, aren’t you? You’ve got to let them go.’

‘I can’t.’

‘George. They’re tearing themselves to pieces.’

‘They’ll tear me to pieces if I try it.’

‘If they do, so be it.’ Zareen was ice-cold. ‘You should never have done this.’ She swallowed, choked, and added: ‘Nine. Bob Malley, Kellswater. He wants to go home, George.’

George’s reply, whatever it might have been, was drowned by a sudden blare of music from the hall. No, it was not coming from the hall, or not only from the hall. It was coming from everywhere at once. I might have suspected a complicated speaker system, except that the music — strings and trumpets, with something of the fanfare about it — seemed to explode from the very walls. Then came a woman’s voice. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ashdown Castle! Ancestria Magicka is delighted to make your acquaintance. Your presence is kindly requested in the main ballroom for the first of several scintillating surprises, so make haste! We begin in five minutes!’

A look of utter horror flashed across George’s face, prompted by… what?

‘Ten,’ said Zareen. ‘Felicity Bennett, Ivybridge. Seamstress.’

‘Right,’ I said, straightening my spine. ‘Zar, you need to stop this. Shut them off. They’ll drive you insane, and there is nothing you can do for them at this moment.’

Zareen nodded ready acquiescence, to my relief — but then she shuddered so violently she almost fell to the floor. The Baron and I caught her between us.

I stared flintily at George, my heart pounding. ‘What is going on here?’

But I was too late. He gave the same tearing shudder as Zareen, but while she had weathered it, George did not. His eyes rolled up and he collapsed.

Turn page ->

On the other side of the door was House’s favourite room. I had been there just once before, in search of the third key to Farringale. In character it is a pretty sitting-room, a perfectly preserved specimen of mid-to-late seventeenth century style, with elegant floral wallpaper, wrought-silver candlesticks (never tarnished) and a tall grandfather clock. House keeps it well hidden.

Val sailed her chair over to a wall and stopped, promptly producing a laptop from somewhere. She started it up and began typing furiously.

I took one of the tall, pale-upholstered chairs, and spent a moment collecting my thoughts.

‘What are we working with?’ said Val. She’d stopped typing and was waiting expectantly.

‘Lost islands,’ I said.

‘You mean like Atlantis?’

‘A bit more real.’

‘Atlantis isn’t real?’

‘It… is it?’ I stared.

Val grinned. ‘Might be.’

‘You did say is, not was?’

With a flick of her fingers, Valerie waved this away. ‘Another time. So like Atlantis or more like Ferdinandea?’

‘That’s the one that keeps vanishing and popping up again? No. No volcanic activity involved, as far as we know. It’s more like Bermeja.’ (I had done some research already).

‘Gulf of Mexico,’ said Val promptly. ‘Marked on a few ancient maps but nobody can find it today?’

‘Exactly. Or any sign that it ever existed at all.’

‘Okay. But you’re certain this island of yours did exist.’

I told her everything we’d heard so far, every miserably insufficient clue we had mustered, and spoken all together it did not sound like much. But Val listened with close attention, and as I’d hoped, the question fired her interest.

She began typing again.

‘Could be vanished,’ she murmured, half to herself. ‘Islands vanish all the time, but they’re usually discernible lying right there on the sea bed, and you say this one was never on any maps?’

‘That’s one of the questions I had for you. Can you find a map with an island marked off the Scarborough coast? Pre-sixteen-hundred, it would be.’

‘Working on that. Really though, Ves, how could anybody hide an entire island? Especially so close to shore.’

‘Well.’ I sneaked a look at the Baron. ‘Er. You know when you’re working on a valuable book, and you want to take a bathroom break, but you don’t want to have to put the book away only to haul it out again ten minutes later?’

Val stopped typing. Her face said: You know about that?

I gave her an apologetic look, and said no more. I’d seen her pull a sneaky trick with just such a book, once. It was incredibly rare, one of the few copies of Agadora’s Miscellany still extant. The library had been empty other than the two of us, and I was at the other end of it, apparently absorbed in a book. Val had left the room — leaving the Miscellany on the table before her.

I thought she had forgotten to put it away, or perhaps trusted to me to guard it. But when I’d looked at the table, there was no book there. I went over to investigate, and I still couldn’t find it, couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it.

When Val came back, there it was again, in the same spot as before, as though it had never moved at all. Which, in all probability, it hadn’t.

‘So, that trick,’ I continued. ‘How big an, er, object could you hide like that?’

Val stared, wide-eyed, at nothing. ‘No idea, Ves. I’ve never tried it on anything bigger than—’ She broke off, shooting a faintly guilty look at the Baron. He, of course, just twinkled. ‘I would not like to attempt it upon a significant land mass,’ she finished.

‘All right, we can hold that idea in reserve. What about the Baron’s idea? Could it be moved around?’

Alban coughed politely. ‘I did not actually intend to propose the notion as my own idea. It is merely a possibility that has surfaced.’

I inclined my head in his general direction. ‘I’m going to keep calling it your idea anyway, because it’s simpler than “the other idea that the Baron happened to raise but that does not necessarily reflect his private thoughts on the matter.”’

He grinned. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Waiving for a moment the question of whether or not it’s possible,’ I continued, ‘it is a plausible explanation. If I were Melmidoc Redclover, and Their Gracious Majesties were trying to prosecute me for breaking a million rules, I’d want to whisk my hideout somewhere far away too. But where would they go? It would have to be somewhere isolated enough that no one would stumble over it — and it seems nobody has, in all these years. But somewhere habitable, too. Survivable climate, source of food, and so on. Where in the world might that put them?’

This is where I wanted Val’s help, aside from the matter of her book-hiding trick. She doesn’t have a search engine so much as a search labyrinth, and as I talked her fingers moved ceaselessly over the keys of her laptop. She was feeding it endless lists of search terms, and as she worked her search-maze was scouring a host of databases for every nugget of relevant information (several of them seriously off-limits to most of us), cross-referencing everything with everything else, and hopefully pulling out something useful.

It occurred to me that the Baron had been quiet, for all his talk of helping. When I looked his way, I found that he was looking at me. I wish I could say it was an admiring look, but it was more of a thoughtful gaze, with a hint of something troubled in it.

I made a questioning face, but he only smiled and looked away.

‘I am happy to tell you that there are exactly zero places on the planet that match those criteria,’ said Valerie after a while.

‘Zero!’

‘It’s the twenty-first century, Ves. We’ve had satellites for a while now. Nobody’s hiding any mystery islands anymore.’

I felt an impulse to chew upon a fingernail, which I suppressed. It is a habit I broke years ago, but it still surfaces occasionally in times of stress. ‘Then it is either hidden after all, or… there’s the third possibility.’

‘That being?’

‘You know. We cannot find the isle because it’s popped off to 1598. And so have Millie Makepeace and the spire.’

Val looked at me over her spectacles. ‘And, therefore, Jay?’

‘Yes. And they had smallpox back then, not to mention bubonic plague—’

‘I thought you were thrilled at the prospect of time travel?’

‘I am, but it might perhaps benefit from a little forethought. If Jay’s in the sixteenth century right now, he’s on his own.’ And it would explain why his phone seemed to have ceased to exist.

Valerie said nothing, but she transferred her penetrating gaze to the Baron’s face.

It was his look of bland innocence that made me suspicious.

‘You know something about all this, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Did the Court send you to help, or to spy?’

I wanted him to deny it, but he passed a hand over his face and sighed. ‘I sometimes have cause to wish you weren’t so astute, Ves.’ He caught Val’s eye and muttered, ‘The whole damned lot of you.’

I folded my arms and gave him the death stare. ‘Explain.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can and will.’

‘Ves—’

‘All that nonsense about the island moving around was misdirection, was it? All right, so it probably is impossible to haul an entire bloody island around but in that case where is it?’

Alban gave me a helpless stare.

‘Is it three and a half miles off the coast of Scarborough?’ I pressed.

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘In which century?’

‘I… Ves, that is genuinely a complicated question to answer.’

‘Or in other words, it’s not this one.’

‘It is,’ said Alban, and then added, ‘in a manner of speaking.’

I stifled an urge to kick him.

Into the icy silence left by the combined efforts of Val and me, he offered: ‘I am not here to obstruct you. Honestly.’

‘No?’ I said.

‘Not necessarily,’ he amended, and held up his hands when I threatened to explode on the spot. ‘The Court is unsure how to proceed, Ves. This is a… it’s an unprecedentedly tricky situation. I am to help where I deem it fit and… and see what happens.’

‘Which means you are also to hinder if you deem it fit?’

‘If it proves necessary, yes.’

‘Hinder whom?’

‘Ancestria Magicka, definitely. Hopefully not you.’

Hopefully.

I looked him square in the eye. ‘Do you know where that island is right now, Alban?’

He met my gaze without flinching. ‘I have an inkling, but I am not yet certain. I have some investigating to do, like you.’

‘Are you going to share your inkling?’

‘I can’t, at present. Their Majesties have expressly forbidden it. But it pains me to have to say no, Ves.’

‘Comforting,’ I said tartly. ‘Thank you.’

His lips curled in a tiny, unhappy smile. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘We’ll find out anyway.’

His smile turned more genuine. ‘I would expect nothing less.’

‘It’s party time,’ said Val crisply.

Startled, I checked the time: six o’ clock. Just an hour left to get dinner and find a dress. ‘Wait,’ I said, frowning at Val. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘How? I was invited.’

‘What? Who else?’

‘I don’t know everybody who got an invitation, but Rob for one. Nell. Indira, Rosalind, Siobhan, Berat, Vincent, Ravindra, Jack, um, rumour has it they even invited Orlando.’

It did not escape my notice that everyone on Val’s list (and mine) was either a figure of some authority at the Society, they were particularly experienced or specialised in their field, or they possessed rare talents of one sort or another. ‘They’re trying to swipe more of our best people, aren’t they?’

‘Milady drew the same conclusion, but I don’t think they’ll get very far with most of us.’

Nobody mentioned Miranda.

The Baron stood up. ‘Time to get something to eat?’ he said, looking at me.

Part of me wanted to be petulant and tell him to get stuffed, but it was a small part. And since we were no longer able to wander down to the cafeteria for dinner… ‘All right,’ I said, grudgingly.

He looked, politely, at Val, but she waved us off. ‘I’ll see you at Ashdown.’

The Baron offered me his arm, which I took with a sniff of disdain.

‘You’ve a good indignant face,’ he said, and that damned twinkle was back in his eyes. ‘Had some practice?’

‘Thanks to the likes of you, yes.’ I refused to be charmed out of my displeasure just yet. Maybe after I’d been fed.

‘Ouch,’ he said with an exaggerated wince.

‘You deserved that.’

‘I did.’

The Baron and I arrived at Ashdown Castle slightly early. He had certainly known about the party in advance, for he had come prepared, and changed into a delicious deep blue dinner suit while I slipped into my favourite slinky evening gown, a wine-red satin confection (and changed my hair to match: auburn bordering upon burgundy). Alban drove us, utilising some of his enviable Troll Roads, I think, for we made suspiciously excellent time.

I had heard nothing from Zareen, and was left to assume that she, too, would meet us there.

They really had sent out a lot of invitations, for when we swung smoothly into the driveway at Ashdown Castle we were met by the sight of at least fifty cars already parked. The grassy grounds had been turned into a giant car park for the evening, event-style, as though they were expecting nearer five hundred guests than fifty. They had also disabled most of the enchantments which protected the place from unwanted incursions. No concealments remained, no shields, no discouragements of any kind.

‘Serious business,’ I remarked, taken aback.

‘They’re planning to cause a stir,’ agreed Alban.

He offered his arm as we got out of the car, and I was glad to take it. We walked briskly up to the castle (carefully as well, in my case — heels on grass is always a risky proposition). The scale of the event and the mystery surrounding it made it clear that this was to be no ordinary party, and I was alert for signs of trouble or intrigue as we made our way to the entrance.

Well, the next thing I noticed was that Ashdown Castle had undergone something of a facelift.

Turn page ->

I sat up very straight, electrified. ‘The isle disappeared! An entire island! Impossible!’

‘Apparently not,’ said Alban.

‘But then, its location was known initially?’

‘Mm. It was said to lie about three and a half miles off the Yorkshire coast, about due east from the town of Scarborough.’

‘But had it always been there? I’ve never heard of an island in those parts.’

‘There certainly hasn’t been for the past four hundred years. And there is no reason to imagine that it was a large island.’

‘Even so.’ My mind was awhirl at the prospect, but so was my scepticism. ‘I know that Waymasters used to be a lot more powerful, and clearly they could — and can — move buildings around. But so far, they’re small ones. Cottages and modest farmhouses.’

‘And the spire,’ put in Zareen.

‘Right, but even that isn’t so huge a place. An entire island, though? A spit of land? I’m not sure I believe it.’

‘Islands have been known to move about before,’ said the Baron. ‘Come loose and float away.’

‘Fixed or not, it’s still a big land mass. If it was habitable, it must have been at least a few miles square. How many Waymasters working together would it take to move all that? Surely it cannot be done.’

‘And yet,’ said the Baron. ‘As far as the official enquiry records, it was gone.’

‘They couldn’t prove that it was gone,’ I pointed out. ‘All they meant was, they couldn’t find it. Perhaps it was not gone, but hidden.’

The Baron inclined his head, ceding the point.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so resistant to the idea that an island had physically moved. A few weeks ago, the idea that a two-room cottage could waltz off had seemed impossible.

‘So the island existed,’ I mused. ‘And while we are not certain that the isle mentioned by Talbot Makepeace was the same one, it seems likely. Everything fits. So it was probably still there — or still somewhere — over a century and a half later, and somebody lured Millie there. Perhaps the same somebody who had awoken her Waymaster abilities in the first place, and bound her into the farmhouse.’

‘But is the isle still there now?’ said Zareen.

Melmidoc had rushed off to answer that same question. Had he succeeded in finding his lost isle? Or was it gone, sunk beneath the waves long ago?

If it was still there, was Millie still in the habit of frequenting the place?

Was that where she had taken Jay?

If it was, and the Baron’s theory was correct, then the island could be anywhere. It didn’t even have to be in British waters anymore. It could be lurking off the coast of New Zealand, or somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Under the circumstances, I preferred my theory.

‘I’m going to see George,’ Zareen suddenly announced.

‘What—’ I began, but she was already striding away in the direction of the Scarlet Courtyard.

‘Meet you at the party,’ she called back.

‘Right,’ I said, taken aback.

The Baron raised an eyebrow.

I could only shrug. ‘I do not know what’s going on with them.’

‘By the looks of it, I’d say a lot.’

‘Zar knows what she’s doing.’

‘She does have the look of a formidable woman.’ The Baron was twinkling at me again, damn him, which was as much as to say that I didn’t.

Probably a fair observation, what with my daffodil hair. I straightened my spine a bit more, and rose with dignity to my feet. ‘I have an alternative theory,’ I told him.

‘To my wild reports of wandering isles?’

‘Yes. I need to see Val. Are you game for a sneak-in?’

‘Sneaking into Home? Has it come to that? I thought you left on decent terms.’ Did I imagine the slight emphasis he’d put on the word left? As though he was making air quotes in his mind while he said it.

‘If you call defying Milady’s orders about the spire decent behaviour, then yes, we left on excellent terms.’

That was definitely a smile lurking about his lips. ‘As you say,’ he said mildly.

I gave a sigh. ‘It was Garrogin, wasn’t it?’

‘He did seem to think that you and Jay made a perfect picture of loyalty. The way he told it, well. I wish my staff were half as loyal.’

‘Curse him.’

‘Their Majesties have already done so.’

The twin curse of a pair of powerful troll royals ought to be a bit more effective than mine, so I let Lord Garrogin be.

Truth to tell, I was a bit uneasy about going back Home again so soon. I knew Milady would not mind in principle, but in practice? Our masquerade had already proved to be paper-thin. It was stupid to jeopardise it further by sauntering back Home just as though we still belonged there. It would have to be subterfuge.

Which is a tall order, because our House’s security measures are deservedly legendary. Why do you think Ancestria Magicka went to so much trouble to get their claws into Miranda? It isn’t like they could just send over a spy. They either had to get someone of their own recruited by Milady, or convert an existing Society employee; there were no other options. If Milady had revoked my access to Home, then there was no way I was getting in. Or the Baron either.

So it was with some trepidation — and some bitter feelings — that I approached the environs of our beloved House late that morning, riding as passenger in the Baron’s beautiful sleek car. We parked just outside the entrance, and the fact that I could still see the handsome double gates reassured me a little. First layer of security: it is tricky to break into a place you cannot find.

I had the sense not to waltz in at the front gate; instead, we circled around to a side-door into the grounds, and slipped through. Nothing was barred, and nobody tried to stop us. The walk from there into the House itself was a short one, just down a narrow passageway lined with hedgerows, across the narrowest part of the shrubbery, and then in at the door.

Hopefully.

Beloved House. I had been banished from it for only a handful of days, and yet I experienced a piercing sense of loss as I walked up to the door and gazed wistfully up at its ancient walls. Not just Home, but my home, and for the past decade. Place of work, place of abode, place of everything. A small part of me harboured the fear that, one way or another, I might never be able to come properly Home again.

But that was foolish. This was just an assignment, like any other. Once we had established the truth (or lack thereof) about the spire, the island and the whole prospect of time travel, we would be able to return.

‘Morning, House,’ I said with a bright smile, and knocked lightly upon the heavy oak door. ‘Is it all right if we go in to see Val?’

The door was unlatching even as I spoke, its bolts rattling as they drew back. Before I’d even got as far as uttering Val’s name, the door swung wide open with a cheerful creak. Was I being fanciful in interpreting it as a welcoming sound?

I went inside, laying a hand briefly upon the white-plastered wall as I went past. ‘I miss you too,’ I told the dear old place.

Baron Alban followed me into the passage. We were in what had once been the servants’ wing of the house; the old scullery was to our left, and on the right were the pantries. Some of those were still used to store food. ‘Do you and the House always chat like that?’ asked the Baron.

‘Yes, always.’ I spoke absently, for it occurred to me that my plan had been limited. All right, we were inside: but how were we to make it as far as the library without passing at least a few people?

I trod softly to the end of the passage and peeked around the corner. No one in sight, yet, but a couple of passages and a few corners down that way, we’d enter the library complex, and it was a popular spot. There was no way we could sneak—

‘Ves!’ said Val.

I whirled.

She was right behind me, ensconced as usual in her majestic green velvet chair. She did not look so perfectly turned out as usual; her upswept dark hair was tumbling down a bit at the back, and her clothes had the rumpled look that suggested “freshly pressed” was an increasingly distant memory. ‘Val?’ I blurted. ‘I was just—’

‘Coming to find me. I know, House brought me. Bloody hell, Ves, where have you been?’

‘We’ve been—’

‘I mean, I know the official story but I’ve never heard so much crap in my life. As if you or Zareen would ditch us like that! Or Jay either!’

‘I know, but it was necessary to—’

‘I’ve missed you.’ They might have been pleasant words but Val spat them out like they were the gravest insults, her eyes flashing fire.

‘Val.’ I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I thought Milady would have told you everything, I—’ It occurred to me that we were not exactly in a secure location, so I shut up. ‘Can we get somewhere quiet?’

Only then did Val notice the Baron, who had been loitering at a polite distance from us both. He sauntered up with a show of non-threatening casualness, and graced her with one of his courtlier bows.

Val’s eyes went very wide. I tried to remember whether she had ever met the Baron in person before, and concluded that she probably had not.

He did tend to have an impact.

‘This is Baron Alban, from the Court,’ I said, to cover her silence.

Val held out a hand. ‘It is a pleasure to meet any representative of Their Majesties of Mandridore, but do you mind if I ask what you’re doing here?’

The Baron shook Val’s hand with a smile. ‘Helping Ves, actually.’

Val gave me a roguish look that said well-I-never, but her voice was steely again when she spoke. ‘If you steal Ves away to Mandridore, Baron, I shall never forgive you.’

‘Understood.’

‘In fact, the entire Society will swarm Their Majesties’ gates in order to fetch her back.’

Alban saluted gravely.

I was touched.

‘Right,’ Val said, more crisply. ‘House, dear. Somewhere private for the three of us?’

A door opened silently in the wall to Val’s left. A door that had not been there a moment before.

Val’s wing-back chair floated serenely through it, and the Baron and I followed.

Turn page ->

I sent a few messages to Miranda after that, mostly variations on the general theme of why?

To my regret, but not to my surprise, she did not answer any of them.

By the next morning, it was official: Miranda had gone. Rob brought us a copy of the Society’s internal memo on the subject.

I winced upon reading it. Milady was most seriously displeased.

Miranda Evans is no longer a member of this Society. The circumstances of her departure are not for public dissemination. Let it be known, however, that any and all communication with Ms. Evans is strongly discouraged.

There was more, but not much. I pictured the icy fury with which Milady had penned the missive (or dictated it, she being incorporeal and all) and shuddered.

It did raise an interesting question, though. Had Miranda corrupted anybody else, prior to her departure? I could only assume that was the fear lurking behind Milady’s prohibition on communication. We none of us wished to lose any more people to Ancestria Magicka.

I’d had to field a string of messages from Indira, too. She had discovered Jay’s absence by way of several failed and unanswered phone calls and was cheerfully freaking out about him. Since I was in much the same state, albeit more secretly, there was not much I could do to reassure her. I could not even say for sure that George Mercer’s offer was still open, not after he and Zareen had so obviously fallen out over Miranda.

Difficult morning. I treated my nerves to an extra helping of chocolate from Milady’s wonderful pot, recruited my strength with some of Mrs. Amberstone’s best pancakes, and boosted my confidence with a change of hair colour. Maybe it sounds frivolous, but try it before you judge me.

I stepped out a little later, tossing my parti-coloured hair (cream at the top and daffodil-yellow at the bottom, with a smooth ombre fade in between). I was beginning to lose my patience with this particular mess, and it was high time we sorted it out.

I found Zareen in much the same frame of mind. A solid ten hours of sleep had restored her colour somewhat, and she looked much nearer her old self when she opened her door. ‘Plan?’ she said.

‘Find Jay.’ I ticked off point one on my fingers. ‘Find out what that isle of Melmidoc’s is about. Figure out what the bloody hell has got into Miranda and fix it. Discover the source of the Dappledok pups and fix that, too. And find out once and for all where in space or time those houses are going to when they vanish.’ I ticked them all off on my fingers, using rather more fingers in the process than I was hoping.

‘That’s a wish list,’ said Zareen. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘No bloody clue.’

‘Right, then. Situation normal.’ Zareen grabbed her jacket, stuffed her feet into her boots and fell in beside me as I made for the stairs.

‘The party’s at seven,’ Zareen said, checking the time. ‘We’ve got ten hours until then. Pick a place to start?’

‘Baron Alban.’

‘Needing a little eye candy?’

‘Always, but that’s not it this time. Val’s drawn a blank on Melmidoc’s isle as far as our library goes, and Mauf has nothing for us either. We need another resource, and I can’t think of a better one than the library at the Troll Courts. Can you?’

‘I can punch George in the face until he consents to check their records for us.’

‘Think that’ll work?’

‘No. And anyway, I’d have to tell him all about the isle first, and we sort of agreed not to do that.’

‘Right. Plan forming. Part one in progress.’ I composed another message to Miranda and sent it before I could change my mind.

It said: Rage aside, Mir, those books prove you want to help us. So help. Find out anything you can about a secret isle, probably 1600s, linked to names like Melmidoc Redclover. Please. Thanks xx

We hadn’t given Miranda the full low-down about the spire before, probably because it had not seemed relevant. We’d just told her about the part we knew would interest her: Dramary’s Bestiary. I wondered, though. Had she heard the rest from someone else? Word tended to travel at Home. If she had, she would have taken that information to Ancestria Magicka — which meant that George Mercer must be lying about their ignorance. If so, what was his game?

I showed my message to Zareen, who grunted, a sound halfway between approval and irritation.

‘I know, I know.’

‘I hate this.’

‘Me too. Right. Part two in progress.’ I called the Baron. ‘Alban,’ I said crisply the moment he answered. ‘It’s Ves. May I speak frankly?’

‘Please.’

‘This shit is driving us crazy and we would like to resolve it. We propose a joining of forces.’

‘Oh? Among whom, exactly?’

‘The Thrilling Three, even if we are presently down to the Testy Two, and the Troll Court.’

‘As represented by me?’

‘Yes.’

I waited. I knew the Baron would understand my meaning. I wasn’t just asking for his personal assistance; I was requesting the official aid of Their Majesties’ Court itself.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.

The Baron arrived in person about an hour later.

Zareen and I spent the intervening time scouring Miranda’s books for what Nancy Drew might have called “leads” (unsuccessfully). About all I could determine from Millie Makepeace’s diaries was that she was batshit crazy, and largely unaware of her Waymaster abilities. Apparently magickal education for young women of breeding was on the underwhelming side, back in the day. I wondered who had introduced her to her powers (after death…?), and how they had known she’d had any. I shied away from the idea that someone from her own family had been responsible for her after-death fate, but one or two references to her father made me wonder a bit. Had he been a practitioner of the Weird Stuff? Perhaps.

Zareen read through her pamphlet with an irritable frown, and finally snapped it closed with, I thought, unnecessary violence. The booklet was old, and delicate. I gently took it from her. ‘No use?’

‘Tells me nothing new.’

Judging from her glowering dissatisfaction, it had reminded her of a number of things she did not like to think about.

I checked the title. Dark Deeds and Strange Wayes: The Wyrde Path. No author was listed.  

‘It’s all new to me,’ I said. ‘Mind if I read?’

Zareen had signalled her lack of objection with a shrug, and had then proceeded to stretch out in the grass (we were out in Mrs. Amberstone’s garden again, under the walnut trees). Whether she was sleeping or brooding I could not tell.

I skimmed through the pamphlet, keeping an absent eye on my phone in case of word from the Baron or Miranda — or Mabyn Redclover, at the Hidden Ministry. I’d informed her of the fate of the spire, and had capitalised on her satisfaction by pleading for help. I knew Val would be doing her utmost to come up with something, too; with that many people at work on the matter of the mysterious isle, I had hopes of hearing something useful soon.

But the pamphlet.

‘Chilling read,’ I said when I’d finished it.

That was an understatement. It proved to be the work of an early serial killer. The author — who was so cagey about his or her identity that I could not even determine their gender — had discovered at a horrifyingly young age that the “art” of killing (their words, not mine) had a pleasurably amplifying effect upon their “wyrde wayes” (also their words). The obliging author had conducted a number of grisly murders over a period of years (all described in detail) and recorded the effects of these despicable deeds upon their unsavoury magicks. All very positive, I was to believe; after several such murders, the author was understood to be in possession of virtually unheard-of power in fields such as necromancy, and could oblige any Ghoste or Spirite to do my Bydding, as well as making Puppets of the Deade, and, perhaps most interestingly, restorynge Life that has been Loste.

Did they mean converting the dead into the undead, or a revival from death back into a state of genuine life? If the latter, that was… remarkable. I experienced a vision of this unknown necromancer four hundred years ago, killing the same victim over and over again in the name of experimentation, and shuddered. Thank goodness I had not been burdened with the Stranger Arts. I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes at the School of Weird.

I was not absolutely convinced by the author’s claims. The text displayed clear signs of narcissism and megalomania, in my humble opinion, and surely the links between murder and “wyrde” powers couldn’t be that simple or powerful or we’d have seen a total ban on all such arts many years ago.

But Zareen accepted it, and she ought to know.

I handed the pamphlet back to her.

Message from Miranda. Tread carefully, Ves.

‘Is that it?’ I said in disgust, quoting it to Zareen. ‘What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘Means she knows something but cannot or will not say, other than to imply that it is dangerous.’

I sighed. ‘And that means Ancestria Magicka knows something, which means maybe it’s time to start punching George in the face.’

Zareen complied, metaphorically speaking.

And then came the Baron, strolling over Mrs. Amberstone’s neatly-trimmed lawn like he had all the time in the world. I suppose with those long legs, he could stroll all he liked and still make faster progress than I would at a brisk trot. He’d dressed down: he wore a pair of crisp, dark blue trousers and a loose white shirt, open at the neck. Polished shoes, no hat, his bronze-blonde hair artfully disordered. If anything, the effect was more devastating than all the impeccable, elaborate style of his previous ensembles. He smiled at me as he approached, his green eyes bright with apparent pleasure at seeing me, and something odd happened in my stomach.

‘Morning,’ I said lightly.

Baron Alban made us a polite, courtly bow amid exquisitely courteous greetings. I did not imagine it: his smile definitely lingered on me. ‘Morning, ladies. What’s the news?’

‘Not much.’ I showed him Miranda’s note, upon which he made no comment save for a raised eyebrow.

‘I’d hoped you were bringing the cavalry,’ I said, noticing all the empty space around him that was not filled with other knowledgeable and useful members of Their Majesties’ Court.

‘What, one wickedly handsome troll isn’t enough for you?’

‘Well, since you mention it…’

He grinned. ‘I’m afraid it’s just me, but I do bring help.’

I sat up. ‘Oh?’

‘I don’t know if you realise it, but you and Jay are popular at Court at the moment — what with uncovering the blight at the lost enclaves, hacking your way into Farringale and coming out alive, and now tackling this spire business.’

‘Their Majesties aren’t opposed to investigating there?’

‘No. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve disagreed with the Ministry. But Ancestria Magicka has them worried, and angry. Lord Garrogin was a friend.’

‘Was?’

‘Mm.’ The Baron’s mouth set in a grim line. ‘He isn’t anymore. His invitation to the Court has been revoked.’

‘So, the isle?’ I prompted.

‘I drew a blank at the library. Nothing there. I can say this with certainty because Her Majesty interviewed our Chief Archivist on the subject personally. I never saw a man more terrified. I don’t think he could have lied to save his life.

‘But, the library is not our only resource. The Court is a court in two senses of the word: it’s the home of Their Majesties, and it’s also a place of justice. Has been ever since the fall of Farringale. A lot of cases have been heard there, and a lot of complaints lodged.’

I discreetly checked the time. Not discreetly enough, for the Baron saw me and smiled a wry smile. ‘All right, the short version: I consulted the Scribe of the Court of Justice. One of his duties is to maintain the court’s records, including recopying the oldest and most faded documents at need. And those date from the early sixteen hundreds through into the eighteen hundreds.

‘Late last year he copied and refreshed an account of a complaint brought by one Talbot Makepeace, of Suffolk, who claimed that his house and his daughter had been stolen from him. The complaint was dismissed because his daughter was known to have been recently executed, and he could give no proper explanation as to how his house had been filched. He claimed it had walked away, and his dead daughter with it. I believe the poor man was written off as mad. He was noted to have shrieked something about that accursed isle as he was dragged from the Court.’

‘Ah!’ I crowed. ‘A link between Millie and the isle!’

‘Indeed.’ The Baron paused to smile at me. ‘Another, older complaint referred to an unnamed isle in a similar way. This one was dated to somewhere in the sixteen thirties, so the Scribe estimated, and it was a much more serious case. An attempt was made to prosecute one Melmidoc Redclover and his brother Drystan for the creation of a secret magickal society, one unauthorised by any power in existence. Now, they were not actually obliged to have permission in order to set up their own establishment; there was no such stringent system of laws then, as there are now. But if you wished to create a new magickal nation, with its own legalities and rules and its own, independent authority, it was considered polite to have the support of your peers. To act without it was to make a lot of people nervous, for what might you be planning to do? Melmidoc and Drystan skipped that part. The account, unfortunately, is not that useful, because the Redclover brothers could not be got hold of for comment. They’d disappeared, and so had the isle.’

Turn page ->

‘Where’s Jay?’ I said quickly.

‘He hasn’t said. But he will, if we agree to share what we know.’

‘Part of that pact you helpfully set up?’ I subjected Zareen to my best slitty-eyed stare.

‘Yes,’ she said, unperturbed. ‘And if he does know what’s become of Jay, then it probably was helpful, wasn’t it?’

I held up my hands in surrender, for Zareen’s words emerged icily, and her face was set in bitter lines. ‘What does he want in return?’

‘Everything we know about the Redclovers and the spire. But, he says he’s got more to share than just news of Jay. More about Millie, and others like her.’

‘He didn’t mention an isle?’

‘Not so far. I wanted to ask, but if he hasn’t heard about that yet I didn’t want to give him ideas. And he probably hasn’t, if he’s short of information about Melmidoc and Drystan.’

‘Maybe, but we don’t know that this island belonged to the Redclovers, or that they had control of it. Could be something else entirely.’

‘Could be. Ves, I know we’ve had this argument already but I really think joining forces with George would be to our mutual benefit. Right now we are groping around in the dark, trying to find stuff out for ourselves while also figuring out what they already know. Why not just cut the crap?’

I couldn’t deny that she had a point. But. ‘Zar, I hate to speak ill of your friend but he did try to kill us that one time.’

‘He said he’s sorry for trying to knock you off Addie.’

‘Good of him.’

‘He wasn’t really trying to, you know. He’s a deadly shot. If he’d wanted to kill you, he would have.’

‘Then why shoot at us at all?’ I remembered the day in question clearly: Jay had whisked us off to a new henge near Milton Keynes. We’d thought ourselves safe, but George Mercer and Katalin Pataki had followed. We had narrowly escaped upon the back of my beloved winged unicorn, while Mercer employed the most potent arts his Sardonyx Wand had to offer to knock us to the ground again. We’d been carrying Bill at the time, that was the crux of it: the very first book like Mauf, intelligent and communicative and packed with a dizzying amount of information. Everybody wanted him.

‘Ask him sometime,’ Zareen suggested.

‘Like when?’

‘Like at the Ashdown Castle Ball, which is tomorrow.’

So it was. I had forgotten about it. ‘I was really hoping to have Jay back by tomorrow.’

‘You might do. Who knows?’

I tried calling Jay again, with the same results as ever. Nothing. Failure to connect, and he had not read my messages.

I stared at the evidence of this in silence for a while. ‘Zar, how far do you have to go to get zero phone or internet service?’

‘Honestly? Not that far.’

I’d begun to wonder whether Millie had carted Jay off to, say, 1768, but Zar was right. Chuck him on a suitably remote mountaintop and the effect would likely be much the same.

But I hated not knowing. Above all things that I hate, it’s ignorance.

‘How could George know where Jay is?’ I asked.

‘He didn’t precisely say. He implied, though, that John Wester and Millie Makepeace aren’t the only examples of their peculiar capabilities and that Ancestria Magicka’s got a tame one.’

Hardly surprising, really. I’d guessed since the Greyer Cottage that they were after a pet Waymaster, preferably undead, and with the kinds of resources they had, of course they’d achieved it. In record time. While we were still flailing around, bumping into Millie Makepeace by accident.

Still, George wanted something from us. That meant we were ahead of them somewhere.

‘Here’s my counter-offer,’ I said crisply to Zareen. ‘I don’t just want to know where Jay is. I want him to take us there. If he’s got a tame walkabout house then that should be easy for him.’

Zareen gave me her weird, twisted smile. ‘Thought you’d say that.’ There followed a brief phone conversation in which she relayed this to Mercer, and soon rang off. ‘Deal,’ she told me. ‘If Jay’s not back by tomorrow, he’ll take us to him.’

I wondered whether that hadn’t been just a bit too easy, but I said nothing. Zar might be caught in a difficult position just now, but I trusted her. She might be chummier with Ancestria Magicka than I liked, but she would never betray the Society. Or me.

I hung onto that certainty with both hands.

We reached the Scarlet Courtyard just in time for dinner, which pleased my stomach greatly for (as I had begun to realise about halfway through the coach journey) we had managed to skip lunch.

Alas, food was not to be mine for a little while yet, because it turned out to be one of those occasions where everything happens at once.

Mrs. Amberstone met us as we trooped wearily through the hallway. She smelled enticingly of something that was probably pie. ‘Visitor for you, girls,’ she said. ‘Chap from the Society.’

Intriguing. ‘Thanks, Mrs. A. Whereabouts is he?’

‘Somewhere about the gardens. Seems restless.’

That did not bode well, but I tried not to worry about it as I traipsed upstairs with Zareen. I wanted a quick change of clothes and a drink of water before I dealt with the next problem.

Halfway up the stairs to our rooms, though, my pocket buzzed.

Got them from Val, Miranda had sent. Anything good in there?

I stopped dead, frozen with astonishment. I read it a couple of times, just to be sure, before I showed it to Zareen.

She said nothing. There was nothing to say.

I hauled the two books out of my shoulder-bag again and snapped a quick shot for Val.

It didn’t take long for her to reply. Where did you get those, and can I have them?

From Mir, I wrote back. Says she got them from you?

Those did not come from this library, Val replied.

I sat slowly down upon the steps and put my face in my hands, because as bad news went, this bordered upon awful. I was not quite so appalled as I would have been had it been Valerie or Zareen, or Rob, or Jay. But it was bad enough.

How far back did it go?

‘Why would Miranda lie about that?’ said Zareen. She’d joined me on the step, less because she was shocked, I suspected, than because she was exhausted.

‘I can only think of one reason. If those books didn’t come from our library and Mir’s concealing the source, then they came from someplace she should not have access to.’

Zareen just nodded, her head drooping wearily.

‘Shit,’ I muttered, and hauled myself to my feet again. The question of why Miranda had gone out of her way to put those books into our hands, even at the risk of discovery, could wait. First I had to find out who had come from the Society.

It was Rob, of course. We found him pacing about under the walnut trees at the back of Mrs. Amberstone’s garden, brow uncharacteristically clouded. He wore his customary dark shirt and trousers, and a dapper fedora over his dark curls. This last he took off, and rubbed a hand over his hair. The gesture looked unutterably weary.

‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he said as we approached. ‘I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.’

‘It’s Miranda, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘How did you know that?’ There was a tilt to his head and a wary quality to his voice that I did not like. Was this how it would be from now on? Would we all suspect each other?

‘Miranda’s been at somebody else’s library, and I suspect it’s Ancestria Magicka’s.’ I showed Rob the few messages she and I had exchanged, and the books themselves.

Rob just looked at them, and gave a soft sigh. ‘That’s it, then.’ He shook his head, and gave the books back to me. ‘Might as well get some use out of those before we have to give them back.’

I stashed them again.

‘How did you find out?’ said Zareen.

‘I told you there’s been a rash of Dappledok puppies turning up? Miranda kept going out to collect them, but wherever she was taking them, it wasn’t Home. That became clear about an hour ago. Then we realised she hadn’t come back at all from the last pickup, had left no word for anybody, and — and she’s taken several of the rarest beasts from the East Wing. At least, nobody knows where they are, so it’s the most likely explanation.’

It physically hurt to hear this. Miranda was a fixture at the Society, had been for almost as long as I’d been employed there. How could she? What was she thinking?

I saw some of the same questions written over Rob’s face. ‘Has anyone spoken to her?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘She hasn’t been answering her phone, or messages.’

‘She answered me,’ I said, already typing. Where are you? That’s all I put.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this message she did not answer.

‘Was it Mir, then, who told Ancestria Magicka about Bill?’ I said, trying to maintain my composure. ‘And put the tracker spell into the book?’

Rob shrugged. ‘Hard to say until someone gets hold of her, but it looks likely.’

‘But why?’ I could think of nothing else to say.

‘She’s always been so passionate about those beasts,’ said Rob, and as devastated as he was himself he was still kind enough to lay a comforting hand on my shoulder. ‘The Society has always had to follow Ministry policy there. Imagine how tempting it must have been to her, when Ancestria Magicka appeared. Money to do anything and everything necessary for her creatures, and the will to defy the Ministry if they deemed it important enough. Imagine what they must have promised her. And then you showed up with a Dappledok pup…’

I was gripped by a sudden fear. ‘Rob. My pup — or not my pup, but, you know — did Miranda take her as well?’

Rob nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Ves. There are no pups left at Home.’

‘Damnit, Miranda.’ I took a breath, and ruthlessly pulled myself together. ‘When we saw her this morning, she had a couple of unfamiliar kennel aides with her. I assumed they must be new recruits.’

‘As far as I know, not. We haven’t had any newcomers in the Beasts division lately.’

‘So they were probably from Ancestria Magicka.’

Rob nodded.

I realised Zareen was no longer with us. Looking around, I saw her several feet away, her phone to her ear. She had the tense, listening posture of a person hearing unwelcome news.

‘George Mercer,’ I said. ‘Bet that’s who she’s talking to. If Miranda’s been working for them these past weeks, he probably knew.’

‘And didn’t tell her?’ Rob winced in sympathy.

‘He wouldn’t, would he? But I think Zar believes he’s honest with her.’ Privately, I think she needed to believe that. Mercer was more important a figure in her world than he at all deserved to be, at least in my opinion.

‘Something doesn’t add up, though,’ I said, frowning. ‘Why did Mir get us those books?’

Rob thought that over. ‘I’ve known Miranda many years,’ he said after a while. ‘Whatever misdeeds she may have lately committed, I don’t believe she’s ruthless by nature, nor would betrayal have come easily to her. If she did put the tracker spell in your book, she probably thought her new allies would just steal it. She could never have meant for you or Jay to end up in harm’s way.’

‘So you think this is guilt?’ I slapped a hand against my shoulder-bag, where the purloined books lay.

Rob grimaced. ‘Something like that. More a desire to make amends, perhaps. And… just because she’s been helping Ancestria Magicka, doesn’t mean she’s become entirely disloyal to the Society.’

‘How good of her to help us,’ I muttered.

Rob gave me a sad smile, and I felt a bit guilty. But, then, Rob had heard this news a little sooner, and he’d had time to regain his composure. I hadn’t, yet, but I would get there.

‘Wait,’ I said, another thought breezing cheerily into my over-burdened head. ‘What about Lord Garrogin? He interviewed Mir, like the rest of us. Why didn’t he know?’

‘Those questions are being asked.’

Much good it would do us. Garrogin would deny all knowledge, and it might be the truth or it might not be.

I called the Baron.

It hurt so much, to have to tell him of Miranda’s treachery. He listened in silence, however, and when I raised Lord Garrogin’s name he became unusually grim.

‘Miranda’s not a sorceress or a witch or — or anything, Alban,’ I finished. ‘She doesn’t have a great deal of magick of her own. What she does have is a few charms and cantrips that keep her beasts calm and happy; a bit of healing magick; that kind of thing. Nothing, in short, that could help her to deceive a Truthseeker.’

‘Right,’ said the Baron, his voice wintry-cold. ‘Then he’s a turncoat, too.’

‘Looks like it.’

Baron Alban sighed. ‘Thanks, Ves. I’ll tell Their Majesties.’

Zareen came back, her face white and set. ‘We’re going to that party,’ she informed me.

‘Oh?’

‘And we may or may not be burning down the castle on our way out.’

Turn page ->

‘You know you don’t have to bargain, Ves,’ said Baron Alban in his lovely congenial way. ‘I am, as ever, happy to help.’

I beamed into the phone. ‘Well then, I’ll give you all the details over a pancake or something, but here’s the situation…’

Even the abbreviated version took me a couple of minutes to tell, time which Zareen spent roaming around inspecting the gathered coaches with some interest. They really were coaches, not the species of bus which is these days awarded that name: tall, bulky vehicles with huge wheels and big windows. The difference between these and the horse-drawn varieties of old was simply the lack of horse. There wasn’t a beast of burden in sight, and none of the coaches had traces to attach a horse to. They didn’t work that way.

Zareen was clearly intrigued.

‘Do you have any idea where the spire went?’ said the Baron as I finished my tale. He sounded rather urgent about it, too.

‘No, except that Melmidoc mentioned an “isle” a couple of times so I wonder if that’s where he was going. Before you ask, no, I don’t know anything more about it. He said nothing else of use.’

‘An isle,’ mused the Baron. ‘What does that book of yours say about it?’

‘I haven’t asked him yet. We’ve been busy with the business of getting out of here. But I was hoping to consult him on the coach-ride home.’

‘Ah,’ said the Baron, and I could almost see his eyes twinkling with amusement. ‘I perceive we come to the favour.’

‘If you could get us onto one of those coaches,’ I said, ‘we would be eternally grateful. Otherwise it’ll take us all day to get home, and that’s a monumental waste of time.’

‘Give me a moment.’ The Baron rang off.

I joined Zareen. ‘Never seen these before?’

She shook her head. ‘How do they move?’

‘Magick.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I guessed that, but—’

My phone rang, and I grabbed it. ‘Yes?’

‘Someone’ll be there to help you in a few minutes,’ said the Baron.

‘You’re a hero. Thank you.’

‘Don’t forget about that pancake date. I won’t.’ He hung up.

I beamed upon Zareen and gave a contented sigh. ‘It’s good to have friends,’ I told her.

‘Especially important ones?’

‘There are times when that’s useful.’

‘This being one of them. That I will grant you.’

A woman came towards us at that moment — seven feet tall if she was an inch — and looked Zareen and I over appraisingly. She wore a long dress of indeterminate period, a practical periwinkle-blue garment devoid of fuss or flounces, with the sleeves rolled up over her elbow. She said something in the lilting Welsh tongue.

‘I’m afraid we aren’t Welsh-speakers,’ I apologised.

Her scowl deepened. ‘I asked how did you two come to have Baron Alban at your beck and call?’

She did not seem pleased at the idea. ‘I helped him with a couple of problems,’ I offered.

Her brows went up. ‘Oh? And what were they?’

Clearly his orders weren’t quite enough to win us this woman’s goodwill. ‘Some of the Enclaves were endangered,’ I said briefly. ‘We were able to save most of them.’

Her face cleared. ‘The Blight? That was you? Then, ladies, it shall be my pleasure to put a coach at your disposal.’ To my mild embarrassment, she made us something of a bow. ‘I have a cousin at Baile Monaidh,’ she explained.

‘It was our pleasure to help,’ I said.

Our suddenly congenial hostess had us ensconced inside a comfortable coach within minutes, which was lucky because Zareen was beginning to look wan and peaky. Her admonishment about fussing and clucking in mind, I did not say anything about it, but I was privately glad that she’d have chance to sit down for a while. The seats were unusually plush, upholstered in something velvety and blue, and wide enough for Zareen to recline in an almost fully recumbent posture. She did so with studied casualness; I suspect it would’ve killed her to admit that she felt weak.

We thanked the coach mistress fervently and settled in for a long, but not too long, ride as the coach began to roll. We were set to be taken all the way back to Yorkshire, as near to the Scarlet Courtyard as the Troll Roads could take us.

Not quite as good as Waymastery, all told, but pretty close.

I opened up my shoulder bag and withdrew Gallimaufry. ‘Right, Maufy,’ I said, extracting my new book and Zareen’s from his clutching embrace. ‘What do you have to tell us?’

‘Good afternoon, Miss Vesper,’ said Mauf. ‘Upon which topic am I requested to enlighten you?’

I passed the pamphlet on the Stranger Arts to Zareen, who took it with a notable lack of enthusiasm. ‘Let’s begin with the isle. You’ve got the Redclover brothers’ journals, yes? Was there anything in there about an isle, or an island, or anything like that?’

Mauf lay inert and silent for a moment, thinking. Or consulting his records, or whatever it was he did. ‘No,’ he said at last.

‘Damnit.’

‘That is…’ He paused. ‘There was an entry towards the end of the journal which I had difficulty in deciphering, for large parts of it have been inked over. I am almost certain that one of the words in that particular section is “isle”, but it is impossible to decipher the sentence as a whole. I am very sorry, Miss Vesper.’

‘It isn’t your fault,’ I assured him, though I was inwardly cursing those guards back at Dapplehaven. They had taken the original copies of those books from us. I had thought nothing of it at the time, being supremely confident in Mauf’s ability to absorb any text that came in his way. I had reckoned without the possibility that some of it might not have been legible.

‘Still,’ said Zareen sleepily. ‘Interesting enough. Melmidoc wrote about it, then changed his mind and crossed it out. Why? Supposedly these were his personal journals.’

‘I suppose nothing stays personal when you’re a legend,’ I said. ‘And here is the proof of it. Hundreds of years later, and the likes of us are poking around trying to figure out what he was up to. He probably excited plenty of similar curiosity at the time.’

‘Mm, and he did not want any of those busy-bodies finding out about this island.’

‘So it’s a secret island. Better and better. Mauf, did you get much else out of the Dapplehaven books that seemed to be of interest?’

Mauf thought again, and while he did that I sent a sneaky text to Valerie. Well, why not? We weren’t technically working together just now, but that meant exactly nothing. She sent us books; I sent her info. Business as usual.

‘Melmidoc was certainly a Waymaster,’ Mauf began. ‘And a very powerful one. Drystan, however, is something of a mystery. His particular arts are not explicitly discussed anywhere in the journals, though there are hints and references enough to suggest that he, too, possessed unusually potent powers.’

Zareen’s eyes snapped open at that, and her gaze met mine. I could see she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Drystan was a mighty sorcerer but the brothers had some motive to keep the nature of his powers a secret?

‘Stranger Arts?’ I said.

‘Sounds like it,’ said Zareen. ‘And since this Waymastery business has been oddly bound up with the weird stuff all the way through, it figures.’

‘Mm.’ And an odd connection it was, too, for Waymastery and the Stranger Arts typically had little to do with one another — at least, these days. But I had to admit, the combination was proving to be a potent one. The two practices combined produced places like the Greyer Cottage and Millie Makepeace’s house, not to mention the Starstone Spire itself. Who wouldn’t want to run with that? Who could fail to be entranced by the possibilities?

Which put me in mind of something else. ‘Mauf, you’ve said before that the journals don’t specifically mention travelling through time. But is there anything to suggest that such an account might also be among those that were erased?’

‘I cannot say, Miss Vesper. The passages in question have been thoroughly excised.’

‘Whereabouts are they? The crossed-out parts.’

‘Clustered largely towards the end, with a few exceptions scattered throughout the latter half of the book.’

‘The last entries were in 1630?’

‘That is correct.’

And Melmidoc Redclover had vanished in 1630, for the final time, never to be seen again — as far as history has recorded, at any rate. What had prompted him to disappear? Why had he never come back?

Well — that wasn’t true. He had come back, because we had found him living (if his ghostly state could reasonably be termed such) in Nautilus Cove, still in his beloved home. So spire and Waymaster both had returned from wherever they’d gone to; but perhaps neither had ever returned to Dapplehaven.

Or had they? I remembered the spikes at the top of the hill, upon which the spire had once tended to rest. Jay and I had surmised that they were there to discourage the spire from settling there any longer; when had they been erected?

I shook my head, dissipating this string of thoughts. I had no answers as yet, and the spiralling questions were only confusing me. ‘What about Millie Makepeace’s diary?’ I asked Mauf.

‘Intriguing lady,’ Mauf answered, with a touch of amusement. ‘I am innocent of these disgraceful charges!’ he recited in a higher voice than his own, a woman’s voice. ‘To be sure, I attacked that foolish cook. Anyone would have done the same! She had put in far too much rind, and so bitter it was that I could not eat the pudding at all! It is not too much to expect of a cook, is it, that she should prepare a satisfactory orange-pudding? I threw the remainder, dish and all, at her foolish head, and she thoroughly deserved it! She screamed fit to bring the bricks tumbling around our ears, and made as though to come after me, but I was able to escape such vulgar treatment and retreated into the garden. Thus much is true. But I did not kill her! For though she is inept in the preparation of an orange-pudding, there is none to match her skill at bread-pudding, or carrot-pie. Was none, I should say, since the foolish woman is dead.’

‘Employer from hell,’ murmured Zareen.

‘The cook is said to have died from a wound to the head,’ said Mauf. ‘No further detail is given. Either, then, Miss Makepeace was assumed to have returned later to finish the deed with some other, suitably heavy object in hand as weapon; or perhaps the dish of orange-pudding did the job, and ‘twas confectionery that killed the cook.’

I suppressed an inappropriate desire to giggle. The poor cook. ‘I suppose it’s just possible that someone else bashed in the woman’s head?’ I suggested.

‘Quite possible,’ allowed Mauf. ‘But judging from the tone of her diaries I would conclude that Miss Makepeace was not of sound mind. She describes other violent episodes, and with a sublime lack of compunction.’

‘Wandering off the point, Ves,’ said Zareen. Her eyes had drifted shut again, but clearly she was still listening.

Right. Yes. It was a bit late to clear the name of Millie Makepeace, supposing she deserved it. She’d already been punished for the crime, and in a fashion that would normally prove awfully final. ‘The diaries end with her execution?’

‘The day before. You will be pleased to hear that she requested, and received, an orange-pudding as her final meal. One can only hope this one proved more satisfactory to her.’

‘Mauf. Please stop making me laugh. It is inappropriate, given the subject matter.’

‘Sorry, Miss Vesper,’ said the book, without a trace of discernible remorse.

I wondered why Val had sent the book down, in that case. Perhaps just on spec. She must’ve dug it up at some speed, to send it down with Miranda.

I sent her another note. Thanks for the books, by the way.

Her reply came back at once. What books? Working on the isle thing. Get back to you later.

What books? I blinked at the screen in confusion. The ones you sent with Mir?

Zero books sent with Miranda, came the reply.

I showed this to Zareen, whose face registered the same puzzlement. ‘I’m sure she said Val had given them to her.’

‘That’s what I thought, too.’

‘Maybe we just assumed that.’

‘Could be. Val is the usual source of books.’ But I felt a vague sense of disquiet.

I toyed with the idea of contacting Miranda. I’m not close to her in the same way as I am with Val, or Zareen. In either of the latter cases I’d whizz off a text without a second thought, but to pester Miranda like that felt more like some kind of encroachment. It wasn’t that Mir was unfriendly, but… she did not so much encourage hobnobbing.

I decided to try it anyway. I phrased a carefully-worded message idly enquiring where the books had come from, paired it with a bit of enthusiastic flattery as to their usefulness, and dispatched it. I was not surprised to find that no immediate reply came.

Something buzzed, but this time it wasn’t me. Zareen rolled her eyes and fished her phone out of some obscure pocket. ‘Tired,’ she said laconically. ‘Better be important.’

She listened, and as she did so her face clouded over. Then she became, suddenly, alert. ‘What? Where is he? You haven’t hurt him, have you?’ She listened a moment more, then said: ‘Fine, I’m sorry, but how do you know all this?’ After that, she was silent for so long, I could hardly bear it. Who did she mean by he, and who was she talking to? What had made her frown like that?

Finally, she said a curt, ‘Right. Thank you,’ and chucked her phone onto the coach seat. Her eyes were narrowed, and she still said nothing, nor looked at me at all.

‘Zar,’ I said at last, in what I hoped was a voice of cool composure but came out rather strained. ‘Do tell.’

‘George,’ she said. ‘Knows where Jay is, or so he claims. He knows about Millie Makepeace, somehow, too. He wants to exchange information.’

Turn page ->

‘We have to get out,’ I said, turning from the spire’s burning window. I was halfway to the stairs before I realised Zareen was not following.

She stood in the centre of the room, and there was a set look to her face that I recognised. Her skin was turning bone-white, and her eyes filling with black…

‘Zar!’ I snapped, and ran back to her. ‘No! What did you just say to me?’

‘I said “times of great need”, and this would be one of them.’

‘Within reason. Zar, I’d love to save this building but not at your expense. Come on.’ I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her, but she shook off my hand.

‘All I’m doing is waking Melmidoc,’ she said, and her voice turned dark and whispery. ‘If he’s still home. Then we’ll go, I promise.’

I would have argued, but my attention was caught by the flames that licked at the window’s little panes of glass. For the most part it was your regular, common-or-garden variety of fire but there was a flicker to it that seemed odd.

‘Purple,’ I blurted.

Zareen didn’t blink.

‘Hold on, Zar! I don’t think this is the demolition crew after all.’ I ran to the window, pulling the sleeves of my lightweight cream cardigan over my hands. It did not do much to protect my hands, so I had to work fast as I unbolted the window and shoved it wide open. At great risk to life, limb and my primrose-coloured hair (Yes, Jay, I know I’m an idiot) I stuck my head out into the fresh morning air and took in a gulping breath.

A dark, draconic shape swooped past.

‘Archie!’ I bellowed.

The dragon slowed, but not, as it turned out, because he had heard me. He flew in a smooth arc and swooped down upon the hapless spire once more, fire streaming from his open maw.

‘Archibald!’ I bawled. ‘Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?!’

He heard me that time. To my relief, the stream of fire flowing from his jaws slowed to a wisp or two of flame, then stopped altogether. ‘Who?’ I heard him say as he soared past, purple scales shining in the light of the fires he’d set.

I informed him who I was, at volume, and with some asperity.

He returned to hover gracelessly near the window, and peered at me. ‘I remember you,’ he said.

‘I should hope so! What will the next Mayor of Dapplehaven say when he hears you’ve been attacking the spire?’

Archibald brightened at that. ‘He’s here?’

‘No, not just now, but he will be joining us later.’ I hoped that last part wouldn’t turn out to be a lie. ‘He would be most disappointed, Archie. Why would you attack Melmidoc and Drystan’s home?’

‘I thought you were here to destroy it,’ he said in an injured tone. ‘Some people are coming to take it down. A Redclover told me. She said I should come here and burn anybody who gets near the spire.’

That must be what Mabyn had meant when she’d said she had “set something in motion”. To be fair to her, she hadn’t known at the time that Zareen and I would be here. ‘She was right,’ I told Archie. ‘There are some people coming to ruin Melmidoc’s home, but it isn’t us. We’re here to stop them.’

‘Oh.’

‘So no more fires, all right?’

Archibald tasted the air with his long, slithery tongue. Since no more gouts of fire were forthcoming, I took this gesture for assent.

The smoke was beginning to choke me and those licking flames were just a touch unnerving, so I devoted the next couple of minutes to summoning a nice smatter of rain. When I had water pouring suitably out of the cloudless sky, and the flames were winking out with dampened, hissing noises, I turned back to Zareen.

To my relief, she had stopped whatever it was she had been preparing to do. Her eyes were normal again, and her face was regaining some colour. I did not quite like the look of her satisfied smile, though.

‘Zar, you didn’t…?’

‘I was about to stop!’ she said. ‘Promise! Only I’d already found Melmidoc by then.’

Slumbering in great comfort beneath an old favourite stone, said a voice, in deep, earthy tones that rumbled up from the starstones themselves. And she hath had the temerity to disturb me.

‘But it was necessary,’ said Zareen. ‘Did you not say so, a moment ago?’

If my spire is aflame then perhaps it was, admitted Melmidoc.

‘The fire’s under control now,’ I put in, but at the same time as I spoke there came a gasp from Archibald and he bellowed, ‘Mel!’

Silence, for a moment, and then the stones rumbled: Is that Archibaldo? He pronounced it ark-i-bal-doe.

‘MEL!’ screamed Archibaldo. There followed a great, crashing thud, and the graceful, delicate spire rocked upon its foundations. The dragon had thrown himself at the wall in his enthusiasm, and bounced off. More or less.

Hold, Archibaldo! shouted the stones of the spire. Contain this unseemly jubilation! We are aged, and cannot withstand such an onslaught.

‘Sorry!’ panted Archibaldo. ‘But Mel! MEL!’

That is my name, or some little piece of it. It is good to see that you live, old friend.

‘I do!’ said Archie, and then remembered his purpose. ‘Mel, some people are coming to destroy your house! We have to go!’

What? snapped Melmidoc. Archie proceeded to give a somewhat garbled account of the imminent danger to the spire, elucidated by my interpolations. I expected anger from Melmidoc and some kind of urgency, but he gave only a long, weary sigh. I see.

‘We go!’ crowed Archie. ‘Back to the isle! It’s been so long, I wonder if Drys is still there? And the others? Can we go now?’

We do not go to the isle, said Melmidoc, cutting off Archie’s warbles of delight.

‘But why not?’ said Archie, crestfallen.

We do not go anywhere, Archibaldo. It is high time I departed this world.

I mentally reviewed the obstacles presently facing our stated mission. A Ministry rabid for the destruction of ancient and irreplaceable buildings; our Waymaster missing and incommunicado; Dappledok pups popping up left, right and centre; historic buildings wandering about through space and time, piloted by homicidal maniacs; and now a suicidal ghost.

It’s never dull at the Society, I can tell you.

‘Please reconsider,’ I begged Melmidoc. ‘Your home is valuable beyond measure, and we came here to save it.’

Not everything can be saved, nor should it be.

‘And we would have speech with you,’ I continued, and paused. Apparently Melmidoc’s slightly antiquated articulation was rubbing off on me. ‘There’s so much you know, so much you’ve done! All those wonderful creatures, this spire, the — oh, and what is the isle? Please don’t leave us just yet, not when we’re just getting to know you.’

Flattery softens the hardest of hearts, it’s sometimes said, and I’ve broadly found it to be true. Melmidoc wavered. I judged this from the long pause that followed, and a creaking among the stones of the spire that sounded, in some odd way, thoughtful.

My achievements, said Melmidoc at last. Spurned and reviled by those that named themselves authorities! We retreated to the isle, but they could not let us have even that.

‘The isle?’ I prompted again.

But Melmidoc did not answer. He lapsed into a brooding silence, leaving Zareen and I to exchange an uncertain glance. What more could we, or should we, do?

‘I bet Drys is still there,’ came Archibaldo’s voice from the window. ‘I miss him. Can we go and see him?’

I wonder if he is, said Melmidoc, in so low a whisper I almost failed to catch it.

Then the spire began to move. Not smoothly, like a car drifting into motion, but with a swaying, lumbering sensation — as though it had literally grown legs and walked away. I fell against the window and clutched it, white-knuckled, aghast at how close I had come to falling out.

A glance through the shattered panes — when had that happened? — revealed that we were not in Nautilus Cove anymore. A forest lay spread before us, predominantly composed of coniferous trees, with the glitter of still water somewhere ahead.

Another great, wrenching lurch of movement and the forest was replaced by the rugged slopes of a mountainside. Melmidoc was moving the spire after all, but not the way Jay did, from starting point to destination in one smooth(ish) hop. He bounced from place to place, darting about like a hyperactive bird, settling only briefly in each spot before dashing off to the next.

Interesting.

‘Steady!’ I yelled, as with another gigantic step of Melmidoc’s I was almost turfed out of the window again.

This proved to be a mistake, for he stopped so abruptly that I was thrown the other way, and sent sprawling onto the stone-tiled floor. Ah, said Melmidoc. Yes.

And with those two laconic syllables, a violent wind blew up in the space of an indrawn breath, and sent me whirling out of the window into chilly fresh air. Something caught me halfway down; I felt a sensation like invisible fingers closing around my middle, and my precipitate fall slowed dramatically. I landed in mossy grass, quite gently, and Zareen joined me a moment later.

We both watched in crestfallen silence as the glorious spire gathered itself and jumped away, leaving us behind.

‘Well,’ I said after a while. ‘We saved it.’

Zareen just grunted.

I scrutinised her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

I peered. The shadows had deepened under her eyes; she looked like she hadn’t slept for a week.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Ves. I love you, but I did not confide in you so you could start your mother hen routine on me.’

I opened my mouth to object, but she forestalled me. ‘Don’t deny it! You cluck and fuss and it’s sweet that you care, but I don’t need it.’

Unsure what to say, I maintained an abashed silence.

This, perhaps, made Zareen just a touch guilty, for she relented and said: ‘I’ll be fine, I promise.’

I gave her a Miranda-style mini-salute, and turned my attention to the problem of where we had ended up.

We were no longer in Nautilus Cove, that was for certain. The pearly sea was gone, as was the frondy slopes that had led down to it. We had been plonked down in the middle of a wide expanse of clover-studded grass — indeed, in the grass versus clover wars the latter was winning by a mile. Nothing much beckoned upon the horizon, until I turned, and discovered the outlines of a town not too far distant. Dainty white clover blossoms carpeted the ground, but I detected a break in the otherwise ceaseless vegetation nearby, which proved to be a road. A handsome, well-kept one, too, very wide, and paved in clean white stones.

Zareen and I stepped onto it and began a brisk walk in the direction of the town. ‘I think…’ I mused as we walked. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t like to say that I’m sure, but I think I know where we are.’

‘Really.’ Zareen’s voice dripped with scepticism.

‘It’s the clover,’ I explained. I bent and plucked a leaf to show Zareen. ‘They all have four leaves, or five.’

Her brows snapped down at that. ‘Don’t tell me we’re in Ireland.’

‘Oh, no! I know shamrocks and leprechauns are often grouped together but that’s a circumstantial tie, there is no actual link. And anyway, the shamrock has three leaves, not four. We’re actually in Wales. If I’m right, we’re in the Glannyd Ceiriog Troll Enclave, and that town is Glannyd Pendry.’

‘Lovely,’ said Zareen. ‘And where in all of Wales is that?’

I had to think about that for a moment. ‘Um, the Ceiriog Valley, as I recall, is in northern Wales.’

‘How far from home?’

I didn’t have to think about that at all. ‘Far.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Don’t worry. I have a plan.’

I really did, and it wasn’t even one of my crazy plans (as Jay would put it). It goes back to that sort of-date I had with the Baron the other week — the one where he’d whisked me off to Rhaditton for a pancake breakfast? I’d had little to do with the Troll Roads before, because they’re not open to anyone who isn’t, well, a troll. Or escorted by one with serious privileges. But now that I knew they were a) there, b) genuinely amazing, and c) not absolutely one-hundred-percent off-limits to non-trolls, I’d do my level best to make use of them more often.

Only in an emergency, though, which this rather was.

The town of Glannyd Pendry is one of those that drips money. I don’t quite know how, for the Ceiriog Valley isn’t exactly central and there is little real footfall up there. It’s one of those that had a greater prominence in some past age and, unlike many others, managed to hold onto its prosperity. Anyway, we approached a town bristling with large, handsome, troll-sized buildings, most of them made out of the same clear white stones as the road we’d come in on. They were dazzling in terms of their architecture, all pediments and columns and huge, glittering windows. The air smelled of clover nectar, on the outskirts, but as we travelled deeper into the town that faded away in favour of one of my favourite aromas: that of good things to eat. I could have cheerfully stayed for a week.

Pity that we did not have that kind of time.

We attracted a little attention as we sauntered, with our best attempt at nonchalance, through the wide, well-kept streets, for there were many citizens abroad, but besides ourselves there were few humans. Always on the short side, I felt positively dwarfed in comparison to the good trolls of Glannyd Pendry, for not a one of them stands an inch less than six and a half feet, and plenty of them are rather taller. I felt like a child again: short, and lost in a confusing sea of perambulatory trees.

I had hoped to be able to find my way back to the coach-stop unaided, but being me this proved impossible. In my defence, it must’ve been at least five years since my last visit to the town. I stopped a couple of the more friendly-looking passers-by, and with their (slightly begrudging) help Zar and I arrived at a positively enormous coaching inn within half an hour of entering the town.

Whereupon I called the good Baron.

‘Alban,’ I said as his voice came upon the line. ‘I have a deal of interesting information to share, and quite the story to tell, but in exchange I’m in need of a little help.’

Turn page ->

All right, usually I love travelling by unicorn.

I tend to assume that Addie knows her way from everywhere to anywhere, which, as it turns out, is far too much to expect of the poor girl. Also, as anyone who’s ever taken more than an occasional leisurely hack across the countryside will tell you, the delights of being on horseback tend to wane after a certain point. Zareen and I made the long journey to Norfolk in a state of increasingly grim determination, wrestling with mobile navigation systems which had no idea that Nautilus Cove even existed.

I might have been ungenerous enough to curse Jay and his inconvenient absence, but that was only while I was still airborne, gritting my teeth against the surprisingly cold wind while my hair blew into my mouth and my derriere voiced vociferous complaints about its treatment at my uncaring hands. Once Addie brought us down on a quiet little slip of a beach along the Norfolk coast and we were able to dismount — and once the warmer air down there had somewhat thawed out my face — I lost all desire to eviscerate Jay and was able to remember that I was worried about him.

I checked my phone. Nothing.

Patting Addie’s steaming neck, I whispered foolish compliments into her ears and promised her the biggest bag of chips she had ever seen in her life, just as soon as I made it to a chippie. She rolled her eyes at me and wandered off, her shadowy friend trotting amiably in her wake.

‘Right, then,’ I said, looking up and down the deserted beach. The greyish sea lapped apathetically at the rocky sand, a few clouds hung listlessly in a patchy blue sky, and behind us a cliff rose vertically to an unscaleable height. ‘Addie?’ I called. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know how to get in?’ I cursed myself for not having paid more attention on the way out, a few days before. Riding with the baron had proved to be a distracting experience.

I had not really expected a response, but a moment later Zareen said: ‘Up there!’ and pointed a ways back along the beach.

Something was glittering upon the sheer cliff face. Fittingly, it shone in rainbow colours.

We went that way.

The glow was coming from a sliver of jagged crystal embedded into the otherwise drab rock. When I touched it, the colours faded, leaving it an unremarkable chunk of opaque white stone. But the world shifted around me and dissolved, and when everything stopped spinning I was on another, whiter, pearlier beach, and the sea had gone all iridescent. Nautilus Cove.

I mentally doubled Addie’s upcoming chip rations.

Zareen materialised a moment later and stood smiling for a moment, taking great inhalations of the balmy air. It did smell rather heavenly, come to think of it — like the brightest, freshest sea air mingled with something flowery. I couldn’t see any flowers, but one doesn’t question things like that when one is prancing through a magickal dell. It’s the way they are.

I’d had a private, lingering fear that we might return to find the Striding Spire had, somehow, gone. Stridden Off, in the way that it used to, or perhaps been somehow relocated by an indignant Ministry. But it hadn’t. The clear, white beach gave way to an expanse of sleek, jade-coloured grass dotted with frondy bits (botany is not among my specialities). In the near distance the ground began a steep climb up into some rolly hills, and halfway up those was the spire. I hadn’t previously had occasion to see it from this perspective, and the sight was breath-taking. So graceful a building! Tall and slender, crowned with an elegantly sloping roof (I’d seen as much as I wanted to of that part), its windows glinted gently in the sunlight and its pale walls displayed a hint of the bluish radiance that would come in with the twilight.

‘The Redclovers had style,’ Zareen said.

They certainly did. ‘Why, then, is it abandoned out here?’ I mused aloud. ‘If you’d built something that lovely, why would you ever leave?’

‘The passage of four hundred years is neither here nor there, I suppose?’

I strode off in the direction of the spire, my boots swishing through the crisp grass. ‘Not with these people. Their bodies may have died long ago but I doubt they went far after that. I’m willing to bet that the spire had a Waymaster-in-residence, John Wester-style, for a long time, and maybe it still does.’

‘So that’s what Jay had in mind?’

‘Yes. Especially after Millie. Wester obviously wasn’t some kind of a fluke, and if there have been more of them — why not Melmidoc?’

‘You saw no sign of him before?’

‘He’s an old man. He fell asleep over his newspaper a hundred and ten years ago, and has yet to wake up.’

Zareen grinned. ‘Right, then. Let’s go rattle his door handles and throw stones at the windows.’

My previous visit to the spire had been only a few days prior, but I found a much-changed building when we went inside. Rattling the doorknobs proved unnecessary, as the door was unlocked. And why not? There was nothing left in there, nothing at all. The kitchen on the ground floor was reduced to a collection of aged wooden counters, probably left in situ because they were both unlovely and (I imagined) heavy. The bright, circular room near the top which had previously held all the accoutrements of a comfortable living space was completely empty. The chairs were gone, the knick-knacks and ornaments, and above all, the books. All of them.

Someone had cleaned, for not a speck of dust floated up as Zareen and I tramped up the winding stairs. That was nice, I supposed.

‘They did a thorough job,’ Zar said as we stood in the doorway of the Redclover brothers’ decimated library.

‘I wonder why.’ I was wondering that pretty hard. Taking the books I could understand, even if I was disappointed. They were a valuable resource, and were liable to be damaged if left uncared for on such remote shelves. But the furniture?

I felt that unwelcome but sadly familiar sensation of foreboding.

Jay and I made the acquaintance of Mabyn Redclover during our previous investigation of the Dappledok pups, a spriggan who was somewhere high-up in the Forbidden Magicks division of the Hidden Ministry. I blessed my forethought in making sure to secure her number, and called it.

‘Ms. Redclover, Forbidden Magicks.’ Mabyn’s voice came crisply over the line.

‘Mab. It’s Ves. I’m at the spire, but nothing much else is.’

‘I was going to call you this afternoon,’ said Mabyn, and she sounded grim. ‘The Ministry finished emptying the building day before last. There was a bloodbath over the books, as you may imagine, with strong competition from the Troll Court to secure them. In the end they split the books, but the Ministry took everything else. I’ve only just found out why. It’s scheduled for demolition, Ves, and soon. They want it gone, no delay.’

‘I thought it must be something like that,’ I said. ‘Any idea why?’

‘None whatsoever. I’ve spent the whole morning trying to get an audience with the right people and I’ve largely failed. They won’t talk to me. I was reduced to loitering in the hallways hoping to run into the Chief or Vice-Chief Ministers. Well, I did see Honoria Goodenough — that’s the Vice-Chief — but she said I’m too close to the situation and wouldn’t listen to me. Just because I’m a Redclover! It’s not like I have any real connection to a pair of Redclovers from four hundred years ago. I tried to argue that it’s a rare and precious example of seventeenth-century magickal architecture and its starstone composition ought to be enough to secure instant and eternal protected status but she wasn’t having it. Nor would she tell me why. I’m sorry, Ves. There’s nothing more I can do.’

I hadn’t known Mabyn for very long, but long enough to learn that it was unlike her to gabble. She was genuinely upset. ‘It’s all right, Mab. I’m glad you tried. Do you know when it’s due to be demolished?’

‘They’ve kept that information from me. What do they expect me to do, throw myself in front of the demolition force? It’s ridiculous. But it’ll be soon. As in, possibly this week. I have set something in motion which I hope will delay them, but I don’t know if it can be there in time. I’m sorry, Ves.’

‘Right. Don’t worry, we’ll fix this.’ I hung up.

Zareen’s face was grave as I relayed Mabyn’s news, but she spoke composedly. ‘That ties in with our suspicions, doesn’t it? This building’s completely unique and irreplaceable. If they’re willing to wreck it anyway, that more or less confirms that it’s been used for something they’d consider seriously questionable.’

‘More than that. They think it could be used the same way again.’

Zareen was nodding emphatically. ‘Jay’s not the only one who thinks Melmidoc’s still here.’

‘Yes, but I’m wondering how he arrived at that conclusion. I was hoping for just such an outcome last time I was here, but I swear, I felt not a flicker of a presence. Does it take a Waymaster to spot another? Jay’s rather discouraged that idea, but in that case, why was he in a hurry to come back?’

‘I know that look.’ Zareen eyed me with sour suspicion. ‘You want me to do something, don’t you?’

I might have been wearing the pleading eyes, at that. I hastily composed my face. ‘Those Stranger Arts you aren’t supposed to talk about? Could you somehow sense a spirit presence, even if it’s dormant?’

‘Or determined to hide from me? I don’t know.’ Zareen looked annoyed, for no reason I could understand. Then she sighed, and passed a hand over her eyes. It occurred to me that she was looking tired, dark shadows etched under her deep brown eyes. Her shimmery green eyeshadow did a fine job of deflecting attention from them. She hesitated, apparently struggling with herself. ‘Look, Ves,’ she finally said. ‘The Stranger Arts — or the Weird Stuff — it’s not quite like your magick. It… takes a toll. I’m not supposed to talk about it partly because I’m not supposed to use it, except at great need. And there are good reasons for that.’

‘What kind of a toll?’

A deep frown clouded Zareen’s brow. I almost hadn’t wanted to ask, for the matter clearly troubled her. But if it was important…

‘It’s to do with Mauf’s bright idea about the… amplifying effects of… of—’ she stopped. ‘Look, if all power corrupts, let’s just say that some kinds of power corrupt faster than others. And the link isn’t as clear-cut as Mauf, or those wannabe scholars, suggested. If I get too immersed in the weird stuff, I… it changes me. I feel a need to do some terrible things, Ves, and if I give in to them… I will be more powerful. Only for a short time, of course. It’s like a hit of caffeine, or steroids. When it wears off, you feel as weak as a newborn kitten, and to add to the fun it’s like the worst kind of withdrawal you can experience — crack is nothing to it—’ She stopped again, her expression turning wary. She’d said more than she meant to.

For a moment, I was too shocked to speak. This was a glimpse into Zareen’s daily life, and her past as well, that I’d never before been offered.

She (and George Mercer) had expended considerable power and effort to exorcise the spirits of the Greyers and John Wester from the Greyer cottage. After that, she’d gone quiet for twenty-four hours — I hadn’t seen her, or heard anything from her. At the time, I thought nothing of it. Zareen and I were friends, but not to the extent that we talked every day, or kept tabs on each other all the time. Now I wondered what had been going on with her during those hours of silence.

I looked at the shadows under her eyes with a new understanding.

‘I didn’t know,’ I said at last.

Zareen shrugged. ‘The School of Weird isn’t just a special school for people with our abilities. It’s also a kind of quarantine, a help centre, a support group and rehab all rolled into one. It needs to be.’

That also explained her enduring link with George Mercer. He understood her in ways Jay and I never could, and they must’ve shared so much… I resolved never to tease or poke her about that friendship ever again.

And I understood what she had not said, at least not in so many words. After her efforts at the Greyer cottage, she needed time to recover, to rebalance herself. She couldn’t afford to drown in the Stranger Arts again so soon.

I remembered the way the whites of her eyes had filled in with black, and shuddered inwardly.

‘Right then,’ I said briskly. ‘How else can we wake up Mr. Redclover?’

‘Throwing stones at the windows is out?’ Zareen gave a weak smile.

‘If he slept through the removal of the entire contents of the building, I’d say we need something a little more potent.’ I thought hard.

I came up with nothing.

‘Maybe we could—’ began Zareen, but the rest of her sentence was drowned out by a terrific roar that sounded from outside — somewhere close. The spire’s glorious starstones shook under the force of it.

Zareen and I ran to the window, just in time to see a gout of crackling fire lance across the sky.

‘That’s dragon-fire!’ shouted Zareen.

Another blast of fire followed seconds later, and this one hit the window. The window-frame caught and flames roared cheerfully to life, blocking the sunlight and casting dancing patterns across the floor of the tower. The reek of smoke filled my nostrils.

‘Mabyn was wrong,’ I said tightly. ‘The demolition isn’t just this week. It’s today.’

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