free fantasy serial

‘I’m a butterfly,’ I said in wonder.

No, I didn’t. I tried to speak, but seeing as I was lacking the right mouth parts, nothing much emerged.

I was also wrong, as soon became apparent, for no butterfly had gnarly, greeny-browny, webby toes and a fierce hunger for fresh, juicy flies.

‘I’m a toad,’ I said. ‘With wings.’ No words emerged that time either, but my tongue did. It went a long, long way out, and returned with a fly stuck to its tip.

I didn’t want to swallow that fly, but I did.

Yuck.

Pros to the situation: me and my bosom companions (and Miranda) were no longer pinned at the edge of the hilltop of Mount Vale, a steep drop behind us and an angry mob before us. We were airborne; soaring through the dulcet skies; wafted upon wings wrought of Orlando’s weird magick. (Did it have to be a toad, Orlando? Really?)

The cons? Those same dreamy skies happened to be filled with a swarm of griffins, recently released from slavery and absolutely hopping mad.

‘Orlando!’ I screamed (in my head) as I ducked the advances of the nearest griffin, tumbling head-over-wings in my haste to escape its snapping beak. Boy, do those things look big when you’re that small. ‘This is not my idea of good luck!’ I only belatedly recalled that Orlando hadn’t said anything about good luck. The word he had used had been chaos.

To say the least.

I risked a glance around, first chance I got, and was not reassured. A wooden bucket full of soapy water drifted past me; had to be one of us, surely, but who? Jay, Em or Mir? At least they weren’t edible. On my other side, though, was an oversized fairy cake, unusually buoyant, and doubtlessly delicious; and beyond that, a small memorandum book, covers flapping like wings, its pages rapidly turning damp and soggy in the never-ending drizzle.

The bucket up-ended itself, pouring its load of soap and water out onto the ground far below. Then it darted in my direction, and scooped me up.

I fell into the bucket’s depths with a plop.

All right, so I couldn’t see a thing, and had to just trust that the bucket was the current shape of someone I knew and trusted. But! Woodish bucket walls are griffin-proof.

I permitted myself a small sigh of relief — and narrowly avoided a squashing as the fairy cake hurtled down upon me from above, followed by the memorandum book.

Looking at the former, I became painfully aware of gnawing hunger. When was the last time we had remembered to eat? And look at the thing! Fat, curvaceous, positively drowning in icing that smelled of peaches—

‘Ves?’ said the book, somehow, but it was addressing the cake, not the winged toad.

I mean, of course it was. If I’d had a choice, I would have gone for the cake, and never mind the consequences.

Griffins probably don’t even like cake, anyway.

I made some small attempt at a response, but that being as successful as my earlier efforts I gave up, and sat catching my breath while the book did its level best to engage the cake in conversation.

…Did I just say that?

Our adventures don’t get any more sensible, do they?

Some little time later, our courteous bucket-escort made a graceful dive, and carefully emptied us all out onto the ground again. There was grass under me, my exquisitely sensitive toes were quick to discern, but more than that I could not have said. The world was too big to admit of greater detail; everything beyond about three inches distant was a vague, green blur.

We sat there, the bucket, the book, the cake and I, and waited.

It was Jay who regained his usual form first. He’d been the bucket, not much to my surprise. I knew it was Jay, because the grass before my nose was abruptly obscured by a bluish haze I recognised after a moment as denim. Jay’s leg, encased in jeans.

‘Hi,’ I didn’t quite say.

Jay squinted down at us. ‘Ves?’ he said.

He was talking to the cake.

I waved a leg at him, and stuck out my tongue.

In another moment I was Ves-shaped-and-sized again, and having not had the sense to back up before my sudden transformation I found myself practically in Jay’s lap when it happened.

‘Ahem,’ I said, scooting backwards. ‘Welcome back, Mr. Bucket.’

‘At least it was practical,’ he said, frowning at me.

‘I had wings! It could have been worse. I could have been a flying fairy cake.’

Both of us looked at the cake, and then the book, wondering which was which.

I tell you what, if the cake had turned out to be Miranda I might have gutted her on the spot for the pure insult of it all.

Fortunately for her, the cake wriggled and wiggled and exploded into Emellana.

Two minutes later, the memorandum book (having sat impatiently shuffling its pages for some time) became Miranda, and there we were. She still had the pup in her arms, to my relief (what had Goodie been in this scenario, the bookmark…? I abandoned the question as it made my brain hurt).

‘Where’s Addie?’I said, seized by sudden panic.

Everyone looked wildly around, but no one came back with a response.

I remembered Wyr’s final words. How about we take that unicorn as payment? I had last seen her racing in Miranda’s direction, but what if Wyr had somehow intercepted her?

‘Hang on,’ said Jay, looking hard at Miranda (who lay prone, white with exhaustion and virtually insensible. I smothered a faint twinge of pity laced with guilt, for who had given her the task of shepherding all those griffins to freedom? Me, that’s who). Jay reached over and touched the shoulder of Miranda’s jumper. I detected the glint of metal.

It was a pin badge, the kind certain people wear on flat-caps. This one, though, was a tiny, dancing unicorn.

‘That’s not mine,’ said Miranda, frowning in puzzlement.

‘Let me have it,’ I said.

Mir carefully detached the badge, and dropped it into my hand. It lay in my palm, inert.

I put it on the ground, and took out my pipes.

‘Quickly, Ves,’ said Jay. ‘We need to be gone.’

I nodded. He didn’t have to tell me. We may have evaded Wyr and his lynch-mob but it wouldn’t take them long to figure out where we must be. Jay had taken us straight back to the henge-point through which we’d first arrived — courtesy of Wyr.

I played Adeline’s song on my little skysilver pipes — and suffered a severe shock. The music rang out, impossibly loud, amplified in both volume and magick beyond anything reasonable. Magick vibrated in my bones, shimmered behind my eyes, and gave me a blinding headache.

The badge at my feet didn’t so much melt back into Adeline’s warm, live shape as erupt into it. I was lucky I didn’t blow her to bits with my magick.

I stopped playing, and stuffed the pipes back into my bra, trying to look nonchalant.

No such luck. Jay, Emellana and Miranda were staring at me like I’d grown a second head.

Giddy gods, what if I had?

I checked. Just the one head.

All right, then.

‘So are we going?’ I said, and gestured towards the stone circle that stood quietly awaiting our getting our act together. I leaned carefully upon Addie, hoping it would look like affection and not like my knees were trembling so badly I knew I would fall over.

‘That tail you had is gone,’ said Jay, staring still at me. ‘And the flowers in your hair.’

‘And the hay,’ said Emellana.

She and I looked at each other. Emellana, ancient beyond reason and somehow unaffected by the magick of Vale.

And me, a spring chicken by her standards, but so overflowing with magick that Vale could no longer touch me.

‘It’s been an interesting day,’ I said.

Emellana’s smile was wry. ‘Let’s get these two out of here,’ she said.

Great thinking, for Jay’s eyes had turned gold (I hadn’t wanted to mention it), and Miranda, having slowly but steadily shrunk for the past ten minutes, looked likely to turn into a spriggan before my very eyes.

‘Are you okay to drive?’ I asked Jay.

He narrowed his weird, bright golden eyes at me, only now they were smoky-silver and swirling like clouds. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Because you’re… never mind. Let’s just go.’

A short, turbulent while later, we were back in Scarborough, trudging down the hill from the henge-complex. Night had fallen with a crash, and Jay’s eyes really stood out in the darkness, I can tell you. They ceased gleaming after a while, though, and Mir regained her usual size. We were fine.

I, though, was still fizzing with magick. Outside of Vale, I noticed it rather more.

It itched.

‘I wonder,’ said I, halfway down the hill, ‘if Orlando has more of those panic buttons.’

‘I can’t say that the toad shape quite suited you,’ said Jay.

‘I can ask him for an adjustment.’

Miranda said nothing. I looked sideways at her without seeming to, noting the wan look of her, and her stumbling walk. Emellana, unruffled still, was visibly flagging, and Jay had the grim expression and purposeful walk of a man too dog-tired to dare let it show. Even Addie walked with drooping nose, her hoofs clicking softly on the pavement, and the pup had fallen asleep in Miranda’s arms long ago.

I knew how they felt, because I had felt the same an hour or two ago.

But that was before.

Now I felt fine. Now, I felt great. I was overflowing with energy, buzzing with purpose, lively beyond all conceivable reason, and my hunger was gone. I, Cordelia Vesper, hadn’t eaten all day and I didn’t want a thing. Not even a pancake.

Something was deeply wrong.

‘You okay, Ves?’ said Jay after a while.

I curtailed the jauntiness of my walk, and slowed my steps to match his. ‘Fine!’ I carolled.

‘I can see that.’

I felt rather than saw him exchanging a look with Emellana.

‘We’ll need food and sleep,’ I said briskly — remembering to say we instead of you.

‘We need to go home,’ said Jay.

‘What? No! We aren’t finished here. We still haven’t found out what became of Torvaston and Co, and what about the scroll-case?’

‘Later,’ said Jay. ‘We need to go home.’

‘But we’re fine. A solid night’s sleep and a hot meal—’

‘Ves,’ Jay interrupted. ‘You look like you could run a marathon at a sprint, climb Mount Vale, swim the channel and still be ready for more. Forgive me, but that is not like you.’

‘I—’

‘Ves.’

‘Yes?’

Jay stopped walking, and took my arm, forcing me to stop too. ‘You’re not fine.’

I swallowed. ‘I’ll be all right.’

‘Once we get you home. We need to find out just what the lyre did, and… mend the effects.’

‘You know what the lyre did. I told you.’

‘Turned you into some kind of human griffin? That doesn’t even make sense.’

‘Think of me as a power source. Like a battery.’

Jay grimaced. ‘Because that doesn’t sound broken at all.’

‘I’m not broken.’

‘Can we just go home, and sort this out? We can come back, and finish the mission later.’

Jay had stopped us on a street corner. They didn’t have street lamps in this version of Britain; light simply emanated from nowhere in particular, softly illuminating the cobblestones and aged brick around us — and Jay’s worried face, looking down at me. ‘Miranda and Emellana need some proper attention, too,’ he said. ‘And it’s probably not safe for Addie to stay here for much longer, what with everyone after her majestic hide.’

‘All perfectly true,’ I conceded. ‘So then, why don’t you take Addie and the ladies home, and I’ll wait for you here?’

‘How in hell does that make sense? Are you just being difficult, Ves, because I swear I’ll—’

‘I’m not being difficult,’ I said, cutting him off mid-rant. ‘At least, not on purpose. The thing is, I…’ I paused, and waited while a stout lady hastened past, an umbrella contraption floating along over her head. ‘I don’t think I can go home,’ I said in a small voice.

‘You don’t think you can?’

I nodded, my throat dry. ‘It… I felt all right, in Vale. Not… overcharged. The farther we get from Vale, the more overloaded I feel. Jay… our Britain is a magickal backwater compared to here. Remember what the woman in the elixir shop said?’

‘I remember.’ His voice was very grim.

I tried to smile. ‘I’m calibrated for Vale right now, if not more. Until it wears off, I daren’t go home for fear I’ll… explode. Or something.’

‘Or something.’

I shrugged. ‘Explode; warp everything I touch into winged toads or talking cakes or the gods-know-what; spend the rest of my days as a plate of pancakes; I don’t even know what will happen, only I’m pretty sure I don’t get to waltz Home and have a cosy chat with Milady, followed by a nice cup of chocolate. I’m stuck, Jay.’

He looked long at me, and I couldn’t read whatever thoughts were passing behind his (thankfully normal again) eyes. At length, he nodded. ‘I’m staying with you, then. Emellana can—’

‘I stay, too,’ she said, firmly.

Jay nodded again. ‘Very well. Miranda?’

She blinked vaguely at us, and I wondered how much she was even comprehending in her sleep-addled state. ‘Just let me sleep for twelve or fourteen hours, and I’m ready for anything.’

Adeline bumped me from behind, her nose velvet-soft against my neck. I wasn’t sure whether this was intended as a gesture of support or an objection, but I decided to take it as the former.

‘So, we go on,’ I said. ‘We’ve lost the scroll-case, but we have Mauf’s copy of the map.’

‘To the mountains, then?’ said Jay.

I nodded. ‘To Hyndorin — and, it’s to be hoped, Torvaston.’

‘And maybe along the way, we’ll figure out how to fix you.’ Jay gave me the confident, bracing smile of a man with faint hopes.

Later, I sat wide awake in an armchair while three people and a puppy slept deeply around me. We’d had money enough for a single room, and an extra set of blankets. Jay lay wrapped in the latter at my feet; Emellana and Miranda had the twin beds. The place was scant, sparse and comfortless, but it hardly mattered. In the morning we’d be gone, far over the country to the Hyndorin Mountains, and whatever horrors or delights awaited us there.

For me, though, sleep would not come. I sat curled up and shivering, chockful of magick, watching with idle interest as the chair warped and curled around me, and waited for morning.

***

I wouldn’t want to be Ves right now, would you?

We’re going on with episode 8 next week, but first a couple of quick reminders. You can get both The Wonders of Vale and the next adventure, The Heart of Hyndorin, in ebook, if you want to go on with the story right away.

I also like to leave my Patreon link here in case you’re interested in supporting the writer (thank you!). Over there we do previews of upcoming episodes, advance copies of all my books (Modern Magick & more), and exclusive short stories.

Ok anyway, on we go!

Have you ever been played by a lyre? I’ll wager not. I don’t especially recommend it; at least, not by this specimen. If it must be so, try for a mild-mannered, grandmotherly type; the sort that will have you baking Victoria sponge cakes and puttering about in the garden.

Not the sort that will pump you full of all the magick it has been blithely soaking up until your nose bleeds. Not the sort that will use you and discard you like a sodding handkerchief.

When I took up that lyre, it was as though either I or it (or both) ceased to exist; instead of the-moonsilver-lyre or Vesper-Cordelia, there was simply a force. And while taking up the lyre had enhanced my mother’s and Emellana’s ability to track past magicks, or imbued one or the other of my parents with the ancient magick of faerie monarchy, in my case the effect was, um, different.

Forgive me if I sound deranged, for I doubtless was at that moment. In my case, the effect was to turn me into a magickal source all in my own self. I was, if you like, the human equivalent of a griffin or a unicorn.

I’d have laughed if I hadn’t been so busy leaking blood.

The lyre all but fused to my fingers, so that I could hardly have let go of it if I’d wanted to. And for a few agonising seconds, I desperately did, for it hurt. The lyre-through-me drank up every drop of magick in the vicinity (did I properly emphasise that this is a lot?), and then poured it forth again in a veritable ocean — only stronger, and… changed.

I learned how it feels, when lightning arcs over a griffin’s hide. I learned what it means. It is a discharge of magick, because there is too much of it to hold.

That hurts, too.

Vale lay spread before me, but I no longer saw it with my half-blind human eyes. I saw it as a pattern of magick; a map, if you like, of ancient power. I saw its centre: Mount Vale, and its colony of griffins. I saw pockets of intense magick dotted here and there; the unicorn farms, I judged, and the travel points, and other things I could not name. I saw its ebbs and flows, its strengths and its weaknesses.

Terrifying came the knowledge: I could have stretched out a hand and rearranged it like a chess board, if I had so chosen.

I didn’t so choose. All I wanted was Adeline. I found her: a mote of bright magick, purer than her peers, and in some odd way familiar. Around her crackled a web of magick: a net to hold her in, and all those like her.

I plucked her free of it, and then unwound the net. It came free easily enough, though every strand of it burned and blistered and I shuddered with the pain of it. Grimly, I ripped it into tatters and let it stream away, watching with distant satisfaction as the ribbons of magick dissolved back into the flow around Mount Vale.

Motes of bright magick scattered around me as the mythical beasts of Vale fled the town, free.

‘So that’s good, then,’ I said sleepily, looking wide-eyed up at the sky, for my shaking legs had long since found it impossible to hold me. The firmament was a spiral of magick, too, a shimmering, pulsing, coiling, glorious mass; even the clouds were laced through with it, pregnant with possibility.

I wondered, somewhere in my befuddled brain, whether our Britain looked at all the same.

I thought not.

‘Ves,’ someone said, but whoever it was must have been very far away. The wind took any words that followed, and I barely felt the hands that shook my shoulders.

I felt the teeth, though, that fastened onto my left wrist.

‘Ouch,’ I said, frowning, and looked vaguely about. Something bright and lovely was near me, contours of magick that were familiar and dear, for all their strangeness. I reached out my other hand to touch it, and felt warmth. ‘Addie?’

‘Ves,’ said the voice again, and it came from a coil of intense magick near my shoulder. Not bright like Addie, this one, but like banked heat.

It shook me again.

‘Mm,’ I said.

‘…the lyre,’ said the voice, distant but urgent. ‘Get the damned lyre off her!’

Another shifting something registered upon my senses: incandescent, this, in a muted way, like the sun behind a veil, and it glittered with such indescribable beauty that I was moved to tears.

‘She’s crying,’ said the urgent voice. Jay’s voice. Sense filtered, dimly, through.

‘She will be all right,’ said a dusty, aged, comforting voice, and Emellana’s age-withered fingers gently extracted the lyre from my hands.

Agony tore through me: first my arms, as though I had plunged them into molten lava. Then the rest of my shrinking body, as though my organs had been torn free of me all in a rush, leaving me naught but a shell.

‘What have you done?’ yelled Jay.

‘As you instructed,’ said Emellana, and even then, even in the face of my near-total disintegration, she was as cool as a clear lake. ‘She and the lyre are separating.’

‘Separating?’

I winced, for Jay spoke at such volume — and such close proximity, apparently — that the words shot through my seared head like nails. ‘Jay,’ I croaked.

He stopped shouting abruptly. ‘Ves? Are you all right?’

The magick was bleeding out of my vision, all the beauteous light and brightness and mystery leaking away, and my eyes filled with tears of mingled agony and loss. Through the watery film, I discerned the blurred figure of Jay bending over me: dark jacket, dark hair. Near him, a large mass of purple: Emellana.

‘Addie,’ I croaked. ‘Get your teeth out of my arm.’

She squeezed a fraction harder for good measure, then let me go. The pain of it had not much registered, compared to the indescribable torment imposed upon me by the lyre. Nonetheless, with the latter ebbing I was grateful to be reprieved of the smaller pain imparted by the diamond-hard teeth of a unicorn. ‘Thanks,’ I sighed, and ran my aching fingers through her mane.

She bumped me with her nose.

‘Are you all right?’ Jay said again, and with the tears in remission I could discern features. Dark eyes, wild with fear, fixed upon me, and a sheen of sweat upon Jay’s brow which told me he’d suffered almost as much as I had.

I thought about the question for a while.

‘No,’ I decided.

Jay sat back on his heels, and looked up at the sky — normal again, darkened and greyish and drizzly — with an expression of frustrated entreaty. ‘What the hell just happened?’ he said, looking again at me.

‘Do you want to tell him?’ I said to Emellana. I made some small effort to sit up, but finding it beyond the wasted strength of my aching muscles I permitted myself to slither back down to the ground.

‘She dissolved the net,’ said Emellana.

‘I see that,’ Jay said, and waved an arm wildly at the skies. They were, I distantly realised, empty of griffins, unicorns, or any other unusual creature. ‘But that’s not what happened, is it?’

I wondered how the events of the past… half hour? How long? Had looked to Jay. Not good. Not good at all.

‘It is as Milady suspected,’ said Emellana, with a crooked smile for me. ‘When combined, your Cordelia Vesper and the lyre are a formidable team.’

‘What?’ said Jay, his brow snapping down.

‘We’re a font,’ I said. ‘Like a griffin.’ I remembered the crackle of magick about me, and squinted down at my shirt and trousers. Were they singed?

They were.

I sighed.

‘I thought the lyre absorbed magick,’ said Jay. ‘Wouldn’t that make you a sponge, not a font?’

‘We’re both,’ I said wearily. ‘They’re both. The griffins and such. That’s how it works.’

‘Put enough griffins into a place like Vale, already a source of strong magick, and the effects are profound,’ said Emellana. ‘They feed each other, you see.’

‘I don’t think I do,’ Jay sighed. ‘What Ido seeis an exhausted Ves who, as far as I can tell, almost died about ten minutes ago, and who urgently needs to be got out of here.’

‘Wasn’t dying,’ I protested.

‘Pardon me, but you sure looked like it,’ said Jay. He was still wearing his worried face.

‘Wasn’t dying,’ I repeated firmly. ‘I was… changing.’

‘Into what?’

I sighed and sat up again. This time, the world did not revolve around me quite so much, and I was able to maintain the posture. ‘I don’t know.’

Truth. I could not say what had become of me; only I felt, all the way down to my bones, that I was not quite the same Ves anymore. That will happen to a girl, when you channel half an ocean of magick through her insides.

‘Milady,’ I said, as some of Emellana’s words filtered through to my weary brain. ‘Suspected? What?’

Emellana gave me that crooked smile again. ‘You heard me.’

‘How could she suspect?’ I said.

‘On what possible evidence?’ Jay added. ‘And why wouldn’t she just tell us.’

I laid a hand over Jay’s, detecting signs of an imminent melt-down. ‘You’ll get used to Milady.’

‘But do I want to?’

Fair question. I couldn’t answer it.

‘She had no evidence,’ said Emellana, getting slowly to her feet. ‘It is more that she has… what might once have been termed “hunches”.’

‘And how do you know that?’ I said, eyeing our enigmatic assistant with some suspicion.

Emellana only shrugged. ‘I am old, and so is she. There has been time enough.’

‘For what?’

‘A great many things.’ She squinted out over the horizon, her back turned to me, and said: ‘I believe we are shortly to encounter trouble.’

I swore. Of course we were. If I’d had even half my wits about me I would have anticipated as much, for having just torn their intricate, powerful and surprisingly-not-that-old net of magick to bits, it ought to have occurred to me that someone would swiftly become aware of it. The circling motes of magickal energy that had been the enslaved mythical beasts were gone, and… we were still there.

‘Hup,’ I said, hoping that the word might prove a bit magickal in its own way, and help me to find my feet.

It did not, but Jay did. He grabbed my arms and hauled me, gently but firmly, upright. He then proceeded to prop me up when I threatened to fall over again, though I noticed a pronounced sway in his own stance, and that sign about his eyes that suggested imminent trouble.

Oh, yes. We were still potion-free and increasingly magick-drunk, too.

Rarely have I had the privilege to preside over so disastrous a mission, and that’s saying something. I am, after all, Princess Chaos.

‘Erm,’ I said intelligently. Was it my imagination or had I grown a tail?

I checked.

I had. Fittingly, it was a horse’s tail, or perhaps by preference a unicorn’s.

‘Better move along,’ Jay said. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Where’s Mir?’ To my shame, our erstwhile beastmistress’s entire existence had slipped my mind during all the excitement. Worse, I had about forgotten pup, too.

‘That way,’ said Jay, pointing with a jerk of his chin. ‘She was pretty busy with those escaped griffins.’

Right. Of course. I had given her rather a lot of work to do.

I risked a look over my shoulder, and detected a glimpse of a human figure some way off, blonde hair whipping in the wind, a tiny golden ball of fluff dancing along at her heels.

Before me, the slope of Mount Vale stretched down and down. I did not waste much time watching for the approach of danger; they would use the same “lift” we had, er, “enjoyed”, and come out right behind us.

‘Em, can you think of another way off this hill?’ I said.

‘Not immediately.’ When even Emellana Rogan showed faint signs of worry, well, that was about time for the rest of us to panic.

And I hadn’t forgotten how the Court-at-Mandridore’s emissary had appeared while the lyre and I had been making a magickal torch of ourselves.

‘By the way,’ I said. ‘Just how old are you?’

‘Another time,’ she said curtly.

Did that mean ask me later or I come from another age?

Too late to wonder, for a shout went up behind us, and a stream of people poured onto the hilltop, stepping, seemingly, out of thin air. There were at least twenty of them; they were of a mixture of human, troll, and other fae races I could not at that moment name; they were universally angry; and one of them was Wyr.

‘I want that case back!’ I yelled, pointing at the latter.

‘Well, and the good people of Vale were hoping not to lose their griffin carousel,’ said Wyr. ‘It seems we are all in for a disappointment today.’ No trace of his earlier sardonic humour remained; the look he directed at us was ugly.

I glanced left. Miranda was circling around to reach us, my pup in her arms.

‘How about we take that unicorn as payment?’ said Wyr, advancing upon us, his happy little lynch-mob at his back.

‘Ideas?’ I said desperately.

Emellana shook her head.

Jay, though, began to rummage furiously in his pockets. ‘The thing,’ he said, helpfully.

‘The what?’

‘Orlando’s thing. You know!’

Ohhh, the thing. The nameless-but-potent thing Orlando had put into our hands. The untried-and-only-sort-of-tested thing that might award us just the stroke of luck we needed to survive the day.

Or it might land us at the bottom of the ocean. I mean, if Orlando didn’t know, who did?

Nonetheless. ‘I’ve got it,’ I said, and stuck my hand in my shoulder bag.

‘Oof,’ said Mauf.

‘Sorry,’ I gasped. My fingers closed over the smooth, cool disc of something and I drew it out.

‘Next problem,’ I said, gazing at it in perfect incomprehension. ‘How does it work?’

Wyr-and-company were closing on us; Miranda was too far away to reach us in time; and I had no clue how to operate our panic button.

Did I use the word disaster before? I think I did.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Addie, fetch Mir. Jay, Em, take a deep breath.’

The next article to exit my trusty shoulder-bag was my Sunstone Wand. I tossed Orlando’s toy into the air, levelled my Wand at it, and shot a blast of pure magick high into the sky.

It hit the clear disc in a shower of sparks, and the world exploded.

‘We have to get them out,’ said Miranda, rejoining us. She was still bristling with fury, and stalked more than walked through the rain, her face a perfect thundercloud. ‘We can’t leave them like this.’

I hesitated, picturing the chaos we would create if we somehow broke the magickal bindings which held the griffins and their ilk spellbound. ‘We—’

‘Ves,’ said Miranda. ‘Help me or not as you choose, but I will not leave this town until these creatures are free.’ Her fists balled as though she might hit me.

I raised my hands. ‘Hey. We’re on the same—’ I stopped. I couldn’t say we were on the same side anymore, because we… weren’t. Were we? At least not technically. ‘We have the same goals,’ I said instead. ‘I don’t want to leave these poor beasts like this any more than you do — and I’m damned if I’ll even think about leaving without Addie. But we have to think about this.’

Jay made a slight noise. When I glanced his way, he’d adopted an expression of bland innocence. ‘I said nothing,’ he informed me.

I made a face at him. ‘I know I’m fond of barging in without thinking things through, and sometimes it’s the best approach — you don’t have time to over think, and basically talk yourself out of what has to be done. But you of all people know, Jay, that sometimes it’s just insane. Isn’t that what you keep telling me? And this is one of those times. This place is… way beyond us. We are far, far out of our magickal league here.’

‘We could…’ said Miranda, and stopped.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Em? Could you get anywhere near those enchantments? Even with the lyre?’

‘I doubt it,’ she said.

‘Maybe we could do it together,’ said Miranda, and looked at me with the eyes of hope. ‘All four of us. We’re strong as a group.’

Strong as a group. Fine words from the woman who’d very lately abandoned her group, and tossed us to the wolves to boot.

Not the time, Ves.

I pushed my ugly thoughts aside, and tried to consider the question on its own merits.

‘Even as a group,’ said Jay. ‘We’re outclassed. It’s not even about quantity or potency of magick. Even if we were as strong in magick as the people here, we don’t know what to do with it. It’s beyond us in every conceivable way.’

He was right, painful though it always is to admit one’s shortcomings.

A rather depressed silence fell. My eyes followed the passage of a far-off griffin as it soared helplessly upon the tossing winds.

‘But,’ said Emellana unexpectedly. ‘We do know how to cause chaos.’

I looked at her.

‘Or at least,’ she amended, regarding me with a twinkle in her eyes, ‘Ves does.’

Jay was ungentlemanly enough to smirk. ‘Are you kidding? She’s famous for it.’

‘Positively legendary,’ Emellana agreed.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’m standing right here.’

Jay beamed at me. ‘And here’s your chance to shine.’

‘How would that even help?’ I demanded. They weren’t wrong. I probably could cause quite the ruckus, and the utter madness of the magick of Vale might aid rather than impede me. But what would it achieve?

‘This is a system of perfect order,’ said Jay. ‘And it is beautifully done, perfectly maintained. Those beasts out there — the unicorns back on the farms — they could be clockwork pieces in a giant mechanical system. It’s glorious. But the downside to such structures is, they do not adapt well.’

Emellana was nodding in agreement. ‘The proverbial spanner in the works. Make enough of a mess, Ves, and I think we may see some interesting results.’

‘And that,’ Jay added, with a glance at Miranda, ‘we may very well manage as a group.’

‘With our lady of chaos to guide us,’ said Emellana, bowing her head in my direction.

I wasn’t sure I liked what bordered upon aspersions upon my character, but since I could hardly argue that they were unjust, I let it pass. ‘I’m as willing to make a mess as you could wish me, I assure you,’ I said.

‘A productive, useful mess,’ interrupted Emellana.

‘Quite. But I’m still hopelessly outclassed out here. Did we forget that part?’

‘But,’ said Emellana. ‘We do have this.’ And the damned lyre was back in her hands, its moonlit strings glittering in the rain.

‘Woah.’ I took two big steps backwards. ‘I thought that was off-limits.’

‘Em,’ said Jay, scowling, and started towards her. ‘We agreed—’

‘We did,’ she said, unruffled. ‘But consider. This instrument has been soaking up magick ever since we arrived here. It is, at this time, far more powerful than it has ever been before, or likely will again. It almost overcame even me, when I wielded it just now. It is what we need. And who better to give it to than one whose peculiar affinity with the thing might just work in our favour?’

‘And what about its effect on Ves?’ Jay demanded.

Emellana looked at me. ‘Have you ever played this lyre before?’

‘No. No one would let me.’ I signified my general agreement with this judgement by putting my hands behind my back. ‘I don’t think they were wrong, either.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because just looking at it is enough to overset me.’ I tried not to suit actions to words and gaze moonily at the pretty thing, and failed.

‘So I see.’ Emellana sat in thought, her fingers lightly stroking the moonsilver or skysilver or whatever it was that made up the lyre’s graceful curves. ‘I have heard of nothing that would account for that effect,’ she said at last. ‘I think, Cordelia Vesper, that it will have to come down to courage. You will not know what you can do with this lyre — or what it will do to you — until you try it.’

I attempted a smile, though my guts were churning. I can’t explain what that thing does to me but I don’t like it. ‘An exciting new round of Trial and Error,’ I said, with a glance at Jay.

He tried to smile, too, and failed. His dark eyes were worried. ‘Are you up for it, Ves?’

‘Addie’s out there,’ I said. ‘I brought her here. I can’t leave her here. If there’s no other way…’

Emellana smiled faintly, serenely confident. ‘I believe all will turn out well.’

‘Oh, you do?’ I said politely. ‘That is a great comfort.’ I swallowed, and added, ‘Sorry. That was rude.’

I was surprised by the wide grin that swept over Emellana Rogan’s face. ‘Wonderfully,’ she agreed.

‘Right.’ I stood straighter. ‘We need to be fast. The dregs of those awful potions won’t last us much longer. I don’t know about you, but I can feel crazy-insane Ves creeping up on me with every passing half-hour. Mir?’

‘Yes,’ she said, appearing at my elbow.

‘The griffins are your business. I’m hoping they’ll be groggy and confused more than violently angry when we’ve broken them out, so you shouldn’t be in too much danger, but… be careful. Right?’

‘Right. I—’ She broke off, biting her lip.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know how to handle griffins. You’ve seen more of them than I have.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said, with a bright, bright smile. ‘None of us has any idea what we’re doing.’

Her answering smile was sour. ‘Excellent.’

‘Welcome to my world. Though not quite. You know more about magickal beasts than anyone, and you’ve all the magick you need to help you. I may despise you at this time, but I know you can do this. Jay?’

‘Right here.’

I sought out the flickering, pale shape of Adeline far above, and pointed. ‘Addie. I’m going to bring her back down here somehow. Will you… catch her? Not literally,’ I hastened to add.

He smiled faintly. ‘I’ll take care of her.’

‘Thank you. And pup…’ I had to chase to catch up with her, but I scooped her up, and gave her to Emellana. ‘Keep her safe,’ I said. ‘Please.’

Emellana took a firm grip upon my wriggling pup. ‘She will be well,’ she promised.

‘Great. Well.’ I looked up at the sky, out over the darkening, drenched town, and finally at Jay. ‘Here goes nothing?’

‘You’ll be okay,’ he said, looking steadily at me.

I could have reminded him about the lengths he’d gone to to keep me away from the lyre, but that was a waste of time. ‘Listen. If I end up as a plate of pancakes again, I’m relying on you to turn me back.’

‘But you love pancakes.’

‘And I’d prefer to remain a pancake-loving Ves than… a pancake.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll hang onto you.’

‘Thanks.’ I took a deep breath. I wasn’t worried about pancakes, exactly, only the absolutely unpredictable effects of putting that lyre into my, of all, hands — and doing it out here, when we were magick-swamped already, and mad around the edges.

I’d make a mess, no doubt about that. And what would be left of me once I’d finished?

What would be left of Vale?

No time to worry about that now. Emellana was right; the only way to find out what would happen was to dive in.

‘Lyre, please,’ I said.

Emellana tucked Goodie under one arm. She beckoned strangely at a button on her shirt, which shone, and twisted, and became a tiny, rapidly-growing lyre. In another moment, she was holding out the real, full-sized thing to me.

‘Nice glamour,’ I said.

She inclined her head in grave acceptance of the compliment. ‘It is one of my better arts.’

‘I’d say so.’ I steeled myself, and held out one hand to the dangerously beautiful instrument.

It called to me. My fingers itched as they neared the lyre, and then began to burn with a heat I found both abrasive and comforting.

The cursed thing began to shine with a light that was… purple. My very favourite shade thereof.

‘You are so determined to seduce me,’ I muttered, and with a deep breath I made a grab for it.

The gleaming silvery metal proved warm under my hands, soothing like a hearth-fire in winter — and terrifying, like a house-fire literally whenever.

And I, little Cordelia Vesper, went up like a torch.

I don’t know that I want to describe what Vale means by the term “lift”. Let’s just say that the inhabitants of that fine town have stronger stomachs than you or I.

We were… conveyed… to the summit of (for lack of a better name for it) Mount Vale, and when we had finished shrieking (me), gibbering (Miranda), cursing (surprisingly, Jay), and shaking (Emellana), we were at leisure to notice a few things about it.

One: the wind. One might expect a high wind up at such a height, certainly, but the hair-tossing, screaming, ferocious wind we encountered up there was… shall I call it vindictive? I stood braced at the summit, the peculiar, motley town of Vale spread far below me, hanging onto my shirt for grim death because the damned mischievous mistral seemed intent upon wresting it from me.

‘Everyone all right?’ I yelled over the noise, and I’m fairly sure no one heard so much as a syllable.

Two: Unusual light conditions. The afternoon was wearing on by then, but it shouldn’t have been anywhere near dark yet. At the top of Mount Vale, though, a deep, glimmering twilight reigned, and attractive as it was, I found the effect foreboding.

Three: magick. I ought perhaps to have mentioned that first, because Emellana’s instincts were promptly proved more or less right. If Vale in general was a magick-drowned town, up there was the centre, the source of it all, and no wonder the light and the weather weren’t right. Nothing could be, in a mess like that. Magick thrummed through the ground beneath my feet, and set my bones vibrating. Magick made my head swim and my heart pound; magick made me mighty and weak, shallow and profound, pink and purple— no, lost the train of thought. Magick. Made it difficult to think clearly.

I shut my eyes for a while, hoping by that means to force my disordered brain to focus.

It worked. Sort of.

What we didn’t find up there was much of anything but wind and whimsy and gloaming. Unsurprising, perhaps? What manner of structure could survive such conditions? If it withstood the weird weather, it couldn’t resist the magick. Five minutes, and it would make a bubble of itself and float away, or stalk back down the mountain again on chicken legs.

I mean, anything was possible up there. Anything.

There were griffins, though.

Oh my, were there griffins.

I’ve been up close and personal with a griffin or two before. You may recall. The first time, I was convinced I was about to get eaten, and didn’t get much chance to examine the creature. The second time was better, but still… I’ve never been so close to a griffin before, nor had such leisure to admire it.

They’re beautiful, and terrifying. Majestic. Magnificent. Vast, all muscle and feather and hide, wreathed in magick of a potency I couldn’t have dreamed of only a few weeks ago.

And that was bad, because Mir was right: these creatures were wrong. They wafted past us on the wing, utterly oblivious to our presence, dancing upon those currents of air with the grace of butterflies. Lightning — not light at all, but raw, intense magick — glittered around them, darting from wing to wing, crackling over their backs and igniting their claws with white fire. There was far too much there, far, far more than the griffins of Farringale had borne. And still they ignored us.

We stood in awed silence for a time, watching as those mighty beasts circled slowly around the summit of Mount Vale, and around us, standing motionless at its centre. And I realised that the winds and the griffins danced in tandem, and in a pattern perfectly regular. Like automated figures on a cuckoo-clock, their perfect circuit never varied.

Strong enchantments, indeed.

I realised that Jay was attempting to get my attention. This occurred to me only when he put his lips two inches away from my left ear and yelled, ‘Ves!’

‘What?’

‘Em’s using the lyre,’ he screamed. ‘Forgive me.’

He swept me up in a brutal… embrace, I couldn’t quite call it, for it was restraining, not affectionate. His hands clamped over my eyes, blocking out my view of those magnificent griffins. My objections went unheeded, and Jay proved as strong as an ox; nothing that I did loosened his grip one bit.

I was grateful for it a few moments later, for whatever Em was doing with that lyre was… like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Emellana Rogan began to play; the ancient lyre’s thrumming notes sounded over the arcane winds at Mount Vale; and around me, the world went insane.

It began with a heightening of the already mad winds, until a veritable cyclone spun around and around us. Only, some part of it must have been no wind at all, or we would have been swept up into the skies. A sensation as of powerful currents tore at my clothes and my hair and howled in my ears; over the tumult, I distantly heard a griffin shriek.

Then came a tide of rain, like an ocean flipped upside down and poured upon our shrinking heads. My clothes clung to my skin, icy-cold, and I struggled to breathe through air turned to torrents of water. Colours flooded my mind, rain turned moon-pale and ice-white, eventide-blue and moss-green and every conceivable variation of hue, and shining like drowned stars. Did I imagine it? Throughout, the feel of Jay’s hands tucked firmly over my eyes did not lessen, and still he held on.

Emellana’s music turned haunting, morose. Its melody melded with the winds, took the rains inside itself and spun it out again in a ripple of strident notes.

I began to see things.

Visions filled my turbulent mind, sense and nonsense hopelessly jumbled together. I saw a litter of snow-white cubs with striped tails, which became goldnoses — all of them my pup, like little clones — and then they were changed to lirrabirds, like Miranda’s. My mind’s eye filled in with gleaming, tawny-amber colour, something that shimmered like polished jewels; downy feathers ringed the gleaming sphere, a mote of black at its centre, and I realised I stared deep into the eye of a griffin.

An enraged griffin. A fathomless anger was there, and a din filled my ears as of a thousand griffins screaming in unison.

A unicorn, its hide rippling in waves of shifting colours. Its horn vanished, reappeared, multiplied; wings sprouted and faded; it melted into a pool of pale water and disappeared.

A mighty troll took its place, a figure towering so high in my mind’s eye that the world fell away before him. He wore a crown I’d seen before, and in his face was a granite resolve tinged with incipient madness.

I saw a tide of magick — a chaotic flood of colour, sound, light, cacophonic music — sweep over a Britain I knew, leaving nothing unchanged in its wake.

Is this what people come to the peak for? I thought, distantly, and dissolved into a mirth I knew to be inappropriate, but could not contain.

‘It’s all right, Ves,’ Jay murmured in my ear, and I could hear him, though he spoke softly. The howl of the winds had died. ‘Are you okay?’

I wasn’t immediately sure how to answer. It took me three long seconds to remember that Ves was me, my own name, and the man behind me with his hands over my face was Jay, and we’d come to this place of shrieking insanity for a good reason.

What was it?

‘It’ll come to me,’ I said aloud.

‘I’ll take that as no,’ said Jay, though he carefully loosened the grip of one hand, and I regained a glimmer of sight in my right eye.

And hastily closed it again, tight, for the gloaming somehow blazed with light, more brightly than high noon, though it was a pallid rather than a vivid glow, and everything ethereally a-shimmer.

Emellana stood in the centre of it like a goddess, taller than seemed possible, and her eyes were afire with the same light.

The lyre, to my mixed disappointment and relief, was no longer in her hands, and the music was gone.

‘So it’s been an interesting half-hour,’ I commented, as I waited for my seared eye to stop watering.

‘Could say that,’ Jay agreed.

I thought I heard someone sobbing. ‘They’re enslaved,’ Miranda was saying. ‘Slaves.’

Who? I wanted to ask, but realisation dawned as my sluggish brain caught up, and I didn’t need to. She meant the griffins, of course, and the unicorns.

Including my Adeline.

Emellana’s shoulders sagged. She swayed like a young tree in the wind, and would have fallen had not Jay and I hastened to catch her. We helped her to sit down, and she did so without appearing to notice the seeping wet earth beneath her, or the wind driving rain into her eyes. ‘I am very well,’ she insisted, smiling up at us, and I wondered how much the deep magick of that place, and whatever she had done to it, had addled her brain. If at all.

‘It is an old spot, you know,’ she said after a little while, looking around at the gloomy hilltop. ‘Ancient. Much older than Torvaston and his court. I found layers of magick running deep, so deep…’ She stopped speaking, and stared mistily over the landscape. ‘The griffins have always been here,’ she continued at length. ‘The griffins, and their like. The enchantments which bind them, however, are much newer.’

‘How much newer?’ I said.

‘Measurements of time are arbitrary constructions,’ she said, smiling vaguely at me. ‘It is impossible to determine anything of that kind from the traces I have lately read. I could not say this number of hundred years ago, or since that event. I can only say, that they have permeated the earth and the air of this place, but not to any great depth.’

I thought about that. ‘If I understand you rightly, you mean to say that they probably were not laid down by Torvaston, or anybody else, as much as four centuries ago.’

‘Perhaps not, indeed,’ Emellana agreed.

‘But I saw him,’ I said. ‘At least, I am fairly sure it was him.’

Emellana’s gaze turned upon me, and, at last, sharpened. ‘Saw him?’ she echoed.

‘I had visions,’ I elaborated, looking first at Em and then at Jay. ‘Surely it wasn’t just me?’

Jay just looked at me.

‘Oh. Well, I saw… everything was very confused. I don’t quite know what much of it was. Enraged griffins, chaotic unicorns, and a troll king…’ I could dredge nothing more concrete out of my churning thoughts.

‘A king?’ said Jay. ‘How do you know he was a king?’

‘Because he was wearing a crown.’

‘That would narrow it down,’ Jay agreed.

‘And we saw that crown in the museum at Farringale,’ I continued.

‘Are you certain?’

‘Perfectly. Though, I cannot say that it means anything. I may have added that detail myself, or interpreted the crown in question as one that was familiar to me. It was a… confusing experience.’

Jay said, thoughtfully, ‘That might be so. Otherwise, it’s going to be hard to explain how you saw Torvaston here wearing a crown he left behind in the old Britain.’

‘It could be a mental construction of Ves’s own,’ Emellana said, some of her old calm returning. ‘Time will tell, I suspect.’ She levered herself to her feet, leaning heavily upon me and upon Jay, and stood in silence for a moment.

I began to wonder what had become of Miranda, and my pup. The latter I saw trotting gaily through the rain, apparently untouched by it, though her fur was slicked with wet. It took rather more effort to locate Miranda. I saw her at last, far on the other side of the hill, a bedraggled, sopping-wet figure with her face turned up to the rain, searching the sky. She’d got as close as she could to the griffins, whose regular flight patterns brought them nearest to that side of the hill.

‘Is she right?’ I said, nodding in Miranda’s direction. ‘Are they truly enslaved?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Emellana. ‘It is not mere pacification, or coercion. They are absolutely bound, stripped of all independent thought, or capacity for independent action. It is the type of magick long banned in our Britain.’

‘And here they’re using it to farm ancient mythical creatures like cattle,’ I said, feeling unusually grim. And it wasn’t just because I was wet to the skin and I had snakes coiling in my hair.

The thick, creamy paper shimmered, and lines etched in black ink began to appear, snaking across the pages. Torvaston’s map of the Vales of Wonder was first rendered, and then the ragged outlines of a mountain range. Helpful as Mauf’s recreation was, I still couldn’t see anything on it that would explain Wyr’s apparent interest.

But one thought did enter my head.

‘Mountains,’ I said, and pointed at the one before us (even if it was only a tall hill, in truth).

‘What?’ said Jay.

‘Griffins. Wherever we’ve seen griffins, we’ve seen high ground.’

‘We’ve only seen griffins twice.’

‘I know, but—’

‘Twice could be a coincidence. You need three for a pattern.’

‘Fine. I’ll bet you a stack of pancakes as tall as that hill that these Hyndorin Mountains are stuffed full of griffins.’

‘That,’ said Jay, looking way, way up, ‘would be a lot of pancakes.’

‘I am confident of winning.’

‘To say the least.’

‘And that would make three, wouldn’t it?’

‘Mm. I think I won’t take that bet.’

‘Jay! Why not?’

‘Because if you eat that many pancakes you’ll explode, and we need you.’

I smirked. ‘You know I’d win, too.’

‘I suspect you might be onto something, let’s put it that way.’

We were fast approaching the base of the hill, now. Vale had been built right up against it; some of its houses were built straight into the hillside. ‘I get the impression this town was once more populous than it is now,’ I said. ‘It’s too big for its population.’

‘Could be,’ Jay agreed. ‘This has to be the old quarter.’

He was right, or so I judged. The houses nearer the great hill were timber-framed structures, though not all of them would own up to the fact. Some sported stucco frontages in improbable colours, and like the newer parts of the town, they were… unusually animated. Chimney pots sprouted from roofs and exploded into clouds of dust; a grasshopper sitting upon the step of one such home suddenly expanded to thirty times its regular size, chirruped loudly, and shrank again; one house grew bored of its ground floor, apparently, and shifted the rooms upwards, taking a stretching set of steps up with it.

‘Are they actually doing all that?’ I said plaintively. ‘Or is it me that’s deranged, and all this is going on in my own head?’

‘That cottage is growing a hat,’ said Jay calmly. ‘It’s a blue stovepipe, and there’s smoke coming out of — oh, it’s a chimney.’

A glance verified these words to be perfect truth, but I wasn’t altogether sure that made it any better. ‘Moving swiftly on,’ I said.

Miranda was way ahead of us, already climbing the hill, her legs pumping. Did she mean to power straight to the top? ‘Ves!’ she suddenly yelled, turning. ‘Get up here!’

‘What?’ I shouted back. ‘Why?’

She was pointing, up and behind me. I spun — and saw a familiar-looking winged unicorn swooping past far overhead, though where she had acquired that shell-pink colour I couldn’t have said. It was certainly Addie, though. For one, she was still wearing the silvery harness. For another… it’s been ten years for us. I’d know her anywhere, whatever colour she wore.

I began to run, pulling my pipes out of my shirt as I went. It’s not easy to run uphill and play a wind instrument at the same time, let me tell you, but such was my relief at seeing Adeline hale and unharmed that I spared no effort. By the time I reached Miranda I was winded and, most likely, lobster-red in the face, but I was playing Addie’s song with every scrap of breath I could muster.

She heard me. I don’t know how I could tell, but I had no doubt.

She didn’t come down.

‘She’s up there for a reason,’ I said, relief giving way to curiosity.

‘She’s not the only one,’ said Miranda. ‘I’ve counted five winged unicorns up there since we left the Emporium. Ves, they’re as messed up as the griffins. Look. Watch her.’

We stood there for some time, watching intently as Adeline soared far over our heads. Mir was right: others joined the aerial dance from time to time, weaving in and out of Addie’s path with such perfect grace, the display looked… choreographed. And Addie was part of it.

‘The griffins are the same,’ said Miranda after a while.

Jay joined us, Emellana leaning on his arm. Formidable she might be, but a steep hill proved a challenge after all. For some reason, I was reassured by this sign of ordinary mortal weakness — and glad we had Jay to think of things like that. All thought but of Addie had gone out of my head.

‘It is some kind of enchantment, holding them there,’ said Emellana, slightly breathlessly. ‘I can feel it, even from down here.’

I looked keenly at her. ‘Why?’

‘It is a familiar magick, to me. It is a variation on a series of charms sometimes used at Mandridore.’

‘Where at Mandridore?’

She returned my gaze in silence for so long, I thought she would not answer. But at last she said: ‘The Royal Menagerie.’

‘There’s a Royal Menagerie?’

‘It is not a matter for public knowledge,’ said Emellana. ‘The creatures there are highly endangered, and, I need hardly add, highly valuable.’

‘What creatures?’ I said. ‘This is important, Em.’

‘There are three unicorns, two of them winged. One griffin, though she is of such age, it is not thought that she will live more than another few years. Dragons of several species, two of them pygmy. A lirrabird, such as Miranda now possesses.’ She inclined her head in Mir’s direction. ‘A goldnose, like your pup; that is a very new acquisition. In fact, we have a breeding pair. Assorted other species, I need not name them all. Suffice it to say that it is the broadest, and rarest, collection of its type in Europe.’ She amended that to, ‘In our Europe.’

It crossed my mind to wonder how the Court had got hold of a pair of goldnoses, until I remembered Alban. He’d had one or two secret assignments out at the fifth that he hadn’t shared with me, hm?

Jay said, ‘And they’re under enchantment?’

‘Minor behavioural influences, that is all,’ said Emellana. ‘A pacifying charm, commonly used by those of Miranda’s profession. They are not controlled, precisely, but they are… encouraged in certain directions.’ She nodded at the unicorns winging over our heads, and the griffins farther beyond. ‘This is a much, much stronger version of it.’

‘But what are they being compelled to do?’ I said. ‘They’re just circling.’

‘If I may be permitted,’ said Emellana. ‘I’d like to use the lyre.’

‘It isn’t mine,’ I said bluntly.

But she was looking at Jay.

‘Ves needs to be protected,’ he said.

‘Hey,’ I objected. ‘I’m standing right here.’

He ignored me. ‘She’s at risk from the lyre, in ways we don’t yet understand.’

‘I don’t need protecting,’ I growled.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ Jay said, briefly squeezing my hand. ‘Everyone needs help from time to time.’

‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘What are you doing with the lyre, Em?’

‘I intend to ascend to the summit,’ she said. ‘I suspect that most major, truly compelling magicks in this town have been performed from up there, particularly those affecting the beasts hereabouts. I would like to read the traces. But we are dealing with ancient, unusually potent magicks, and I will require aid. The lyre is the tool I need.’

Not for the first time, I wondered at Milady’s apparent ability to anticipate the needs of any given assignment unusually early, and to arrange for their being available. Once or twice, I’d almost plucked up the courage to ask her if there were by chance any fortune-tellers in her family tree. But I never had. It’s not like she’d tell me the truth if I did.

Meanwhile, we had more immediate problems. I tilted back my head, shading my eyes against an insistent drizzle of rain, and took a good, long look at just how far away the summit was. The hill might have been only a hill, not a true mountain, but it would still take us over an hour’s solid climbing to reach the top. And Emellana was a thousand years old. ‘Forgive me,’ I said to her. ‘But you can’t climb that.’

‘No,’ she agreed, smiling. ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

‘We need chairs,’ said Jay, looking around, as though he might see an abandoned dining set standing forlornly amidst the rubble and bracken of the hillside.

I said nothing, assailed by a feeling of disquiet. We were in a hurry, too much of a hurry to go trawling back down the hill looking for chairs to thieve. And we were in such a hurry because the deep, deep magicks of Vale were getting the better of us, minute by minute. The effects might yet be mostly cosmetic, but that would change. I did not want to be halfway up the hill, airborne and in charge of a tricky array of charms to keep us that way, when the magicks of Vale overwhelmed my sanity.

But how else could we ascend the hill, if we couldn’t climb and we couldn’t fly?

I conveyed some of this.

‘Right,’ said Jay. ‘True. Okay. But, this is the fifth Britain. The henge complexes, and the bubble transports, tell us that there’s major magickal infrastructure. And if Emellana is right, and a lot of important stuff has happened at the peak, then what are the chances that someone’s installed an easier way to the top by now?’

‘High!’ I enthused.

‘It will be at the bottom,’ said Jay.

I stared in mild dismay at the distance between us and the ground. Hard-won, in Emellana’s case. ‘Down we go, then,’ I said heartily, and off we went. Rain made for damp ground, and our progress was more of a slither-and-slide than a stout trek, but we made it back to town-level in one piece. Or indeed, four pieces.

It was Jay’s happy thought to cut down on the searching by snagging the first passerby he saw: a reassuringly ordinary-looking man, with only a glowing jewel through his nose to remind us of where we were.

‘The peak?’ he repeated.

I did not at all see why this concept was proving hard to grasp, but I pointed upwards, just to be clear. ‘The peak,’ I agreed.

He blinked at us. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Why… wouldn’t we be?’ I said.

His smile was faint. ‘There’s a lift,’ he said. ‘Around that way.’ He indicated a winding path that snaked away to my right.

‘Thank you, kind sir.’

Jay didn’t budge. ‘Is there anything up there we should know about?’ he asked.

Our friendly interlocutor shrugged. ‘All the things you’d go up the peak for, correct?’ With which superlatively unhelpful statement, he turned away, and left us to our fate.

‘Apparently,’ I said, with a winsome smile, ‘we look like people who know what we’re doing.’

Jay looked from me, to Miranda, to Emellana, palpably in doubt. ‘Uh huh.’

I had to see his point. Emellana might have an air of formidable wisdom, but she was rather elderly, and looking tired to boot. Miranda looked more distracted even than usual, her clothes were in holes, and moths were crawling out of her hair.

As for me, who knew? But I had a feeling that a head full of flowers was only the beginning.

‘We’re people who know what we’re doing,’ I repeated more firmly.

Jay nodded. ‘And if you say something often enough, it becomes true.’

‘Always.’

I looked up and up, gazing for a moment at the distant heights of the mini-mountain before us. The rain returned, dropping fat, chilly droplets into my eyes. ‘Addie’s up there,’ I said.

‘Together with a lot of other beasts that need our help,’ Miranda added.

Jay nodded, and squared his shoulders. ‘Are we ready for this?’

‘Let me at ‘em,’ I said.

He smiled, but without mirth. ‘Then up we go.’