Modern Magick

I couldn’t leave Whitmore again without checking on Zareen. So while Jay went off to coax Millie into an imminent departure and the baro— prince — went to consult with Melmidoc, I made my way down onto the wide beach beneath the Whitmore cliff where Ashdown Castle had settled itself. The poor old place looked the worse for wear. It was too ancient, too delicate and too run-down to be dragged the length and breadth of Britain and beyond; a part of its roof had caved in during the journey (to Val’s cost), and, robbed of the foundations it was used to, it had… shifted, in places. The effect was a general sagging, as of a crestfallen building enjoying a lengthy sulk.

I felt rather sorry for it. You’d think Fenella would be more careful with her family’s ancestral home.

Inside, the air was much colder than the sun-drenched outdoors. That’s the way with old buildings: all that brick and stone and none of the insulation, double-glazing and so on that characterises more modern structures. But there was something unearthly about the chill in the great, shadowy hall, and I moved with caution. Last time I had set foot in there, the walls had been weeping great, salt tears. The ten or so enslaved Waymasters who’d moved the place had not been at all happy about it.

Was Zareen even still there? I wandered down a corridor or two, feeling like the only moving object for about twelve miles. The castle had the hushed, too-still air of total desertion. ‘Zar?’ I called, though not very loudly. I had the irrational feeling that a loud noise might bring the rest of the roof down.

Miranda popped into my thoughts. I’d last seen her somewhere in these castle halls, too. She couldn’t still be here — surely she had been dispatched back to our own Britain with the rest of her new colleagues. But when I came to consider the idea, I found I was not entirely sure. Distracted, exhausted and confused, I hadn’t thought to make certain that she was among the throng we had crammed into Millie’s parlours a few days before. ‘Mir?’ I called.

No response. My footsteps made discouraging dull, ringing sounds on the tiled floors, and the echoes they sent up told me clearly enough that I was alone.

Which is why I nearly died of fright when a voice abruptly screamed: ‘Is someone there?’

‘Argh!’ I said, and fell against the nearest wall. I regretted this at once, for it oozed a freezing chill which went straight to my bones. I hurriedly leapt away again. ‘Er. It’s only me,’ I said, squinting into the pervasive gloom. I saw no one. ‘Ves of the Society. No threat to you whatsoever.’

‘You should not be here,’ said the voice. ‘The ghost witch promised no one would come in.’

Ghost witch? ‘You mean Zareen?’

‘Yes.’

‘I came to visit the ghost witch. I’m a friend. Do you know where she is?’

‘She is engaged at present and cannot receive visitors.’

‘You mean she isn’t here?’

‘Oh, she is,’ said the disembodied voice, a note of disgust creeping in. ‘She is busy. With the man.’

I was not altogether surprised to hear that George Mercer was not making himself popular. ‘Can you tell me where she is?’ I persevered.

‘Northwest tower,’ the voice snapped.

‘Ah. And where is—’

‘Up the stairs.’

My enquiries for more specific directions went unanswered, so with a sigh I toiled up the first flight of stairs I came to, their simple design and shabby state informing me that I had wandered into the servants’ quarters. I toddled down passages uncounted, through drawing-rooms and bedchambers and parlours, aided only by an occasional snappish interjection from my bad-tempered guide: ‘Not that way. The other door!’ At length, a promisingly spiralling stairwell together with the low murmur of voices (hopefully the living variety) told me I had come to the right place.

Pausing near the top of the stairs, I called: ‘Zar?’

The murmuring stopped.

‘I hope you’re Ves,’ came Zareen’s voice.

‘What if I’m not?’

‘George will blast you out of existence.’

‘I don’t see why I have to be obliterated by George, of all people. That’s just adding insult to injury. Can’t you do it?’

The rickety oak door creaked open, and Zareen appeared. She was not wearing a great deal.

Neither, I soon had occasion to note, was George.

I gave a cough. ‘Everything’s going well then, hm?’

‘Some things,’ Zareen corrected. ‘Some things are going well.’

George, lounging in a threadbare chair near the window, scowled at me, a greeting I returned with similarly warm feelings. I’d learned enough about Zareen’s past to excuse her lingering infatuation with George — if that’s what it was — but that didn’t mean I had to like the man myself.

‘What are you doing back here?’ Zareen said. ‘I didn’t think we’d be seeing you for a while.’

‘On a royal mission.’ I grinned.

‘Troll Court?’

‘How’d you know?’

‘Wild guess: has to be something to do with that smooth talker of a baron.’

I toyed with the idea of enlightening Zareen on the point of the smooth-talker’s identity (and marital status), but decided against it. Not with George hanging around. We could have that conversation later.

I also couldn’t tell her much about the mission, though her lack of questions suggested she knew that. ‘Do you two need anything?’ I asked instead.

‘Nope, we’re good.’

‘Righto. And how’s Operation Ashdown progressing? I gather George is killing it with the locals.’

‘So you met Harriet.’

‘If she’s the snappish lady with the man-hating attitude, then yes.’

Zareen grinned at George, who rolled his eyes. ‘Harriet Theale, vicar’s wife. She has ideas about propriety. I’m afraid our modern attitudes aren’t working for her at all.’

‘How sisterly of her to blame George instead of you.’

‘It’s only fair. Normally the girls get all the blame. Ves, I should tell you: we’re not bringing Ashdown home.’

Unexpected. ‘What?’ I said, my brows going up.

‘You’ve seen the state of it, no? I don’t believe it can bear another cross-world hop. Nor should it be expected to. We’re looking instead for a better, permanent home for it out here on the fifth. Obviously it can’t stay on the beach.’

‘You don’t think Fenella will want it back?’

‘I dare say she will, but that’s tough. She shouldn’t have used it like a bus service in the first place. Once the Waymasters here have had time to recover, we’ll coach them through one final removal, get the castle set down somewhere more stable, and then let them go.’

‘They won’t want to go back to their own Britain?’

‘You’re full of discouraging questions, Ves.’

‘Sorry.’

Zareen shrugged. ‘That’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get there. Any that want to go home… well, I’m hoping Melmidoc might be able to help, either way.’

He might, at that. Perhaps he could get some of them settled in their own houses. After all, Whitmore seemed to make rather a habit of it.

George was, as usual, silent. Was it just that he hated me, or was he taciturn by nature? Presumably he was more forthcoming with Zareen. ‘Thank you for sticking with Zar,’ I said to him. ‘She’s important to us.’

‘And to me.’ Three ungracious words.

I gave up.

‘Right, leaving,’ I said. ‘One thing, though. Have you seen Miranda about?’

‘Didn’t she get shipped back to the sixth with the rest?’

‘I think so, and at the same time I don’t think so.’

‘We haven’t seen her.’

‘Roger.’ Perhaps it was thinking of Miranda that led to my saluting Zareen. ‘Vesper out. Take care out here, hm?’

‘We’re okay. You go impress the socks off the troll king.’

‘Actually, I get the impression the queen rules the roost there.’

‘As it should be.’

I arrived at Millie’s farmhouse to find Alban and Jay both there before me. Millie’s front door hung open; I sauntered in. A delicate melody wafted through the rooms, emanating, I supposed, from Millie’s old spinet. But it was not Millie playing it; it was Jay.

I regarded him in silence for a moment, enjoying the sheer beauty of the music he played. I’d rarely heard anything like it before. Indeed, had I ever? The music floated and danced, like… like faerie bells, I wanted to say, though stifled the thought as too fanciful by half.

‘Did I know you could play?’ I said, when Jay’s fingers stilled upon the keys.

He jumped, and gave me a startled glance over his shoulder. ‘Hi Ves.’

‘That was beautiful.’

He didn’t answer, but he did smile. ‘Alban’s upstairs,’ he said. ‘Are you ready to go?’

‘Yes. What’s he doing upstairs?’

‘Hiding from me.’

‘Uh huh. And why does he need to hide from you?’

‘We might have had words.’

‘I hope it was nothing to do with me.’

Jay’s silence spoke volumes.

All right, so Jay was still angry with Alban for flirting with me when he shouldn’t have. Why? Did I seem broken-hearted? I didn’t think I was. Absolutely not. Not even disappointed, really. Not a bit.

I went upstairs.

Alban sat tucked into the embrace of a pretty window seat in the homely drawing-room, one of its few pretences at elegance. He was too big for it, but had curled himself into it anyway with splendid disregard for proportion. Staring, no doubt moodily, out of the window, he did not turn when I came in.

I was swiftly growing tired of talking to people’s backs. ‘What did Melmidoc have to say about our theory?’ I asked without preamble.

‘He thinks it insane.’

‘Excellent.’

‘He might be right. No Court would exile its own king, and no exiled king would go in search of precisely the same dangerous environment he had just fled from. But then, Melmidoc does have a grudge or two against the Troll Court. His opinion is hardly clear-sighted.’

‘I say we proceed.’

‘Seconded. I can’t think of a better idea.’

‘Does he know of a way to, uh, drain magick from a flooded Dell?’

‘No. Says it’s never been done anywhere, to his knowledge.’

‘I suppose no one’s had reason enough to brave the dangers.’

He nodded without answering, and finally looked at me. It seemed to cost him an effort. ‘He’s right, of course.’

‘Melmidoc?’

‘Jay. I’ve been a selfish dick.’

‘Were those Jay’s words?’

‘I paraphrase.’

I felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. ‘Jay has no right to attack you for it,’ I said briskly. ‘I believe I can understand the difficulties of your predicament. And I don’t need to be protected from you or anybody else.’

‘So you aren’t hurt?’

‘No.’ I said it stoutly, without a trace of doubt, and met Alban’s eyes squarely when he looked at me.

He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded and looked away. ‘That is good to know.’

His tone suggested he’d drawn all manner of conclusions from that single word, some of which may or may not be hurtful, and some of which may or may not be true. But I didn’t have time to deal with it just then. Trailing from Zareen and George in dishabille, to an indignant Jay, to a sulking Alban, I felt like a nanny with a large and fractious brood to manage. ‘We’d better go, hadn’t we?’

It is awfully romantic, Millie broke in. Like a fairy tale. Shall you marry the prince in the end, Miss Vesper? I do hope so!

If I’d tried to come up with the quickest way to make the scene even more painfully awkward, I couldn’t have done a better job. ‘Thanks, Millie,’ I said with a sigh.

I judged it best to beat a hasty retreat.

I like her, I heard Millie say before I had made it out of earshot.

And Alban said, softly, ‘Me too.’

Turn page ->

How it seems to work with storytellers is: they arrive, noisily. People among the quickly-gathering crowd begin shouting out requests for stories. The tale-bearers pick whichever suggestion best suits their fancy and, for a little while, the drums stop in favour of their voices. Jay, Alban and I watched for a little while, taking their measure, and heard a spirited tale of an ancient hero called Gostingot who stormed the strongholds of corrupt sorcerers an unspecified number of centuries ago. The storytellers were good: he with his great, rumbling, booming voice and she with her light, musical tones, they had everything.

Once Gostingot’s tale was done, the giant resumed his drumming and off they went again, collecting more of an audience, until somebody’s called-out suggestion caught their attention once more.

‘This is going to take way too long,’ I said, sotto voce.

‘Right,’ said Jay. ‘It’ll have to be kidnapping, then.’

I stared. ‘What?’

‘That is what you were going to suggest, isn’t it?’

‘Nothing quite so daring—’

‘You disappoint me. Crazy Ves is becoming positively staid.’

I punched him. But only a little bit, on the arm.

I was actually looking at Alban.

‘What?’ said his highness, eyeing me back warily. ‘I don’t like that look in your eye, Ves.’

‘We want tales of displaced royalty, don’t we? How lucky that we happen to have a displaced royal right in our very midst. And from the same source, too!’ I gave him an encouraging smile.

He sighed. ‘So I am to be sacrificed for the sake of today’s mission, am I?’

‘Only your dignity.’

‘That’s reassuring.’

A short while later, a twitch or two of my intensely magickal Sunstone Wand had pepped up the prince’s appearance. His simple, stylish attire now resembled something far grander: he had velvets and silks, a fine, billowing cape, and a golden coronet.

‘Lose the crown, Ves,’ said Alban from between gritted teeth.

‘It is a bit too much,’ Jay agreed, surveying the prince critically.

I pouted a bit, for it made a splendid addition to his bronze-blond locks, but I obeyed.

‘And I’m not sure about the cape,’ Alban added, twisting around to look at the length of it swirling behind himself. ‘Must it billow like that?’

I’d given him the magickal equivalent of a wind machine. ‘Of course it must. We want pomp, we want majesty, we want hints of unearthly powers from afar. We need these people to take you seriously.’

‘That last part is sort of what I was getting at with the billowing thing.’

‘If this were a film, you’d have all that plus a mantle of palpable power, crackling around your muscled frame like a lightning storm—’

‘Please don’t give yourself ideas, Ves.’ He rolled his shoulders, stood a bit straighter, and sighed. ‘Just don’t let anybody trip on it, all right?’

‘Will watch like a hawk,’ I promised, probably mendaciously. I was given an immediate opportunity to prove myself, however, for Ms. Goodfellow made a sudden lunge at the cape’s floating ends and closed her teeth around the half-corporeal fabric. I bonked her on the nose with the Wand and she sneezed in surprise, releasing the cape at once.

‘You’re up,’ I told Alban, and nodded in the direction of the storytellers. We had ducked into a side street as they had paused again for another tale, and by the looks of it the story was winding down.

Alban closed his eyes briefly, opened them again for the pleasure of staring daggers at me, and then walked off.

‘He’s had practice at this,’ I murmured to Jay. We watched in momentary silence as our princely prince strode, with undeniable majesty and enviable grace, across the street and approached the storytellers’ audience. Somehow, that crowd parted for him like the sea; he did not even have to slow down. When he stopped, he was mere feet away from the giant and the sylph, and he seemed to my unbelieving eye to have grown a foot taller since he’d left us. Even the giant could not make him look small.

Jay and I hastily scuttled after.

‘I, Prince Alban of Mandridore,’ he was saying, ‘have come in search of answers to an age-old mystery. My noblest of ancestors, Torvaston the Second, is said once to have visited these shores. I would know the truth of these rumours.’ The fact that Alban was adopted and therefore no relation to Torvaston was quite by the by; I approved of his creative reinterpretation of the truth. He had a flare for it.

There followed some due flattering of the tale-bearers and their superior knowledge, wisdom, etc, most of which seemed to hit the mark. When he’d finished speaking, silence fell.

I noticed the giant’s merry eyes had travelled from Alban to Jay to me, and there was a twinkle of amusement discernible there.

‘I am sorry to tell your highness,’ he said in his deep, deep voice, ‘we know no tales of a Torvaston the Second.’

Alban appeared thrown by this, for when he opened his mouth nothing came out.

‘However,’ the giant went on, his smile broadening, ‘we do mayhap know a tale of another king of the trolls, who named himself Furgidan the Dispossessed.’

I knew the word furgidan. It meant “king” in Court Algatish, the language spoken upon more formal occasions at the Troll Courts. The Dispossessed King. That sounded about right.

‘A tale of tragedy, mystery, and adventure!’ the giant went on, addressing the crowd now. ‘And it takes place right here, upon your own Whitmore! Who shall hear it?’

Happily for us, the cheering that followed said everyone quite effectively.

‘Well, then,’ said the giant. ‘Some hundreds of years ago, the said Furgidan arrived with a royal entourage of more than thirty trolls, all members of his former court. Dukes and barons and marchionesses all, they caused quite the stir, for they were clad in finery rather like their descendent here,’ (Alban’s cape billowed obligingly at these words), ‘and they made the grandest of claims! “I am a king from afar,” said Furgidan, “from Farringale, on another shore.”

The sylph took up the tale. ‘I do not know that everyone believed him, for all knew of Farringale. The splendid Court of the Trolls, rich and age-old; there could be no other. But something about these grand strangers caught at the eye, and at the heart. They had travelled long and far, for there was a weariness about them, and a melancholy.

‘Offered bread and wine, the king declined, and so did all his party. They needed no sustenance, they said, and asked nothing of those who greeted them, save for one thing only. “We come in search of a home,” said Furgidan. “Some distant place, rich in magick, where we will be of trouble to no one.”‘

‘It is not known whither the dispossessed king went,’ said the giant, beginning to play the soft rhythm on his drums that indicated the story was drawing to a close. ‘Some say that he went into the south, to the Seas of Segorne and the islands there. Others trace his path deep into the North, to the Hyndorin Mountains and their Vales of Wonder. None can say for certain.

‘But a whisper once reached my ears about Furgidan the Dispossessed. It’s said that, wherever he and his courtiers made their home, they are there still. Not even the passage of centuries can defeat the lost King of Farringale.’

The tale ended there, for the giant returned to his drumming as his partner called for more requests. To my puzzlement, the drummer winked at me.

I mulled over the possible meanings of this gesture. I supposed he meant to indicate that he’d taken some liberties with the tale, which of course I had guessed. For one thing, this event — if it had taken place at all — had not happened on Whitmore, or Melmidoc would have met Furgidan the Dispossessed. Instead, only a whisper of the story had reached the Redclover brothers’ ears, which argued for a much more distant setting.

For another thing, I highly doubted that Furgidan — or rather, Torvaston — and his court were still alive somewhere, three and a half centuries later. That smacked to me of a cute way of ending a tale which, in its natural form, had no real ending at all. A twist of the storytellers’ art: a tendency to adapt the details of a story to suit the tastes of their audience.

And I didn’t want to get started on the question of how Torvaston had known of the sixth Britain when, according to Alban, his descendants knew of only three Britains, not including this one.

But what truths might we glean from the tale, having stripped away the embellishments? Some parts of it did not altogether make sense. Then again, some parts of it were highly interesting.

We went back to the library.

‘Points of interest,’ I said a little later, as I stalked shelves overflowing with history books. ‘Why were they weary? They had travelled far, yes, in the technical sense, but they hadn’t travelled long. They must have arrived by Waymaster; they hadn’t journeyed for months on foot. What was the matter with them?’

‘And why were they melancholy?’ Jay put in. ‘Yes, they’d lost Farringale, and perhaps that’s reason enough. But no mention of that was made in the story. Why did they come here, instead of going to Mandridore with the rest?’

‘Third point,’ said Alban, dropping a heavy tome down onto the nearest study table with a boompf. ‘These Seas of Segorne and mountainous Vales of Wonder. Were they pulled out of thin air for the tale, because they sound good? Or were they significant? I think the latter. Look.’ He riffled quickly through the book, careless of its aging paper, and skimmed a page or two. ‘The Seas of Segorne,’ he said. ‘Place of myth, said to have existed somewhere off the southwest coast of Britain. The islands there weren’t the traditional kind, for instead of floating on the water they drifted in the air, several feet above the sea’s surface. It was thought that the area was so soaked in magick that it had been warped by it, and nothing there was as it should’ve been.’

He turned several more pages. ‘Then the Hyndorin Mountains and those Wonder Vales. Same thing. Sounds to me like there were some magickal Dells scattered about up there, but unusually potent ones, flooded with magick. They, too, had gone a little strange. One was the site of a plethora of magick-induced mutations; nothing living that went in ever came out quite the same. One was said to have made a bubble of itself and floated away. Etc.’ He looked at me. ‘They asked for a place rich in magick, according to the story.’

‘Not just rich, but drowning in it,’ I mused. ‘Even to the point of being highly unsafe.’

‘Mm. But what does that do to our theory about old Farringale? If there was some kind of magickal disaster there, and the place was flooded, then it’s natural that Torvaston and company would flee from it, like everyone else. But why would they go searching for another home much the same?’

‘I wonder if they left voluntarily,’ said Jay, leafing through a book.

‘As much so as the rest, I suppose?’ I said. ‘Nobody wanted to abandon Farringale.’

‘I don’t mean Farringale, I mean Mandridore. We’ve been assuming that they chose to come here instead. What if they were exiled?’

‘Torvaston the Second, exiled from his own court?’ Alban was incredulous. ‘And exiled by, presumably, his own wife? How could that be?’

‘I don’t know, but it would explain the melancholy, wouldn’t it?’

‘That might just have been a detail for the story,’ Alban objected. ‘Included to get the audience to pity the dispossessed king.’

‘Might be,’ Jay agreed. ‘Then again, might not.’

I mulled this over. ‘It would take something very, very big to get the king kicked out.’

‘To say the least,’ said Jay.

‘As in, catastrophically big.’ I didn’t want to air the direction my thoughts were tending in. My vague new hypothesis bordered too much on the treasonous.

So I kept it to myself.

‘If something like that happened,’ said Alban, ‘there must be some record of it at Mandridore. There must.’

‘If so, I’m guessing it’s deeply buried,’ I said.

‘Luckily, I happen to know the queen.’ Alban grinned, a shade rueful.

Turn page ->

‘Torvaston the Second?’ I gasped. ‘But no, how could that be? He and Queen Hrruna founded the new court at Mandridore.’

You see the problem. Not that I was aware of this point of detail myself, for with these snatches of rumour came no report of the catastrophe at Farringale. But in my memory, Farringale was all-powerful, utterly unassailable. Why, then, should Torvaston ever leave it? And without Hrruna? It was impossible to credit such ridiculous assertions, and I ceased to listen to those who spread them. Somewhat to my regret, now.

My brain reeling, I had no immediate idea of what to say. Alban looked absolutely thunderstruck.

‘But, no,’ he said, faintly. ‘That cannot be, Melmidoc. It cannot. It is so widely known that Torvaston and Hrruna both took the Court to Mandridore. If the king had vanished, that must have been known. How could it have been concealed?’

I cannot answer that any more than you can, said Melmidoc. And perhaps I was right to dismiss these stories; perhaps they cannot, after all, be true. But I thought that you should know of them.

‘You were right,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Melmidoc.’ My heart was fluttering with excitement at this new mystery, and I wanted to set off running at once. What if it was true? What if?

‘Where did they go?’ said Jay. ‘Was it ever said? I can’t suppose they went off to your other Farringale.’

No, I do not suppose it either, Melmidoc agreed. The Court here is similar in some respects, but wildly different in many others, and would offer nothing of the comfort of familiarity a refugee might seek. Besides which, of course, Torvaston was king only in his own Britain. Another held that position here. No, I do not think it likely they went to Farringale, but where they went instead, I never did learn.

Alban was looking wild-eyed, and I thought I could guess at some of his thoughts. If Torvaston the Second had disappeared, who had known of it? Who knew of it now? Did his current liege-lords have the smallest suspicion?

What is commonly known about the earliest days of the new Court at Mandridore? Melmidoc asked.

‘Um.’ Alban visibly collected himself. ‘I’ve never studied the details, but it’s known that many of the Old Court made the transfer. Not all, but both of the monarchs for certain.’ He thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It isn’t my area of expertise. I’d have to research.’

I could see two choices opening before us. We could go back to Mandridore and raid the libraries there for more information about magickal surges, griffins, and now the founding of the new Court. Or we could stay on the fifth, and see if we could uncover the truth about the supposed arrival of Torvaston the Second from the sixth. The latter posed a few problems. If nobody knew where they were said to have gone, where did we start looking?

‘Mel, if we wanted to dig into these rumours, where would you suggest we go?’

If my memory does not betray me, answered Melmidoc — gliding past my abbreviation of his name, this time — I received these rumours from the lips of a travelling storyteller. In those days, they were a common sight. They wandered from town to town, telling tales in exchange for food or ale or coin. They brought gossip, too, and the news from parts far distant, though I have often suspected them of fabricating events altogether for the sake of a wage. There are not so many, now, but a handful remain. They make a virtue of the power of tales which I, I confess, do not wholly share, but since it has lead them to keep meticulous accounts of the stories, rumours and half-truths they have told down the ages, it is not without its uses.

‘So there is a repository somewhere?’ I said, encouraged.

I believe there are paper records, as I believe you are thinking of, but this practice was not begun until much more recently than the period we are interested in. I do not think it would be of much assistance to you.

‘That’s disappointing.’

However. There is a wild tale the storytellers like to say of themselves. It is not a simple matter to take up the profession; it is accounted among the many magickal arts, and there is a long process of learning and practice involved. When a new storyteller completes this process and takes on the mantle of tale-bearer, it is said that they receive full knowledge of all the tales that have gone before.

Melmidoc’s tone became more and more sceptical as he spoke.

‘You mean like a shared memory?’ Jay said.

Something of that sort. I have never felt sufficient interest to enquire into the precise workings of this supposed art. I admit to finding it improbably far-fetched. But stranger things have happened.

It was impossible to argue with such a point, standing as I was in an alternate world, chatting with the ghost of a Waymaster who had died hundreds of years before. ‘Where might we find one of these tale-bearers?’ I asked.

There are none on Whitmore at present. However, it is common for one or more to attend the Feast of Delunia here. We may yet play host to some representative of their people.

‘We can’t go home yet anyway,’ said Jay. ‘Millie won’t be ready to travel until tomorrow at the earliest.’

I chafed at the delay, wanting to talk to one of these wonderful people now, right away. ‘Is there not some way we could track one of them down?’ I asked, with faint hope.

I cannot see how. Melmidoc’s voice registered suppressed amusement. The problem with wanderers is their tendency to wander.

‘Well, then,’ said Alban, with his first real smile at me all day, ‘maybe it’s time for that little bit of feasting we were talking about.’

‘A little bit, maybe even a lot?’ I said.

‘Stranger things have happened.’

I will gloss over the events of that evening. Picture everything you like in the way of feasting and dancing, singing (yes, I admit it) and general decadence, and you’d have a fair idea of how Jay, Alban and I spent those hours. I’m not sorry either. Life’s for living.

We retired to Millie’s welcoming embrace at a shockingly late hour, only belatedly discovering that she had nothing resembling a bed among her scattered furniture. Not even one. So we divested her various chairs, couches and floors of assorted pillows, blankets and rugs, and passed out all over the floor.

It wasn’t our most dignified episode.

I woke the next morning to just a touch of a headache, and an appalling crick in my neck. ‘We should get Millie a few furniture upgrades,’ I said to Jay, who remained too comatose to make me any response.

I found Alban nursing his own headache on the porch, which was brave of him. The sun was pretty blinding by then. ‘I needed some air,’ he said to me as I joined him.

‘There’s air inside.’

‘A bit.’

You would think my stomach could’ve refrained from manifesting hunger, considering how much I had put into it the night before. It would have been the polite thing to do. But no. In fact it was roaring with distress.

‘There’s some kind of a pub two streets over,’ said Alban, grinning at me.

‘Pubs don’t serve breakfast.’

‘It’s nearer lunch by now.’

I’d switched my phone off, considering it was about as useful as a lump of rock out here. I had no idea what time it was. But considering the heat of the day, the height of the sun and the stroppiness of my empty stomach, he was probably right. ‘I’ll fetch Jay,’ I said, getting to my feet with a wince. ‘If I can.’

‘Bucket of cold water.’

‘We have no water.’

‘Ask Millie.’

‘Good idea.’

Millie had no water either, but she managed a creditable alternative. Her rickety old spinet sidled over to where Jay lay prone, and struck up a thundering concerto. Millie sang along with it, with a presumably improvised song about sleeping beauty. It wasn’t half bad.

Jay was insufficiently appreciative. He woke with a start, squinted blearily at the spinet’s keys as they riotously played themselves, and lunged for it with a groan. ‘Stop,’ he begged, laying his arms over the keys to hold them down. ‘Please, stop.’

Millie was undeterred.

‘I do believe you’ve killed him,’ I said, as Jay sank to the floor with a groan and, to all appearances, died.

Millie stopped at once. Mr. Patel?

No response.

I kicked him.

‘I’m alive,’ he said weakly. ‘No thanks to you.’

‘How does breakfast sound?’

‘Terrible.’

‘Coffee?’

His eyes opened. ‘You could interest me in that.’

I held out a hand to him. ‘Up you get. We’re leaving in three minutes.’

‘Only three?’ Jay grasped my hand and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet, very much at my expense. I definitely don’t have the kind of heft necessary for dragging grown men about.

‘Four would be more than my delicate constitution could bear.’ I patted my stomach.

‘Ha.’ Vertical again, Jay swayed unpromisingly, but managed not to collapse. ‘You’re about as delicate as a steel girder.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it an insult?’

Jay thought about it. ‘Nope.’

‘Then I’ll take it.’

An hour and a solid sandwich later — not to mention three cups of tea — I was feeling rather better. Even Jay looked more alive than dead after he’d imbibed a vat or two of coffee. Alban, I concluded, was some kind of demigod, and as such wholly impervious to the effects of alcohol. Or maybe he was just big.

It was as we were preparing to leave that a commotion erupted in the street outside. The music had not begun again yet, to my relief, for I was not yet up to a renewed onslaught of bone-creaking beat. But into the general quiet came the sound of distant drums beating, rapidly coming closer. The rhythm caught my attention and held it; the sounds carried the promise of excitement with them, of colour and entertainment and nameless, but desirable things, and I was seized by an urge to run after whoever was playing those drums.

I recognised a wisp or two of magick at work in all this.

Out we trooped onto the street. We were not the only ones thus affected by the music; the wide road was rapidly filling with people streaming towards the drum beats, all palpably excited about something.

I thought I heard the word “tale-bearer” as a knot of children ran breathlessly past.

‘Seems promising,’ I said, and trotted towards the music.

The drummer was a giant, stomping up the road with thundering footsteps, a gigantic drum slung around his neck. He beat upon the skins with his enormous fists, and the sounds echoed off the stones of the street, improbably amplified. I liked the look of him. He wore a long, sweeping coat in my very favourite colour (purple), a wide-brimmed hat over his thatch of straw-coloured hair, and his weathered face was wreathed in smiles.

Next to him trotted a woman as tiny as the drummer was tall. She was fae, perhaps from one of the sylph tribes, considering the way her feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Pale and ethereal, with a wreath of lavender hair like smoke drifting around her tiny face, she practically oozed magick as she drifted up the street towards us.

I spotted a pack train: two stout ponies laden with bulging saddle-bags.

‘These look like travellers, wouldn’t you say?’ I observed to Jay.

‘Travellers and entertainers,’ he agreed.

‘Let’s go meet them.’

Turn page ->

Later, having peeled Ms. Goodfellow off the leg of the desk, pried my Curiosity out of her possession, and ushered her legion of new friends out of the door again (social butterfly, my pup), we were presented with one, meagre book by our new librarian friend. It was a thin thing, with anaemic white covers and a disappointing lack of heft.

‘It’s really not a popular topic,’ said the librarian, no doubt meaning to be kind as she demolished our mission in a mere six words.

I leafed through it. It contained annotated diagrams of an ortherex parasite and its eggs and larva, plus some notes as to its preferred habitats (rocky spaces in adulthood, especially underground, and a warm, magickal body for the eggs). Young and old alike fed greedily off magickal energies, the fresher the better, which is why they tended to collect in Dells, Dales and Enclaves.

Speaking of which. ‘Farringale is still an active Dell, isn’t it?’ I said aloud.

‘You mean in the magickal sense?’ asked Alban. ‘It seemed to be. It’s unlikely there would still be griffins living there if…’ He paused, staring into space. ‘Griffins,’ he repeated.

‘Yes?’ I prompted.

‘Griffins are as rare as unicorns, no?’

‘At least.’

‘They don’t live just anywhere, do they?’

‘No. I mean, it’s the size of them as much as anything. They need a lot of food, and a strong magickal source, especially if they’re raising young.’

‘Indeed,’ said Alban. ‘So. Where else are there known to be griffins?’

I turned back to the librarian, but Jay was way ahead of me, already asking her for every available resource on griffins.

‘And Magickal Dells,’ I added. ‘Especially the more powerful or unusual ones.’

I could see our credit as scholars was rising by the minute with the librarian. ‘Oh, we’d have lots about that,’ she enthused, and off she went.

Over the next couple of hours, our scholarly spelunkings uncovered the following nuggets of information:

1: While the Court of Farringale survived on the fifth Britain, it was not home to a colony of griffins, as ours was.

2: Griffin sightings were almost as rare on the fifth as they were in our home Britain, the sixth. But, this was not because they were rare in number. It was thought to be due to their intensely magickal nature; like unicorns, they are steeped in the stuff up to their eyeballs from birth (I paraphrase here). Not only can they bear a much closer proximity to dangerously powerful magickal energies than the rest of us, they actually thrive upon it. They need it. Ergo, griffins and unicorns both tend to populate areas in which mere humans, trolls or (arguably) lesser fae fear to tread.

3: Griffins are among the most dangerous of magickal creatures, and nobody wants to tangle with them. Whole villages have been evacuated overnight when a nesting pair of griffins made themselves at home there. But, there have also been recorded cases of griffins and other races living comfortably together without incident.

4: Related to the last point, it has sometimes been known to happen that a known magickal reservoir (a poor term, for it wrongly implies that pools of magick just lie soggily about the place, begging to be dived into, which is not at all the case; but it’s the best we have got) can undergo major, and apparently spontaneous, changes. Once in a great while, a Magickal Dell simply… dies, because its reservoirs dry up. On other occasions, the opposite can happen: a nice, mild Dell with just the right flows of magick can flare up without warning, flashing from balmy to deadly in a matter of hours. If we’re going to go with water analogies, it would be like the placid pond at the bottom of your garden turning into a small sea. Or perhaps a wide ocean. You may not love it if this happened, but creatures like griffins would.

5: This stuff is rare. Incredibly rare. But it happens.

‘What if it wasn’t really the ortherex that destroyed Farringale?’ Jay said at last. ‘What if they were flooded with magick?’

Alban nodded. ‘Which attracted griffins and ortherex alike, and drove away whoever was left alive after that.’

‘In which case,’ I said, ‘perhaps Their Majesties were essentially correct after all. This is a natural disaster. Or on the other hand: why do Dells sometimes flood? Just because no one has yet uncovered a root cause, does not necessarily mean it’s random. There haven’t been enough recorded instances of it to detect patterns, or form workable theories.’

We were gathered around a circular table in one corner of the library, ignoring a growing hunger and thirst (speaking for myself, at least) in the pursuit of Knowledge. Ms. Goodfellow had given up on us and conked out on the table top; Jay had propped a book open against her furry back. She was too deeply asleep to notice.

‘Are you still working on that conspiracy theory?’ Alban said to me, with a faint smile.

‘That somebody deliberately destroyed Farringale? Hmm. Well. I wouldn’t call it a theory, but it is a possibility that ought to be considered.’

Alban nodded. ‘When we get back to Court, I’ll see what the libraries have got about the last days of Farringale. Though I warn you not to get your hopes up too much. There really isn’t a lot.’

‘Which I can’t help thinking is significant. So important and catastrophic an event ought to have more records associated with it. It ought to have been exhaustively studied.’

‘Oh, it has been studied to death. There are endless pamphlets, dissertations and treatises waxing lyrical on a thousand possible causes for its demise. But since none of those authors had the benefit of actual access to the city itself, and because there’s so little hard evidence to base those theories on, it’s all just hot air. I suspect it’s become something of a sport by now. Who can come up with the wildest theory yet?’

‘Either way, Mel is right,’ I said. ‘If we’re correct in thinking that it’s a magickal surge that brought the ortherex, and the griffins, to Farringale — and keeps them there — then that’s what would have to be reversed in order to restore it to safety.’

‘Tall order,’ said Jay.

‘Truth. Has such a thing ever been done? Has anyone even tried?’ Our stack of books, informative as they were, had given no such indication. The few recorded occasions of magickal surges, or floods, had typically devastated a village here and there, or a small town; the inhabitants had simply moved to a new, safer spot, and gone on with their lives. Nobody had considered it worth the effort of trying to retrieve a flooded site, which told me one thing at least: there was certainly no easy way to do it.

But, we had the entire Court of Mandridore on our side.

‘We’ll have to be the first,’ said Jay.

‘I feel like a hero already.’

‘The ortherex and the griffins are an obstacle,’ Alban pointed out.

‘Right. Their Majesties will be needing significant non-troll assistance.’ I beamed at him.

‘Plus a couple of excellent griffin-tamers.’

‘A dime a dozen, those,’ I said stoutly.

‘Ves. That’s a lie.’

‘No. It’s optimism.’

Alban folded his arms. ‘Same thing.’

I winced. ‘Your cynicism is showing, your highness.’

I was rewarded with a scowl, which I felt was not undeserved.

‘I want,’ I said shortly afterwards, as we left the library of Whitmore and wended our way back up to Mel’s spire, ‘to go over the water, and see the rest of this Britain.’

‘All of it?’ said Jay.

‘Yes.’

‘That will take a while.’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, I’m in.’ He held up his closed fist, which I bumped with my own.

‘One crazy mission at a time?’ Alban said. ‘Can we do that?’

‘Fine, fine. Farringale first, then the world.’

Jay was clutching our stack of books, with the same tenderness he might show to a puppy, or his firstborn child. He’d cared for his haul from Farringale with similar devotion. I did so like that about him. He had also undertaken to persuade the librarian to let us abscond with them, which had been no easy task. Even bandying Melmidoc’s name about hadn’t convinced her. I wasn’t sure how he had, in the end, except that it might have had something to do with that ineffable charm of his. Put anyone in a room with Jay for long enough, and they’d do anything for him.

I probably needed to work on improving my defences.

Anyway, we’d soothed the anxious librarian with promises of leaving the books at the spire, which we assuredly would, too — right after we’d given Mauf plenty of time to canoodle with them. We wanted to take their contents with us, if we couldn’t take the books themselves.

At the spire, we found Mauf deep in conversation with Mel. Loudly, too; laughter drifted through the closed door as we approached, audible even over the music, followed by snatches of some debate conducted at top volume.

‘When I said they’d get along splendidly, I didn’t know I was speaking the literal truth,’ I said as I pushed open the door, mystified.

Mauf lay sprawled in the centre of the otherwise empty hallway, his pages drifting idly back and forth. If he wasn’t a book and therefore constitutionally incapable of it, I’d have said he might be drunk.

‘Miss Vesper!’ he carolled joyfully as I stepped inside, Ms. Goodfellow trotting at my heels. ‘Pleasant greetings!’

‘Thank you,’ I said, conscious of a feeling of wariness. ‘And what have you two been up to?’

‘This fellow knows everything — everything — about the seventeenth principle of magickal dynamism under controlled conditions,’ said Mauf.

It was a specialty of mine, in my youth, said Melmidoc modestly.

The look on Jay’s face told me he had as little notion what Mauf was on about as I did.

‘We’ve been thieving,’ I said brightly, as Jay carefully set his stack of books down by Mauf. ‘With permission, I swear.’

I am astonished that Pherellina was able to provide you with such a wealth of material on the ortherex.

‘She wasn’t. Most of this is about Magickal Dells, surges, and griffins.’

Oh?

I told Melmidoc all about our fledgling theory. To my ear at least, it sounded very thin when spoken aloud. ‘I know we’ve only the most circumstantial evidence as yet,’ I finished. ‘But we’d like to investigate further.’

I have been debating within myself during your absence, Melmidoc replied. In fact, your excellent companion and I have had some conversation together upon a topic which may be of relevance to your quest.

‘Not the seventeenth principle of magickal dynamism under controlled conditions?’ I guessed.

Not that. No. This is mere rumour, a tale, one I have long dismissed as nonsense. But perhaps it is more than that.

‘Stories often contain a kernel of truth,’ I offered. ‘Sometimes a lot more than that.’

Indeed. Well, then. Some years after my removal here with my brother, and the most dedicated of our students and colleagues, it was suggested to me that we were not the only explorers from the sixth Britain to settle in these parts.

‘What!’

Yes. We, too, were interested, at least at first. But as the story unfolded, our excitement faded, for the scenario seemed to us so replete with absurdity as to be wholly uncreditable. These other refugees were trolls, supposedly, from Farringale itself. No ordinary citizens, either; they included the highest of courtiers, prominent officials and scholars — even, so it was said, the king himself.

Turn page ->

‘You said the ortherex of this Britain are stronger,’ I said to Melmidoc. ‘And they don’t confine themselves to just troll hosts. What else do they like?’

All of the more distinctly magickal races have suffered their share of infestations, Melmidoc replied. Though, interestingly, it is only sentient creatures who are afflicted. There have been no recorded cases of ortherex feeding upon, or breeding within, any species of magickal beast.

That eliminated my first theory. The only other living creatures we had encountered at Farringale were griffins. While they were splendidly magickal, I did not think they were sentient.

Probably.

‘Mauf, are griffins—’ I began, opening the rich purple cover of my precious book. But there I stopped, for I’d received an eyeful of his title page. ‘….That’s new,’ I observed.

‘In point of fact,’ said Mauf loftily, ‘It is a very old technique.’

‘I know that, but I’ve never seen you employ it before.’

‘I understand my predecessor to have been stolen, once. I humbly suggest that he would not have been, had he taken the correct precautions.’

‘Like this one, for example?’

‘Precisely like this one.’

I read the title page aloud. ‘Whoever steals this book, may they be drowned in water. And if they be not drowned in water, may they be burned in fire. And if they be not burned in fire, may they be hanged from the neck. And if they be not hanged from the neck, may they ingest poison. And if they do not ingest poison, may they be eaten by wolves. And if they be not eaten by wolves, may they fall from a great height. And if they do not fall from a great height…’ I turned the page and stopped reading, for it went on. And on.

‘Taking no chances, eh, Mauf?’ said Jay.

I patted the book gently. ‘Maufry, you do know that medieval thief-curses don’t work?’

‘Who says that they do not?’

The practice had persisted in some quarters well past the medieval era, in fact, for the belief in their efficacy as curses had endured. It had taken a large study, sponsored by the Hidden Ministry in its earlier days, to establish that many were fake. Or not so much fake as insufficient; they were just words, usually written down by those who had no magick. A real thief-curse needed no words, and since the authentic kind were genuinely deadly, they had, of course, been banned by the Ministry long ago.

But Mauf was bristling in my hands, and the tone of his dusty book-voice was both defensive and slightly injured. So I said, ‘Never mind,’ and weakly changed the subject. ‘Ortherex, Mauf. I am sure you must know a lot about those.’

‘Having sat helpless upon my shelf while they ate up my city around me, I can say with some justification that I do.’

‘What did they do?’

‘They drank up the magick of Farringale and dined upon its inhabitants, until the population lay dead in droves.’

‘And then what?’

‘I do not know, Miss Vesper. I, like my fellow tomes, fell deeply into slumber. What was left to wake for?’

‘Wait,’ said Jay, frowning. ‘We were there. We saw empty streets, quite clean. It was nothing like Darrowdale. If the people all died, why didn’t we see bones? Skeletons?’

‘Did they all die?’ said Alban. ‘Some fled, and founded Mandridore.’

‘And stuck around long enough to clean up the streets before they left? With the place infested with ortherex, and the threat of catching the infection any moment?’

He was right; that didn’t make sense.

I was silent, for another question was swirling about in my mind. If the parasites existed still in the fifth Britain, and had in fact grown stronger down the ages… why had there been no Farringale incident here? Why were they still accounted only as pests, not as disasters?

How was it that the things had suddenly grown so all-powerful in the 1650s as to wipe out Farringale within a year?

I was beginning to realise that this was in no way normal.

I relayed these thoughts, and Alban’s frown deepened. ‘Their Majesties believe it to have been something along the lines of a natural disaster,’ he said. ‘Tragic, but no more preventable than a hurricane or a volcanic eruption. Perhaps they’re wrong.’

‘If so, this could be a lot more complicated than simply clearing out the ortherex,’ said Jay. ‘We need to make sure they stay gone — and that means we need to know how they got there in the first place, and how they proliferated so fast.’

Maybe Their Majesties had more of an inkling than Alban suspected, for had I not asked myself why they had involved Jay and me? We were human. The ortherex of our Britain left humans alone, or so Baroness Tremayne had said. The king and queen couldn’t send people like Alban back into Farringale; they would be in terrible danger. But the Society’s members mostly weren’t trolls. Were we to be sent back to Farringale, once we’d found the way to fight the ortherex? I felt a flicker of excitement at the idea. This was hero-tale stuff.

Anyway. Focus. Answers first, heroics later. ‘Alban,’ I said. ‘How much is known of Farringale’s history directly before its demise?’

‘Not as much as you’d think. Those who fled the city salvaged what they could, but they were fleeing for their lives. It wasn’t all that much. Most of the library was left behind, as you saw, and those who founded Mandridore weren’t necessarily scholars. They were too busy building the new Court to produce detailed accounts of what they’d left behind them, or so we assume. It’s a hazy period.’

‘I am beginning to wonder if there wasn’t something else going on,’ I said. ‘Did the Court have enemies?’

‘It was a supremely powerful Court. Of course it had enemies.’

‘Any among rival powers?’

Alban looked thoughtfully at me. ‘Interesting question, Ves.’

‘Those were brutal times. The non-magickal folk were chopping the heads off their own kings. Who’s to say what the Fae Courts might have been doing to one another?’

‘Interesting, hideous question, Ves.’

‘Where can we go to get more answers?’ I said. ‘Mel, you implied there is a Farringale in this Britain.’

Mel. How charmingly brief.

I’d heard the dragon, Archibaldo, address Melmidoc as “Mel,” but perhaps I had not yet earned that right. Fair.

‘Mr. Redclover,’ I amended.

The air rippled with amusement. It is indeed the case that Farringale reigns on over the fifth.

‘And is it still a centre of learning?’

Some even believe that it rivals Whitmore as such.

Melmidoc obviously disagreed.

‘What have you got here?’ interjected Jay. ‘Anything good on the ortherex?’

After a short silence, Melmidoc said: I do not recall that the scholars of Whitmore have made a specialty of the study, but I am certain something can be found to interest you.

I tapped Mauf’s gold-edged pages. ‘Anything to add, Mauf?’

‘Not a great deal, Miss Vesper.’

I should like to borrow that book.

‘What?’ I said, surprised. ‘Mauf?’

It is a highly interesting piece of work.

‘It?’ said Mauf. ‘I am a gentleman, sir.’ His front cover snapped crisply shut, sending a puff of dust flying out from… somewhere.

Precisely my point.

‘If Mauf does not object, I am sure you may have an audience with him,’ I offered.

I shall be very much obliged.

Mauf maintained an offended silence for a few seconds, but flattery has ever worked wonders upon his vain little heart. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said huffily. ‘If Miss Vesper would like me to have conversation with this ghost, I shall, as always, be delighted to please her.’

I’ll here own up that flattery works wonders upon my vain little heart, too. I smiled.

‘However uncouth he may be,’ added Mauf.

I smirked. ‘You two will get along splendidly.’

The main problem with Whitmore as a prominent centre of learning is that it is rather small. Being already the Centre of Government for the North, or whatever Mel had called it, as well as the home of a reasonably thriving population of scholars, sorcerers and assorted others, there is already a lot to make room for. By the time you’ve added in a smattering of classrooms, magickal laboratories and lecture halls, that’s about it for space.

As such, the library to which we were later escorted was dishearteningly compact. Scarcely larger than the library at Home, in fact. Which was not to disparage it too much; Val’s library is a wonderful resource, one which has come to my aid many a time. Only, when one is looking for detailed knowledge upon a specialist, if not outright esoteric, subject, one hopes for a certain breadth.

I’d left Mauf lounging at the spire, giving Melmidoc a hard time. The pup, however, came along with us. I thought she was in sore need of some exercise, and perhaps a bit of social time with some others of her own kind. Mel assured us she would not wander off for long; they were loyal, the Dappledok pups. Nonetheless, I’d suffered a twinge of anxiety as we left the spire, for the pup had bombed straight past us and disappeared up the street at a gallop, ears and tail flying. We hadn’t seen her since.

The music had met us with a roar as we’d made our way to the library Mel described, and I’d spared a hope that it would be as muted among the books as it had been inside Melmidoc’s spire. I love music, but it is no easy task to study through someone else’s ear-shattering party.

The library, as it turned out, was everything I could have wished for. Almost eerily silent, with a web of complex enchantments to block out all sound from beyond the walls; stuffed floor to ceiling with books, making the most of every available inch of space; and, considering that it was party season, encouragingly deserted. I do so enjoy having a library to myself.

Well, not quite to myself, but I did not mind sharing with Jay and Alban.

We were met by the librarian on duty. Sort of.

When I said they were making the most of every possible inch, I mean that their attitude to space was a little different to ours. On our Britain, we need things like walls to support bookcases, and floors upon which to stand desks and chairs. On the fifth, apparently they do not. The librarian sat at a heavy oak desk floating some eight feet above our heads, surrounded by a small fleet of other such furniture. She reached for a book as I watched, and plucked it from a shelf tucked just under the ceiling. Well, why bother clambering up ladders to fetch the books down when you can go up to meet them? It was like my flying chair trick, only about ten times more powerful.

A deep lust uncurled in my covetous soul, and I suddenly had no trouble understanding why Jay had been reluctant to leave.

So absorbed was the librarian in her work, whatever it was, that she did not notice our entry. At length, Jay discovered a bell hovering near the door, and lightly rang it.

‘Oh!’ said she, peering down at us. ‘Just a moment. Sorry.’

“A moment” turned out to be more like three or four minutes, but at last she drifted down — her chair did, anyway, with her seated upon it; the desk remained up near the ceiling. She smiled at us and said: ‘I wasn’t expecting anybody today.’

Justifiably enough; the people of Whitmore really knew how to party. ‘We’re visiting,’ I told her. Her appearance fascinated me a little. She was as short as me, but thinner, even fragile-looking, with pale, wispy hair and sea-green eyes. Human enough, I thought, but not human through-and-through; her features, her air of ethereal delicacy, suggested to me that she had significant fae heritage somewhere in her family tree. Was that common for Whitmore? Or perhaps across the whole of the fifth? Perhaps it was. If the magick half of the world had no need to hide themselves, it stood to reason that intermingling would lead to more people of mixed heritage.

I liked this.

‘Melmidoc sent us down here,’ Jay told her, which wasn’t a bad move. ‘We’re looking for anything you have on ortherex infestations.’

Her face lit up at mention of Melmidoc’s name — and then fell again at Jay’s next words. Hardly surprising. Could there be a more deeply unsexy subject than pest management?

‘Our focus tends to be on more arcane subjects, but I’ll see what I can find.’ She went off, on foot this time, to consult an enormous tome chained to a pedestal some way behind her. An old-school library catalogue, a foot thick, its spine supported by chunky bronze hinges and its pages clad in thick green leather. Did they not have computers on Whitmore? Not that I was displeased. My nerdy little soul blazed with delight at sight of so beautiful a book.

I heard a cheery yip from behind me, and whirled. There was my pup!

…and at least twenty others. They came streaming in the library door, tails waving like flags, noses scooting along the ground as they scattered everywhere.

‘Oops,’ said Jay. ‘Maybe should not have left the door open.’

‘Um.’ I eyed the wriggling yellow furries doubtfully. ‘Which one of you is Pup?’

‘You still haven’t given her a name?’ said Alban, and then pointed out one of the pups — the one presently trying to climb the leg of the nearest desk. ‘There she is.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘She’s got your ring on her horn.’

She did, too. My right ring finger was bare of the labradorite hoop that usually adorned it. The jewel lay instead around the base of my disgraceful pup’s single horn, a glint of pearly rainbow colours among her yellow fur.

‘How did you—?!’ I resisted the temptation to clutch at my golden hair, the colour of which could not be changed without that ring, and set off after her.

‘How about Robin Goodfellow?’ Alban called after me.

Turn page ->

The grounds of Ashdown Castle were beautiful, once.

Then we’d happened.

Actually, to be fair, Fenella Beaumont had happened. It was she who had enslaved several hapless Waymaster spirits and forced them to jaunt off with the castle. We’d obliged the castle’s inhabitants to come back without it, Fenella included — leaving the building itself camped on the shores of Whitmore Isle on the Fifth Britain. Zareen and George were out there somewhere, too.

We would be more unpopular with Ancestria Magicka than ever, should they recover their memories of these thrilling events.

When Jay, Alban and I arrived at Ashdown we found a mess of dark, ruined earth where the castle once stood. Only a few outbuildings lingered: the stable block, and assorted others, most of them in ruins. There was no sign of Fenella, or of any of the rest of her organisation. I wondered where, in their confusion, they might have chosen to decamp to.

More unfortunately for us, we found no sign of Millie Makepeace, either.

She’s hard to miss. Big, craggy and built from flint, she is a farmhouse somewhere north of two hundred years old. A bit shabby around the edges, perhaps; some of her stones are falling out, and her doors and window-frames are in need of a fresh coat of paint. She also has a habit of singing. Loudly.

But the burgeoning sunlight of early morning shone dewily down upon an empty, silent space, an occasional old oak swaying gently in the breeze.

‘Setback,’ I said, turning in a circle to survey the grounds in their entirety. Nothing.

‘Millie!’ Jay called. The word echoed hollowly over the ragged, grassy ground and no reply came.

The spirit of Mellicent Makepeace had brought the lot of us back — all of Fenella’s dinner guests squashed into a house that, though large as such buildings went, could barely accommodate so many. We’d beat a hasty retreat after that, and had not stayed to see what became of the house.

‘Where might a dispossessed farmhouse with homicidal tendencies go when she’s tired?’ I asked.

‘Wherever Ancestria Magicka told her to, probably,’ said Jay. ‘I tried to tell her she shouldn’t listen to that lot, but I don’t think she was hearing me.’

I felt a moment’s compunction on Millie’s account. We ought to have taken better care what happened to her. Only we’d been exhausted at the time, confused and disoriented ourselves, and urgently in need of returning Home and reporting to Milady. And Millie came off as a woman/house who could take care of herself.

‘Shh!’ said Jay suddenly, and froze.

I waited.

‘Do you hear that?’

I didn’t — and then I did. A distant, thin sound, like an eerie wail. Then another.

A few seconds later, she was hitting the high notes. I winced.

‘Come on.’ Jay set off in the general direction of the singing. Alban and I, without looking at each other, followed.

We found Millie parked on the very edge of the Ashdown property, as though she’d been making a bid for freedom and then lacked the energy to take the final step. Huddled in the midst of a circle of ancient elms, she sat swaying slightly from side to side, her stones rumbling, and singing some wordless song of woe.

Her front door was missing, and by the looks of it, someone had taken an axe to her porch-fence and windows. Shattered glass lay everywhere.

‘Millie!’ hollered Jay, for the third time. ‘Mellicent Makepeace!’

The house stopped wailing. Mr. Patel?

Jay, looking furious again, stomped in through the empty space where her front door had been. ‘What’s happened to you?’

She did! said Millie tragically. She did not know what she was doing here without her castle, but said that it must be my fault somehow.

She was presumably Fenella Beaumont. I winced, my guilt deepening. It had not occurred to me that, in the absence of an obvious culprit for the ruin of her plans (me, Jay and the Society in general) the woman might turn on Millie.

Jay sighed, and awkwardly patted her ruined door frame. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll get you a new door.’

‘And windows,’ I added, following Jay inside. ‘I’m sure such things can be arranged for on Whitmore.’

‘How about that, Millie?’ said Jay. ‘Do you want to get out of here?’

Yes! she hissed. And I am never, ever, ever coming back.’

There followed the sounds of muffled sobbing.

‘Fenella really needs to work on her staff satisfaction,’ I muttered. So the leader of Ancestria Magicka had a temper. Usefully possessed houses like this one were not in plentiful supply; she must have been absolutely incensed to treat Millie so cruelly. It was, to say the least, unwise.

I smiled, and leaned against her parlour wall in what I hoped was a comforting manner. ‘May we offer you alternative employment with the Society? Absolutely no axes, ever. All the doors and windows you’d like. And you’d be near Jay all the time.’

Jay shot me an appalled look.

Jay? said Millie. You mean Mr. Patel?

‘That’s right.’

A moment’s silence. Then: And who is this gentleman? said Millie, in a tone I could only describe as caressing.

Baron — Prince Alban — had kept his own counsel up until then, and taken up a station in a quiet corner, observing the proceedings in a silence I hoped was only thoughtful, not grim. He looked up at that, his eyes almost as wide as Jay’s. ‘Er,’ he said, with uncharacteristic hesitation. ‘My name’s Alban, Miss Makepeace.’

The temperature in the house, previously frigid, warmed a perceptible few degrees. And do you work for the Society also, Mr. Alban?

I shot his highness a warning look.

‘Er, yes,’ he said. ‘For the time being.’

Excellent, she crooned. Then I accept. What are to be my duties?

I looked at Jay to see how he’d taken the defection of his loyal sycophant. He was smiling.

I suppose the dog-like devotion of a lugubrious, murdering deadwoman would grow wearisome.

‘Conveyance,’ said Jay. ‘We’d like to go back to that nice island you took me to before. Do you think you’re feeling up to it?’

Am I up to it! Millie’s incorporeal voice rang with enthusiasm. Just try to stop me!

‘Wait a moment, I—’ began Jay, but too late, for Millie’s timbers were already shivering (so to speak) and a wave of energy shot from floor to ceiling, setting my teeth on edge.

With a whoosh, we were gone.

Three minutes later, my bones still vibrating from the journey, I stepped out of Millie’s front porch, eager to catch another glimpse of lovely, exciting Whitmore.

What met my eye absolutely was not that.

‘Miss Makepeace?’ I ventured. ‘I think we’ve missed Whitmore.’

Jay and Alban joined me on the porch. We stared in silence at the view: an expanse of featureless land, largely desolate, with no trees, buildings or other prominent structures. The terrain was lumpy, dull and muddy, with a desultory smattering of rough, colourless grass. As flat as Lincolnshire, with a drab, stony beach tacked on at the edge, it gave way in the distance to a steel-grey sea. A thick mist hung in the air, obscuring what, if anything, lay beyond the water.

This is Whitmore, said Millie crossly. I am sure of it.

‘Different Whitmore,’ said Jay briefly.

‘Did this happen before?’ I asked.

‘No. But there are several Britains, and we didn’t specify which one we wanted.’

‘You said “the nice island we went to before.”‘

‘She’s tired,’ said Jay pacifically.

‘Tired?’ I said in a low voice. ‘Or untrustworthy?’

Jay raised his voice. ‘Millie, you weren’t told to bring us here, were you?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Subtle.’ If it was May on that particular Britain, there was no sign of it. The wind was chilly, the air damp, and my optimistically thin summer dress was not up to the demands of the weather. I began to shiver.

You were not supposed to guess that, said Millie in a small voice. They said you would never ask.

All right, I stood corrected. Subtlety wasn’t always superior.

‘They?’ prompted Jay. ‘You mean Fenella?’

Who’s that?

‘The bitch with the axe,’ I supplied.

Yes. With a subdued roar of loose stonework, the house began to tremble. She said they would demolish me if I did not do as they asked.

Alban said mildly, ‘You might like to stop being a building?’

THIS IS MY HOUSE. Millie’s voice thundered through my bones.

Alban swallowed. ‘All right.’

This turn of events bothered me, for it suggested that Fenella’s memories of the past day or so were only patchy, not altogether erased. She remembered the several Britains; well, naturally enough. She must have known about them for a long time. But she also remembered that we had been involved in the wreck of her plans, and apparently had vindictiveness enough to want to take revenge.

Tiresome woman.

‘Millie,’ Jay was saying. ‘You’re with us now, remember? You don’t need to keep us here.’

She will demolish me.

‘She will not. We won’t let her get anywhere near you.’

I tried to remember what Melmidoc had said. A couple of the nine known Britains were gone (and now was not a good time to think too hard about how that had come about). Actually, hadn’t he said three? So that left six. The Whitmore of our own Britain (the sixth) had sunk, so that wasn’t it either. And if we weren’t on the fifth, that left four possibilities: the two where magick had been outlawed, or the two where magick had died out altogether.

‘So we are either breaking the sacred law of the land,’ I said out loud, ‘or we’ve become the local equivalent of flying pigs and will probably be put in a museum.’

‘By whom?’ said Alban, and made a show of looking around at the general desolation.

Excellent point.

‘Millie,’ I said more loudly. ‘Did I mention that Mr. Alban is a prince?’

I received a filthy look from the erstwhile Baron, but I achieved my immediate object: Millie’s litany of complaints stopped abruptly. A real one?

‘One hundred percent authentic. And the prince is on an urgent royal mission, to the other Whitmore. The one where Melmidoc lives. You are in the service of a future king, Miss Makepeace.’

See, royalty has an odd way of impressing people. It’s true today, and I was gambling on the likelihood that it was still more true a couple of centuries ago. Back then, aristocrats and royals really did own the world.

Millie hesitated. But the bitch with the axe—

‘Is no match for a royal prince.’ I winked at Alban, who perceptibly winced.

But then he took another long look at the featureless landscape we were stranded in, and sighed. ‘How would you like to be an official royal residence, Miss Makepeace?’

The flint stones began to rumble again, but this time with excitement. Royal? Millie squeaked. Me?

‘The Court is in need of a more, ah, informal establishment. Not too informal, of course,’ he added, as Millie began to object. ‘I can see a few silk carpets in your future; some velvet drapes; maybe a chaise longue…’

‘And,’ I put in firmly, ‘no one will dare to demolish a royal residence, will they?’

Fenella was unlikely to be deterred by such trivialities, of course, but Millie need not know that. My real plan was to make sure (if at all possible) that Fenella never got anywhere near the farmhouse ever again.

She was ours, now.

There was something endearingly deranged about Miss Makepeace. Those lightning changes of mood, for one, from woebegone to effervescent. I am at your service, Your Highness! the house breathed.

I mentally apologised to Alban for lumbering him with Millie’s lonely heart. No part of me was motivated by irritation at his partial capture of mine, I swear. Desperate times. Needs must.

He’d missed his cue. The silence stretched, and I was obliged to nudge him with my toe. Or kick him. It might have been more of a kick.

‘Wonderful,’ sighed Alban. ‘Then, Miss Makepeace, pray take us to Melmidoc’s Whitmore on the fifth Britain.’

Right away, Your Highness!

‘Carefully—’ yelped Alban, to no avail. With a great, shuddering whoosh and an unpromising tearing sound, Millie hauled the lot of us off.

Turn page ->

Baron Alban’s words echoed in my mind. The next heir to the throne of Mandridore. ‘But,’ I said, and took a breath. ‘But you said— did you lie? You said you were not born to eminence.’

‘No! I didn’t lie. That was true. I am a commoner, same as you. I mean— wait, I didn’t mean that.’ He gave a great sigh and sank down to the floor, resting his back against the ballroom wall. ‘I was given a barony years ago, for services to the Crown. And after that there were a lot more services to the Crown. The rewards piled up. Houses, lands, wealth… for a time, I admit, I was delighted with it all. I’d spent long enough in rootless poverty to appreciate plenty when it came. But it came at a price.

‘See, Their Majesties are childless. That’s a huge problem for them both personally and… and professionally. No family, no heir. And the queen’s been too old to bear children for some years now. Something had to be done.

‘What’s less widely known is that she is sick. She’s in no imminent danger, but there was no time left to adopt and raise an infant. They needed a capable heir, and fast.

‘So they chose me. They knew I could handle the duties of the monarch, I’ve proved it enough times. And we are… fond of each other.’ He stared sightlessly into the middle distance, not looking at me. ‘I knew what it would mean if I said yes: nothing about my life would ever be my own again. But how could I refuse? In effect, they were my family already. And they were desperate. So I agreed. That was a year and a half ago.’

He fell silent. ‘So you became the crown prince,’ I prompted. ‘And got married.’

‘Some say monarchies are outdated in these modern times, but regardless, they’re still here. And they operate according to all the same old rules. The line of succession’s been in doubt for long enough. Ysurra wants to see it secure before she dies.

‘So they chose a bride for me. Her name is Marit. She’s the eldest daughter of the king and queen of Arenmark, the troll kingdom of Norway. She is a good woman.’ He paused, and sighed deeply. ‘Ice cold, a princess to her fingertips… but I cannot rightly fault her.’

I sat silent, my mind reeling. My jovial, easy-going, occasional colleague Alban was a married crown prince, preparing to take the throne of Mandridore.

In truth, the married part did not altogether surprise me. It had previously entered my head to wonder why so popular a man, with so many obvious advantages, had not been snapped up by some pearl of ladykind long before. Of course he wasn’t single. What kind of an idiot was I, that I had accepted this apparent incongruity without ever thinking to ask?

But the rest left me reeling.

‘Why,’ I said after a while, ‘were you flirting with me when you’re married?’

He looked rather sadly at me. ‘Because it is what the old me would have done.’

The old Alban, just a baron and not a prince. Free to explore, free to flirt, free to choose. I watched him for a moment, trying to read his face. I saw mostly sadness. ‘Do you regret saying yes to this new life?’

‘Sometimes,’ he said, so softly I barely heard the word.

Despite my anger and humiliation, I felt a stab of pity for him. He’d trapped himself, and if he was to be believed, he had done it for laudable enough reasons. I tried to imagine the loneliness of the life he had described: married to an assigned partner, chosen for every advantage but your own. Constantly flattered and courted, but incapable of being truly close to anybody. I could see why he’d enjoyed his interludes with me. It must’ve been like having a holiday from his new self.

‘What was it you were planning to do with me?’ In all fairness, I couldn’t accuse him of having done anything all that much wrong. He’d flirted, but he hadn’t seriously courted me. He’d taken me out to breakfast, but we’d never had a real date. He hadn’t even kissed me.

Perhaps it was just my own foolishness that had led me to believe he’d had any of those other things in mind.

‘I don’t know,’ he said dully. ‘I just… liked being with you.’

We sat in silence for a while. My thoughts wandered, inconclusively.

Having got over the initial shock, I found I did not hate him. I wasn’t even angry. Just a little — a very little — disappointed.

‘And where is your lady wife?’ I said at length.

‘In Arenmark. We’ve met about three times since the wedding.’

‘Any children yet?’

‘No.’

There was nothing else to say after that, and I didn’t try. Small talk would have been unbearable. When Jay finally approached and stood hovering upon the threshold, I was glad enough to rise from my bench, and join him.

‘I’d better get to bed,’ I said to Alban. ‘We should get started early in the morning.’

He nodded, looking at me with his beautiful eyes full of questions. He asked none of them, and I didn’t enquire. ‘Goodnight, Ves,’ was all he said.

‘Night, Alban.’

I left him sitting there alone on the balcony, and I hated that I did. One of the things I’d seen in that final glance was the kind of deep, aching loneliness the soul shrinks from acknowledging. I’d wanted badly to stay, and keep him company in whatever fashion I could.

But what good would that do? To him, I could not be any of the things either of us might have wanted. It was going to be difficult enough to forge some kind of working relationship out of this mess.

So I let Jay take me away, grateful for the solicitude that had brought him to my side.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked as we wove our way to the main doors.

‘Fine,’ I said firmly. ‘Nothing terrible has happened.’

‘I’d thought you were becoming fond of him.’

‘No comment.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Fair enough.’ We’d made it out into the corridor by then, which was cooler and mostly deserted. Jay paused. ‘You can find your way to your room from here, yes?’

I’d spent an hour in that room not so long ago, dressing and having my hair done. It was a pretty chamber, assigned to me for the night, and I was looking forward to sinking into the enormous canopied bed.

None of this meant I had any idea where in that maze of a palace it was. ‘We have met before, haven’t we?’ I said to Jay, with a look of mock amazement.

He chuckled, and gently took my elbow. ‘This way, then.’

Upon the following morning — bright and early, as I had insisted upon — I had occasion to curse my fate in at least one particular.

If I’d had to have my foolish dreams about the baron crushed to death by cold, cruel reality, couldn’t it have happened after our important monarch-appointed mission rather than before? For when I arrived at the breakfast-table in our shared parlour, I found Jay and the Baron (no, no, wait. The prince) already seated, working their way through plates of pancakes, eggs, bacon and toast in awkward silence. Neither one looked at the other.

‘Morning,’ I said, sitting a few seats away from them both.

I received attractive smiles from both gentleman, which would’ve been nice if it hadn’t so neatly highlighted the coldness of their treatment of each other. ‘Slept well?’ said Alban.

‘Wonderfully well,’ I said with a bright smile. Total lie. I’d slept for about three and a half hours, having taken at least that long to fall asleep. For some reason my head had been spinning too much for repose. I beamed at Jay as well. It was only fair, he being the only one among my present company who hadn’t recently fractured my dreams, and applied myself to the nearest dish of pancakes.

I was left with the renewed feeling that there are few disasters that can’t be improved upon by a good meal. Once I was suitably filled with excellent pancakes and splendid tea, I felt a lot more equal to the unusual demands of the day.

‘So, then,’ I said, interrupting the ringing silence. ‘We left Millie up at Ashdown. Do we suppose she is still there?’

I was looking mostly at Jay. He had by far the closest relationship with the affable, if mildly deranged, ghost of Millie Makepeace and the rickety old farmhouse she inhabited.

‘Probably,’ Jay answered, pushing an abandoned piece of strawberry around his plate with his fork. ‘She ought not to have recovered the strength for another jump yet.’

I wondered what was eating Jay. He looked positively woebegone, one elbow planted on the table and his chin in his hand. I couldn’t see why the news of the Baron’s true circumstances would affect him all that much, and he’d had all night to get over his anger on my account. ‘So we’ll go back there.’ I turned to Alban. ‘Is there a Waypoint somewhere here that we can use?’

‘Of course.’ He abandoned his own plate, still mostly full, and rose from the table. ‘It’s at our disposal whenever we wish.’

‘Then we’d better not waste any time.’ I rose as well, casting a last, regretful look at the leftover pancakes. ‘Jay?’

He’d seemed lost in thought, but he looked up at the sound of his name. ‘Hmm?’

‘I’ve just volunteered you to Waymasterify us back to Ashdown. Or as near it as possible.’

‘Right.’ He blinked a couple of times, visibly pulling his thoughts back from parts unknowable, and made for the door.

I stayed behind a moment with Alban. ‘Listen, if we can forget about last night for the next few days, I think that would be best. We need to focus on work.’

He nodded. ‘I would like nothing better myself.’

I nodded too, smiling around the unaccountable sinking of my stupid heart. ‘Great. I’ll see you in a few minutes. I just need to fetch my stuff.’

Back in my room, I found the pup was (for once) awake. She came running to greet me as I opened the door, her puff of a tail wagging furiously. She practically vibrated with joy, and I bent to pet her, feeling a little soothed. ‘Hi, Puppins.’

My good feelings waned a bit when I saw what she had done with every item of value in the room. They were piled in a heap in the middle of my lovely four-poster bed, wound up in the blankets in a neat nest.

‘You are a menace,’ I informed her sternly, her only response to which was to yip cheerfully at me and grin. ‘This,’ I said, brandishing my string of pearls at her, ‘is not yours! Nor is it mine! How would I explain it to Their Majesties if we walked off with — or broke — all these jewels and antiques?’ For she had been most industrious. Everything from ivory figurines to ear-jewels lay nestled together among her haul.

We had a short wrestling match as she tried to reclaim the treasures I was rapidly divesting her of. Being, for once, the bigger, stronger party, I won.

She curled up at the foot of the bed and stared at me with huge, mournful eyes.

‘I know,’ I muttered. ‘Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?’

Turn page ->

I didn’t, though Jay tried his level best to do so. We went in together, about two and a half minutes after the king and queen had joined their adoring subjects. Apparently Jay wasn’t used to my being four feet wide at the ankles, either, for his foot became tangled in reams of silk and we almost toppled over together.

‘Oops,’ he said, which about covered it.

I waited while he disentangled himself from my dress. ‘I’m a public hazard in this thing.’

‘I can’t think how there weren’t more fatal accidents at the Old Court.’

Let me back up a moment. Their Majesties’ private mansion, however fine, had nothing on the real heart of Mandridore: the royal palace. A mere seven or eight minutes in the coach was sufficient to convey us to this spectacular building, and as we waited behind the king and queen’s coach I had ample time to get an eyeful of it.

Think Buckingham Palace. Then mentally increase it to about three times the size — not just in width or surface area but in height, too. Unsurprisingly, considering our costumes, the palace was resplendent in the architectural styles of the late sixteen hundreds: square, imposing, symmetrical, and ornate, with arches and pilasters and a splendid cupola.

But there were differences between the palace and the generality of seventeenth-century country house style, chief among them being the minor fact that the entire thing was built out of starstone.

Every last bloody inch of it.

Under the soft light of a rising moon, it positively wallowed in that lovely twilight-blue radiance and I felt sick with something like longing.

Unsure why. Living in a humongous, shiny-blue palace would have its moments, no doubt about that, but it would also get old. Footmen everywhere. Always having to dress for dinner; no slouching about in my old comfies with my hair in a mess. That horrible, echoing sense of loneliness that comes from rattling around in far too much space.

I digress.

They don’t do red carpets in troll country, they do gold. All the gold. In Their Majesties swept, prancing elegantly up the gilded carpet as music swelled. We followed shortly after, and I was bemused to note that Their Majesties’ courtiers seemed as pleased to see Alban as they were to see the king and queen. I’d underestimated his popularity. Again.

I will skip over the next half hour or so, which passed in a blur of silks and jewels and curtseys and titles. I tried to study the interior architecture but the tumult was too distracting; I received fleeting impressions of painted murals and statuary, rich carpets trampled by a great many feet, and other such Baroque fussiness.

Their Majesties looked around for Baron Alban, more than once. The Baron, inexplicably, chose to remain with us. This held true even at dinner, when I was seated on the Baron’s right and Jay upon his left. He talked exclusively to us, which was probably rude of him but I appreciated the thought.

On my other side sat a majestic old troll, his silvery hair elegantly coiffed, his amber velvet coat elaborately decorated.

‘You keep high company,’ he said to me, nodding at Baron Alban.

‘We’ve worked together a time or two,’ I replied, grateful for his kindness in not ignoring me but also wishing he might save the polite chitchat for a bit later. The dining parlour at the palace was twelve miles long and the table several miles longer still, I’d swear. Every inch of it was crowded with dishes, and since one of those nearest to me was a kind of floating pudding consisting of a flock of meringue swans sailing over a lake of sweet cream, my priorities clearly lay elsewhere at that moment.

‘I believe I have heard of you,’ said my talkative neighbour, ignoring his own plate of fragrant delicacies. ‘From the Society for the Preservation of Magickal Heritage, am I correct?’

My mouth being full of cream, I could only nod. It tasted of peaches and rose water.

‘I should not repeat gossip, of course, but it is said that you and the young man got as far as Farringale.’

It was not quite a question, but he was watching me with sharp, intent eyes and I realised he was probing for something.

I swallowed my piece of meringue swan-wing. ‘It is a true story, though may perhaps have been exaggerated. We barely set foot in Farringale, and saw very little of it.’

My companion clearly wanted to ask more, but the Baron claimed my attention and talked determinedly to me for the next few minutes. By the time I had leisure to glance about again, my amber-clad interlocutor was deep in conversation with his other neighbour.

‘Who is that gentleman?’ I murmured to Alban.

The Baron spared him one brief, dismissive glance. ‘The Marquess of Valony.’

‘Surely not,’ I blurted.

‘He most certainly is,’ said Alban, with a raised-eyebrows look at me.

How could I explain my peculiar comment without being insulting? It only struck me as bizarre, that a man enjoying so high a station as marquess should call a mere baron high company. Baron was the lowest rank among the aristocracy, at least in my world; a marquess was second only to a duke.

But this was Mandridore, not England. Perhaps things were different here.

After dinner, there was dancing. Delightful, though as soon as I realised I was to take a turn about the ballroom with the Baron, I began to wish that last almond and orange blossom cheesecake uneaten. A mere, weak Ves should never be turned loose upon a banquet like that. It is hazardous to her health.

Fortunately, when the royal orchestra struck up the first strains of music and Their Majesties took to the floor, they chose a slow, stately minuet and I gave a tiny sigh of relief. I would not be obliged to engage in any strenuous gyrations, at least not at present. The king and queen made a handsome couple, though it occurred to me that they looked a little tired as they swept slowly around the centre of the polished marble floor. They were not dancing for the enjoyment of it; they were performing for their subjects. They went through this routine for a few minutes, and then, upon some unheard cue, the floor filled with other couples and Their Majesties withdrew. I wondered if they were obliged to undergo this parade every night. How exhausting.

‘I give you fair warning,’ I said as the Baron came to claim me. ‘I have no idea how to dance a minuet.’

‘No one can see your feet anyway.’

‘But you can feel them,’ I pointed out as he swept me up, and sailed me away on a tide of harpsichords.

‘There are advantages to dancing with a featherweight. I shan’t even need my steel toe caps.’

I felt a compulsion to correct him on this point, for I am far too fond of food to qualify as the delicate scrap of a thing he described. But compared to him, I suppose I was a mere leaf on the wind.

‘I knew there must be some reason you’re dancing with me.’

He smiled, just at me. ‘Because wit, brains and beauty aren’t nearly inducements enough.’

‘Flattering,’ I murmured, super cool (nobody need know that my heart was turning somersaults). ‘But at least half the people here could be described as such, and they’re all gagging to dance with you.’ Scarcely an exaggeration, that. I was uncomfortably aware that I was attracting a great deal of attention as I whirled about in the Baron’s arms. Some of it was merely curious; some of it was outright envious, or something… else. Something else negative.

Alban looked around, as though he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t look abashed so much as annoyed. ‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ he muttered.

I felt stricken. ‘Dancing with me?’

‘No! No. Dancing with you here.’ His stride faltered, and he pulled me a bit more into his arms, as though to shield me from everyone else. ‘Ves, I… ought to tell you something.’

‘Ought?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Then don’t.’

He shook his head. ‘If I don’t, someone else will. The thing is…’ He did not seem to know how to continue, and trailed off.

Jay appeared at my elbow. I’d lost track of him in the ballroom. ‘Ves, can I talk to you for a minute?’ He made as if to pull me bodily out of the Baron’s arms, which was unlike him.

‘No,’ said Alban, and clutched me closer.

‘If you gentlemen think you are going to have a tug of war over me, you are much mistaken,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter, Jay?’

‘He’s been keeping secrets from you.’

Alban sighed.

‘I think he was about to tell me,’ I said to Jay.

‘He should’ve told you about six weeks ago.’

I realised that Jay was very angry about something. He looked as composed as ever, but he had an air of suppressed fury I’d never seen before.

‘Will somebody tell me what’s going on?’ I said, hating myself for the plaintive note in my voice.

‘Not here,’ said Jay. ‘Come on. Let’s get somewhere quiet.’

But it was not so easy to withdraw from the middle of the dancefloor as all that. Jay tried to escort me out of the thicket of dancers, but they whirled around us in such profusion, we made little progress.

So it was that I was still within hearing distance when a troll matron in a bottle-green gown sang gaily to the Baron as she waltzed past: ‘We miss your lady wife tonight, don’t we, sir? How long she has been away!’

I stopped dead, to the chagrin of a woman who collided with me mid-minuet. I added her hiss of annoyance to my rapidly growing pile of things-to-ignore, together with the look of mild malice the bottle-green woman had directed at me as she danced away.

I looked at Alban, but none of the thousand questions in my mind made it past my lips.

His broad shoulders sagged. ‘Shit,’ he said under his breath.

‘It’s true?’ I croaked.

‘It— that— I—’ He clamped his lips tightly shut and tugged at his perfect hair, a brief gesture of utter dismay. I’d never seen him speechless before. ‘That wasn’t what I wanted to tell you.’

‘It wasn’t? Were you planning to tell me at all?’

‘Yes, I… look, Jay is right, we shouldn’t talk here. Come on.’

He swept me away. He had either the bulk or the rank to do it more successfully than Jay, for people melted out of our path. I caught one last glimpse of Jay’s enraged face as I was borne away to the far side of the ballroom, and out through an arch onto a starry terrace. The mild summer breeze gently lifted my hair, and I was welcomed by the heady aromas of strawberries and wine.

How romantic.

The Baron escorted me to a bench, but while I sank down upon it in gratitude — my knees might have been shaking a bit — he remained standing. He stood looking down at me with an expression of consternation. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

‘While apologies are nice, I would prefer an explanation.’

He nodded. ‘If only it were not so hard to come up with a reasonable one.’

‘I’d just like a true one.’ I folded my hands together and tried not to stare wistfully at the moonlit sky. I might have been entertaining a few fantasies about being kissed under just such a sky, only quarter of an hour before.

‘Jay is right to be angry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I never meant to get into this absurd masquerade, only… I never throw rank around when I’m working. It’s neither necessary nor helpful. And then, when I decided I liked you, it… it was hard to know how to tell you the truth. The moment never seemed right.’

‘Never throw rank?’ I repeated. ‘But you were introduced as Baron Alban on day one.’

‘Yes, but… I am not a baron. Or not only a baron. It’s an old title. I am comfortable with it, and it suits the work I generally do for the Court. High enough to open doors, not so high as to be intimidating.’

‘High company,’ I said, as enlightenment began to dawn.

‘What?’

‘Just how high in rank are you?’

He ran a hand over his hair again, messing it up. I’d never seen him with disordered hair either. ‘I’m a prince,’ he said, in the tone a normal person would reserve for something more like I have syphilis.

‘A prince.’

‘The prince, actually. I am the next heir to the throne of Mandridore.’

Turn page ->

‘Your Farringale?’ I squeaked. ‘The eaten-by-ortherex one?’

Her lips twitched. ‘The very one.’

Right. I needed a moment.

See, visiting Farringale was an eye-opening experience. We went there looking for a cure to a disease that was decimating the surviving Troll Enclaves at the time. We found another disease, or more rightly an infestation of all-devouring parasites known as the ortherex. They had, in effect, eaten the population of Farringale alive.

The buildings were still there; the city still stood. But it was an empty shell — one swarmed over by trillions of the repulsive things.

I reminded myself that we were not being asked to revive Farringale ourselves, only to find the means to do so.

‘So,’ I said, having exchanged a look with Jay. ‘You are hoping that someone on the Fifth Britain knows how to get rid of these ortherex beasties.’

‘That is our hope,’ said Naldran. ‘Our good Alban has already consented to undertake the search. Will you oblige us by joining him?’

‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘but surely you have people enough for such a task. Why employ us?’

‘Because,’ said the king, and paused. ‘Because you seem to have a way with these things.’

I could sort of see his point. It was actually Jay who ended up finding the Fifth first, because he had somehow secured the affections of a perambulatory haunted house. And off she had taken him. I’d found him later, by a separate route. We’d learned a lot about the Britains, and subsequently made it home again — avoiding the memory-wiping enchantment that most of our colleagues (and enemies, among Ancestria Magicka) had been subjected to.

We did have a way of landing on our feet.

What’s more, Melmidoc Redclover might even consent to talk to us, and he was the man — sorry, the spriggan — who seemed to know everything.

I looked at Jay again, who stared back, clearly trying to convey something with his eyes.

I had no idea what it was.

‘May we have a moment to confer?’ I said.

Queen Ysurra inclined her head, exquisitely gracious. ‘Please.’

It seemed rude to just walk out, so Jay and I withdrew to a corner.

‘What do you think?’ I asked him.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes? Just yes? No ifs, buts, doubts or worries?’

‘I have some of all of the above, but so what?’

I blinked at him. ‘Are you really Jay?’

‘Every inch of me.’

I stared.

‘Okay, okay. I know we are probably not supposed to go anywhere near the Fifth again. I know that the Ministry would be unhappy with us if they found out. I know there are risks, and rules. But I want to go back. I always wanted to go back.’

‘Me too.’

‘Okay then.’

So that was that. We returned to Their Majesties, and the irritatingly smirking Baron (yes, fine, Alban, I know our answer was entirely predictable), and gave them to understand that we would be eighty shades of delighted to accept their proposal.

Queen Ysurra actually smiled, a real one. ‘How wonderful. If it is agreeable to you, you shall leave in the morning.’

Jay held up a hand. ‘Moment. How are we to get there?’

‘Is your previous means of travel unavailable?’

‘I am not sure. Millie isn’t strong, and she needed a couple of days to recover after the last time.’

‘It is our hope that she can be persuaded to convey the three of you back to the Fifth. If this does not prove to be the case, then an alternative shall be found for you.’

‘Right.’

‘Alban has been given a purse of gold for any and all expenses you will naturally incur on this journey,’ said the queen. ‘I shall further add that we shall be happy to shield you from any… unhappy consequences.’

‘As we have already done, on your behalf,’ put in the king, referring of course to their having hauled the Ministry’s dogs off our backs only a day or two before.

Nice. A reminder that we were already somewhat in their debt — as if we weren’t eager enough to go as it was. ‘Thanks,’ I said, unable to resist the temptation to be a trifle tart.

The Baron tried to smother a laugh, and choked.

‘In the meantime,’ said the queen, shooting an indecipherable look at her co-monarch, ‘the freedom of the Court is yours. In an hour’s time we shall appear in state, as is our custom, and the Court will dine. You are welcome to attend.’

The Baron gave me a discreet thumbs-up: say yes.

‘We’d love to,’ I said, needing no prompting whatsoever. An evening of splendour and feasting, at the High Court of the Trolls? They would have the best cooks in the world. A girl would be mad to refuse.

‘Then we adjourn,’ said the queen, and rose, creaking slightly, from her throne-like chair. ‘It is unlikely we will have leisure to confer any further this evening, but any questions that arise may be put to my secretary. He has been instructed to hold himself at your disposal.’

‘Thank you,’ we said, and set about the business of suitably polite withdrawal.

But the king stopped us. ‘One more thing. Perhaps it need not be said, but this is an assignment of the utmost secrecy. We would beg you to keep the matter entirely to yourselves.’

I couldn’t even tell Val? How unfair! But one could only promise, which we duly did. He is, after all, the king.

After that we were permitted to exit. We gathered in a knot in the hall, Jay and I buzzing with excitement, the Baron all cool composure as usual.

‘I,’ I said in sudden, horrified realisation, ‘have nothing to wear to a state banquet.’

‘I have… something?’ said Jay. ‘I think?’

‘You think?’ echoed the Baron. ‘If you are not sure, then it most certainly will not do. I shall have to come to your joint rescue.’

I beamed at him. Jay might have scowled. ‘The best dress ever?’ I said, breathless with hope.

‘The best, Ves.’

‘I might love you a bit.’

His lovely green eyes twinkled down at me. ‘Let’s hope so.’

And so it was that we were introduced to one of the odder quirks of the Court of Mandridore.

One hour later: what was I wearing? It was not the swishy, silky designer dress of my dreams. Let’s get that out in the open right away.

Instead of an airy dress of fairy-light gossamer, covered in stars and smelling of roses, I was wearing about half my own bodyweight in fabric. Pale gold silk tissue, to be exact. I had a gown with a long bodice and low waist; enormous, glossy sleeves; a skirt so voluminous, I could’ve made a pair of sails from the fabric; and delicate lace all around the wide, rather low-cut neckline. My hair was arranged in a thousand ringlets and I had pearls at my throat. I looked like Suzanna Huygens in the Netscher portrait, only rather golder.

Jay had a spectacular cobalt-blue waistcoat covered with embroidery; an even more spectacular coat of pale velvet; knee-breeches and stockings, heeled shoes, and a frothy cravat. Mercifully he had been spared the wig.

See, the loss of Farringale seems to have sunk deeply into the consciousness of the trolls, at least at the new (relatively speaking) Royal Court. And in honour of what was lost, it is customary for everyone to dress like it’s still about 1657. I didn’t dare ask if they did this all the time.

Accustomed as we are to the freedoms of modern dress, it’s no easy matter to step into the fashions of centuries ago. I felt like a ship in full sail, and approximately as unwieldy. But my desire to punch the Baron somewhere painful soon faded, for once I had got used to the sheer volume of my attire (and the weight of it — oof), I began to enjoy it. There is an unabashed frivolity about long-ago Court dress that’s rather lacking from modern life. Just look at eighteenth-century hair, if you want an example. In what other era could you have hair three feet high, draped in lace and pearls and crowned with an entire (albeit miniature) sailing ship?

By the time Baron Alban joined us in the hall of the king and queen’s mansion, I’d begun to feel quite the princess. He, of course, looked positively princely in crimson velvet, and he’d gone all in on the ribbons.

‘You both look perfect,’ he informed us.

Jay favoured him with a measured, deeply unimpressed look.

I favoured him with a curtsey. A skirt like that just begs to be gracefully swished as one sinks elegantly into courtly obeisance. (Was I enjoying this a bit too much?)

Alban grinned at me. ‘You’re a natural. Come on, or we’ll be late.’

Outside the mansion, there was no sign of Alban’s car. Instead, a pair of coaches had drawn up. They had been plucked straight from a fairy tale, I’d swear it: pale, pretty contraptions, ornately decorated, with sparkling windows and blue velvet inside. Naturally, there were no horses. These were the magickal kind of conveyance.

‘No pumpkin coach?’ I said to the Baron as he led us to the second of the two. He did not open the door for us himself, as there was a liveried footman to do that. Actually, there were four.

‘I tried, but there was a run on them at the last minute and I had to make do with these.’

I shook my head sadly as I got into the coach (utterly gracelessly. I’m not used to being four feet wide from the hip down, and about twice my usual body weight). ‘Everyone expects the pumpkin coach treatment these days.’

‘I blame Disney. Watch your skirt.’ I duly whisked my silken skirts aside as a po-faced footman carefully closed the door on me. Jay joined me on the squishy velvet seat, not nearly so encumbered by his finery as I was by mine. I reflected, not for the first time, on the utter unfairness of historical fashions.

The Baron sat opposite us. ‘Now we wait for Their Majesties,’ he said, glancing out of the window.

‘We’re to arrive with them?’

‘No. We’re to arrive a respectful distance behind them.’

This was better, but not by much. Nor did it make much sense. How were we important enough for such a sign of high favour? They couldn’t be that anxious to please us. If we failed at our appointed task, they had a whole Court full of people who’d fall all over themselves to perform any task Their Majesties might set. Surely some of them had the tools to succeed.

I set this puzzle aside for a little later, for once Their Gracious Majesties had been loaded into their own conveyance and trundled off, our coach began to roll, and I devoted my thoughts to mental preparation for the event that lay ahead.

Uppermost among my reflections: Don’t trip on your skirts when you go in, Ves. Just don’t.

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