All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author�s and publisher�s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

For the Centre for Youth Literature,

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Book Five: Moment of Truth

One

Aubrey Fitzwilliam braced himself for the next attack from his young, tall and menacing adversary. Young and tall were manageable. It was the menacing part that was the problem.

Aubrey grimaced as sweat trickled from his brow and threatened to blind him, but he couldn�t spare a hand to wipe it away.

His adversary advanced on him, murder in his eye, and launched a thunderbolt.

Aubrey played forward and had to jerk back when the ball leaped up off a good length, whistling past his gloves with nothing to spare.

The bowler stifled a groan and stood mid-pitch. He threw his head back as if to berate the gods for the injustice. Then he scowled at Aubrey before beginning his march back to his bowling mark.

Aubrey straightened and removed his batting gloves, trying to give the appearance of someone who had so much composure that he could give the surplus away to those less blessed � while inside, his batting nerves jittered alarmingly.

The annual match between St Alban�s College and Lattimer College was a carnival, the traditional event to mark the end of term. Surrounding the oval was a throng of vastly amused spectators, as well as a brass band, a coconut shy, sundry vendors of refreshments, assorted dogs and even a tethered hot air balloon for the amusement of those not entirely interested in the cricket. The day was bright and sunny, perfect weather for such an occasion.

Aubrey was batting much sooner than he�d expected. Coming in at number eight after a pitiful collapse by the higher order, he was attempting to gather the sixty-odd runs needed for victory. If he managed this improbable event, St Alban�s would defeat Lattimer College for the first time in thirty-four years. At the moment, this was exceedingly unlikely, as it seemed to Aubrey as if Lattimer College was solely populated by six-foot-tall Adonises. Every one of their bowlers had shoulders so broad that he imagined Lattimer College was built with extra-wide doorways, to save these gargantuan athletes from having to turn sideways to enter rooms.

Aubrey�s batting partner, by contrast, was a well-meaning, second-year magic student whose mind was mostly elsewhere. He had a disconcerting habit of blinking and saying, �My word. Should I be running now?� when Aubrey was haring toward him, which hadn�t helped matters at all.

The umpire cleared his throat. He was the professor of Jurisprudence, selected on the misunderstanding that a familiarity with the law meant he�d be a good umpire. His extremely thick glasses suggested otherwise. �Are you ready, young man?� he quavered down the length of the pitch.

Aubrey sighed. �Sorry, sir.� He pulled on his gloves. Bat and pad close together, he thought, and if it�s loose, lash it through the gap in the off side.

Aubrey hadn�t had a loose delivery in the four overs he�d faced, but he was doing his best to be optimistic.

The bowler pawed the ground impatiently. From where Aubrey stood he seemed small against the jollity of the spectators behind him. Parasols, straw boaters and striped blazers made a colourful backdrop, and Aubrey knew he�d lose sight of the ball as soon as the bowler hurled it.

He went into his stance and gripped the bat so tightly it hurt.

The bowler squared his shoulders, his shirt visibly straining not to burst at the seams. He grinned, then set off. At first he loped, easily and smoothly, like a steeplechaser. Soon, however, he accelerated, arms and legs pumping, a maniacal grin on his face.

Just as the bowler gathered himself for his huge final bound and delivery, Aubrey straightened. He smelled something � something more than the smell of mown grass, more than the tang of nervous sweat, something different from the aroma coming from the pie seller�s barrow.

He smelled shrillness � and he knew magic wasn�t far away.

Aubrey had noted, over the last few months, that his magical awareness had been developing. His lecturer in Magical Abilities had forecast such a thing. As the term had progressed, Aubrey and his fellow students had found that they could sense magic at greater and greater distances. Aubrey had also been intrigued to learn that as magical awareness matured, it could take on an odd cast, sometimes being experienced as a confusion of more ordinary senses. Hearing colours or tasting sounds, for instance. It was unsettling at first, and unpredictable, but Aubrey had quickly learned that he should be alert whenever it happened.

A chorus of delight brought Aubrey back to the here and now. With dismay, he realised the sound had followed the rattle of the stumps behind him. The professor of Jurisprudence peered down the pitch. �Out?� he ventured.

Aubrey was on his way.

He trudged toward the pavilion, bat under his arm, but he was oblivious to the laughter from the crowd. The mix-up of sensory experience just before he was bowled was a tell-tale sign of strong magic. But where was it? He peered at the surroundings, the treetops, the river, the nearby colleges.

�Well done, old man,� George Doyle said as he hurried past to take up his post at the wicket. �A nicely compiled six runs, that.�

Aubrey snorted. His friend was rolling his sleeves up as if he were heading for a paddle at the beach. �So that would make me the second top scorer?�

�For now.� George grinned. He took off his cap and tossed it to Aubrey. �Take care of this, would you? It�ll only get in the way.�

�You�re sounding confident for a number nine batsman.�

�They won�t be expecting anything. I�ll take them by surprise.�

George strode off, whistling, leaving Aubrey shaking his head. George had a habit of taking people by surprise, but he wasn�t sure that cricket was the time for it.

Caroline Hepworth was waiting for him at the gate. She was dressed in a long skirt and blouse, fresh and white. The blouse was fastened at her neck with an onyx brooch. Her hair was pinned, or layered, or constrained in some way that Aubrey admired but would never have ventured an opinion on exactly how it was done.

Caroline�s hair had been the cause of much thought on Aubrey�s part. When he�d first met her, he�d thought it was the colour of chestnuts � deep, glowing brown with touches of burnished gold. But he was constantly revising his opinion. Sometimes it was more golden than brown, sometimes the other way around. And he�d never been able to work out how curly it was. It wasn�t straight � at least, he thought not. But it wasn�t crinkled like a Bedlington terrier. It was shoulder-length, give or take, and he�d settle for calling it wavy.

It was just that she did different things with it. Tied it. Rolled it up. Twisted it. Sculpted it. Constructed elaborate phantasmagoria with it. All depending on the occasion, and her mood.

�You should have played forward instead of back,� she said. She held a lace parasol. It dappled her face with shadow.

�I didn�t play anything at all,� he said. �I was distracted. Any chance of a drink?�

�Here.� A tall glass of cold lemon squash was thrust into Aubrey�s hand. It slopped over the side. �Ach, sorry!�

Aubrey shook off the sticky yellow liquid and wondered who his embarrassed benefactor was.

He was a tall youth, about Aubrey�s age. He wore his striped blazer, white trousers and boater as if totally unfamiliar with them. His wild black hair surrounded a face that featured round spectacles and a beaky nose. He was all arms and knees, possibly the most stork-like person Aubrey had ever seen.

Caroline made the introductions. �Aubrey, this is Otto Kiefer. He�s says he�s desperate to meet you.�

�Kiefer,� Aubrey said. He transferred his glass of squash to his left hand and shook. Kiefer was oblivious to the stickiness of the handshake, and performed his part of the transaction with considerable enthusiasm, pumping up and down as if he were trying to crank a stubborn motorcar.

�Fitzwilliam. Finally.�

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. Kiefer had a Holmland accent. While Albion and Holmland weren�t at war � yet � Aubrey was always cautious when meeting Holmlanders. Albion was seething with Holmland intelligence operatives, espionage agents and straight-out spies. Aubrey often thought he couldn�t turn around without tripping over one.

Being the son of the Prime Minister added a certain piquancy to this ubiquity. Holmland had never been above a spot of strategic assassination, so Aubrey kept his wits about him.

�Finally?� he echoed.

Kiefer nodded, furiously. �I have been at this university for some time, but I couldn�t find you. I searched many places until I saw Miss Hepworth.� He took a moment from his nodding to beam at Caroline. She smiled back serenely. �From her mother, I know her. Painting exhibition. I had heard that she is your friend so I asked her where you were. Cricket, she said, so I am here.�

A cheer went up and Aubrey turned to see the umpire signalling four runs. �George?�

�A remarkably fine cover drive,� Caroline said. �Raced to the boundary.�

Kiefer tugged on Aubrey�s arm. �Fitzwilliam. I have something I must discuss with you. It is vital.�

Before Aubrey could respond, the sound of willow on leather was followed by more cheering. �Another four,� Caroline observed. �George is batting well.�

Aubrey wanted to see his friend�s innings and tried to think how to put off the insistent Kiefer. �I�m happy to chat.� He looked past the Holmlander�s shoulder to where George took a mighty swing and dispatched the ball past point for another four. The crowd was in ecstasy, cheering for all it was worth.

�Good, good,� Kiefer said. He peered over the heads of the excited spectators. �Where will we go?�

�Not now,� Aubrey said. �What about��

He broke off. Once again, a wrong-way-around smell came to him. This time, he wrinkled his nose at the bizarre sensation of roughness, something that his sense of touch should be bringing to him. He grimaced and looked around, searching for its source.

�Look out,� Caroline said.

�What?�

She didn�t repeat herself. She simply took his shoulder, moved him aside, then darted out a slender hand. She caught the cricket ball easily, despite the solid smack it made.

She was immediately the heroine of the moment. A storm of applause erupted, and more than a few appreciative whistles, as she flung the cricket ball back to the panting fieldsman who was slumped on the fence. �I didn�t know George could bat,� she said. �That was a fine six. Took it right off his nose.�

�Did he?� Aubrey said distantly. He looked upriver, past the dense line of willow trees, toward Canon�s Bridge. The clouds, gathering in that direction...

George�s next six landed ten yards away, right in the middle of a tea-set spread in front of an elderly clergyman, then rebounded into a refreshment tent before coming to rest in a bowl of ginger punch.

Aubrey didn�t notice. He�d left the confused Kiefer behind and pushed through the crowd in the direction of Canon�s Bridge. He wanted a better view of the unusual cloud formation, and he was tasting discordant music at the back of his mouth as he went. A small terrier cocked its head as he slipped past a betting tent (the odds on St Alban�s College were tumbling as George cracked another boundary). The dog looked up at the sky and whined. �You feel it too?� Aubrey muttered. He frowned at the cricket bat in his hand and the pads on his legs. It took him a moment to remember why they were there. The dog looked at the sky to the north, whimpered, then ran off through the crowd, tail between its legs.

Animals run away from danger, Aubrey thought. Perhaps it knows something I don�t.

The river bent around the back of the cricket oval, making the sort of ridiculously picturesque scene that usually had a score of artists battling each other for easel space, the better to sketch the trees and ducks and Saturday afternoon rowing boats full of bright young things. Aubrey found it to be strangely quiet.

He came to Canon�s Bridge and the road to the town. With his view clear of the willows he could see that the weather was turning alarmingly bad � a fact that would concern the spectators and cricketers, rain being the natural enemy of the game. Clouds had heaped up to the north like immense grey gunboats, a fleet of them stretched out across the sky and streaming toward the oval with malign intent.

He stared, and even though he was still in sunlight, he was suddenly chill.

There was no wind. Not a breeze, a zephyr, a fitful gust, nothing at all. Air is never this still, he thought, not even in a tomb. The thought made him shudder, then he blinked. If there�s no wind, what�s driving those clouds this way?

Realisation hit him, a solid punch to the chest. They weren�t clouds that looked like battleships. They were battleships made of clouds, steaming toward him in the afternoon sky, dark-grey as thunderheads. Clouds made solid and menacing in a mighty show of magic.

Dizzily, Aubrey put a hand on the stone of the bridge to steady himself. He stared, and shaded his eyes, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. Battleships in the sky? He swallowed in a throat suddenly dry. He counted half a dozen or so cloud-built battleships, but they were accompanied by destroyers and cruisers, as well as tenders, troop ships and dozens of lesser craft. It was a skyborne fleet.

Even in his shock, Aubrey�s mind was whirring, trying to work out the principles behind such a formidable, such a bravura, such a showy display of power.

A burly worker leading a horse and cart was coming along the road toward him. He smiled and tipped his cap to Aubrey. �Make any runs?�

�A few,� Aubrey said faintly.

The man looked behind him, following Aubrey�s gaze, and the grin faded from his face. �My sainted aunt.�

Aubrey was glad. He wasn�t the only one who could see the skyborne fleet. �We�re under attack.�

The worker swore. �Don�t stand there, son. Find cover.� He urged his nag on and hurried along the road out of town.

The cloud-built battlefleet surged nearer. They rose over the Torwell Hills to the north of Greythorn as if they were cresting huge waves, rolling down the other side in formation. Aubrey tried to count them, but lost track after four dozen when he realised a second rank of cruisers and destroyers was following the main line of battleships.

He could feel the magic even at this distance, like ice flung ahead of a storm.

He gripped the stone parapet of the bridge, then turned. No-one at the cricket match was looking to the north. All attention was on St Alban�s spirited revival. The music played, dogs barked and the observers in the tethered balloon bobbed gently.

Alone on the bridge, Aubrey wished that a battalion of trained magicians stood with him.

It was up to him to do something, one of those moments that aroused equal parts terror and exhilaration. Sometimes he felt as if his entire life was a series of trials, each an opportunity to fail spectacularly or to succeed with glory. He preferred the latter and was deathly afraid of the former.

He twirled his cricket bat. He was dwarfed, outnumbered and unprepared. He was dressed in cricketing whites. He had lemon squash all down his arm.

Apart from a case of fright that�d choke a chicken, he thought, I�m in fine shape.

With a roar that set the church bells ringing, the battlefleet swept over the town.

Aubrey was knocked off his feet by the gale that accompanied the fleet as it thundered overhead. By the time he picked himself up, spitting road dust from his mouth, the ships had rumbled over the cricket ground. Pandemonium erupted. Tents were uprooted and whirled into the air. Spectators staggered every which way, some being flung off their feet as the stormfleet bore down on them. Dogs went berserk, running in circles and barking. The hot air balloon was wrenched from its moorings, and the last Aubrey saw it was streaking away to the south, white-faced passengers clinging for dear life.

With fumbling fingers, Aubrey unbuckled his pads and slung them away. He sprinted for an oval that had become a riot, feverishly flicking through his accumulated store of magic lore, trying to find something that could help.

The sun had disappeared, swallowed by the stormfleet as it circled, but the change in the weather had brought no rain. Instead, the cricket ground and its surrounds had become a howling cauldron. The wind was coming from all directions, so those seeking shelter could find no leeside on the pavilion or under the few trees that hadn�t been shredded by the force of the storm. A plucky motorist drove off, heading for the main road, his motorcar crammed with passengers. He parped his horn as he passed Aubrey, but a few yards away, where the driveway to the cricket ground reached the main gate, the motorcar shuddered.

Aubrey stared. The motorcar hadn�t just stopped � it had been slapped sideways, its front wheels wrenched into the ditch on the side of the driveway by an unseen force.

With some difficulty, the motorcar backed out of the ditch, then accelerated again toward the gate. This time, the vehicle was violently jerked to the right with the sound of breaking glass. The driver was flung out, but even as Aubrey hurried up, the young man had picked himself up and was dusting himself off. �Oh, I say!� he shouted over the howl of the wind. �My hat!�

His boater was a mess. Aubrey shrugged. �What happened?�

The young man�s passengers staggered out of the motorcar. They milled about uncertainly. �No idea, old sport. Ran into the gatepost, I suppose.�

�I don�t think so,� Aubrey shouted. �Look.�

Just a few feet away, the air had taken on a greasy, shimmering aspect. As Aubrey peered at it, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the upraised dust, he could make out that the air was moving, vibrating and rushing past at a dizzying velocity, enough to blur the scene on the other side. It made the trees and the town beyond look as if they were smeared with oil.

�Watch!� He bent and picked up a small stone. Squinting, he threw it at the barrier of moving air. Then he ducked as the stone shot back at them. It hummed past his head and smashed one of the headlights of the motorcar.

�Sorry,� he shouted, but he was apologising to no-one. The young man and his companions were scurrying back toward the pavilion.

Aubrey looked up to see that the stormfleet had blockaded the cricket ground, surrounding it in a swirling wall of cloud that extended from the heights right down to the earth. The magical warships were circling, patrolling the tight confines of this small area. The roar of their great guns punctuated the howling of the wind. Lightning tore at the dark grey, churning mass and made the gloom momentarily lighter with its ghastly, harsh radiance. The people trapped within the wall of cloud were starting to cluster in the middle of the cricket ground, near the pavilion. Anyone foolish enough to try to find a gap in the spinning cloud wall was twisted aside or knocked to the ground as soon as they touched it.

Aubrey decided he wasn�t achieving anything where he was. He had to find Caroline and George.

He struggled toward the panicked crowd, battling the wind that tore at him. Each step was an adventure, for the wind was coming from all directions, but as he neared the building Caroline appeared. Even windswept, she was composed. �Where did you disappear to?� she cried over the shrieking of the wind.

�I went for a stroll! Lovely day for it!�

The look she gave him plucked at his heart. He was acutely aware of her presence, even more so since their agreement to remain good colleagues and fellow adventurers rather than anything more. Her movements, her subtle grace, her laugh, were more irresistible than ever and yet he was honour bound to do nothing about it.

Keeping a friendly distance was the sensible thing to do, with their demanding studies and other commitments. Very rational, very sensible, and very, very difficult to endure when her presence was so intoxicating and frustrating. Sometimes he thought it would be better not to see Caroline at all. Then he�d be horrified by the prospect of not seeing her and he�d plunge back into his sea of indecision.

�The ships!� Her eyes were bright as they always were in times of high adventure. It was one of the things � one of the many things � that Aubrey adored about her. Her reaction to danger? Exhilaration! �What are you going to do about them?�

Another thing about Caroline. She had confidence in him � at least, where things magical were concerned.

�We seem to be trapped!� Aubrey did his best to sound as if this were of no real importance.

A large picnic basket tumbled past. Caroline looked heavenward, then frowned, then she looked at Aubrey again. �Why?�

Aubrey gaped at her. He�d been busy working on �How� rather than �Why�. He assumed that �How� would give him a way to counter the stormfleet, perhaps a way to escape. �Why� had slipped his mind.

A wave of dust made him close his eyes. When he opened them again, the cruising battleships were still there, the destroyers were still there, the tending craft still trailing in the skywake of the larger ships. �Good question!� he shouted.

Around them, couples in what had been their outdoor finery were tottering, arm in arm, uncertainly. Knots of burly young men were hunched over, as if they could batter their way through the elements.

�You have a good answer?� Caroline shouted, obviously deciding that succinct communication was the order of the day.

By now a few others were milling around Aubrey and Caroline, no doubt through some primitive notion of safety in numbers. All were bedraggled, fearful, unkempt, a far cry from the carefree picnickers who�d been enjoying a sunny afternoon.

Aubrey quickly sorted through his options, limited though they were. Motorcars obviously had no hope of battering through the storm curtain. Communication with the outside world was impossible. Sitting tight and waiting for rescue was the most sensible thing.

Aubrey was about to recommend as much to Caroline when he glanced upward. The underside of the cloudy warships glided high overhead like sharks. He squinted, then stared. Something was falling from the largest of the ships. At first, he thought it was an anchor, which set his mind racing as to the implications of a threatening spectral fleet anchored in the middle of Albion�s greatest university. Was it taking hostages? Trying to sabotage the nation�s intellectual efforts?

Then the shape resolved itself and bone-melting fear muscled its way into Aubrey�s consciousness. �Depth charge!�

Caroline whirled. �What?�

Aubrey threw caution to the winds � a simple task in the circumstances � and took her around the waist. Her eyes flew open wide and she automatically applied an agonising nerve hold to his elbow.

�High explosive!� Aubrey gasped. �Submersible killer!�

The brick wall of the pavilion was the nearest possible shelter. He was about to gallantly throw himself on top of her � with the sole intent of protecting her � when the blast struck. A familiar wave of magic battered at him and ripped at the fragile bond that held his body and soul together.

Blackness, dark and terrible, swept him away.

Two

�Dashed poor timing, that storm. I was in good form,� George said from where he was sitting at the foot of Aubrey�s bed. Outside, the college clock struck five.

Caroline was there too, sitting on a rickety wooden chair dragged from Aubrey�s desk, balancing a cup of tea on her knee. She hadn�t touched it for some time; Aubrey was sure it was cold.

Otto Kiefer was standing at the window. He alternated between looking at Aubrey with an expression of satisfaction, and glancing uneasily through the drawn curtains. Aubrey thought he couldn�t look more furtive if he�d tried.

Aubrey stretched and enjoyed the sensation. He realised he felt much better than he had any entitlement to. He ran a quick inner inspection and found no aches, no tender gums, no strained vision. A further check revealed that his body and soul were snugly united. Settled. As one. Which, again, was unexpected, given what he remembered.

He sat up and the room spun around him. He was perversely grateful and let himself sag again.

�Be easy, now,� Kiefer said. �You still need rest.�

�It was a near thing,� Caroline said. �If not for Otto, I don�t know what would have happened.�

Aubrey had a fair idea. He shuddered. Carefully, he lifted himself onto one elbow. �The stormfleet. What happened?�

�The depth charge exploded with a great deal of noise,� Caroline said. �Then the clouds opened, the rain nearly drowned everyone, and lightning struck the pavilion, but suddenly it all stopped.�

�The clouds, the storm, everything just evaporated,� George said.

Caroline nodded. �Everyone was dragging themselves away and George and Kiefer and I found you face-down in the mud.�

�Ah.�

�We thought you could tell us what all that was about,� George said. �Rather dramatic as it was.�

Aubrey swallowed. �It was Dr Tremaine. I recognised his magic.�

He recalled his first magical encounter with the ex-Sorcerer Royal, when he�d inadvertently established a tenuous magical connection with the magician. It was unpredictable but at times it provided an intimate apprehension of the great sorcerer�s magic. Occasionally useful, he was profoundly disquieted by it and the implications� which he was sure he hadn�t fully determined.

Caroline stiffened. �Tremaine.� She still had the ex-Sorcerer Royal fairly in her sights for causing the death of her father.

With his free hand, Aubrey patted himself to make sure he was unharmed. �I seem to attract his attention, for one reason or another.�

�Nothing to do with foiling his plans more than once?� George frowned. �I say. It�s beginning to sound like he has a vendetta against the Fitzwilliams, isn�t it? First he attempts something on your father, then your mother, and now you.�

Kiefer shook a fist. �Tremaine!� he cried with such venom that everyone stared. �He must be stopped.�

�You won�t find any argument about that here, old boy,� George said after a moment�s embarrassed silence. �No Tremaine supporters in this room.�

�I know, I know,� Kiefer subsided. �That is why I wanted to find you, Fitzwilliam.�

�I see,� Aubrey said. Only one conclusion could be drawn. �What�s he done to you, Kiefer?�

Kiefer slumped, almost comically, until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He put his head in his hands. �He killed my father.�

Caroline gave an involuntary cry.

�I�m sorry to hear that.� Aubrey paused in the face of Kiefer�s grief, but he needed to go on. �How did this happen?�

�My father was a good man.� Kiefer�s voice was muffled by his hands. �He went to work for Dr Tremaine. He was promised much by the government � money, position, even a title.�

�Tremaine is a bad person to work with,� George said. Caroline nodded sharply.

Kiefer lifted his head. His eyes were rimmed with tears. �My father was the finest industrial magician in Holmland. The finest.�

Aubrey was naturally tender-hearted; he hated to see suffering. Whatever had happened to Kiefer�s father was another score in the account against Dr Tremaine. �I know what it�s like to have a great father. It�s an honour and a burden.�

Kiefer nodded. �That is right. You understand, with a prime minister for a father.�

�I�m sorry for your loss,� Caroline said. Aubrey could hear the tension in her voice, the strain that was always there when the subject of Dr Tremaine surfaced. �Can you tell us what happened?�

�My father was working on enhancing the action of catalysts in chemical processes.� Kiefer massaged his forehead with both hands. �It is an area that I have also dedicated myself to. I aim to finish his work.�

�It�s useful magic,� Aubrey said. �Your father would have been an important man.�

�He was. He made great advances with osmium and platinum and the like. But Tremaine wanted more and more, faster and faster. He forced my father to experiment on other materials.� Kiefer paused and swallowed. �Then, without telling my father, Tremaine removed the protective spells in the reaction chamber. Under pressure, it exploded.�

For a moment, the room was silent as they each contemplated the horror. �I�m sorry,� Aubrey said again. He knew it was inadequate, but it was all he had.

�Thank you.� Kiefer cleared his throat, looked away for a moment, then he fixed Aubrey with a direct gaze. �I know about you and Dr Tremaine, Fitzwilliam. In fact, I know many things.�

�You do?�

�He saved you, old man,� George said. �After the depth charge thing. We thought you were in extremis, if you know what I mean.� He raised an eyebrow significantly.

Kiefer nodded. �I brought that device with me all the way from Holmland. It is what saved you.�

�Device?�

�On your chest. I knew you would need it.�

Aubrey looked down, awkwardly, past his chin, but found it difficult to make out the object nestled on his chest. He sat up in the bed and took hold of it, to find that it was hanging from a fine metal chain around his neck. He stared at it dumbly.

It was a tiny wire cage in the shape of a sphere, perfectly round, wrought of silver or some other shiny metal, about the size of a small egg. Inside it was a solid metal ball, silver again. When Aubrey tilted it the ball rolled freely around inside the cage.

�And what is it?�

�It is a Beccaria Cage,� Kiefer said. �A protective device that will keep your body and soul together.� He beamed. �It is the cure for your condition.�

�My condition? What do you know about my condition?�

�We didn�t say a word,� George said in response to Aubrey�s accusatory look. �He seemed to know all about it. After we carried you to your room, he produced this gadget from his pocket and it did the trick.�

�You were crying out,� Caroline said. �In pain.�

�I don�t remember,� Aubrey said softly, but he had a dim impression of what he had endured. Somewhere, deep inside, part of him did remember, would never forget. Struggling, he remembered struggling, and an awful sense of separation.

�My uncle Maurice told me all about you,� Kiefer said, interrupting Aubrey�s thoughts.

Aubrey frowned. �I�m afraid I don�t know anyone called Maurice.�

�He said he met you last year. At the Faculty of Magic. At the University of Lutetia?�

Aubrey couldn�t have been more surprised if Kiefer had turned into a pig. In their recent escapade in Lutetia, they had spent some time in the decrepit Faculty of Magic. �He was a caretaker.�

�He had been a caretaker there for a long time. He saw much.�

�I suppose he did.� Aubrey chewed on his lip. �He knew about my condition?�

�He did. Two months ago, he wrote a letter and told me about it. He knew I was coming to Albion to continue my studies. He asked me to find this device at Fisherberg Academy, and bring it to you.�

Aubrey flicked the Beccaria Cage with a fingernail. �So you stole this thing for him.�

Kiefer looked horrified. �Stole it? No! It was in a basement, in a box with my name on it, just as Uncle Maurice said it would be.�

�And how did Maurice organise this, then?� George asked.

�He has many friends. He corresponds with people all over the world.�

�And he thought it could do me some good?� Aubrey said.

�He wasn�t sure. He said he wanted to do you a good turn, for what you did for the Faculty of Magic.�

Aubrey hadn�t done much, apart from levitating the central tower and sending it across the city of Lutetia. He supposed that the faculty may have achieved some prominence because of it. Of course he�d heard about the renewed interest in magical studies at the University of Lutetia and how the department was undergoing a reinvigoration, but he wasn�t sure that he could take all the credit. The study of magic was booming all over the world in these exciting and turbulent times.

�But he wasn�t sure?�

�No. But I was curious. I undertook some research, which confirmed it. The device is powerful, emitting a soul-stabilising field of immense puissance.�

�I say,� George said, �you wouldn�t be studying magic, would you?�

�I began my studies in history, but I am studying industrial magic at the moment. I am taking some special classes here before resuming my studies at the Fisherberg Academy. Pressure containment and catalysts, mostly. I will be successful, you know.�

�A fine institution,� Aubrey said. The Magic Department at the Fisherberg Academy had produced many excellent magicians, especially those who worked with physical magic, hard-edged spell casters greatly prized by industry. Aubrey had no prejudice against industrial magicians, unlike many of his contemporaries. He admired their work and the way they improved many processes that were vital for the health and happiness of the entire community.

�You would have been lost,� Kiefer said, �if not for my assistance. The device has restored your balance. Your body and soul are united as they should be.�

Aubrey couldn�t argue. He felt as whole as he�d ever felt after the disastrous experiment at Stonelea School. He went to slip the chain from his neck so he could examine the Beccaria Cage more closely.

Kiefer�s eyes flew open wide. �Do not remove it! The cage is all that is stopping you from falling apart.�

The device was heavy in Aubrey�s hand. He stared at Kiefer. �I think you need to tell me more. Much more.�

Kiefer rubbed his palms on his trouser legs. With some effort, he untangled himself and stood. He took a deep breath and did his best to look dignified. �I have come to seek your assistance, Mr Fitzwilliam.�

�I�m happy to give it.� Aubrey touched the Beccaria Cage. �You�ve done a great thing for me.�

�Excellent.� Another deep breath. �Now I want you to help me destroy Dr Mordecai Tremaine.�

An uncomfortable silence was a sudden visitor in the room. Aubrey pursed his lips, considering his options. �Destroy Dr Tremaine?� he finally ventured. �What makes you think we could help you achieve such a thing?�

Before Kiefer could answer, Caroline spoke up. �Let�s not dismiss such a request lightly.� Her voice was even, but Aubrey could see the effort this took. �Dr Tremaine is a threat to the entire world.�

�He�s the most dangerous man there is,� George said gloomily. �And it�s not exactly joyful to know that he has designs on people you care for.�

�I think we all agree on the peril that Dr Tremaine represents,� Aubrey said. �He may be a madman, after all. But he is also a genius.�

�Of that I am aware,� Kiefer said brightly. �He is a most dangerous enemy.� He sighed. �I risked much to bring that device to you. You must help me.�

Almost without his realising it, Aubrey�s hand crept to cover the Beccaria Cage. �This is sounding awfully like blackmail, Kiefer.�

For a moment, Kiefer looked old. He gestured � a jerky, ungraceful movement. �It is as you Albionites say: a means to an end.� Before anyone could protest he climbed to his feet and went to the door. �Rest, Fitzwilliam. Let the Beccaria Cage work on you. We will discuss mutual assistance tomorrow.�

Three

Dawn had barely arrived when Aubrey woke. After he opened his eyes and saw the grey light that stole in around the curtains, it took him a moment to remember that he was in his college rooms. Then he touched the tiny Beccaria Cage and the events of the previous day came back to him.

Quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping George on the other side of the room, he sat up and held the cage between his thumb and forefinger to examine it.

The metal ball rolled about as he tilted the cage from side to side. It glided smoothly, and Aubrey found himself entranced by its movements and the solidity of its contact with the fine wires. He was always impressed by clever construction, and the neatness of this device was captivating � but he needed to know more about it.

After a time, he reluctantly tucked the cage back inside his nightshirt. Then he eased himself out of his bed, found his dressing gown and slippers, and tiptoed to the door that led to the small study attached to their bedroom.

An hour later, Aubrey was deeply immersed in research. His collection of books covering the history of magic was proving useful, as he�d already found a dozen references to the Beccaria Cage. Even in its earliest eighteenth-century developments, when Giovanni Beccaria had proposed a device that used some of the principles of electrical conduction as well as aspects of the Law of Entanglement, it had been a cunning melding of magic and technology. Aubrey�s particular device appeared to be a variation of the classical notion of a Beccaria Cage, however, with some embedded spells that he was having trouble identifying.

Intriguingly, none of the references mentioned a Beccaria Cage with a silver ball inside.

It was a mystery, but Aubrey loved a mystery.

He was reaching for Kuhn�s Magical Revolutions when a tap came from the casement windows to his left. Aubrey automatically glanced in that direction to see a pigeon fluttering with some agitation. As he stared, it pecked at the glass again.

Aubrey went to shout, to shoo it away, assuming it was tricked by its own reflection, then he remembered that George was still asleep. He sighed, put down his pencil and crossed the room.

At the window, the pigeon continued fluttering and pecking at the glass. Aubrey stood there, waved his arms and made a fierce face, but the pigeon ignored him and tapped furiously at the window.

Shaking his head, Aubrey unlatched the windows and pushed them out. The pigeon tumbled backward in a flurry of wings but instead of flying off as Aubrey had expected, it rallied and darted at him.

He jerked his head back as the pigeon hurtled into the room like a feathery cannonball. He spun to see it career off the side wall, then gather itself with more intent than he thought a pigeon capable of before alighting on the desk where Aubrey had been researching. It immediately worried at an errant feather before fixing him with a beady stare.

Aubrey glanced at the door to the bedroom, but the steady drone that came from that direction told him that George was still asleep.

Aubrey stared back at the bird. No sense in trying to chase it out of the window. Small-brained as pigeons were, it would probably flap around in every direction but the one he wanted. It would be much better to throw a blanket over it first, then empty it outside.

Before Aubrey could move, however, the pigeon bent its head and pecked at a leg. Aubrey narrowed his eyes when he saw that this leg had something attached to it� a small metal capsule.

Aubrey�s curiosity immediately scuppered his plan to get rid of the pigeon. At least, not before examining it. The bird must be a lost carrier pigeon, and who knew what message it contained in the capsule on its leg? If he could detach the capsule, he might be able to get the message to its owner.

Without looking, he reached behind himself and pulled the windows closed. Then he took off his dressing gown and held it in front of him, ready to stalk the pigeon.

Aubrey was glad no-one was around to see him as he advanced on the bird. He felt distinctly foolish, in nightshirt and slippers, holding a dressing gown as a net, inching toward a pigeon that was standing on his desk as if it belonged there.

He held his breath when the pigeon cocked its head, but it otherwise showed remarkable unconcern as he moved closer. He lifted the dressing gown, ready to cast it, then he peered around its edge. The pigeon was staring back at him with equanimity.

Aubrey lowered the dressing gown. He reached out, and the bird didn�t show any signs of alarm.

Of course, he thought, it must be accustomed to people. A carrier pigeon would have been handled from an early age to get it used to having capsules strapped to its leg.

With as much gentleness as he could muster, Aubrey took the pigeon in both hands. It nestled there quite happily, and he found the capsule attached to the bird�s leg with copper bands. He removed it easily.

The capsule was extremely light, made of thin aluminium, and only half an inch or so long. It didn�t take Aubrey long to see that it was of two halves fitted tightly together. With a twist and a tug, the halves separated and a scrap of folded rice paper dropped to the desk.

His curiosity was circling as he carefully unfolded the paper. The capsule had no markings, but could it be military? Could the message contain secret information? He snorted. It was more likely to be a pigeon fancier taunting another pigeon fancier about how well his birds raced.

Finally, he had the paper unfolded. He smoothed it on the desk and stared at the words written in black ink.

Palaver. Gastropod. Snood. Philtrum.

Aubrey�s brain turned to dust.

It was some time later when he realised that he was still standing at the desk. The pigeon was looking at him so he went to the window and opened it. After the pigeon flew out Aubrey threw the screwed-up scrap of rice paper out of the window and immediately forgot about it.

Quietly, with a nagging sense of urgency, he went into the bedroom and found his clothes. Without disturbing George, he dressed. Then the sense of urgency had him closing the door carefully behind him and sneaking down the stairs.

On the platform of Greythorn Station, Aubrey chafed while waiting with the morning passengers. He realised that he�d foolishly forgotten to bring a book, or even a newspaper, to fill in his waiting time, but soon found himself sitting on the hard wooden slats of a railway bench. He must have been more tired than he thought, for when the whistle announced the arrival of the train the station clock told him that nearly an hour had passed without his noticing.

While he searched for an empty compartment, this lapse of time gnawed at him. It was unlike him to be so unaware of his surroundings. His condition, balanced between life and death, had taught him about the value of every moment. Life was brief, a transient thing to be savoured, and even sitting on a station bench was something to be enjoyed.

It worried him, but the worry drifted away when he took his attention from it.

The train was crowded. Aubrey couldn�t find an empty compartment but after he settled himself he scarcely noticed the other passengers. They were indistinct presences � collections of vague sounds and smells, blurred movements � as he sat fidgeting in the corner, right by the window. He spent some time watching one knee as he bounced it up and down, the jiggling movement soothing in its rhythm. At times, he thought someone in the compartment spoke to him, but by the time he�d gathered himself enough to reply it seemed pointless, unhelpful to his task at hand, so he didn�t.

His earlier feeling of vigour had faded somewhat. He had a headache that was brooding right behind his forehead, a black presence that was threatening to grow. This concerned him, for he knew he had an important task � the responsibility was a fearsome jockey riding him with particularly sharp spurs � but he had trouble defining exactly what it was. It was as vague as the people in the compartment, shapeless as hunger, but just as demanding. He tried to concentrate, because he knew his task was important, but his attention had a tendency to wander and instead he found himself contemplating the wooden window frame. It was made of a mellow orange-brown timber, indifferently lacquered, and Aubrey spent a pleasant hour or two tracing the grain from one side to the other, a tricky task as the lines were fine and he often lost his place and had to start again.

He amused himself by rolling nursery rhymes in his head, repeating them until the words became nonsense collections of sound, but all the more hilarious for it.

Later, he understood that the train had stopped and that he was alone in the compartment. A figure was standing in the doorway and it occurred to Aubrey that responding to it would be a rather good idea. �I�m fine, thank you, conductor. Just gathering myself before sallying forth into the city. Hat on, gloves on, and I�m ready to go.�

He stepped out of the compartment and strode whistling down the platform, even though it struck him that whistling was something he rarely did.

Outside the station, for once Aubrey didn�t feel assaulted by the din of Trinovant traffic nor by the bustle of pedestrians as he joined the crowd. Even the slightly drizzly weather had no effect. His task now burned so brightly in him that everything else, really, was trivial.

It was a comfortable way to be, if a little foggy. Standing at the corner of Wye and Bank Streets, waiting for a chance to cross the busy road that would lead to the Palace, he wondered why life couldn�t always be like this. It was a relief not to have to worry about things, knowing that every important decision had been made for him. All he had to do was carry out his task and everything would be perfect. He was well rid of such foolishness as ambition, duty, responsibilities.

First, of course, a detour to the Mire. It took two underground trips and a foot journey of indeterminate length, but he eventually came to the heart of this less than salubrious part of the city. Even at this early hour on a Sunday morning, it was busy. And once it became apparent that he was shopping for firearms, he was besieged by eager sellers � men usually, well fed and expensively dressed, with no sense of fashion but with a manner that said telling them as much would be a bad idea.

In a short time, he could have equipped a small army. Fleetingly, he felt that some of the more volatile nations on the Goltan Peninsula had perhaps done just that. Finally, he was able to purchase his desired weapon: a Symons service revolver, the Mark V model, not the more common Mark IV. The shifty-eyed vendor � ocular unsteadiness another prerequisite of the trade, it seemed � assured him that it had only ever been used on the practice range. It was large: a .450 calibre, more than enough to punch a hole right through a wall, if needed. He had to chuckle when he considered something as silly as using the pistol to make holes in walls, but he stopped when he realised that the shifty-eyed man was looking at him strangely.

Aubrey declined an offer of heavy machine guns and mortars to go with the revolver, handed over the cash without counting it and was rewarded by a startled � and increasingly shifty � look from his new friend. It made him feel good.

After leaving the Mire, he bobbed along the pavement like a particularly content piece of driftwood. His feet knew his destination, and while he walked he spent some time looking at clouds as they moved across the sky, changing shapes as they were shepherded by the wind. He only became aware of his surroundings when the gates of the Palace loomed. It was a familiar sight and Aubrey�s already cheery heart swelled to see it, even though the great rectangular bulk of a building was no-one�s finest example of any sort of architecture. Because it was early, the Palace was quiet, with many windows still draped. The guards were in attendance at the gatehouse, of course, but otherwise the gardens, the paths, the parade ground were lonely, just as he had been led to believe.

The guards made Aubrey wait, but he didn�t mind because the cobblestones were remarkably interesting. He absorbed himself in counting them and trying to estimate how many there were in the entire parade ground. He kept losing track and having to start again, but it didn�t bother him. It was fascinating.

When Archie Sommers, Prince Albert�s aide, appeared, Aubrey was irritated � in an abstract, blurry sort of way � that his counting was interrupted, but he soon remembered that Sommers was the easiest way to see the Crown Prince, and that was why he had asked the guards to fetch him. He put on a smile.

Archie Sommers was a young man, an ex-naval officer who had taken on the job after an accident at sea. Aubrey had always got on well with him as he had a devilish sense of humour and a keen interest in magic. One of his primary jobs was to screen Bertie from visitors, but Aubrey hardly thought that applied to him. After all, a cousin was a cousin.

Sommers hailed Aubrey. �Fitzwilliam! What a surprise! Why didn�t you telephone?� He shook Aubrey�s hand.

Aubrey had no answer for that. In fact, it struck him as odd when he came to think about it, but the excuse came to him smoothly. �Couldn�t risk it, Sommers.� He coughed significantly. �Sensitive matters.�

�I see.� Sommers looked pained. �You know, I hate this carry-on. Secrets, spies, looking over your shoulder all the time.� He grinned. �Not much we can do about it, eh? Come on, I�ll get you a cup of tea. His Highness is talking with His Majesty�s doctors, but won�t be long.�

Aubrey paused and a passing thought made him frown. �What time is it?�

�Just after eight. You�ve made an early start.�

He considered this for a moment. �I suppose I have.�

He was left in one of the many drawing rooms in the Palace. He�d been in this one before, but he couldn�t exactly remember when. It looked over Barley Park, green and lovely in the morning light, where the curve of Miller�s Pond caught the sun and sparkled. It was a serene, beautiful sight and, gazing over it, he forgot all about the promise of tea. He tried to decide what the shape of the trees meant. They seemed mysterious and significant, so he used his forefinger to trace them on the window glass.

He could smell the furniture polish used on the table under the window. Eventually, he decided that it smelled like beeswax.

Dimly, he was aware of a voice, deep inside himself, that was doing its best to raise a hullabaloo. It was irksome, but only distantly, like a noisy neighbour in a district where the houses were five miles apart.

The business of the Palace went on around him, in the hushed and discreet way that the royal household staff had made a specialty. After someone placed a tea tray on the table by his side, he was left alone. Footsteps went past, soft conversations came from nearby, a muffled telephone rang. None of this bothered � or concerned � Aubrey. Periodically, he found he had to move position as his leg muscles were starting to cramp, and he had some notion that he was hungry, but these signs of physical discomfort were muted, as if they were happening to someone else.

The voice deep inside was doing its best to rattle the walls but it was easy to ignore.

One of the doors opened. Sommers entered. He was frowning, and Aubrey would have described him as looking troubled, if he�d been able to rouse enough interest to do so. Instead he smiled � something told him that smiling was good � and he stood.

�His Highness will be with you in a minute,� Sommers said in a tight voice. Aubrey saw his hand was hovering over the pocket of his jacket, and for an instant he wondered what the chap had there, but no sooner had the thought flitted into his mind than it left. The matter had no impact on his mission.

�Good, good,� Aubrey said. He bounced on his toes and realised that he was excited. His hands twitched, eagerly.

Sommers glanced over his shoulder, then toward the window. �Why don�t you take a seat, Fitzwilliam? His Highness won�t be long.�

�I�ll stand,� Aubrey said and had trouble smothering a laugh. What a time he was having! The way the light came in through the window, the sound of the motor traffic that echoed over the parade ground all made a delicious backdrop to his task.

A figure strode through the doorway. Aubrey�s hand went to the inner pocket of his jacket only to realise, to his disappointment, that it wasn�t the Prince.

�Hello, old man,� George said.

Before Aubrey could frame a reply, he had to disengage his finger from the trigger of the pistol. This took more attention that he thought. In the meantime, George was joined by someone else and Aubrey forgot everything in his astonishment.

�Caroline. What are you doing here?�

Caroline stood next to George. Her hands were clenched tightly together. �Wrong question, Aubrey. You need to ask yourself what you�re doing here.�

Aubrey�s astonishment was whisked away and replaced by his consuming sense of purpose, the one he�d had since waking up. He grinned and once again his hand stole to the pistol in his pocket. �What a ridiculous question.�

�Is it?� Caroline demanded. �Think, Aubrey. Really think. Why have you come here at this hour? Why did you leave college so abruptly? Where have you been before you came here?�

Sommers coughed and looked significantly at Caroline. He was standing with his back against the wall, his arms folded on his chest, all friendliness gone. Aubrey would have been offended at this change, but he had other things to think about. �Sommers,� he said. �Where�s Bertie?�

Sommers glanced at Caroline and George. �His Highness is on his way. Your friends have been chatting with me.�

The pistol was really a fine piece of work, Aubrey decided. Compact, neatly machined. He liked the grip, particularly, with its neat cross-hatching. �Sorry?� he said, realising that Somers had finished speaking. �I missed that.�

Nodding, George strolled across the carpet, advancing on Aubrey. �Time to go, old man. You�re not yourself.�

This amused Aubrey. �Not myself? Then who am I?�

Caroline, too, made her way toward Aubrey, moving a little to his right. George�s broad shoulders blocked Aubrey�s view of her, which was disappointing, but other matters were crowding for his attention.

�George was concerned about you,� Caroline said and he swung his head in her direction. �He saw you leave college and he telephoned me immediately.�

�Lost you for a while,� George said, and Aubrey saw that his friend had moved to his left. He couldn�t see both of them at once. He had to turn his head from side to side and was momentarily distracted by Sommers� scowling. �Caught you near the Mire after one of Maggie�s Crew told us where you were.�

�Maggie�s Crew?� Aubrey frowned. This wasn�t as much fun any more. Too many things to consider instead of the dreamy single-mindedness he�d enjoyed all morning.

�We saw where you were headed,� Caroline said. With a start, he saw that she was standing next to a large armchair, only a few feet away.

�How did you do that?� he asked.

�You�re preoccupied,� George said and Aubrey started again. George had crossed the open space and was standing an arm�s length away. �You�re having trouble focusing.�

�No I�m not,� he said automatically. �I�m totally focused.�

At that moment, the door opened. Prince Albert stood there looking both shocked and angry, his distress showing in the way he straightened his jacket, then his tie, then his jacket again, a quick flurry of controlled, precise movements. �Aubrey. What on earth is going on here?�

Rational thought abandoned Aubrey. His body went into action, independent of anything that he wanted, while a horrified, tiny voice screamed in horror, a cry only he could hear.

He flung back his jacket and wrenched the pistol from the inner pocket. Smoothly, he snapped off the safety catch and brought the firearm to bear on the heir to the throne. Finally, he felt whole and complete, his purpose fulfilled. A radiance filled the room. Prince Albert was outlined with an almost unbearably bright nimbus and shone like a beacon.

Aubrey almost sobbed out loud with joy as his finger tightened on the trigger.

George roared and tackled him, sending Aubrey reeling. It was momentary, for Aubrey caught himself and swivelled, his pistol-laden fist searching for the Prince in a room that was in uproar.

By then, Caroline had come close. In a flurry of silk and perfume, she caught his outstretched arm and clamped it to her side. Using both hands she seized his gun-fist, twisted just so, pressed right there and bent his wrist like that. Aubrey had never had red-hot iron spikes driven into his hand, but at that moment he would have preferred it as Caroline�s knowledge of pressure points went to work. He let loose a heartfelt howl of pain and, despite his best efforts, he dropped the pistol. Caroline kicked it away. Sommers was ready, scooped it up, broke it, and emptied the cartridges on the floor. Then he took out his own pistol and snapped off the safety catch.

Someone was snarling. Aubrey searched for the source before realising � with some surprise � that it came from him. Caroline let go, edging away warily. Aubrey�s arm hung limply at his side with bright points of pain throbbing away, little metal cymbals clashing in his temples, but it was unimportant. The pistol. He must have the pistol.

Strong arms seized him from behind in a full nelson. �Easy, old man,� George growled in his ear.

Prince Albert approached, flanked by a grim Archie Sommers. �Aubrey,� the Prince said, then he turned away, upset. �You were right,� he said to Caroline. �I didn�t believe it when you said that Aubrey was coming to assassinate me, but you were right.�

Assassinate the Crown Prince? To Aubrey, it sounded like a fine idea, a natural and inevitable thing. If only he could get free from George�s grip, he was sure he could wrestle the pistol away from Sommers.

He struggled, then howled again when Sommers hurried Prince Albert away, shutting the door behind them. That was wrong, so wrong that Aubrey felt ill, his stomach a curdled mass inside him. He threw himself from side to side, but George held fast.

�Steady, George,� Caroline said.

Caroline drew aside Aubrey�s jacket. With her other hand, she held up a knife, right in front of Aubrey�s eyes. It was small, barely as long as her hand, with a handle of mother-of-pearl and a pointed blade that looked sharp enough to slice steel.

She caught his gaze and held it evenly. Her eyes were calm, grey and icily determined. �I can do this while you�re moving. But it�s probably better if you don�t.�

Aubrey went to answer, but the knife flashed before anything intelligible made its way to his lips.

He looked down. His shirt gaped. Caroline picked the last button from its thread and let it drop on the floor to join its mates.

The Beccaria Cage lay on Aubrey�s bare chest. He suddenly realised that it was heavy, pressing on his skin hard enough to leave a red mark. It seemed heavier. It was warm, too, but was that simply through contact with his skin?

The knife had disappeared from Caroline�s hand. She seized the Beccaria Cage and yanked.

The chain parted. Aubrey�s eyes flew open wide, then his head spun, the entire room shuddered, and all existence twisted, wrenched, swirled away.

Four

Some time later, Aubrey became aware that he was in a room that resembled the drawing room at the Palace. Caroline and George were there, and the furniture was the same, so he conceded that it could possibly, actually be the Palace drawing room. At a pinch.

Even sitting as he was on a plush, overstuffed armchair, his legs felt like tubes of soggy clay. His skin was clammy. His chest hurt, but all this physical discomfort was the least of his concern.

He�d tried to shoot Bertie.

The enormity of what he�d nearly done struck him hard. Bertie, his friend, the heir to the throne of Albion? What had he been thinking? He wanted to shudder, but he wasn�t quite capable of it yet.

He worked his mouth and tried to apologise, to explain the strange state he�d been in, but all he could manage was something that sounded like, �Bleurgh.�

Caroline was sitting opposite, her hands clutched in her lap, and she was studying him closely. Blearily, he noticed that three armed guardsmen stood outside the window behind her. All of them were staring at him fixedly. He worked his jaw, then his mouth, until he was a little more confident. �Were they there?� he croaked. �All the time?�

George handed him a glass of water. �The prince wasn�t happy about it, but Sommers insisted. He swore they were all crack shots and would only maim you. If things went wrong.�

Aubrey nodded, as if he found that reassuring. It was really only because he found it easier than talking.

�It was the Prince who insisted that none of the agencies need be called,� Caroline said. She seemed balanced between anger and concern, and not quite trusting herself either way. �Not the police, not the Special Services, not the Magisterium.�

�Come with us, old man,� George said. �I think everyone except the Prince will be happy when you�re well away from here.�

A stony-faced guardsman chauffeured them in a discreet Charlesworth motorcar. He drove as if it were a tank, ignoring most of the other traffic about. Wedged between Caroline and George in the back seat, Aubrey did his best to regain his faculties, while simultaneously feeling ashamed and furious.

I nearly shot Bertie.

His too-active imagination conjured up images of giant newspaper headlines: �PRINCE SHOT BY PRIME MINISTER�S SON�. He saw grim police officers, handcuffs, magistrates, barred cells and judges. Judges with black caps, full of righteous wrath, condemning him to be hanged by the neck until dead.

He shuddered, successfully this time.

He saw his parents, grey and disbelieving, broken by the events. He saw Albion in turmoil as the Prime Minister resigned. He saw Holmland moving, the Continent at war with blood and flames and destruction. He saw one person, only one person, standing happy at the horror unleashed.

Dr Tremaine.

Hot anger slowly began to replace the sick hollow inside him.

�I was up early,� George was saying. �Thought I�d dash off a few words about the affair at the old cricket game, mentioning the sterling work of a few individuals.� He looked pleased with himself. �When I saw you sloping off without me, I thought it odd, especially after you asked me to spend today with you in the city.�

�George telephoned me at my college,� Caroline said. �Despite your confidence that you�d made the Beccaria Cage safe, I had my doubts. So did George. He followed you.�

�How?� Aubrey�s tongue still felt thick. Single words worked best.

�A combination of stealth and uncanny ability, old man. By the time I dressed and ran to the main gates, you were still in sight, not making much of an effort to cover your tracks either. Whistling, too, if I wasn�t mistaken.�

�Ghastly?�

�Pretty much, yes.� George smiled a little. �I was curious about your demeanour, so I decided to follow and observe you.� He shrugged. �I�ve learned a thing or two about odd situations, you see.�

�Caroline?�

�I missed the train George and you took, but I managed to catch up with him when he lost you in the Mire. He telephoned from there and I immediately bicycled to join him.�

�We raced up and down the streets of the Mire looking for you,� George said. �I was ready to give up when we almost stumbled on your little transaction.�

�George was very nervous,� Caroline said. �Especially when you started waving that pistol around.�

George rubbed his chin. �It became plain as day that you were heading for the Palace. We kept back until you were admitted, then we rushed over and managed to get to Sommers.�

�I was going to shoot Bertie,� Aubrey said slowly.

�So it appeared,� Caroline said. �Whatever were you thinking?�

�Not much.� Aubrey remembered the blissful, purposeful state he�d been in. He closed his eyes as a wave of nausea rolled through him. �Trigger words. I was sent trigger words. After that, I surrendered everything.�

Aubrey was both angry and ashamed. He liked to think that he was responsible for his own actions, for better and for worse. Successes and failures belonged to him, and he was prepared to take the good with the bad. But propelled on his deadly mission, he�d been turned into an automaton, a puppet controlled by...

�Dr Tremaine,� he said softly.

Caroline sat back and crossed her arms. �You�re sure?�

�Oh yes.�

He shivered, then the trembling seized his legs and quickly turned to cramp. He grimaced and massaged his calves, feeling the knots of muscle under his fingertips.

�Are you all right?� Caroline asked.

�No,� he said simply, for he could tell that � without the Beccaria Cage � his body and soul were once again at odds. The physical symptoms were dismayingly familiar: weakness, trembling, pain in his muscles and joints. He knew, if things went in their accustomed way, he�d soon start to feel feverish or experience double vision, or any one of a hundred bodily signs. If he couldn�t stave off the disunification of his body and soul, the true death would soon draw closer.

George glanced at the driver and raised an eyebrow significantly. �Ah. Your condition?�

Through recent experience, Aubrey had learned that everyone had ears. The driver, perhaps, was under no orders to report any conversations, but that was extremely unlikely. �Indeed.� He grimaced. His feet hurt. �Do you have that contraption? The Beccaria Cage?�

Caroline produced it from her handbag. She held it in her open palm where it nestled, strangely repellent. The broken chain hung limply. He shook himself, fighting with his weariness, struggling for his words. �I think it works.�

�What?� George said, startled. �Hold on a minute, old man. It turned you into a mindless assassin. If that�s what you mean by �I think it works�, then I suppose you�re right, but...�

�It ... it glued me together.� Aubrey struggled for words. �I could feel its effect.�

�Dr Tremaine, remember,� Caroline said. �The master of the hidden plot. Look inside the exterior.�

Aubrey cocked his head. Caroline was right. Dr Tremaine was the panjandrum of strategy, of the feint, of misdirection. Again and again, in Albion and in Lutetia, under the sea and under the city, he�d proved that his mind was capable of the most twisted, labyrinthine plots, where what was and what seemed to be swapped with such feverish regularity that one�s own identity was seriously in question.

Aubrey took the Beccaria Cage and held it up to the window. Letting the light stream through it, he tilted it.

The tiny silver ball rolled and struck the edge of the cage. It made a dull, heavy sound, then it wobbled a little before it was still.

�I need to do some magic,� he said, not taking his eyes from the cage.

�Here?� George said. �Now?�

�Can you manage it?� Caroline asked.

Aubrey swallowed. His throat was raw and painful. �I think I must.�

Without a word, George reached over and slid the glass pane across, sealing off the rear compartment. Aubrey could see that the driver�s mirror was artfully angled to ensure he could see what was going on in the back, but at least he couldn�t eavesdrop.

The motorcar rumbled on. Outside, the business of the city streamed past. Carriages, cabs, motorcars, omnibuses. Shops, caf�s, government buildings. Trinovantians, foreigners and some who were one pretending to be the other. Appearances and reality, Aubrey thought. Let�s take off the skin and see what lies beneath.

With a sigh, he lifted the Beccaria Cage again in his left hand. His vision blurred, he squinted, then rubbed his eyes. His eyesight cleared a little and he decided it wasn�t going to get any better than that.

He gripped the cage. The silver ball rolled then stopped dead and trembled, as if sensing something.

Concentrating gamely, Aubrey put the forefinger of his right hand up to the wire of the cage. The silver ball jerked and rolled to the far side, even though Aubrey was sure he�d held the cage level.

With an effort, he wedged the tip of his finger through the wire. It resisted, but he pushed until, with a grunt, he was through, bending the wire to allow access.

Inside, the silver ball began to roll about in erratic, wild movements, banging into one side of the cage and rebounding to the other like a mouse caught in a well with a cat.

Aubrey pushed his finger toward the silver ball. It froze for an instant, then quivered, before breaking left. Aubrey was ready for it, though, when it darted back to the right. He caught it against the wall of the cage, trapping it with his fingertip, and he hissed with satisfaction.

To his surprise, his fingertip sank into the surface of the ball as if it was a sponge. Before he could move, the ball clamped onto his finger with a razor-sharp grip.

Aubrey felt it sink into his flesh, but he didn�t flinch� despite the pain. He pushed through the wire from the other side, with his left forefinger and thumb, and caught the ball from behind. Ignoring the pain in his right finger, he brought his left thumb and forefinger together like pincers. At the first sign of pressure, the ball let go of his finger, but Aubrey caught it, crushing the ball like a walnut.

Immediately, the motorcar was filled with a hideous smell. It swerved sideways and the driver glanced over his shoulder, his face screwed up. Not expecting such a stench, Aubrey recoiled and threw up his hands, but because both hands were trapped in the cage all he succeeded in doing was hitting himself in the eye with it. He saw stars, blinked, let his hands fall to his lap and refused to look down � because he didn�t want to see what the ball had done to his finger.

George held his nose and slid open the window on his side, then leaned across and did the same on the other. �Good Lord,� he said with some reverence. �You could use that smell as a weapon.�

Caroline frowned. She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at Aubrey�s brow.

Aubrey knew the silver ball had attacked his finger. How badly, though, he wasn�t sure. Still without looking, he tried to ease his finger out of the wire. Pain flared like a bright light. He drew in a sharp breath through his teeth.

Caroline was studying the cage dispassionately, but Aubrey knew her self-possession. �How bad is it?� he asked.

�Blood everywhere. You�ve ruined your suit.�

�I knew it. I�ve lost my finger, haven�t I?�

�I don�t think so.�

A sharp tug made Aubrey straighten in his seat. Tears came to his eyes and he had a brand-new appreciation of the virtues of a lack of pain. �Oh my.�

Caroline held up her hand. In it, she held his. Around the tip of his forefinger, just above the knuckle, was a thin band of red. A tiny trickle of blood was edging toward his knuckle. It looked as if he�d scratched himself with a fingernail.

�It hurt,� he said plaintively. �I was sure it was working its way to the bone.�

�I�m sure it felt like that,� Caroline said. �Here, wrap my handkerchief around it. It�s already got blood on it. From your eyebrow.�

Aubrey gingerly touched his brow and winced. �Hmm.� He prodded at the Beccaria Cage. The wires were a little bent, but there was no sign of the silver ball apart from the ghost of the eye-watering stench. He pushed the wires back into place so the mesh was regular again. Then he relinked the chain and slipped it around his neck.

Immediately, his fatigue disappeared like smoke on a windy day. He straightened and massaged the back of his neck with both hands. After he rubbed his eyes, his vision was sharp; when he took a deep breath, nothing caught or pinched.

�You�ve done something,� Caroline said. �Your eyes are clearer.�

Aubrey glanced at the driver. His attention was entirely on the road ahead as they rolled past Barley Park, well on the way to Fielding Cross and Maidstone, the Fitzwilliam family home.

�The Beccaria Cage,� he explained. �It works, but it was booby-trapped by Dr Tremaine. He knew I�d be keen to get my hands on something that would assist my condition. The silver ball must have been a concealed spell, lurking ready to entrap me.�

George shook his head. �You were possessed.�

�Something like that. Not mindless, not like those poor lost souls we ran into in Gallia.� It was his turn to shake his head. The Soul Stealer of Lutetia had held the Gallian city in terror. �I was aware of everything around me, but it was like seeing life through a lens that made everything warm and good, as long as I was moving toward my goal.�

�The Prince?� Caroline asked.

�Dr Tremaine hasn�t given up on his plan to plunge the world into war,� Aubrey said. He put his hand over the Beccaria Cage as it lay against his chest. �Imagine it. The death of the Prince, an assassin who � it would be shown � was ensorcelled by a Holmlander who had been the source of the infernal device.�

�Kiefer,� George muttered.

�Agreed.� Aubrey pursed his lips. �Tomorrow, I think we need to pop up to Greythorn and have a chat with this Mr Kiefer.�

Five

The next morning, Tilly, one of the maids, knocked at the open door to Aubrey�s room. �Excuse me, sir. Telephone for you. It�s Miss Caroline. She�s ringing from her home.�

Aubrey had been assembling a few magical items in preparation for their trip to confront Kiefer but he immediately dropped everything. �Thank you, Tilly,� he said as he bounded past.

�Aubrey,� Caroline said a split second before he spoke into the receiver.

�Caroline?� He made a mental note to himself: write down a list of clever greetings and store them by the telephone. That way he may have some chance of avoiding such a lame opening sally.

�I�m glad we�ve sorted out who we are,� she said. �Now, we�re not going to Greythorn.�

�We�re not? What about Kiefer?�

�Aubrey, what are we using to speak to each other?�

�The telephone?�

�Exactly. Instead of racing pell-mell up to Greythorn, I�ve been using the telephone to make some enquiries.�

�I thought you were rearranging your schedule.�

�I�ve taken care of that. Professor Ainsworth wanted me to help him with some phylogeny research, but I�ve asked for a postponement. And Mother can make her own travel arrangements for a change.�

�Your mother is travelling?� Aubrey said and he punched himself on the thigh. �Of course she is. That�s what you just said. Where�s she off to?�

�Holmland. Some sort of symposium next week in Fisherberg, but that�s not important right now. I rang to tell you that Kiefer is no longer at Greythorn.�

�He must be somewhere else then,� Aubrey said and immediately awarded himself first prize in the Obvious Statement Stakes. He quickly went on. �Fled, no doubt, after his machinations.�

�Not exactly, no. The porter at Kiefer�s college happened to be an old friend of my father. A good man, a noted authority on Albion amphibians.�

�Kiefer�s turned into a frog?�

�Try to keep up, Aubrey, I know you�re capable of it. Kiefer was seen being bundled into a motorcar by a Holmland diplomat.�

�I see. And did the amphibian expert porter recognise this Holmlander?�

�No, but his assistant did, thanks to his special interest in international politics.�

�Well-educated staff at this college.�

�If you�d spent any time with the staff at yours, Aubrey, you�d know that many of them are authorities in one field or another. They may not have formal degrees, but at Greythorn there are many opportunities to better oneself intellectually.�

�The diplomat?�

�Hugo von Stralick, Aubrey. Hugo von Stralick kidnapped Kiefer.�

Six

The Istros Coffee House was named after Holmland�s most famous river. It was right in the middle of a small cluster of shops that seemed to be dedicated to recreating Fisherberg in the heart of Trinovant. The sausage makers fought for business, and the trade was brisk. Sweet pastries were piled high in the windows of Holmlander bakeries. Waltz music seeped through doors and open windows.

�This seems like a good place to start,� Aubrey announced after they�d studied the comings and goings for some time.

�It can�t hurt to make some enquiries,� George said.

Caroline looked doubtful. �I can imagine half a dozen ways this could go wrong.� She sighed. �But I don�t have any other ideas.�

Aubrey led the way. He pushed open the door and led the way into the warm, dark, splendidly aromatic interior. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust, and he was relieved to see that their entrance hadn�t excited any more than cursory glances from the patrons, who were far more interested in their refreshments. Aubrey�s Holmlandish was good enough for him to hear half a dozen different regional accents in the room. It seemed as if the Istros Coffee House drew its customers from all over Holmland.

�Do you recognise anyone?� Caroline asked.

He shook his head. He�d been hoping that someone they�d met in their time with Count Brandt would have remained behind in Albion instead of joining their comrades in their ill-fated mission back to Holmland.

George nodded toward the back of the caf�. �Sounds as if there�s another room down there. I can hear accordion music.�

�Oh dear,� Caroline said. They both looked at her. �I�m sorry. I have trouble with the accordion.�

�So does whoever�s trying to play it.� George winced. �Still, it�s hard to tell the difference between an accordion played badly and an accordion played well.�

Bemused, Aubrey led them to a door just to the left of the entrance to the kitchen. A hearty Holmlandish dance tune came from it as the accordionist worked up a good head of steam. Caroline grimaced. �I had a cat, once, who made that sort of noise when I accidentally stepped on his tail.�

�Steady, Caroline,� George said. �Be brave.�

Aubrey edged through the doorway but his entrance wasn�t discreet enough. A score of faces turned slowly to stare at the interlopers over their steaming coffee cups. The accordion player stopped mid-squeeze, much to Caroline�s relief.

At the far end of the room, under the large portrait of the Elektor of Holmland, a lean, dapper man rose to his feet. He was dressed in a light grey suit, very stylish in a room full of heavy coats and scarves. He wore his hair long and over his ears. �Fitzwilliam. You�ve brought Miss Hepworth and the other one to see us.�

Sitting on von Stralick�s right was a young bespectacled man with a look of absolute horror on his face. He groaned, clutched both sides of his wild-haired head and let it fall forward until it hit the table with a thud.

Von Stralick looked down at him and sighed. �You�ve met my cousin, Mr Kiefer, I take it?�

Seven

The next morning at Maidstone was Aubrey's alone. After the incident at the Istros Coffee House the day before, von Stralick had claimed he had business to attend to. Caroline had gone home after making Aubrey vow that he would pursue this course of action. The proprietor of the caf� had glowered at them, only partly mollified by the cash von Stralick had tendered as they left. The arrival of black-uniformed Magisterium operatives had taken the sheen off the payment.

Aubrey had hesitated before contacting the Magisterium, but finally decided it was necessary. What were they going to do with a magical copper construct otherwise?

Rising early, George had accepted a lift from Sir Darius into the city. He had an errand to run for his father, investigating some new sort of agricultural machinery. He was excited about it, and Aubrey was pleased. Someone had to be excited about agricultural machinery.

This gave him some time, a valuable commodity in the world of Aubrey Fitzwilliam. He spent some of it working through his notes on the ancient tablet and script found in their underground adventures a few months ago, the tablet which had hinted that it was a cousin to the famous Rashid Stone.

The knottiness of trying to translate the mysterious ancient script absorbed him utterly. The world went away, time became irrelevant as he grappled with the arcane language, sifting for meaning, consulting old books of similar inscriptions. He�d had an inkling for some time, but as he worked he became more and more certain that tablet dealt with fundamentals of magic.

He wished that Professor Mansfield, his lecturer in Ancient Languages, would return from her sojourn in Aigyptos, but since he and his mother had played a considerable part in her secret mission to return the Rashid Stone to the Sultan of Memphis, the stone�s rightful owner, he couldn�t feel too affronted at her absence. He�d been corresponding with her, but the delay in the post made any serious discussion difficult.

Until she returned, he was on his own. So he surrounded himself with the best reference books and applied himself to the ongoing task of trying to decipher the mysterious script he�d found.

Research was, as usual, a seductive trap. He found himself following pathways and suggestions quite aside from his quest for decipherment. A hint about burial practices sent him reaching for a text on Etruscan rituals and he spent a good hour fascinated by these pre-Roman people.

Eventually, poring over details of urns and interment became mind-numbing. He stretched and decided he needed a break from the intensity of his research. He pushed back from the table then went to the safe which he�d had installed near one of his desks. It had been an item of some curiosity when he requested it, but he reassured his parents that it was necessary � and that he would share the combination with them.

At the back of the safe, past the collection of gold sovereigns and the gold tie pin given to him by his mother, he found the black velvet bag he�d been looking for. He straightened, shut the safe and tipped the contents of the bag into his palm.

The baroque beauty of the Tremaine pearl glowed softly and Aubrey remembered wresting it from the top of Dr Tremaine�s cane. The ex-Sorcerer Royal had been furious, for the pearl had been given to him by his sister, and was his most precious keepsake.

Aubrey weighed in his hand. He�d always felt that pearls were warmer than other gems.

It was small, but could it be the way to stop a horrible war?

Aubrey was a student of history. He knew that wars were rarely caused by simple events. They were complex, chaotic affairs and were most often caused by the interplay of many, many incidents, some trivial, some significant, some outrageous. Economics, trade, deep-seated jealousies, misunderstandings, famines, intolerance, all played a part as nations lurched toward conflict. Wars weren�t caused by one person, no matter how powerful, simply jumping up and saying, �Right. This time I really mean it.�

But � and Aubrey�s mind often threw up buts � perhaps it was different this time. Everyone thought war was inevitable. From the man in the street to the decision-makers in Parliament, Albionites were adamant that they didn�t want war, yet were seized with a collective resignation that it was just around the corner � but was this the case? Holmland�s ambitions, the tensions in the Goltans, all could be solved, perhaps, if it weren�t for the machinations of one man.

Dr Mordecai Tremaine. He could be the pivot, the balancing point that the future of nations moved on. With his power, his influence and his maniacal vision, he could nudge the world into war.

Without him, could it be different? If he were removed, would that make the difference, slow things down so cool heads could prevail, so dialogue could ensue, so common sense could be given a chance?

He stared at the pearl. I�m rationalising, he thought.

He could use the pearl. He could use it to lure Dr Tremaine out of Holmland. Aubrey had been intrigued by the display of the Gallian crown jewels in Trinovant, and he imagined a similar display of unusual items, the centrepeice of which would be the Tremaine pearl. Plenty of publicity and Aubrey was confident that Dr Tremaine couldn�t help himself. He�d vowed to regain the pearl and an opportunity like this would be irresistible.

For the beginnings of a plan, it was a good one. Some rough edges to be polished up, but it had the flavour of an idea with potential.

Then why did he feel uneasy about it?

He touched the pearl with his fingertip. The folds and wrinkles made it look like a miniature brain.

He bit his lip. He knew why he was uneasy. He loved his family.

Aubrey�s mother and father were great puzzles to him at times, and great sources of inspiration at others. He was proud of them, for all the exasperations they caused him. When his mother had herded him around the Albion Museum in the middle of the night, saving him from the gunmen he�d enraged, he�d been achingly proud of her. And his father? A man who had risked his life many times for others? The man who led the nation? Sir Darius Fitzwilliam was an impossible epitome, but the one man whose esteem and good opinion Aubrey was most desirous of.

So how could he use Dr Tremaine�s familial love as the bait in a trap? Dr Tremaine loved his sister � Aubrey had heard it from the man�s own lips. Aubrey felt that there was something grubby, something cheap about using such a feeling as a trick.

But then there was that chance to save the world from war...

Aubrey weighed his choices, felt the options, understood ends and means and how rationalising worked. He slipped the pearl back into the velvet bag and drew the string tight.

He�d go ahead with his plan, but that didn�t mean he felt good about it.

Eight

Events were bumping together like thunder-clouds before a storm. After the Prince left, Aubrey abandoned his plans for more research. He decided to go looking for Hugo von Stralick, but not before taking a special item from the safe and replenishing George�s appurtenances vest with a variety of possibly useful items.

Holmland was at the heart of things, he decided as the underground train made its way toward Little Pickling. Dr Tremaine, the symposium, the appearance of Otto Kiefer and his Beccaria Cage. He needed to talk to someone about Holmland�s intentions, and Hugo von Stralick was the one whose brain he could pick.

The train took him across the river and he waited impatiently, fingering the Beccaria Cage through his shirt, until he alighted at Laidley Grove Station. After that it was a fair hike to get to the Istros Coffee House.

From the outside, the caf� looked none the worse for the fracas the previous day. The proprietor didn�t look overwhelmingly happy to see him, frowning as Aubrey made his way through the warm and exotic front room.

The inner room was equally warm, but as Aubrey stood just inside the doorway he couldn�t help but feel that something had changed. Gone was the excited argument, the chatter. The tables were well populated, but heads were bowed, conversations guarded. His arrival sent a ripple of surprised glances around the steamy, smoky room, but no-one would meet his gaze.

He scanned the caf� but couldn�t see von Stralick. He was about to give up when Kiefer wandered through the front door. He looked relieved, and twisted his cloth cap between his hands as if he were trying to wring it dry. �Hugo said you�d be looking for him.�

�And where is he?�

�He asked me to find you. Find you and take you to him.�

Aubrey didn�t like being at von Stralick�s command. �Where?�

�I�ll take you.�

�Cab?�

Kiefer looked blank and Aubrey could see him trying to remember how much money he had in his wallet. �We will walk.�

Kiefer�s long legs set a cracking pace, but Aubrey found it easy to keep up, thanks to his reconstituted self. This meant he had enough energy to question Kiefer and, after some initial resistance, the youth became almost garrulous, telling Aubrey a long, rambling tale of the way his father had been exploited, his tragic death and the subsequent struggles of the family. Kiefer walked with his head down and his hands clutched behind his back as he kept up his monologue of money problems and how these had made him careful with every penny, even after he�d been sponsored in his studies by one of Holmland�s more generous nobles. On more than one occasion, Aubrey had to steer him around lamp posts and fellow pedestrians, and he had to take him by the arm whenever it came time to cross a road.

After fifteen minutes of this erratic journey, Kiefer stopped suddenly and peered around. They were approaching a busy intersection, near a flower market, if Aubrey�s nose was any judge.

Kiefer turned his gaze to Aubrey. He was calm and serious. �Your Dr Tremaine took all my father�s notes, you know. After the laboratory explosion.�

Aubrey stared, then realised that Kiefer was simply continuing the earlier conversation. �I�m sorry to hear that.�

�I wanted them,� Kiefer continued, desolate. �Not just because of the findings.�

�Catalytic magic. Much work is going on in this area.�

Kiefer shrugged. �This is so. The notes will help my career, that is true. But I wanted them because they belonged to him. My father.�

�Of course.�

Kiefer pushed his spectacles back on his nose. �I will have my revenge, you know. With your help or without it.�

Kiefer�s quiet determination was impressive, but it also had a brittle edge, as if he�d fired his revenge for too long and while it had become hard, it had also become breakable.

�Dr Tremaine is no ordinary enemy,� Aubrey advised. �Don�t do anything rash.�

�Rash? Rash is not my way. I am here after much planning, much pondering.� His face fell. �My plans did not go as I had hoped, it seems. Tremaine must have intercepted the letters from Uncle Maurice, found the Beccaria Cage and prepared it for you.�

�Perhaps.� Aubrey had come to a different conclusion. While Dr Tremaine wasn�t above making the most of an opportunity, he was the great instigator of schemes. Aubrey could see him tinkering with a Beccaria Cage, secreting his mind-controlling spell, and then sending a bogus letter to Maurice alerting him to the presence of the artefact. The arch-manipulator, setting the wheels in motion, then moving on to his next scheme.

Aubrey couldn�t help but feel for the despairing Holmlander. �Don�t worry, Kiefer. I understand what you want. But we must be cautious.�

�You have reasons to bring him down?�

�I do.�

�Then let us work together.� Kiefer held up a hand. �But please do not mistake me. I am no traitor. I love my country and I will do nothing to harm it.�

�I see.�

�I am glad.� He scowled. �Your Dr Tremaine is not good for Holmland. The sooner he is out, the better.� Kiefer set off again, but after a few steps he stopped and turned around. �That way,� he said, leading back the way they�d come.

A few minutes later, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them, his bony elbows posing a hazard to passing traffic. �We are here.�

They�d left Little Pickling and come to a neat, orderly street in nearby Crozier. The street was lined with townhouses, four or five storeys tall, all made of clean red brick. At the end of the street was the imposing bulk of the Showellstyle Station.

�Von Stralick has rooms here?�

�He owns the whole building.� Kiefer pointed at the townhouse in front of them.

�Really? The importing and exporting business must be doing well.�

Kiefer looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. He mounted the stairs and clattered the brass doorknocker.

Aubrey was still gazing upward, trying to count windows and rooms, when the door opened and von Stralick stood there. �Ah, Otto. You�ve found him. Very good.�

Aubrey climbed the stairs. �Von Stralick. You want something?�

Von Stralick looked pained, then ushered Aubrey and Kiefer inside. He closed the door before answering. �I want to help you stop Dr Tremaine.�

Aubrey was immediately suspicious. Hugo von Stralick was both opportunistic and self-interested. An offer of help like this, unasked for, was something to be approached very, very carefully. �For purely altruistic reasons?�

�I could say that getting rid of Dr Tremaine would be good for Holmland, but that all depends on how you see the future direction of our country.� He coughed into his hand. �I know you may find this hard to believe, but I have a personal reason for stopping him.�

�Go on.�

�My late superior, the man I reported to, was more than a colleague. He was an old friend and a good man. A family man. He didn�t deserve what happened. I help you stop Tremaine, I will get great satisfaction.�

It sounded plausible. Perhaps too plausible? Aubrey wasn�t about to accept such a declaration at face value. He needed time to think. �Er. What about a cup of tea first?�

Von Stralick raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. �Tea. A standard Albionite delaying tactic. Otto?�

�Of course. And what about some of those tasty Albion scones? I can make some if you like.�

He rushed down the dimly lit hall.

Von Stralick glanced at Aubrey and shrugged. �He does try to be useful.�

�So I see. I hope he knows his way around the kitchen.�

�Do not underestimate him, Fitzwilliam.� Von Stralick winced at a crash that came from the direction that Kiefer had gone. �He is very talented, in a number of fields. And he is determined to succeed.�

�In gaining revenge on Dr Tremaine?�

�Yes. But Otto is ambitious in a more practical sense. He wants wealth and position and feels that he has missed out on it. That is why he came to study in your country, in hopes of the advancement he desperately wants.�

�He thinks it�s owed to him,� Aubrey said softly, �because of the unfulfilled promises made to his father.�

Von Stralick glanced sharply at him then smiled. �You are quick, Fitzwilliam.�

Aubrey shrugged. �Do you mind if I use your telephone while the water is boiling?�

Nine

Aubrey shook himself and sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. I see, he thought, looking around and steadfastly refusing to be surprised. We�re in a dungeon.

They were all in various aspects of disarray. George was sprawled against the rough stone block wall, groaning. Eyes closed, von Stralick was on his back on one of the four straw mattresses. The only one who didn�t look distressed was Caroline. Aubrey was greatly relieved to see that she was unharmed, standing at the door � heavy wood, massive iron hinges, a single peephole � with her ear to its surface. She saw him looking at her and she held up a finger, demanding his silence.

He was happy to comply. It gave him a chance to make sense of the waves of magic that were rolling over him from ... where?

Such was the enveloping nature of the magic, he didn�t have to concentrate or extend his magical senses. The weight of it pressed on him from all directions. It made his skin tingle, his bones itch, and sent a play of contradictory tastes flickering across his tongue. Odd sensations that weren�t smells slid through his nostrils, making him wrinkle his nose and paw at it, trying to dislodge the birdsong that was caught there.

The overwhelming effect was disconcerting, to say the least, but Aubrey � strangely � didn�t find it unpleasant. The magic had been shaped and wrought, it had a single-mindedness of purpose. But for what?

�Nothing,� Caroline said as she descended the three stairs that led to the door. She shook her head in disgust and wiped her hands together.

�Nothing?�

�No sounds. We�ve either been forgotten or the guards are asleep.�

�Guards?�

Caroline gave him a pitying look. �We�re in a dungeon, Aubrey. What�s a dungeon without guards?�

Aubrey considered this for a moment. He glanced at the others. George had levered himself up and was leaning against the wall looking dazed. Von Stralick was still unconscious.

�Caroline,� he ventured. �How did we get here?�

�Really, Aubrey, that blow on your head must have been worse than I thought. You shouldn�t have struggled so when they burst in.�

Aubrey stood. He did it slowly, distracted for a moment by the bizarre sensation of tasting tartan. �I shouldn�t have struggled when they burst in?�

�You argued at first, as usual, then you struggled.�

�With whom?�

�With ... With...� Caroline frowned. �They came to get us and brought us here.�

�Of course they did. We were abducted. How else would we wind up here?� Aubrey went to the wall and put his palm against it. He bit his lip. The magic was coming from the walls. Or through them? �Do you remember the journey?�

�What are you getting at, Aubrey?� Caroline came close, glancing at the others. It was not an altogether unpleasant situation, Aubrey decided, Caroline�s deciding to come nearer to him.

�The journey,� he said in a hushed voice and had the pleasure of her leaning closer. �How did it take place? How did we get from von Stralick�s place to here? Motorcar? Omnibus? Airship?�

�Don�t be silly,� she said, but a frown creased her perfect brow.

�Humour me.�

�I...� She shook her head and looked angry, fetchingly angry, rather than frightened. �What�s going on here?�

�We�re trapped in a metaphor, I think.� He slapped the stone wall. �Although I think this one has gone right through the other side of metaphor into the realm of clich�.�

�You�re being obscure again. I warned you about that.�

�The pearl, Caroline. Remember the pearl?�

�Oh.� Caroline�s eyes opened wide. �I�d forgotten. We were gathered around the table. You were posturing, ready to do your magic, and then...�

Aubrey winced a little at the �posturing�. �And then we were here.� He swept an arm around. �This place is reeking with magic of the Tremaine sort. We�ve been transported here. I must have triggered something.�

�Kiefer isn�t here because he wasn�t close enough to be swept up?�

At that moment, von Stralick sat up and rubbed his eyes. �Where am I?�

�And the clich� is complete,� Aubrey said.

Ten

Garoline marched off, and Aubrey had to hurry to catch up.

�Can you do anything?� Caroline asked him when he�d reached her. �Anything magical. Can you find them? Or can you stop this place getting us as well? Either would be useful. Both would be best.�

�Ah, yes. Of course.� He walked with arms behind his back, chewing his lip. �Do you have anything belonging to George or von Stralick?�

�No.�

�Neither do I. There goes any hope of using a location spell.�

�Perhaps you should list the other spells you can�t do, to save time thinking about them.�

�I have another idea.�

�I hope so.�

Aubrey cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. �George!�

The corridor echoed beautifully and his voice rolled away into the distance. �Simple. Straightforward. Direct.�

�And not terribly effective. I don�t hear any answers.�

�That�s because you�ve given up too early. We have to keep trying.�

So they pressed on, along the hypnotically straight corridor, shouting and listening, shouting and listening, until their voices were hoarse. Eventually, he leaned against the cool stone of the wall and held up a hand. �Rest stop. Please.�

Caroline nodded, absently. �Perhaps they went the other way. We should go back.�

�Or they might be just ahead and we should go on.�

Caroline consulted her wrist watch. She was one of the few females of Aubrey�s acquaintance who carried a watch, and the only one whose watch was a wrist watch. She did have most elegant wrists, he decided, and it did suit her.

She saw him looking at her. �We�ve been going for fifteen minutes.�

�It seems longer.� Aubrey rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. Then he frowned and took another. �Can you smell that?�

Caroline studied him, judged that he wasn�t joking, then sniffed, delicately. �Bread. Freshly baked. And bacon.�

Aubrey wet a finger and held it up. �It�s coming from up ahead.�

�Mmm. Smells like heaven.�

Aubrey went to set off then froze, mid-step. �That�s what I�m afraid of.�

Caroline looked at him with alarm, and he took it as a good reason to look back � which he enjoyed. Then she shook her head with exasperation. �Can�t you keep your mind on our task?�

�Of course. Sorry.�

Which he was. And wasn�t. And he didn�t know quite what to say about his most mixed of mixed feelings, so he lurched off in a random direction, away from her.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness struck him and he had to reach out and steady himself against the wall. It was as if his sense of perspective had undulated for an instant, the entire corridor swelling like a balloon before snapping back into place.

Caroline�s face was pale.

�You felt it too?� he asked.

She nodded. �Something changed.�

Aubrey looked back the way they had come, but the corridor was the same as before. He thought about taking a few steps in that direction to find out if they�d passed through something unseen, but the queasiness in his stomach convinced him otherwise. Besides, the smell of freshly baked bread still beckoned.

Ahead, the corridor looked indistinct, slightly misty. �Do you see that?�

�It�s wavery. Foggy.�

�Press on or turn back?�

�I say we press on.�

�Very well.� Shoulder to shoulder, they edged forward. Aubrey could feel the magic on all sides, the subtle background prickling that reminded him that they were inside a pearl.

The corridor rippled again and this time all its dimensions wavered. Height, width and depth stretched and contracted all at once in a movement that made him sick to his stomach, so offensive was it to his innate notion of the solidity of things. Like most people, he�d grown up accepting that buildings just don�t warp themselves at random. Dizziness piled on top of his nausea, so much so that he stumbled and clutched at Caroline�s arm, but she was quicker and had already gripped his hand. He had the profound sense of a dream transition, where one moment he�d be in a classroom but then a sudden shift would find him in a park, all without any real in-between state.

�Aubrey.� Caroline�s grip on his hand was almost painful, but no force in the world would have made him relinquish it. The contact meant nothing, he knew that, apart from the natural human desire for comfort when in danger. But he wasn�t going to be the first one to let go.

They found themselves in a gallery, a rectangular walkway looking down on a well-lit room. He took a deep breath. �All right, so we�re somewhere else now.�

�I�m glad you said that,� Caroline whispered. �I thought I might have been dreaming.�

Aubrey clutched an ornately carved pillar nearby with his free hand, partly for extra steadiness, and partly to reassure himself that this place was real and solid. Insofar as that means anything around here, he thought.

Another deep breath. He did his best to take in the new surroundings, nailing down the new reality through empirical observation, doing his best to be a rational, intelligent being.

Four doors, evenly spaced, opened onto the gallery, halfway along each side. They were elegantly set with six glass panes, ruby red. Aubrey nominated the doors as north, south, east and west and felt better for it. The orientation had a settling effect.

A waist-high rail ran around the gallery. It was a rich, red-brown wood, polished smooth. He ran a hand along it and enjoyed the satin touch. The rail surmounted a carved wooden screen made of the same red-brown wood. It was a repeating vegetative pattern, undulating vines alternating with large rosettes.

When Aubrey leaned over the rail he was looking down on a library. The room was lined with bookshelves. Two long tables � covered with books � were arranged in the middle of the room, running along the long axis. A chair stood with each table, while a large red leather armchair took up most of the gap between one of the tables and the north end of the room.

The room smelled of leather and paper, with just a hint of dust. It was the perfect place to enjoy a book, Aubrey decided. Quiet, comfortable, a place to immerse oneself in the world of the written word.

Which is what Hugo von Stralick was doing. With every appearance of bliss, he was reading, standing in front of a wall of books and sampling them with an expression of deep and utter contentment.

It would have been a restful sight, but Aubrey stared, disbelieving, because von Stralick was moving like lightning, picking up books, flicking pages, replacing and extracting another, every movement done with supernatural rapidity.

Agog, Aubrey watched while the Holmland spy sped through a green-bound book he�d plucked from the shelves only seconds earlier. His face was both thoughtful and delighted as he read, his eyes flicking from side to side, his fingers turning pages almost in a blur. His other hand was holding open the gap on the shelf, obviously where the book had come from, with the intention of returning it to its space soon.

Von Stralick was browsing, but it was the browsing of a creature made of pure speed. In seconds, he�d worked his way through a dozen books.

Aubrey met Caroline�s wonder-filled eyes. �What on earth...?� she said before words failed her.

�Magic,� Aubrey said simply. The magical power of their prison was propelling von Stralick at breakneck speed. Aubrey shook his head. No, that wasn�t right. Von Stralick didn�t seem strained or hurried. He was simply moving at a different rate. A phenomenally faster rate.

Aubrey gnawed at a lip. Or could it be that time itself was moving at a different rate down there?

He hissed as the implications hit him. If time were speeding away, how much time did von Stralick have left?

�Hugo,� Aubrey called, but von Stralick didn�t look up. With eye-watering swiftness, he simply nodded and chuckled � high-pitched � before replacing a fat book. Immediately, he sought another, a slim black volume.

Aubrey called again, but von Stralick was oblivious. �He�s either gone deaf or...�

�He can�t hear,� Caroline finished. �What�s he doing here? And what happened to the food smells?�

�Food?� Aubrey sniffed. �It�s gone.�

�Library smell only.� Caroline dropped his hand, causing him a momentary pang, and leaned over the railing. �Let�s go down and see what�s going on.�

�It would help if there were a staircase.�

Caroline straightened. �Ah. Rather a glaring omission.�

�It seems as if we�re not meant to get down there.�

�Well, if there�s no stairway, we�ll have to find another way down.� She frowned slightly as she measured the drop by eye. �It�s not that far. Twenty feet from this rail. Less from the floor.�

�It�s too far to jump.� Aubrey drummed his fingers on the rail and hummed a little. �I don�t suppose there are any bed sheets lying around? Nothing we could tie together to lower ourselves down?�

�No.�

�Didn�t think so. So perhaps it might be better to attract his attention.� He bent and unlaced a boot. �I�m sure he won�t be able to ignore this.�

�I�m glad you wore your good socks.�

�Socks?� He looked down. �So that�s where they went.�

�Aubrey.�

�Of course. I�ll get on with it.� He hefted his boot, measured the distance, paused for dramatic effect, then threw it at von Stralick.

The boot sailed in an arc, but Aubrey�s jaw dropped when, mid-way and in mid-air, it bounced once, then settled, bobbing slightly like a cork on a pond, well above von Stralick�s head.

Caroline tutted. �I don�t think you should try the other boot, not even for balance.�

�Right. Good idea.� Trying to make sense of this impossible spectacle, Aubrey leaned over the rail. He grunted, reaching down as far as he could, but couldn�t feel anything. He straightened and then went to climb over the rail.

Caroline put her hands on her hips. �What on earth are you doing?�

�Testing. I need more data, more observations before I can work out what�s going on.�

�It�s something invisible, something that�s keeping us from von Stralick and something unknown. Isn�t that enough?�

�It�s a good start, but I need more.�

Aubrey stepped over the rail, balanced on the narrow ledge, held onto the rail with both hands and stretched out a foot � his booted foot.

Ah.

Not far below the level of the gallery he struck a surface. It was spongy and giving, like a balloon filled with water. He pressed, and his foot sank. He pressed harder and the invisible material resisted, pushing him back.

�I wonder if he can even see us,� Aubrey muttered, while eyeing his boot, stranded in the middle of the unseen barrier. Von Stralick looked as if he was trapped in a bubble � a bubble where time flowed differently.

And if he spends much longer in it, Aubrey thought, he�ll start to age. With a growing hollowness in his chest, he wondered how long a lifespan was in such a place. It must be shorter, but how short? Sylvia had mentioned others, but had also mentioned that they had worn out...

Caroline helped him scramble back over the rail. �It�s as if he�s on display.� She gazed around the gallery. �Like a zoo.�

�Mmm. For Sylvia?�

�She�s the only one here. I have the impression that this whole place is for her benefit.�

�To spy on someone in a library?� Aubrey rubbed his temples. �It seems rather excessive.�

�Craddock and Tallis would love a facility like this. If they could observe suspects in their normal surroundings, they might learn a thing or two.�

�Learn a thing or two.�

�Aubrey, when you repeat my words like that, it means I�ve said something that made you think.�

�Perhaps.�

�If so, and if you come up with something clever, I want to register that I was the one who started the whole thing.�

�Done. Due credit will be given to you in the playbill when this little drama hits the stage. �From an original idea by the redoubtable Caroline Hepworth.� �

�Redoubtable.� Caroline flashed a quick smile. �I like that. It makes a change from �capable� or �competent�.�

Aubrey had a thousand other words he could use to describe Caroline, but he refrained, lest she see that his feelings hadn�t disappeared. They were hidden, put aside, honouring her request to stay at arm�s length.

The sudden opening of the gallery�s north door made Aubrey whirl. He felt absurdly vulnerable, with one boot on, one boot off. So it was with relief that he realised that it was the wraith-like Sylvia who was drifting through the doorway.

She glanced mildly at von Stralick, who was so absorbed in a weighty volume that he turned the pages only every few seconds, then she walked slowly toward Aubrey and Caroline. �You found him,� she said, with the barest trace of surprise. Aubrey realised that this was her way. She had ghosts of emotion, hints, suggestions, nothing that took hold of her, no passion or intensity � apart from the memory of her brother.

�I watch them,� she said, interrupting his thoughts. �My guests. I watch them once they�re appropriately housed.�

Aubrey studied her face. It moved in slight, hesitant ways, as if feelings were strangers.

�What about us?� Caroline said.

�Oh, you�ll be housed soon. Don�t worry.�

Aubrey swallowed. �In a library?�

�That�s his dream, not yours.� Sylvia lay a finger along her cheek. �I suppose you could end up in a library, but it would be different. Yours, not his.�

Caroline stiffened. �Are you saying that you�ll put us somewhere like von Stralick? But it will be our dream?�

�So it seems.� A suggestion of an anxious frown flitted across Sylvia�s mask-like face but it evaporated in an instant. �I don�t do anything, you know. I just watch. It�s hard to learn when I don�t have anyone to watch.�

�Wait,� Caroline said. �You�re learning? Learning what?�

A flicker of confusion crossed Sylvia�s face before she was, once again, serene. �I�m not sure.�

�Von Stralick,� Aubrey said, pointing. �What�s he doing?�

�What he likes to do, what he does best.�

Aubrey was surprised. He hadn�t imagined von Stralick�s idea of heaven was being surrounded by books. �Does he know you�re watching?�

�No. He thinks it�s real.�

�Like a convincing dream,� Aubrey said. Caroline glanced at him. She could see the danger, too. �So we�ll be in a place like that, unaware that it�s not real, and just going about our business for your entertainment.�

A hint of shock; her hand almost went to her mouth before it dropped, once again, to her side. �No. Not entertainment. Learning.�

It was Caroline who leaped to the conclusion this time. �And his life goes faster in there, the better for you to watch and learn?�

Sylvia peered over the rail, her expression dreamy. �It appears so. It gets faster, too. Especially toward the end.�

Aubrey wasn�t enchanted by this. �You said you had other ... visitors. Ones who aren�t here now. They were in places like this?�

�Not libraries,� Sylvia murmured. She rested her chin on one hand as she propped an elbow on the rail. �I remember one was in a laboratory, a magical laboratory. She loved it. Another, one of my favourites, was living in a forest among the pines.�

�They�re gone.� Caroline�s face was determined, but Aubrey could see that the ghastly fate of those who had gone before was haunting her.

He found he had to steel himself as well, and he concentrated on noting how callous Dr Tremaine was, how careless of the lives of others. He had some sympathy for Sylvia�s plight, and he�d even thought he�d detected Dr Tremaine�s humanity in trying to save her � but in the end he was essentially as selfish as ever. He�d sacrifice others without a thought to achieve his ends.

And you�re preparing to sacrifice Sylvia to serve your ends, a voice whispered. Are you so different?

He shook his head. Conscience. Imagination mixed with empathy.

�Gone,� Sylvia murmured. �One day, they were near their end, and the next I couldn�t find them or their happy place.�

Aubrey had a new definition of nightmare. Trapped in a make-believe place, imprisoned but never knowing it. But his inner contrariness pointed out that being granted heaven couldn�t be a bad thing...

Living a hoax would be, though, Aubrey thought and he shuddered, thinking of the ant farm he�d kept as a young lad. The ants had been well fed and watered and he had watched their busy industry for hours, convinced that they were much better off than they would be out in the wild.

Unfeeling manipulation. It was an easy frame of mind to slip into, and rewarding in its sense of power. Aubrey vowed never to succumb to it.

�Where�s George?� he asked Sylvia. �And how do we get them out of here?�

�Get them out?� She looked at him as if he�d asked her to draw a four-sided triangle. �It�s where they belong.�

�Not us.� Caroline pushed past the pale woman, heading for the north door. �Aubrey, time to follow our noses.�

Aubrey looked back to see Sylvia with one elbow on the rail, leaning over, studying the scene below as if she were on a riverbank on a lazy summer�s afternoon.

On the other side of the door was the stone prison corridor again � and the tantalising smell of food. The smell of bread was overlaid with other aromas � bacon, coffee, and something fresh and fruity. �Food,� Aubrey said, staring at the doors stretching out on either side of the corridor. His stomach growled.

�Real food.� Caroline peered ahead. �And where there�s food...�

�We should be able to find George.� Aubrey set off, trying not to limp with his unbooted foot. Of course George�s idea of heaven would involve good food, and plenty of it.

�This one, I think.� Caroline drew up in front of a door. Aubrey sniffed and had to agree. It was like standing in front of the world�s best pastry shop during the morning baking. She pushed the door, it swung open and they stepped out onto another gallery.

Aubrey stopped short. �That�s not what I imagined.�

He�d expected George to be sitting back at a table laden with delicacies, being waited on, new dishes being thrust upon him, sampling, grazing, appreciating good food and drink. Instead, his friend was speeding about a kitchen � working like a whirlwind. One look at his white jacket, hound�s-tooth trousers and the tell-tale puffy white hat and it was obvious that George�s heaven was food-related � but as a chef, not as a gourmand.

�Hidden depths, perhaps,� Caroline murmured as she leaned over.

Aubrey knew he shouldn�t have been surprised. George was the most generous person he knew. His idea of heaven wouldn�t be selfish, pleasing himself, it would be providing goodness for others.

The kitchen was spotless. The floor was made of gleaming white tiles, while the great cast-iron stove that took up one side of the room was black. It beat out heat that Aubrey could feel from the gallery. He could also smell the baking bread smell from the man-sized oven on the opposite wall.

Which made him think and, without realising it, he began to hum as he drummed his fingers on the rail and pondered the situation. Heat, smell, and light obviously passed through the barrier � at least, in one direction. Was it permeable in both?

He took in the rest of the scene with a glance while he was thinking feverishly. Fresh wooden benches, a large trough, shelves and a servery window ledge where George was a blur, arranging plates of gorgeous-looking food. Breakfast, from the look of it, with bacon, eggs, mushrooms and neatly grilled tomatoes. George was managing to keep plate after plate moving through his kitchen and onto the ledge of the servery window, topped with piping hot toast with nary a sign of burning. The plates disappeared, whisked away, but try as he might, Aubrey couldn�t see how. One instant they were waiting, the next they were gone.

George was sweating, red-faced, and grinning as he shook pans, cracked eggs and slapped bacon on a large griddle, cooking up a storm. He moved with smooth economy of effort but with the same prodigious speed that had infected von Stralick. Aubrey was impressed, but not surprised. He knew George�s large frame made people think he was clumsy, but George had a natural fluency of movement that would be called grace in another person. His sporadic efforts with the cornet showed that he was dextrous, and once he realised that dancing was a good way to meet young women, he had become very accomplished on the dance floor.

Aubrey took a sixpence from his pocket and spun it into the air. It glittered and arced toward where George was busily working. Then it struck the invisible barrier and hung in the air, gently moving up and down like a cork on the sea. �The barrier is selective,� he said to Caroline. �We can see him, he can�t see us.�

�But smells are getting out. And sounds,� Caroline said as George dumped a pan into the sink. It clattered against a collection of dirty utensils.

�Or is it that nothing is getting in from this side? Light isn�t getting through, that�s why he can�t see us. No sound, so he can�t hear us. That makes it a one-way barrier.�

�You�re trying to think of a way to get in.�

�Of course. Before our turn comes.�

Aubrey felt as if he were wrestling with a dozen ideas and possibilities at once. He was hard-pressed to deal with them all as they grappled, pulled and gouged at him. He�d worked with scores of spells and had knowledge of hundreds more. But if he was dealing with Dr Tremaine, he knew that he�d be up against very special magic. This whole place was magically constructed, and it also had an ongoing responsibility. It preserved Sylvia, and provided the environment that supported and protected her, as well as snatching outsiders and imprisoning them.

First question: could anything pass through the barrier both ways? If he could determine that, it may give him something to work with.

Air, that was for certain. Neither George nor von Stralick showed any signs of gasping for breath. He shook his head, violently, and scowled.

�No answer yet?� Caroline asked.

�No.� He was acutely aware of his sock-clad foot. He tried to curl it around his leg. �I thought air was the answer, but the whole floor below is isolated from the gallery. It could have its own source of air.�

�True.� Caroline joined him. She, too, gripped the rail and scowled over George�s busy domain. Aubrey decided that a scowl, on her, was decidedly becoming.

She turned to him. �You said the barrier felt spongy.�

He nodded. �Springy, definitely not a rigid barrier.�

�Your boot was bobbing up and down. It would tend to indicate that the surface undulates.�

�It wasn�t liquid, if that�s what you�re thinking,� Aubrey said, but Caroline had set him thinking in a different direction. �More like a rubbery blanket, held at four corners but not drawn taut.�

�Allowing room for expansion? This whole place must be adaptable, from what we�ve seen.�

The solution was close, hovering just beyond reach, Aubrey knew it. Talking aloud, working with Caroline was a definite help � another good reason to keep associating with her. �I couldn�t push my way through it. It resisted effectively enough.�

�If you can�t push through it, why not try to pierce it?�

He smacked himself on the forehead. �Of course. Or we could slice it.� He looked around, then patted his pockets. �Of all the days to forget my sword.�

�I was thinking of that scythe you left behind,� Caroline said, keeping a straight face. �Rather short-sighted of you.�

�You�re right. Next time before we head off for a spot of adventuring, could you please remind me to take some sort of large, sharp-edged implement? Agricultural or military, doesn�t really matter.�

For a moment, swept up in the banter, they caught and held each other�s gaze. In a heartbeat, Aubrey felt a wave of emotion so intense that it almost made him stumble. His affection for her, his desire to be near her shook him � and he thought he saw it mirrored in her eyes. No, he told himself sternly, the voice of duty coming to the fore. It�s wishful thinking. Don�t deceive yourself.

�Aubrey,� she said. She looked away, briefly, then she brought her gaze to bear on him, steady, luminous and all-enveloping.

It took all his strength, but with a great effort he coughed and took a tiny, shuffling step back, unsure if it was the right thing to do but feeling it was the only thing to do. �No sharp objects?� he said lightly. He wiped his face with a hand. �Right, then it�ll have to be magic.�

She paused a moment, then hooded her eyes. �Of course. That�s your department.�

Was it his imagination, or did her voice catch a little?

�Indeed.� He cudgelled his brains, but no ready-made spell summoning large, sharp blades immediately sprang to mind.

So it�s back to first principles, he thought, glad of the distraction of wrestling with spell elements.

Slicing, piercing, bisecting, dissecting. Could he conjure up some sort of force to cut the barrier? The Law of Division had some useful applications when it came to chopping up substances, but ensuring that each bit still retained the characteristics of the whole...

He stared at where the barrier must be. Perhaps he was thinking about this the wrong way.

Just as it was a necessary part of many applications to limit the time of a spell�s effect using the Principle of Duration, many spells limited the spell�s range by including a component based on the Principle of Range of Effect. A restraining diagram was another magical way of achieving the same thing.

Which was, Aubrey realised, just like putting a barrier around a spell.

If he could take this principle and invert it, it might be a way to remove a barrier instead of putting one in place. With a snort, he remembered the old Arabian fairy story where a simple �Open Sesame!� was enough to open a magically sealed doorway. He wondered if it was the �sesame� that did it, or if naming any aromatic seed would have done the trick � and he wished things were that simple in the real world.

If he were to make this work, he needed to construct a spell that would cover extent, duration, physical parameters, intensity and range of effect, as well as dealing with the time differential. His spell would need to manipulate time, space and also the intricacies of another�s magic, all without creating channels where the intersecting magics would feed upon each other, perhaps creating ferocious confluences which could run out of control.

And, of course, he was mindful of Ravi�s Second Principle: the more complex the spell construction, the more effort is required from the spell caster. Unconsciously, he fingered the Beccaria Cage that lay against his chest. After the late Lanka Ravi�s masterly exposition, Aubrey understood its significance in an intensely personal manner. Performing magic was perhaps the most taxing thing he could do, and it was the act most likely to stress the bond between his body and soul. The so-far useful magic of the cage would likely be tested most when he performed complex magic as he was about to do now. Would it hold? Or would it collapse, sending him into a crisis?

And did he have any options?

�It�s dangerous,� Caroline said, watching his face.

�Perhaps,� he said, with a fair stab at calmness. �We�ll soon find out.�

He decided to use Danaan, a language he�d been immersed in. With the efficiency of effort he�d learned since beginning university (�Don�t re-invent the wheel!� Professor Fortescue was fond of saying in his Aspects of Spell Construction lectures. �Reuse parts of spells that have worked well in the past!�) he plucked components from spells he�d hammered out for temperature stabilisation, light intensity and controlled acceleration of distant bodies. Of course, none of these were in Danaan, so he had to translate them in his head, but luckily none of the numerative determinants were outlandish.

�You might like to stand back,� he said to Caroline when he was ready.

She nodded, gripping her hands tightly in front of her. �No theatrics. Just get the job done.�

He threw her a quick grin. �Bare-bones magic this time, I assure you. I want to get out of here quickly.�

He cleared his mind and then drummed his fingers on the rail while he gathered himself. Then he lifted his hands and rubbed them together to find that they were sweating, a sign that his body knew it was nervous, even if he denied it.

He coughed, clearing his throat, and tried to ignore the fact that Caroline was watching him like a hawk � and the fact that he was wasting time.

He settled, then began, every muscle in his body taut. The first component (delineation) came smoothly, then the spell was under way.

A small part of Aubrey�s mind monitored his performance, the inner critic ready to carp, but each element unfolded with the clarity, the certainty of purpose of a master mason building a wall.

The inner critic, however, had a proviso. It was bricklaying of the sort where a mason builds a wall by standing ten yards away and lobbing the bricks into place one by one, blindfolded.

Eleven

A soft �Pop!� signalled that the spell had been successful. The floating sixpence tumbled to land at George�s feet. Aubrey had a moment�s alarm when he felt, through his magical senses, a fleeting examination, a distant awareness turned his way, but then it was gone.

George was looking up, startled. He held a frying-pan in one hand. It had an omelette in it. �I say!� he said in a voice that was completely normal in pitch and pace. �What are you two doing there?� Then he looked at the frying-pan, his clothes and his surroundings. �More to the point, what am I doing here?�

Caroline looked to Aubrey, but he didn�t answer. �Magic, George,� she said. �Best not to dally. Can you climb out of there?�

George looked around, bewildered. �It�s not a dream?�

�No.� Aubrey was a little dazed himself, but it was a minor cost for such a complicated spell. Then he realised that something warm was nestled against his chest.

The Beccaria Cage.

He fumbled under his shirt and found the wire mesh was warm to the touch. Warmer than could be explained just by skin contact. He wanted to inspect the artefact to see what was going on, but a metallic crash shook him out of his introspection.

�Here, old man, what about a hand?�

George was balanced on an huge upturned stock pot that he�d placed on one of the benches. Cookware was still bouncing on the hard tiled floor, the result of his making room, but Aubrey saw that George had removed all the pans from the stove top to keep their contents from burning. Thoughtful to the last.

George grasped Aubrey�s proffered hands, but Aubrey immediately found himself slipping until Caroline came to his rescue. She anchored him delightfully, bracing his shoulders while George clambered over the rail. �What is going on?� George said as he brushed himself down. He plucked his chef�s hat from his head and regarded it curiously.

�What do you remember?� Caroline shepherded both George and Aubrey to the western door.

�I went to explore, as agreed.� George frowned, flapped a hand. �That�s about it.�

�You were sucked into your dream,� Aubrey said. �You were given a place where you�d be happy, and you were going to stay there.�

�A velvet prison, eh?� George glanced over his shoulder. �Never really thought about cooking like that.�

�Did you enjoy it?� Aubrey asked. Caroline opened the door.

�It all seems a bit distant now. But it strikes me that I did.� He looked thoughtful and stroked his chin. �I thought it was real.�

�You would have been happy. Deceived but happy.�

�Forever?�

�It would have been a lifetime, at any rate.�

Twelve

A wild yell greeted their reappearance. Aubrey whirled, and � heart thundering, every nerve taut � saw Otto Kiefer staring at them, telephone in hand.

�What?� The Holmlander was wide-eyed. �Where? What?�

Aubrey didn�t answer. He propped himself up against the table with both arms. Triggered by Kiefer�s startling shriek, his whole body had decided it should get ready to defend himself against a horde of demons � or to run away at a speed that would see him in serious consideration for a spot in the national athletics team.

They were back in von Stralick�s parlour. Afternoon light was coming through the curtained windows. The chairs were in disarray around the table. Four were pushed back, one was lying on the floor.

In the middle of the table was the Tremaine pearl.

Caroline had returned, to his relief, as had George and von Stralick. All of them had adopted poses of fight or flight and Aubrey found time to be amused that the �Fight� option was a 2 � 1 winner. Von Stralick was the exception, being halfway to the door before he realised that Kiefer was the source of the extraordinary noise. Within two steps, however, he had slowed, resumed an appearance of calm, and was brushing off his lapels. �We are back, Otto.�

Kiefer was gaping at them, moving his head slowly from side to side, as if he thought it was all some sort of trick. Then he caught sight of the telephone in his hand and he flinched. �I was about to call the police.�

George stepped over. He took the earpiece and replaced it. �No need.�

Caroline dropped her hands and relaxed from her fighting pose. She moved to Kiefer and guided him to a chair. �We�re safe, Otto.�

He sagged with a huge exhalation of air. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief he extracted from his pocket after some fumbling. �Thank goodness. But where did you go? When I came back, you were nowhere.�

�How long ago was that?�

The question perplexed Kiefer for a moment. �A minute or two?� he hazarded.

�It seemed like more,� muttered von Stralick.

�That�s what happens when you mess around with magic,� George said, affecting a pose of someone who encountered the outlandish every day. Aubrey nearly laughed.

�But what happened?� Kiefer repeated, and Aubrey launched into an account of their time inside the Tremaine pearl. By the time the story had finished, with interjections, corrections and asides offered by Caroline, George and von Stralick, Kiefer was aghast. He shook himself all over, like a dog emerging from a river, and he held up a single, long finger. �So we now have the way to our revenge, then?�

This time it was the turn of Aubrey, Caroline, George and von Stralick to be taken aback. Aubrey scratched his chin. �I suppose you�re right. If we can find the missing part of Sylvia in Holmland, and unite her, then we will have the perfect lure for Dr Tremaine. He won�t be able to resist.� Not with the sense of guilt he must feel about his sister, Aubrey decided.

He looked at the others. Caroline�s expression was grim, as if she�d fastened her will on a course of action. George looked uneasy, unconvinced, and he glanced at Aubrey. Von Stralick and Kiefer, however, were eager, hounds who�d just scented a fox within easy reach.

Aubrey wasn�t obsessed with revenge. He�d come to terms with his antipathy for Dr Tremaine. He was happy to work against the ex-Sorcerer Royal, but he wasn�t about to sacrifice everything in a headlong pursuit of the rogue magician. He was prepared to wait, to plan, to find the best opportunity to strike.

But Kiefer, von Stralick and Caroline were different. He wondered if their enmity burned too brightly and was blinding them to the realities of their situation, the dangers they faced.

�Come now,� von Stralick said, seeing Aubrey�s indecision. �This is a chance. You said yourself that she was his weakness.�

�She is. I have no doubt about that.�

Caroline touched him on the arm. It was light, almost hesitant, but he would have noticed it in the middle of an artillery barrage. �Let us take our chance.�

Aubrey ran a hand through his hair. �Anyone fancy a trip to Holmland?�

Thirteen

The Police Constables started at Aubrey and George as they scampered out of the doorway. Breathing fast, flushed, Aubrey pounded along the pavement until they reached Playford Street.

�Right,� George panted, and they were off.

The street was busy. Motorcars and lorries rumbled along with dour intensity. The pavements were thick with people who all had the focus of those who wanted to be somewhere else. Probably home, eating supper, Aubrey thought as he came to one of those awkward impasses with a woman wearing a large, flowery hat. He moved left, and she moved in the same direction. He went back the other way just as she did. She pursed her lips and frowned, as if he were deliberately playing games. Aubrey took half a step back just as she lurched in the same direction but he was ready and shifted his weight back, slipping around her and hurrying to catch up to George. �Any sign?�

�Other side of the street,� George said. �Just passing the tobacconist.�

Aubrey stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket. A tall man wearing a cloth cap obscured him for a second, then he saw their quarry. He was just as Tallis and Craddock said: small, bowler hat and carrying an unneeded umbrella. He had a buff envelope in one hand.

Aubrey kept his gaze on the shop windows they were passing, using them to keep track of the umbrella-carrying spy, so he wouldn�t have to directly look at him as he navigated the busy pavements.

He blinked and stared at the wavy reflection in the gentleman�s outfitters they were passing. Then he whipped his head around to scan the other side of the street.

The spy had disappeared.

�There.� George prevented himself from pointing with an almost physical effort. �Down those stairs.�

They crossed the street, slipping between lorries, motorcars and a dignified open carriage. The stairs led to a narrow shop below street level, the bottom floor of a tall building. Warm yellow light spilled from its windows, a sign that evening was asserting itself.

Thomson and Sons, the sign over the door read. Fine and Rare Books. Bibliographic Antiquities. Aubrey had a moment�s hesitation, wondering if this was a dodge and the spy was exiting through a rear door, but decided they had no choice. He pushed in and a cheery bell over the door announced their entrance, much to his disgust. George reached up to still it, but it was too late.

A tall, spindly man appeared from a darkened doorway behind the counter. He stood for a moment, polishing his spectacles, before slipping them on and nodding. �Welcome to Thomson and Sons. I am Mr Thomson. Can I help you?�

He had long grey hair, parted in the middle and pushed back on both sides in waves. He was smartly dressed in dark green topcoat and well-knotted tie from one of the better clubs in the city. On either side of him, the counter was laden with books in neat piles.

�Early Latin magic,� Aubrey said briskly. �What do you have?�

Mr Thomson raised an eyebrow. �I�m afraid we have very little on magic here, young sir. If that�s what you�re looking for, you�d be better off trying Fletcher�s, in Cook Street.�

�Ah. Of course.� Aubrey flapped a hand and looked about vaguely. �Isn�t this Fletcher�s?�

George took his cue. �I told you it wasn�t, Richard. Now, come on, let�s go.�

�There�s no hurry, Horace. Now I�m here, I�d like to look around. This seems a delightful place.�

Aubrey wandered off, but not before seeing George roll his eyes at Thomson the Bookseller.

Now, to find our quarry.

The bookshop was deeper than Aubrey had thought, and it opened into a number of separate rooms, all teeming with bookshelves. The whole place smelled of must and dust, while tiny hand-written signs pointed out that this shelf was devoted to Comparative Religion, while this one was full of Eastern Religions, and another was simply the home of Food.

With a nod and a tilt of the head, Aubrey and George split up, strolling though the bibliophile�s paradise. At any other time, Aubrey would have been fascinated by what surrounded him. The books were old and intriguing, from all over Albion, from the Continent and even further afield, if he recognised a row of handsome Nipponese volumes correctly. In his guise of a book fancier he picked several books from shelves to maintain his pose, but had to be firm with himself otherwise he was going to get immersed in an old Holmlandish hunting text.

At the sound of George clearing his throat nearby, Aubrey raised his eyes from the delightful engraving of a three-horned beast that seemed to be slightly affronted at the lance a mounted hunter was jabbing in its rump. The throat-clearing sounded too definite to be just book dust, so Aubrey wandered to the end of the shelf in search of its source.

There, right at the rear of the shop, under a narrow, barred window, was their quarry.

The spy looked up at their appearance and then did something that let Aubrey know that the man wasn�t a polished operator. He quickly slipped an envelope into the book he was holding, snapped it closed and rammed it back on the shelf.

Then he stood there and tried to look innocent.

Amateur, Aubrey thought. Of course, the best thing to do when revealed was not to pretend to be doing no thing, but to pretend to be doing something much less serious than what one was really doing.

Then Aubrey realised he was behaving in an equally amateurish fashion. He was staring at the suspect, thereby breaking his cover and drawing attention to himself. George, too, was goggling and the result was something like a meeting of three people where someone has just done something embarrassing and no-one is willing to draw attention to it.

Aubrey recovered. He turned to George. �You said that Architecture was up here.�

George rallied splendidly. �I did not, Richard. You just didn�t listen.�

Aubrey smiled at the rat-like man, who was frozen to the spot in his efforts at innocence. �Sorry to disturb you. You haven�t seen Architecture, by any chance?�

He shook his head, and Aubrey could see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. �It�s History here,� he croaked.

�There�s a pity.� Aubrey caught George by the arm and they retreated. �Can you follow him when he leaves?� he whispered as they gathered themselves in a corner near Epic Poetry and Medicine.

�I think so.�

�I�ll retrieve the documents after he�s gone.�

�He�s leaving them here?�

�It�s a drop. He�s obviously arranged with a confederate who�ll arrive here soon and pick them up.�

Furtive footsteps on the other side of the bookshelf signalled that their quarry was on the move again. George scratched his head. �I don�t like separating.�

�It�s the only thing to do. We need to know if he has any other assignations. I�ll take the documents and then contact Craddock so that this place can be watched to see who arrives for them.� Aubrey could hear the congratulations already. �I�m not taking any chances by leaving the documents here. They�re better off with me.�

A flicker of doubt crossed George�s face, but he nodded and set off in the direction of the front of the shop. Aubrey hummed to himself a little, then slipped around to where the spy had done his clumsy sleight of hand.

It took Aubrey a few minutes. He had to picture where the spy had been standing, how far he�d been reaching up (or was it down?) and the size and colour of the book in his hand. It didn�t help that the books in this section of the shop were almost uniform. Old, some hundreds of years, they were all bound in dull, age-darkened brown leather. The sizes did vary, as did their extent, but Aubrey had to try half a dozen before he struck gold.

The book was heavy when he slipped it from the shelf and he needed both hands. He hefted it, smelled the foxy smell of mould. When he opened it, the spine creaked, but the pages fell open to reveal an envelope.

Buff, heavy bond, it was unaddressed. The spy wasn�t that much of an amateur. For an instant, Aubrey considered opening it, but � with an effort � he refrained. His curiosity was fierce � he desperately wanted to see what the spy was handing over. Such a well-placed agent could get his hands on all sorts of things. And what was Bruce�s involvement? It would be a blow to Aubrey�s father if the man was a Holmland dupe. If Bruce�s office was found to be leaking secrets to foreign powers, he�d have no choice other than to resign, and with him would go Sir Darius�s chance to solidify his party�s position in Parliament.

Aubrey replaced the heavy old book on the shelf and almost laughed aloud. Gallian Royalty. He should really buy it for Bertie. Perhaps it could shed some light on the tangled tree that the Crown Prince�s family had become. It might be a useful sort of apology for trying to kill him...

Aubrey replaced the book and slapped the envelope in his other hand. Now, he thought, a quick trip back to No.4 and Craddock can�t help but be impressed. A mission taken up with no warning, successfully achieved � especially if George returned with news of the spy�s destination.

A job well done. Aubrey would be happy with that � especially if his father was the one who said it.

Fourteen

Aubrey enjoyed travel. It didn�t matter if it were by train, boat or horse and cart, he loved the anticipation of arriving in a different place. The perspectives that were granted a traveller were special and changing, always being glimpsed and left behind, with something new just ahead.

Aubrey had one substantial regret: he�d been unable to contact Caroline by telephone. He�d tried for two days, with increasing feverishness, but in the end he�d had to write a letter advising her of the sudden change of plans. He�d spent a whole morning trying to find the words to explain that she wasn�t being left behind � it was simply unfortunate circumstances and he�d do his best to make up for it and he�d make sure it wouldn�t happen again and...

It sounded feeble even as he wrote it, and he could imagine her disappointment only too well.

In his mind, he could see a graph of Caroline�s estimation of him. When they first met at Prince Albert�s estate, he hadn�t made a good impression � the graph would begin at a very low level. In the adventure of the Prince�s near-assassination, he could imagine the graph sloping upwards. Not rapidly, and with a few dips where he managed to put his foot in things, but the trend would have definitely been upward, to a high point just after his father�s election as Prime Minister.

Then the Gallian imbroglio. Aubrey winced, because after a reasonably positive series of escapades where he thought he�d conducted himself quite well � graph heading upward again � he�d made a disastrous miscalculation in manipulating Caroline�s plans for his own ends. When his mother � his own mother � had taken Caroline on a polar expedition with the express point of putting some distance between Aubrey and her, the graph must have plunged, crossing the neutral axis, he imagined, with Caroline�s attitude actively negative toward him.

From this nadir, however, thanks to some painful humility and hard work, Aubrey hoped that the graph had been inching its way into positive territory. The underground pursuit of Dr Tremaine and the affair with the Bank of Albion had been a chance for him to show his capabilities, which he hoped weren�t unimpressive. Their rapprochement after these affairs may not have restored matters entirely, and their agreement to remain colleagues meant that a limit was placed on how far the graph could climb, but surely it had peeped into positive territory. Surely.

Now? Caroline would be affronted at being left out of this Fisherberg trip, and unhappy at the lack of communication. The graph was about to dive again.

He sighed. If only human matters worked like mathematics. A mathematical function was crisp, clear and open to understanding � with enough effort. To Aubrey�s mind, human affairs were just the opposite � opaque, baffling and profoundly difficult.

The trip to Fisherberg had been planned as a cross-continental train journey, much to the displeasure of the navy. The Admiralty was mightily miffed when Lady Rose declined the offer to sail on the HMS Invulnerable, one of the latest class of cruisers that the navy was taking to Fisherberg to show off to the Holmlanders. While Aubrey would have enjoyed the chance to spend a few days exploring the most modern ship in the Albion fleet, he thought his mother�s decision was wise. Entering Fisherberg by train would be far more discreet than steaming into harbour aboard a warship. Lady Rose was visiting Holmland as a scholar, not as a symbol of national power.

The boat train crossed south-east Albion with steely efficiency. The special carriage allocated to Lady Rose at the end of the train was plush and comfortable, but before they left, Aubrey � taking his job seriously � inspected it to make sure that it was secure, even though this had already been done by some of Tallis�s operatives. He approved when he found it had only two entrances. One opened directly into the carriage and the other was the interconnection between it and the second-last carriage. This interconnection included an alcove constantly manned by one of Tallis�s operatives.

Lady Rose was equally well guarded on the ferry across the channel, while the train that was waiting for them in Gallia had another reserved carriage at the rear, and Aubrey could see the work of the friendly Gallian government in the squad of police who surrounded it at Legras Station, the departure point for the train to Lutetia. They postured and preened when Lady Rose approached, and Aubrey thought a fist-fight was going to break out on the platform to see who was going to have the honour of opening the door for her.

The train sped across the countryside toward the capital of Gallia. While clean and comfortable, it rattled in disconcertingly erratic ways. Aubrey generally enjoyed the regular clicketty-clack rhythm of trains. This one, however, had nothing regular about it. It groaned up gentle slopes, protested around the mildest of corners, made hard going over bridges and was reluctant to enter tunnels, as if afraid of the dark.

All the while, it shifted between a clicketty-clicketty and a clacketty-click-click as it ran over the rails, at intervals that were gratingly and irritatingly random.

George, however, was immune to this. He had spread a newspaper on one of the mahogany tables near the windows and was poring over it, frowning, as if he meant to memorise every word. After an hour or so, Aubrey had become so edgy from the non-rhythm of the train that he stood and began pacing the length of the carriage. His mother was at one end, writing in a large notebook, consulting one of the many volumes she�d plucked from the trunk she�d brought with her. He tried to start a conversation, but the voice dried in his throat when she held up a hand without looking up. He knew that gesture. She was in the middle of something important and didn�t want to be interrupted. He went to look at what she was writing, but as soon as he leaned over her open hand turned to a single, admonitory finger.

It was enough. He left her in peace. He�d sighted enough to see that she was working on another draft of her symposium presentation. Why she�d be doing this baffled him. He thought each of the previous nine drafts had been fine.

That left only one source of distraction. �Anything interesting in the paper, George?�

Aubrey inserted himself into the bench seat on the opposite side of the table from his friend. Outside, the afternoon sun beat on the cosy fields of northern Gallia. It was almost like a picture book, with well-behaved flocks of sheep staring at the train as it whistled past. In the distance, a thick forest marched up the side of a modest hill. To one side, a church stood, as if happy to be there.

George didn�t look up. �Always interesting things in the paper, old man. You should know that.�

�You�re applying yourself to this one with special intensity, though. What is it? The world of sport in uproar over a race-fixing scandal?�

�Not much, apart from some sort of commotion on the border with Holmland.� George shook his head. �This is just the last newspaper I�m bound to enjoy for some time. I wanted to make it last.�

�I knew your lack of languages would come home to roost. You should have paid more attention in class.�

�I did. Just didn�t understand a thing, that�s all. Was all foreign to me.�

George�s inability to come to terms with anything beyond the most basic niceties of foreign languages had never concerned him. He was convinced he could get by anywhere in the world with a firm handshake and a sunny smile. It generally worked, but it seemed as if newspapers were immune to this approach.

�So you�re going to devour the last of good old Albion�s newspapers, then.�

�It�s all I can do. Every last little word, I�ll read.�

�No matter how trivial, how boring?�

�Advertisements for bootblack will be like religious texts to me. Details of shipping consignments I�ll ponder as if they hold the mysteries of the ages.�

Aubrey cocked his head. �Are you sure you can�t spend your time any more usefully?�

�Not really. Especially since by doing this I�ve just learned that Caroline is on her way to Fisherberg.�

Aubrey straightened so quickly that he banged his knee on the underside of the table � but he hardly noticed. �Caroline?�

�A small article in the Arts section. It seems as if Ophelia Hepworth is on her way to this Fisherberg symposium, just like your mother.�

Aubrey remembered that Caroline had told him this. At the time, it was a two he hadn�t put together with another two and so missed out on coming up with four. �And Caroline is going with her?�

��Accompanying the influential artist on her Holmland sojourn is her daughter, Miss Caroline Hepworth.� Sounds like her, doesn�t it?�

�It certainly does.� Aubrey sat back, bruised knee forgotten. Caroline in Fisherberg? Excellent. Some time ago, he�d been surprised when she�d mentioned, quite offhand, that she�d visited Fisherberg before. But he could see this being extremely useful. If she could be persuaded to overlook his not asking her along, then persuaded to show them around, it was the sort of thing that could make a difference to their time in the Holmland capital. Of course, that would mean spending time together, which would be a fine thing. Enjoyable. Friendly. Most splendid.

�I say,� George said. �D�you think it might be time for a spot of early lunch?�

�George, straight after breakfast is your notion of time for a spot of early lunch. I think we might wait until after we�ve joined the Transcontinental Express.�

�In Lutetia?� George thought for a moment, and Aubrey could see him weighing up having some solid, uninspiring food now, or waiting for the legendary offerings of the Transcontinental�s board of fare. �It�s not more than an hour away, you�d say?�

Aubrey glanced at the scene outside the window. �At the most.�

His estimate was almost exact. Fifty-five minutes later saw the train pull into St Remy Station and when it finally stopped the release of steam sounded like a sigh of relief.

Aubrey had never taken the fabled Transcontinental Express and, despite his misgivings about leaving Caroline behind, and despite taking his bodyguarding duties seriously, he was looking forward to it. Tales of intrigue and mystery had sprung up almost as soon as the Express completed its first journey, late last century, from Lutetia to Constantinople, the gateway to the Orient. Winding its way through a dozen countries � although that number was currently in flux with the shifts in national makeup � the Transcontinental Express was reputed to play host to smugglers, arms dealers, tragic refugees and dispossessed nobles. Plans were hatched in corridors, assignations made in corners, revolutions decided on platforms while waiting for stationmasters � who may or may not be counter-intelligence operatives � to give the all clear.

Aubrey couldn�t wait.

At St Remy Station, Lady Rose left Aubrey and George to wrangle with the Gallian porters and their plans to decant the luggage onto the Transcontinental. There was no shortage of willing hands, but Aubrey could see that actual organisation was thin on the ground. Each of the porters had his own idea of the best way to do things, and each of them had a different idea where the Transcontinental Express actually was. It took a giddy few moments before he and George were able to round up all the porters and herd them into a line. With this leadership, they then transported the bags to the next platform, a mere twenty yards or so away, and into the specially prepared carriage on which they�d spend the next twenty-four hours.

Aubrey lingered. He wanted to inspect the magnificent Transcontinental locomotive.

Gallian locomotive engineering was substantially different from Albion work, but he admired their approach. The locomotive was a 2-6-4 with a tapered boiler, beautifully suited for racing across flat country, but well able to cope with the steep mountain passages that were a major part of the journey. The engine cowling was a highly polished deep blue, with �Transcontinental Express� emblazoned along its length. Near the driving wheels, he squatted to peer at the coupling rods and nodded in approval at the sound anti-hammering magic that he detected. It was a clever solution.

When Aubrey finally stepped into their special carriage, he removed his hat with some reverence. This was opulence more at home in a palace than in locomotive transport. It was like entering a lavish living room, rather longer and narrower than most, but impressive all the same. The windows were shaded with blue velvet curtains. Oriental screens, potted palms, gas lights on the walls, a discreet but thick Overminster carpet, a heavy sideboard and an absurdly comfortable sofa and chairs were closest to him, while the far half of the carriage was blocked off by what looked like a set of folding doors in strikingly grained ebony.

�Four individual sleeping compartments at the rear,� came a Gallian-accented voice at Aubrey�s shoulder. He jumped and whirled to see a dapper attendant, white coated, thinly moustached, reserved and ready. �A bathroom with full-sized bath � no shortage of hot water, piped directly from the locomotive � and a small library. Small, but well stocked.�

George appeared behind the attendant. �I say. This is just the ticket!�

�I dare say,� said the attendant, as if he had such approbation from every passenger. On reflection, Aubrey decided he probably did. �Is there anything you young sirs need before we leave the station?�

Aubrey shook his head. �I don�t think so. It seems as if you�ve catered for everything.� He had a thought. �Is there a door at the rear of this carriage?�

�Indeed. But your security men have made sure that it�s locked, bolted and chained.�

�Good.�

�Will there be anything else?�

George raised what was obviously a pressing question for him. �Lunch?�

�Will be available as soon as we leave the station. Fifteen minutes.�

�Excellent.�

It took some time to stow the appropriate luggage, dispatching the rest to the box car, and then it was a matter of setting up Lady Rose so she could continue her work. Absorbed in her presentation, she spoke little as Aubrey and George steered her toward a table in a corner of the carriage, near one of the large windows. She didn�t stop working for a second, reading from her papers, frowning and scribbling on them with a well-worn pencil.

Eventually, she was set up just as the train began to glide from the station. The whistle, when it sounded, was smooth and well modulated, far from the usual brazen shriek of a locomotive signal.

So Gallian, Aubrey thought. �Should we order you some lunch, Mother?�

�Of course.� His mother dashed something on the page she was reading, then she screwed it up and flung it at the waste paper bin that stood near the grand piano. It lobbed in perfectly.

�Anything you�d like?�

He had to wait for some time before he had a reply: �I�ll leave it up to you.�

As they left, Aubrey wondered if she even knew they were there.

Fifteen

The restaurant car was two carriages towards the front of the train. Aubrey and George passed compartments which were sparsely populated; Aubrey amused himself by trying to tell the spies from the saboteurs from the international criminals. Most of them looked like solid business travellers with dark suits and glasses, and briefcases bulging with soap catalogues, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that that was a measure of their craft, adopting such a perfect disguise for crossing countries. Who would suspect a soap salesman of plotting international intrigue?

They also had to make their way through a lounge car, dimly lit even in the middle of the day thanks to the shades pulled down on most of the windows. Conversations here were studiously furtive, as if the few denizens were making a point of their raffish notoriety. A central bar stretched almost the entire length of the lounge car and had attracted a handful of determined-looking travellers, all of whom seemed to be experts at avoiding eye contact.

The restaurant car was another long, narrow oasis of opulence. An aisle ran down the middle with tables under the windows on each side. All was compact but luxurious, with fine china and silverware in place on the starched white linen cloths. Fresh flowers � in low, stable vases � graced every table. They were greeted by a waiter who took them to a vacant table.

For a lunch, it was both substantial and grand. Four courses, from soup through to dessert, with the sort of service that Aubrey had only experienced in the most exclusive of restaurants. His appetite was hearty and he thoroughly enjoyed the experience of appreciating fine food while the train pulled smoothly through the outskirts of Lutetia before gathering itself and racing through the countryside.

Through his shirt, he touched the Beccaria Cage in silent thanks for its good work.

Eventually, George touched his napkin to his lips. �Superb. That strawberry mousse was the best I�ve ever had.�

�After your third helping, I guessed as much.�

George sighed with great inner satisfaction. He gazed through the window with a happy smile on his face. �This is the way to travel. Scenery, good food, comfort.�

�You know, I hear that one of the Holmland dirigible companies is starting passenger flights. That could be spectacular.�

�Good food?�

�They promise it will be first class.�

George nodded. That was enough for him.

Aubrey grinned. �Let�s go to the lounge car for a while.�

�Shouldn�t we be getting back to your mother?�

�She�s well protected. We can play cards, or backgammon, or chess.�

George put a finger to his nose in a gesture that Aubrey guessed was meant to look conspiratorial. �You want to spend some time watching the other passengers, don�t you?�

�Of course. Call it a spot of covert surveillance, but it really boils down to a bit of poking about.�

�Discreet poking about.�

�Naturally.�

It was also a chance to study the train�s journey. Aubrey had chosen a table which had a map on the wall between the windows. It showed the Continent, from Lutetia to Constantinople, with the Transcontinental�s passage picked out in blue. After leaving Lutetia, it climbed through the mountains in an almost straight line to the border with Holmland. The border crossing at the dual city of Teve-Grodenberg was the major stop before Fisherberg. A tense city in these times, Aubrey had hoped to have time to do some intelligence gathering around there.

Aubrey sat with his back to the window, the better to keep an eye on the half dozen patrons who were seated at the bar. A waiter brought mineral water and, when asked, a pack of cards. Aubrey admired the stylised representation of the Transcontinental locomotive on the back of the cards and then dealt a hand of Goltan whist. They�d both been introduced to bridge, by Caroline, and enjoyed the fashionably new game, but when there was only the two of them, they always returned to the game of their childhood, Goltan whist.

They had played the game so often, over so many years, that they knew each other�s habits extremely well. The two-handed game, in any case, was simple and straightforward, so that the enjoyment didn�t come from the play, it came from the company.

While shuffling between hands, he tried a showy single-handed cut. The cards sprayed all over the table.

George raised an eyebrow. �You�ve been practising.�

Aubrey scrabbled around on the floor, picking up the cards. �Almost ready to go on the stage, I�d say.� He barely avoided banging his head on the table as he straightened.

�Stick to magic, old man,� George suggested and, as luck would have it, his voice fitted neatly into one of those silences that fall in a crowded room, so that his words hung in the air like an unusual cloud, the sort that brings people to windows to stare, point and consult books about rare meteorological phenomena.

Aubrey dealt the next hand. �Well, we didn�t set out to draw attention to ourselves, but we�ve managed it beautifully.�

�Any arms dealers rushing over to try to make a sale to us?�

�No. But a startlingly attractive woman looks as if she�s coming this way.�

�She is?� George put down his cards and straightened his tie. �How do I look?�

�Complex.�

�Complex?�

Aubrey didn�t have a chance to answer. The woman had arrived at their table. �I am Zelinka. You have magic?�

She was tall, taller than George, and dressed entirely in black. Her dress and tight-fitting jacket had the sheen of expensive silk. Aubrey couldn�t clearly make out her features for she wore a hat with a veil, but he had the impression of large, dark eyes.

Her voice was husky and undeniably foreign, although her Albionish was good. Aubrey found it hard to guess her origin. Somewhere on the east of the Continent, most probably, although nationalities in that region were often a matter of opinion. Depending on the year of one�s birth, one�s home town could belong to half a dozen different nations.

When she pushed up her veil, Aubrey swallowed and tried to catalogue a description, both to steady himself and because the authorities might find it useful.

She was only a few years older than he was, middle twenties at the most. Black hair framed her face and her eyes were large and dangerously dark. Exotically beautiful, she had high cheekbones and when she frowned, small, even teeth caught the edge of her dark-red lips.

Aubrey stood, slowly. �Madame Zelinka.� After gaping for a moment, George also managed to get to his feet.

She turned her head from Aubrey to George and back to Aubrey again. She stared into his face. �You are the one I was to meet, no?� She dropped her veil. �I can feel that you have the magic. Where do we talk?�

Aubrey made a split-second decision. She�d obviously mistaken him for someone else, but he was intrigued as to who that was. Who�d be waiting to talk magic on the Transcontinental Express? If he could play along and learn the answer, it could be very useful.

Besides, it was thrilling.

�I am Mr Black,� he said. �This is my associate, Mr Evans.� He glanced around the lounge car. �That booth in the corner. It�s private enough.�

She followed his gaze, then nodded.

Aubrey endeavoured to convey his intentions to George by way of gestures and facial expressions. George rolled his eyes, but signalled his acquiescence with a shrug. Aubrey was thankful for their long friendship, which meant that words were sometimes unnecessary. This silent dialogue, however, was cut off when the stranger reached the booth and turned. �I will sit nearest the door.� She slipped into the booth with a rustle of fabric.

�We were going to insist you did,� George said, rallying to his role. She glanced at him sharply, and George smiled the smile of someone who knows a great deal more than he�s willing to let on. It was a useful expression, especially for when he didn�t have a clue what was going on.

�You�re younger than I expected, Mr Black.� She shrugged, minutely. �It is no matter. I deal with people who seem to be all ages. I make no judgement.�

Aubrey smiled slowly. �I�m older than I look.�

George coughed into a closed fist. �And that�s old enough.�

Aubrey just restrained himself from kicking George under the table. There was such a thing as over-egging a pudding. �What do you want?� he said abruptly, trying to catch her off guard. �Time is short.�

Her expression hardened. �You are meeting someone else, aren�t you?�

�Who we are meeting next is of no concern to you.�

�It�s Guttmann, isn�t it? I thought I saw him earlier.�

Aubrey made a note of the name and was already congratulating himself for his decision to go along with the pretence. �I haven�t seen Guttmann for years.�

�Don�t be a fool. Guttmann will cheat you and then kill you.�

�It�s a dangerous business we�re in,� Aubrey said, doing his best to hide the fear that woke in his stomach. �Guttmann and the others.�

Cryptic though his utterances were, they seemed to convince her.

�Your company can supply the magic we need?�

More intelligence gold. Aubrey rubbed mental hands together with delight. �Provided we�re given the right parameters.�

�Parameters? No-one said anything about parameters.�

Aubrey held up a placatory hand. �You can�t do magic without parameters. I�ll need to know area of effect, duration, that sort of thing.�

She considered this then nodded. �I�ll need to contact my people.�

�Of course.�

�Your reputation says that you have access to some sort of magical suppression. Is this true?�

Aubrey stared. Had she worked out who he really was? He sought for time. �It depends. It�s difficult to know without some idea of the type of magic we�re dealing with.�

�Of course, of course.� She clicked her tongue. �I need more information from my colleagues.� She stood. �You will wait to hear from me?�

Aubrey and George were on their feet, and Aubrey took a chance. He sensed that she was keen to do business. �I have other clients, you know.�

She stiffened. �I will contact you in Fisherberg.�

�Tomorrow?�

�Yes.�

Aubrey looked at George. He took his cue and nodded. �Very well,� Aubrey said.

She left without saying goodbye. Aubrey and George resumed their seats. �Now, old man,� George said. �Would you mind telling me what that was all about?�

�I�m not entirely sure. I was extemporising.�

�Ah. Making it up as you go along.�

�Exactly. I thought it a lark to see if we could pick up some titbits which could be useful to our spymasters.�

�It seems as if we�ve stumbled into more than that,� George muttered. �Striking-looking woman, she was, wouldn�t you say?�

�She�s too old for you, George. And probably too dangerous.�

�Who is she, anyway?�

�No idea. She didn�t give away much, so she�s certainly an experienced hand at this.�

�At this? At what?�

�Subterfuge. Clandestine plots. Trans-national schemes.� Aubrey crossed his arms and sat back. �She�s a mercenary, perhaps, or a member of some partisan group or other, resisting something they think needs resisting. The Continent is swarming with such at the moment.�

Aubrey knew that Holmland wasn�t alone in its territorial ambitions. The hotbed that was the Goltan Peninsula was a mass of seething malcontent and brooding grudges. Borders moved around as if they were made of rubber. And on the other side of Holmland, even though the Central European Empire was thrashing around in the last days of its viability, Emperor Wolfgang was looking for any excuse to prove it wasn�t so.

Riding roughshod over local history, culture and sensibilities was a way of life for those with lofty ambitions and fat heads, and it resulted in resistance leagues and underground movements springing up like mushrooms after autumn rain. All of these groups had axes to grind and there were plenty of shady business people ready to sell them bigger and better axes � at a price.

Aubrey knew that Albion�s intelligence agencies were doing what they could to keep informed about these groups. Part of this was defensive, but part of it was strategic. He was sure there was a sub-department somewhere in the Ministry of Defence devoted to working out just which of these groups may be useful in distracting Holmland from war with Albion � or which could be handy allies in the war that was to come. If he could garner any information along these lines, it could be valuable.

George sat up. �I say. Shouldn�t we be getting that lunch to your mother? We promised.�

It had slipped Aubrey�s mind. He summoned a waiter and explained his situation. The waiter was happy to organise a luncheon for Lady Rose. Aubrey was sure she wouldn�t notice the lateness of the arrival of her meal. When she was immersed in a knotty task, the end of the world could come and go and she wouldn�t be aware of it.

They passed the rest of the afternoon in their special carriage. George went back to his newspaper and was making a determined effort to reach his goal of being able to recite its contents by heart. Lady Rose scowled her way through her lunch of soup and a beautifully constructed salad, without leaving a table that had become a city of book towers. Aubrey was left to his own devices and applied himself to reading something he�d found in the small library, a collection of Holmland folktales featuring the unlikely hero of Hans the Cheesemaker, who waddled his way through a series of increasingly bizarre dairy-related adventures.

As evening drew in and the shadows crept across the countryside, the attendant was escorted in by one of the guards. He lit the gaslamps and took away the remains of Lady Rose�s meal, which made Aubrey sit up. �I think I�ll go back to the restaurant car,� he announced, �and book a table for us. We don�t want to miss out.�

Lady Rose waved a hand. He had the impression he could have declared he was going to sprout wings and fly to Antipodea and he would have had the same reaction. George grunted. �You want me to come along, old man?�

�No need, no need. Not when you�re making such splendid progress.�

George had already lowered his head. He grunted again.

The lounge car was more crowded at this time of the day. Aubrey wondered if it was the darkness that brought them out, making the furtive ones feel more secure in the shadowy corners of the car. He listened for any details of assassinations or bombings as he eased his way through the well-dressed crowd, but caught nothing except complaints about the water.

A first-class sleeping car separated the lounge car from the restaurant car. It would be a favoured position, Aubrey decided, not far from the amenities of life. The corridor ran alongside the compartments, each closed discreetly. The train was navigating a long curve, for Aubrey found himself leaning outward. Through the windows, he could see they were well into the mountains. The solemn pines were thick and close to the tracks.

The train rocked back the other way and, as it did, the compartment door just in front of Aubrey burst open. A man staggered out. He had blood streaming from a cut on his forehead, but he hardly seemed to notice. He barked a guttural oath, then waded back into the compartment, from which came the unmistakeable sound of a fracas.

Aubrey rushed over. He stood in the doorway, holding onto the frame as the train chose this moment to shudder and jerk.

The compartment was small and compact. The beds had not been pulled down and the two bench seats faced each other. In this cramped space, the bloody-browed man was throwing punches at someone whose presence astonished Aubrey into immobility.

It was Manfred, the erstwhile stage performer, the sleight-of-hand artist who had been revealed as a double agent � and who had led a cadre of Holmland rebels to their deaths.

Manfred looked the same as when Aubrey had last seen him � tall, well groomed, neat pointed beard � but his composed stage persona was a million miles away from what Aubrey was presented with here. Manfred was absorbing the battering from Bloody Brow while keeping one arm flung out to prevent a woman from leaving the corner where he�d trapped her. He stood unflinching, taking the punches on his body and face as he concentrated on keeping the woman confined. She wasn�t helpless, either. She was hammering at the back of his head with cold fury.

Then she saw Aubrey and she froze. She pointed at him. Bloody Brow turned and gaped, letting his fists fall to his side. Manfred didn�t move.

�That�s him, Guttmann, he�s your competitor,� the woman said, and Aubrey saw that it was Madame Zelinka, his mysterious contact from the lounge car. She didn�t have a veil this time and her exotic beauty was on full display.

Manfred stared, and appeared as astonished as Aubrey. �You?� He looked over his shoulder at her. �That�s him?�

In two steps, Bloody Brow crossed the compartment and seized Aubrey by the shoulders. He smiled, and the effect was disturbing. As well as the rivulets of blood coursing down his face, Bloody Brow had very bad teeth.

�Well,� Aubrey said. �It looks like you have this all under control. I�ll just be going.�

�I don�t sink zo,� Bloody Brow said. He yanked at Aubrey and stuck out a foot. Aubrey tripped and stumbled into the compartment. Before he knew it, Manfred had grabbed him and pulled him closer. He squinted, staring at Aubrey, studying his face as if he had writing on it that was small and hard to read. Then a gust of cold air whipped over his shoulder and he smiled.

Aubrey saw that the outer door had been flung open. He flailed, but all he managed to grab was a feather from Madame Zelinka�s hat. Then, suddenly and awfully, Manfred heaved and Aubrey was sailing through the air.

He had time to see that the train was crossing a steel bridge before he began the long arc to whatever lay below.

Sixteen

Aubrey was falling. He was relatively happy about this state of affairs; it meant that he hadn�t yet reached the sudden stop at the bottom.

Wind tore at him. A yell was wrenched from his throat as he flailed uselessly. Every fibre of his being wanted him to be perched cosily on solid ground instead of falling free and heading toward certain death.

It made rational thought difficult, but in the middle of his terror, his attention was taken by what he had in his left hand.

An ostrich feather. Long, black, flapping wildly, it was indisputably an ostrich feather. Dimly he remembered snatching for something solid as he was hurled from the compartment. He saw his hand seizing the most flimsy handhold imaginable � the feather in the hat of Madame Zelinka.

Suddenly, a spell wrote itself across his mind in blazing letters a dozen feet high. Like to like, the Law of Sympathy, the ostrich feather. He barked out syllables that were torn from his throat by the wind. He finished, sought desperately for any sign of taking on featherlike floating, then he hit the ground.

Seventeen

The raft trip was madness. Within minutes, Aubrey was convinced that Carlito was the man for the job.

The raft itself was a ramshackle assemblage that looked more like an accidental coming-together of flotsam than a water-tight, navigable vessel. Some of it was made of barrels, some of it was sheet metal, some of it was rope and netting, a fair proportion of it was prayers. Branches were woven in and out of the chaos, but most of the raft was still open space. Carlito had to steady Aubrey as he boarded because his feet found gaps more easily than solid construction. The raftman�s grin didn�t waver as Aubrey wobbled, lurched and eventually threw himself at the spot Carlito indicated with a blackened finger. Then, picking a rope somewhat at random, Aubrey thought, Carlito cast off and they were whipped into the maelstrom.

Aubrey�s first reaction, after a faceful of icy spray, was that the river had more than grown up. He�d first encountered it as a wild mountain stream, wayward, but still young and with a chance to reform. Now, it was a hardened villain of a waterway, carving its way through solid rock at the bottom of the perilous gorge. In seconds, Aubrey�s breath was driven from him in a series of plunges that jarred his bones and drenched him in water he was sure would have frozen if it had stayed still for even an instant. His teeth chattered; his hands hurt from gripping whatever structural component was closest and least likely to detach itself.

The darkness at the bottom of the gorge was almost complete, so Aubrey couldn�t anticipate the wild changes in direction and the plummeting, swerving passage of the raft. Flashes of white foam made him jerk his head left and right but imminent death was on every side, only interrupted by the towering darkness of immense rocks that even the thunderous river couldn�t shift.

As they were flung through the watery violence, Aubrey was constantly battered by the roar the river made as it sped along, madcap and unbridled. The noise filled the narrow space and assaulted them as if it were alive and malicious. It was an all-consuming sound, a head-filling sound. It hissed and bellowed, and underneath was the grinding of boulders being dragged along the riverbed.

Carlito�s navigation was eccentric. He stood, swaying, at the rear of the craft, with a heavy wooden pole under his right arm which he used to fend off the rocks that threatened to bring their journey to an abrupt end, although how he saw them Aubrey had no idea. This was a rational, even sensible course of action, but it wasn�t consistent. At times Carlito simply grinned as the raft slammed into the sides of the gorge or into a fang of rock, and allowed the raft to career away down the gorge. How he chose which to fend off and which not to defeated Aubrey. He gave up trying to work out the raftman�s method. Instead he concentrated on hanging on.

He had no idea how long the passage took. The ride took a few seconds or a few lifetimes, one or the other.

Carlito left the jelly-legged Aubrey on the outskirts of Agoulle, where the river burst from the chasm, widened and lost most of its violence. Behind them was the dark cleft of the gorge, which Aubrey was sure had a charming local nickname like �the Widowmaker�. Any description of it would be accompanied by the opinion that only lunatics would attempt passage through it.

Carlito, apparently a professional lunatic, steered the raft under some willows. He pointed to the lights of the houses and to where the railway line ran alongside the main street. For a moment, Aubrey sat on the raft and stared upward, enjoying the stars and the way they�d stopped wheeling crazily across the sky. Then he took a deep breath and launched himself onto the river bank. It was soggy and evil-smelling from what Aubrey suspected was animal droppings, but it had the immensely wonderful benefit of not being the raft.

With some reluctance, he looked over his shoulder. �How will you get back?� he asked Carlito.

Carlito glanced at the raft he was standing on. It was noticeably smaller than the vessel in which they�d begun their journey. �I will walk. A few days, I will be back with Rodolfo.�

�What about your raft?�

He shrugged. �They only last one journey.�

Aubrey understood. He shook the man�s hand and Carlito disappeared back upriver.

Aubrey straightened his dripping jacket and staggered toward the lights. A few minutes later, the Transcontinental Express rumbled into the town, slowing for the tiny village. Aubrey ran hard as it rattled through a series of switches. He sprinted alongside, sure-footed in the dark, and swung up with the sort of cavalier deftness that comes after staring utter annihilation in the face and surviving it.

Eighteen

The next morning, Aubrey decided that the Blue Dog was well named, because the sign hanging out the front of the tavern was as blue a dog as he�d ever seen. Not grey, not a delicate seal colour, but an eye-watering, startling blue, the sort of blue that tropical fish adopted as a warning of their extreme toxicity.

The tavern lurked in an old district of Fisherberg that rejoiced in the attractive name of Thart, near the river. At first, as they made their way down the hill towards the bridge that bisected the tiny locale, it appeared to Aubrey as if Thart was composed entirely of taverns, inns, hotels and grog shops. When they drew closer, however, he was able to make out that a few eateries had squeezed in between the rowdy, low-slung bars, and a pawnbroker had a prominent position on the crossroads, ready to buy, sell and loan day and night.

From the top of the hill, Aubrey had seen how Thart was turned inward, resisting the tide of modernising that had enveloped the rest of the city. Its buildings were all low � none more than two storeys � and built in a combination of wood and stone that reeked not just of age but of smoke, dirt, grease, oil and other, mostly inflammable, substances. It was only a few city blocks, perhaps two or three streets wide and the same again across.

Kiefer gestured vaguely at the bridge. �Many of the ghost hunters sleep under there, when they�re in the city.�

�They come from the countryside?� Aubrey asked as George surveyed the scene.

�Hmm?�

Aubrey sighed. Kiefer had been even more absentminded than usual this morning, his thoughts quite obviously elsewhere. Aubrey had never realised that catalytic magic was so fascinating.

Von Stralick snorted. �Usually, the people in the city are not n�ive enough for the ghosthunters� business. In the country, though, they can ply their trade, make their money by preying on the peasants.�

Aubrey had no time for frauds who deliberately preyed on the insecurities of people � hopes, fears, losses � but he didn�t like the way that von Stralick lumped all country dwellers as simple-minded dullards who were just as culpable as the shysters.

Aubrey understood how von Stralick could be sceptical about the ghost hunters, but he wasn�t about to leap to that conclusion. While great strides had been taken in rational magic in the past few decades, most of that was the result of work done in universities and other academic institutions. The results had found their way into industry and life in general, but this didn�t mean that all traditional folk practices had ended overnight. Many had been shown to be worthless but others had demonstrable results that kept them in circulation. At the farm on Prince Albert�s estate � Penhurst � Aubrey knew of a worker who could reliably cast a spell that would lead him to a lost lamb. As Aubrey�s own magical talents had developed, he could sense the man�s magic and he had no doubt that it was real, not just some combination of luck and local knowledge. It was the only spell the man could cast, and it was an erratic, fugitive talent, so it was fortunate that he was a cheery fellow with a broad back and an almost unlimited ability to work hard.

Aubrey wasn�t willing to discount the ghost hunters. If they had any insights into what was happening in Fisherberg, he was happy to glean what he could.

The Blue Dog�s entrance was below street level. He and George followed the two Holmlanders, and together they found themselves in a place that looked as if it was designed to deter strangers.

Whatever light the windows let into the tavern � and it wasn�t a great deal � was instantly turned grey and tired by the build-up of noxious exhalations and fumings from the patrons and the huge open blazes that filled the fireplaces on either side of the single large room. The air, thus, took on a character of its own and became a feature of the place. Aubrey, accustomed as he was to air that was mostly transparent, was intrigued by the smoky indistinctness. For a moment, it was as if he were looking through gauze.

The room was entirely constructed of dark wood, grimed and blackened by the same miasmas that had done the job on the windows, lack of diligent cleaning apparently being a prerequisite for owning the Blue Dog over the centuries. Directly in front of him was the bar, a long counter that looked solid enough to withstand a siege. On reflection, Aubrey decided that this was probably a good thing. Behind the bar were empty shelves where, in a more genteel establishment, bottles may have stood.

Two mighty wooden pillars held up the ceiling. They were scarred, slashed, carved and burned but looked as if they wore these marks as trophies.

Long tables and benches, arranged with almost military precision, filled the room. Aubrey had trouble seeing this array at first, because the benches were packed with customers. They were sitting shoulder to shoulder, a solid lattice of squat, silent, broad, fur-clad people.

Aubrey stared from the doorway. For a moment he thought that they�d stumbled into a meeting of a fraternity of extremely well-behaved bears.

Kiefer sniffed, then � quite obviously � regretted it, for it meant that he inhaled more than he needed to of the rich aroma that fought with the light for possession of the air.

Von Stralick took charge. He strode between the tables, looking straight ahead, and confronted the barman. Aubrey, feeling that in unity there was strength, hurried along behind, with Kiefer, who was still struggling for breath, and George � who was doing his best to look formidable.

The barman was short, but he was as broad as two men. He had shaggy, shoulder-length hair. His hands were spread on the bar in front of him, ready, as it were, for anything.

�Are you gentlemen lost?� the barman said, making a fair stab at civility. As long as he didn�t make a fair stab in any other way, Aubrey was satisfied with this.

�I don�t think so,� von Stralick said. �This is the Blue Dog?�

The barman turned this over, let it brown for a moment or two, then judged it was done. �Could be,� he allowed.

�Well, we�re looking for ghost hunters.�

�A pity,� the barman said, only missing a verse or two of beats, �there�s no ghost hunters around here.�

Aubrey sighed. He knew evasion when he saw it, being somewhat of an expert. Even without turning around, he had the sense of dozens of pairs of ears listening to every word. He had the distinct feeling that they were getting the preliminaries to a very long run-around. It was time to change the game, he decided, so he stepped forward. �A pity indeed,� he announced in his clearest Holmlandish, �because I have a hundred marks for the best ghost hunter in Fisherberg.�

Aubrey hadn�t meant to start a brawl, but he was proud that having initiated one it became such a good brawl. Once von Stralick, Kiefer, George and he were safely on the same side of the bar as the barman, he watched in wide-eyed wonder as the furry men hurled themselves about the tavern in an attempt, presumably, to be the last standing and thus the only one able to claim the role as best ghost hunter in Fisherberg.

Seeming to defy the laws of physics, and most of the laws of Fisherberg, they howled, bit, kicked, wrestled, headbutted, punched and flung each other in all directions until the bar room was full of flying furry bodies filling all available space. Benches and tables were pressed into service, splintered, abandoned, cursed at and then forgotten as it got down to hand-to-hand assault. Aubrey saw ghost hunters hurled against the giant uprights with such force that � if correctly harnessed � it could power entire cities; he stared in amazement as the flungees simply staggered to their feet, shook themselves in furry outrage and waded back into the fray.

When he saw a ghost hunter thrown against one of the large windows and simply bounce off he shrugged, accepting that the glass had transmogrified over the years due to its exposure to the air of the room into something only remotely glasslike.

Gradually, it became apparent that little actual damage was being done in the fracas. The heavy furs that swaddled the ghost hunters acted not just as insulation and homes to entire species of insects, but as padding. Equally apparent was that this expenditure of energy in mayhem had a ritual aspect about it, as if it had been done many times before. Singly, then in twos and threes, the ghost hunters reached some sort of understanding of their place in the great pecking order of ghost hunters. After picking themselves up and dusting themselves off, the lesser ghost hunters sauntered off, leaving the tavern with the air of people who just remembered an appointment. Not an important appointment, just a mildly diverting one, like a chance to see a man about an interesting dog.

Once this part of the process had begun, things moved quite swiftly. Dozens became scores became tens became a handful. Then it was two ghost hunters facing off, snarling oaths that sounded blood-curdling but were incomprehensible to Aubrey�s ear. They circled each other, arms outstretched, like giant fuzzy crabs. Then, in a perfect pantomime that could have been seen by a shortsighted audience member in the rearmost of the back stalls, one of the two � they were quite indistinguishable � straightened, snapped his fingers, spun on his heel and limped toward the doorway.

The remaining ghost hunter rubbed his hands together for a moment then ambled to the bar. �You have a hundred marks?�

Fleetingly, Aubrey wondered what would happen if he said no. Pushing the impulse aside, he took out his wallet. �Are you a ghost hunter?�

The triumphant warrior beat his chest with the flat of a hand. �Bruno Fromm is the best in Fisherberg.� Pause. �Best in Holmland.�

George took this carefully. �You�re certainly the only one still here, at any rate.�

�Those others? Impostors. Cheats. Fools.�

�You know them well?� von Stralick said.

�Fromm should. They are Fromm�s cousins.�

Nineteen

Aubrey waved an arm, trying to find some clear air in the billows of choking plaster. Behind him, the wall that separated the room from the corridor had mostly disappeared, thanks to the shaped magical explosive charge that Manfred had hurled at them.

George rolled over and coughed. �Good Lord,� he said with some reverence after he saw the hole in the wall. �Unfriendly greeting, wouldn�t you say, old man?�

The sound of fist on flesh came from the other side of the room and Manfred cursed. Out of the dust cloud, a figure dived over the top of the sofa and landed on top of them.

�Madame Zelinka!� Aubrey gasped after a few seconds of desperate untangling.

She rubbed her knuckles and glanced at him, then she attacked the cushions and extracted a large revolver. She peeped over the sofa and quickly pulled the trigger three times. Aubrey stared, open-mouthed.

The revolver hadn�t made a sound.

�Magical noise suppression, Mr Black,� she snapped, noticing his astonishment. She squinted toward the far side of the room but the air was still almost opaque. Aubrey lifted his head, cautiously, but could only make out dim shapes of furniture and the more brightly lit rectangles that must have been windows. Then, to add to his flabbergastedness, Madame Zelinka stabbed a finger at George. �You have no magic. Blow.�

George blinked. �I beg your pardon?�

�Quickly. Put your lips together and blow.� She pointed at the other side of the room. �In Guttmann�s direction. Now.�

George did as she bid. His cheeks bulged, and he blew. Immediately, without lowering her revolver, Madame Zelinka barked out a torrent of Achaean syllables which Aubrey, astonished, recognised as components of an intensification spell. When she finished, the room was rocked by a gust of wind. It was strong enough to send books flying from a nearby bookcase and to topple a pair of ornamental potted palms, but it did achieve what Aubrey assumed was Madame Zelinka�s aim. The air was cleared of dust as the wind herded it all out through a broken window. They could see Manfred standing, peering, on the other side of the room.

The shortfall in the plan was that it meant he could see them. With a grin that Aubrey didn�t like at all, backhanded, he slung a glittering ten-mark piece at them.

And the man who Aubrey thought had no magical ability followed it with a short, hard, Chaldean spell.

Magnification, Aubrey thought, and even though he hadn�t heard the spell before he immediately grasped its purpose. Manfred aimed to expand the coin, but such a thing was impossible to maintain for any length of time � which wasn�t important. The coin rapidly grew until it was as big as a dining table. All it had to do was maintain those dimensions for a few seconds and it would crush them like beetles.

It was Aubrey�s turn. He spat out a tiny spell, one he�d been thinking about since the experience in the pearl prison. It was a temporal spell, using some of the principles that had been in play accelerating time in the cells in which George and von Stralick had been trapped. If he could cast the spell on the falling coin, make its time go quickly, then...

�Ow!� George rubbed his forehead, then plucked the ten-mark piece from his chest. He shrugged and tucked the coin into his pocket. �Ten marks is ten marks,� he said when he saw both Aubrey and Madame Zelinka staring at him.

A crash. Aubrey poked his head up to see that Manfred had dragged down the tall bookcase. Books scattered across the floor and Aubrey winced. Manfred vaulted lightly over the bookcase, using it as a screen. He poked up his head and Madame Zelinka pulled the trigger again. Manfred jerked his head sideways and then stared at the hole in the wall right next to him. He ducked, but not before a vase flung by George hit him. Heartfelt cursing from behind the bookshelf signalled that the Holmlander would be sporting a black eye tomorrow, if nothing else.

Madame Zelinka glared but didn�t pull back behind the sofa.

�That�s Guttmann?� Aubrey asked.

She glanced at him suspiciously. �I thought you knew Guttmann.�

�I know him as Manfred. And I didn�t know he was a magician,� Aubrey said. �Look out.�

A black shape, the size of an orange, darted out from behind the bookcase and flew straight at them with evil intent.

Aubrey dived left, Madame Zelinka dived right, and George ducked. The black shape sped past and went straight through the hole in the wall behind them before it managed to pull up and flit back at them. By that time, George had seized a large chunk of plaster in two hands. He swung lustily, connected, then staggered and dropped the plaster.

Aubrey scrambled to his friend. �George?�

George raised himself. Carefully, he edged his fingers under the plaster and lifted.

On the other side was an irregular black splotch. It looked like a giant inkblot from the world�s messiest writer.

�Crude. He must have been in a hurry.� Aubrey poked it with a finger. �Clay. Maybe a hunter golem of some kind?�

�It doesn�t matter.� Madame Zelinka dragged Aubrey back behind the sofa. George scuttled to join them. �Can we take him?�

�Who? Manfred?� Aubrey rubbed his chin and slipped back into the mercenary role. �What�s in it for us?�

�Not being killed?� George suggested.

Aubrey ignored him. �What does he want? And just who are you?�

�He wants magic. A particular sort of magic�

�But you were trying to buy magic from my firm.�

She frowned. �Of course. We purchase what we need to complement our expertise. And it�s our special expertise that Guttmann wants.�

�Of course,� Aubrey said hastily. This commerce in magic was new to him. He was working in the dark; he needed more information. �What sort of magic is he after?�

She gave him another suspicious look and Aubrey felt that this was her standard mode. �Does your firm deal with industrial magic?�

If I say yes, she�ll consider me a threat. �No. We specialise in weapons.�

�I thought as much. Otherwise Guttmann would have approached you already to find his catalytic intensifiers and pressure chamber reinforcing spells.�

�Not our business line at all,� Aubrey said but something pricked at him. Manfred was after heavy-duty industrial magic of a very specific kind. Who was he working for?

Madame Zelinka went to reply, but before she could, a high-pitched whine came to them from Manfred�s hiding place. �What is that?� she said.

Aubrey reached out. �Magic.� As he hadn�t heard the spell, he didn�t know exactly what was going on but he could tell it was powerful and localised.

The whine became a hissing crackle. Then a blast of heat struck them. Aubrey closed his eyes and threw up an arm. A rending groan was followed by the sound of timber giving way, then a mighty crash.

George poked up his head. �Your bookcase is gone.�

Aubrey joined his friend. Then he leaped to his feet and raced across the room.

Manfred had escaped. Behind the bookcase a rough oval had been burned right through the floor. Aubrey found himself peering into the room underneath this one. It was a scene of destruction, with a mound of plaster and timber burying any furniture unlucky enough to be directly below.

�And Manfred has gone as well.� Aubrey straightened. �I hope he enjoys his black eye.� He rubbed his forehead and found it was gritty. He peered at fingers that were brown with dust and white with plaster. �Any chance of freshening up a little?� he asked a fierce-looking Madame Zelinka, who had joined him to peer through the hole in the floor.

She unbent and studied him carefully. �Perhaps. But not here.�

�Why not?�

George pointed at the window. �Listen.�

The ringing bells of approaching police motorcars was the same in every country, Aubrey decided. �Agreed. Best not to be found here. Any suggestions?�

Madame Zelinka hurried for the door. �Follow me.�

Twenty

In what was delightfully called The Swan Room, a large west-facing drawing room, Aubrey and George found not only Prince Albert, Caroline and Mrs Hepworth, but Lady Rose. All were speaking at once and nobody noticed when Aubrey and George slipped in.

Quentin Hollows looked harried and Aubrey felt for the man. Having the heir to the Albion throne arrive a week ahead of schedule was enough to try anyone. Hollows was in charge of the embassy, this little patch of Albion, and it was his duty as a host and as a diplomat to take care of his future king.

The room was a long and narrow space broken by three square marble pillars, and decorated entirely in black and white. The walls were papered in dramatic stripes, while the floor was carpeted in dizzying black-and-white squares. The furniture was ebony, angular chairs and tables.

Aubrey wasn�t surprised when his mother beckoned to them, then made her way to meet them at the door. �Caroline and her mother both seem well disposed to you, Aubrey, for which I suppose I should be grateful.�

�It means I haven�t done anything foolish,� Aubrey said. �More foolish than usual,� he added.

�Caroline and you seemed to have worked out some sort of arrangement.�

It wasn�t a question, but it was definitely an invitation for further comment.

�We have. All�s well.�

His mother studied him closely for a moment. �I�m not so sure about that, but let it rest for now.� She smiled. �Hello, George. Aubrey hasn�t brought down the Albion Empire yet, has he?�

George responded gallantly, Aubrey decided, if one ignored the flaming blush that sprang to his cheeks. �No, Lady Rose. Not today.�

�What a superb answer,� she said with a quick smile. �He�s lucky to have you as a friend.�

George�s blush deepened, he coughed, looked away, tried to speak, and then took out a handkerchief to blow his nose. Aubrey loved his mother for the way she ignored all of this. She glanced over her shoulder to where Caroline, Mrs Hepworth and Prince Albert were chatting. �Well, we have a knotty situation on our hands here, don�t we?� she said to Aubrey. �That�s why poor Hollows is looking so distracted, I imagine. A week earlier in Holmland? A week extra in the worst possible place for the heir to the throne of Albion?�

�Bertie�s convinced he can do something to avert the war,� Aubrey said softly.

�And can he?� his mother asked.

Aubrey studied the Prince. Habitually serious, he was smiling in a perplexed manner at something Caroline was telling him. �He�ll certainly do his best. The Elektor will listen to him, that�s certain. But whether the Elektor will be convinced, and whether the Elektor can do anything.� He sighed. �Well, that�s another matter.�

The Prince looked in their direction and immediately rose to his feet. He crossed the floor. �Aubrey! George! I was beginning to think that you�d gone off to sample the delights of Fisherberg without me.�

He shook their hands in turn. �Your highness,� Aubrey said. �We�ve been busy.�

Prince Albert turned to Caroline, who � with her mother � had followed. �I always begin to worry when Aubrey says that. It hides a multitude of sins.�

�Sins?� Caroline offered her hand to Aubrey. �I�m not sure about sins, but in Aubrey�s hands, a polite phrase certainly becomes an tool of subterfuge.�

�Caroline. It�s good to see you, too.�

And it was. After only a short period of not seeing her, Aubrey couldn�t deny how his heart beat faster in her presence, how his eye tended to linger on her, how he was acutely aware of her words, her attitudes, her nuances, and � more importantly, perhaps � how eagerly he wanted her to think well of him.

She had had her hair done, he was sure, lifted a little higher at the back. It seemed, too, that she and her mother had stopped in Lutetia on the way over, for she was wearing a new outfit that was undeniably Gallian. A jacket and skirt ensemble of some kind, in a deep, arresting blue.

�Hello, George,� Caroline said. �I�m assuming that you and Aubrey have been involved in important matters? The symposium?�

Caroline�s artful pause spoke volumes. I want a full report on what you�ve been up to, it said, as well as a chorus of heartfelt, abject apologies for not including me.

Aubrey was prepared to comply, glad as he was to see her.

�Symposium?� George said.

�Preparations are well under way,� Aubrey cut in smoothly, promising himself to tell Caroline about the afternoon�s events as soon as possible. �Ah, Mrs Hepworth. You�re exhibiting during the symposium, aren�t you?�

Mrs Hepworth was still in her oriental phase. Her gown was long, flowing silk while she wore a headdress that shimmered like beaten bronze. She smiled and extended her hand. �And presenting a paper. �The role of the landscape in the Albion imagination.� I think they�re expecting something quite dull, so I�ll make sure to surprise them.�

Caroline rolled her eyes. �She does like making a scene. Just remember, Mother, we�re guests here.�

�Of course. And a guest�s duty is to be entertaining. At least, that�s how I see it.�

Aubrey caught the eye of the Prince. Leaving Mrs Hepworth to quiz George about Sophie Delroy, his special Gallian friend, they strolled over to an elaborate marble fireplace, where Hollows was earnestly speaking with an embassy official. Both Caroline and Lady Rose found George�s rambling responses amusing, and they were doing their best to contribute.

�Now, Bertie,� Aubrey said to the Prince, after Hollows had dismissed the official. �What�s all this about arriving a week early? Spontaneity isn�t exactly your strong suit, you know.�

�I know.� The Prince stood with his hands clasped behind his back. �Blame that on a regimented upbringing.�

�You have a busy life, your highness,� Hollows said.

�Quite,� the Prince said. �But I must apologise again, Hollows. I haven�t done this just to get you and your staff into a flap. Although I seem to have done just that.�

�I�m sure we can cope,� Hollows said and Aubrey saw that the ambassador had recovered his poise. His opinion of Hollows rose a notch.

�The early arrival wasn�t my idea,� the Prince said. �It was Leopold�s.�

�The Elektor?� Aubrey said.

�He spoke to me on the telephone. Very excited, he was. He told me it was the first time he�d ever used the device.�

�I�m sure that wasn�t what he called you about.�

�No, once he calmed down he told me that he was worried. �Frightfully concerned� was how he put it.�

�About the tension between Holmland and Albion?�

�In part. He was more anxious about the Chancellor. Wanted to know if I had any tips for dealing with a head of government.�

�Ah. Tricky stuff, that. The head of government is the embodiment of the will of the people.�

The Prince smiled. It wasn�t a cynical smile, Aubrey thought, but it was a knowing one. �Yes. And we kings and princes are simply outmoded relics of the distant past.�

�That means you have centuries of experience to draw on. And unrivalled family connections.� Aubrey stared into the distance for a moment, thinking. �The Elektor wants to talk to you.�

�He says he doesn�t trust anyone apart from his nephew Josef, who spends most of his time touring about, being patriotic, so is hardly around to talk to.�

Hollows nodded. �Duke Josef is currently visiting his cousin, the Tsar, and doing his best to keep Muscovia happy with Holmland.�

�Wise man,� Aubrey said. �So, Bertie, you wanted to spend some time with the Elektor?�

�Before the symposium, if possible. Chancellor Neumann has Leopold at centre stage as often as he can next week. Full pomp and regalia.�

�And how is the Security Intelligence Directorate feeling about this?� Aubrey asked Hollows.

�The...?� Hollows snorted. �Ah, the cloak and dagger squad? Forgive me, your highness.�

�No need, Hollows. Craddock and Tallis are good men, but they do seem to enjoy the clandestine world, rather.�

�They sent a crack team with the Prince,� Hollows said. �Fifty men and women commanded by a colonel. My head of household is having a heart attack trying to quarter all of them.�

�A dozen of the operatives are specialist magicians,� the Prince said. �They appear to be ready for anything, Aubrey, but I do feel happier with you around.�

Aubrey was touched by the Prince�s confidence. He didn�t imagine many failed assassins were welcomed into the royal inner circle. �You can count on me. And George.�

�Of course.�

�And Miss Hepworth,� Hollows added slowly, �since Tallis let me know she�s still on special detachment.�

Aubrey hadn�t been sure about that, but decided that Tallis�s team would be better off for it.

Another embassy official entered the room and made directly for Hollows, who saw him coming, apologised, met him halfway, had a brief, intense conversation, and then returned looking relieved. �Dinner is ready,� he announced and Aubrey had an immediate appreciation of the difficulties of the ambassador�s job. Day-to-day diplomacy was one thing, but he also had to organise a complete little world within the walls of the embassy � including such mundane matters as feeding unexpected guests.

Hollows ushered them to the grand dining room and Aubrey was impressed once again. The tables, the table settings, the flower arrangements and the hordes of waiting serving staff looked as if they had been organised months ago.

Over the course of the evening, Lady Rose and Ophelia Hepworth exchanged scandalous stories that shocked George and brought wry smiles of recognition to the faces of the ambassador and the Prince. Aubrey did his best to keep up with Caroline as she wove in and out of the conversations that flowed around the table. He�d always fancied himself as a dab hand at chat, but Caroline ran rings around him this evening. Not that he minded. Having her running rings around him was a vision that filled many of his daydreams, if truth be told.

When the dinner broke up, amid much laughter at the conclusion of a George story about matching wits with his journalistic nemesis at college, Aubrey was taken aback when he caught the time on the clock over the fireplace. It was much later than he thought.

�I�ll walk you home,� he said to Caroline and Mrs Hepworth.

�Thank you, dear boy,� Mrs Hepworth said, �but I�m sure we don�t need an escort on such a brief journey.�

Caroline caught her lower lip with her teeth, then raised an eyebrow at him. �I�d appreciate it, Aubrey. Thank you.�

When Mrs Hepworth rolled her eyes, Aubrey saw where her daughter got that gesture from. �You are a contrarian by nature, Caroline. I�m sure that if I�d agreed to Aubrey�s request, you would have insisted he stay here.�

�No I wouldn�t,� Caroline said, and that was enough for more laughter, a delicately smothered yawn from Lady Rose, a wistful look at the empty chocolate platter from George and for the ambassador to guide them downstairs to the door.

�The gate is guarded all night,� he said to Aubrey after farewelling the Hepworths. �You�ll be let in.�

Nearly midnight, but the streets gave no sign of being desolate. They were well illuminated by bright gaslight and many Fisherbergians were strolling along the pavements. Cabs were doing good business, both horse-drawn and motor.

Aubrey was glad that the city architects and town planners of Fisherberg worked on generous proportions. The streets were wide, the pavements substantial, the way well lit. This meant that he could walk alongside Caroline instead of having to trail behind the Hepworths like some sort of flunky. He did, the three of them walking side by side for some time. They told him about their earlier times in the city, the places they�d enjoyed, the delights it had to offer.

Then Mrs Hepworth quickened her pace a little, striding ahead a dozen or so steps, just at a time when Caroline slowed. Aubrey, of course, matched her pace.

�Mother is discreet,� Caroline said softly. �I didn�t even have to ask her.�

�I beg your pardon?� Aubrey said, confused.

�She knew I�d want to find out what you�ve been up to since leaving Albion. She�s giving us a chance.�

Aubrey admired Caroline�s mother, and was thankful for her modern outlook. As well as being an outstanding artist, she was a famous free-thinker, one of the most progressive women in Albion. Her views on raising her daughter were generally thought of as scandalous, but she never cared for public opinion.

And, Aubrey had found, she treated him well � better than he probably deserved.

�Right,� he said. �We started on a train.�

Aubrey was conscious of Mrs Hepworth leading the way, not far ahead, and he kept the report as concise as possible. Caroline was shocked when he told her of Manfred�s reappearance, and she gasped when he described his plummet from the train. She wrinkled her immaculate brow at the details of the brigand encounter, but the near-fatal raft trip through the gorge only made her smile.

�It wasn�t funny,� he said stiffly. �Not at the time.�

�It�s not that.� Without looking at him, she patted him on the arm.

His heart was butter, and melted. �What is it then?�

�I was wondering why you didn�t burst through a wall of flame, right at the end.�

�You�ve lost me, I�m afraid.�

She ticked items off on her fingers. Aubrey had always loved her hands. Elegant, dextrous, beautiful. �You fell through the air, went into the bowels of the earth, then careered through water. Of the four elements, only fire was left. It was unlike you not to complete the set.� She smiled a little. �Not all that funny, really.�

Maybe not, he thought, but I�ll listen to you for as long as you�ll let me. �Clever, though.�

�Don�t be patronising,� she said, but grinned. �I�ve warned you about that before.�

�Sorry. You�re the last person I want to be patronising to.�

She held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. She began walking a little faster. Aubrey kept up and soon they were alongside Mrs Hepworth again. �And tomorrow, Aubrey,� Caroline said, �are you free? I have some unfinished matters.�

�Unfinished matters?� Aubrey repeated, despite his intentions never to parrot her. Instead of listening, he�d been looking at how the light from the gaslamps caught her eyes, conscious of a special moment having passed. �Ah, yes. Of course. Happy to help.�

�I hope you�ve made some progress in this area already.�

�Certainly, certainly. We�ve been talking to ghost hunters.�

Caroline gave him a look that promised serious consequences if he didn�t fully explain this when they were alone. �That�s good.�

�Ghost hunters?� Mrs Hepworth said. �I thought they�d vanished years ago. What are you after them for, dear boy?�

�Research,� he said, grasping for an explanation that was true without going anywhere near the heart of the matter.

�Research,� she echoed. �How Lionel loved his research.�

She put a hand to her lips and Aubrey desperately sought for something to change the topic away from the late Professor Hepworth. �And this friend that you�re staying with,� he said to Mrs Hepworth as they waited for an omnibus to roll past before they crossed the road. �You�ve known him for a long time?�

�The baron? Absolutely ages. He spent some time in Albion years ago.�

�Well travelled, is he?� Aubrey asked, unable to stop himself from accumulating information. One never knew what would prove useful. Of course, sometimes it was a fine line between subtle intelligence-gathering and outright inquisitiveness...

�He�s a man of the world. Rather too much of it, sometimes.�

�He�s a businessman,� Caroline said. �Extraordinarily rich.�

�It�s a pity,� Mrs Hepworth said. �He was a fine sculptor in his youth.�

The street began to trend upward. �Businessman.� Aubrey�s curiosity gave him another nudge. �What sort of business?�

Mrs Hepworth laughed. �When you�re as rich as Siegfried, your business is just about everything. That�s why every Holmland government in the last thirty years has wanted him in their inner circle. He�s had enough of that sort of thing, apparently. Retired from the world of politics.�

Alarm bells started ringing so loud in Aubrey�s mind that he actually looked around for their source. �He�s a politician, too?�

�Anyone who�s anyone in Holmland is either involved in politics, or wishes they were.�

�Just like Albion, really,� Caroline said, but for once Aubrey let this impish jibe slide right by.

�This baron of yours...�

Another laugh. �He�s hardly mine, dear boy. Although, at one time � before I met your father, darling � we were close. Ah, here we are.�

It wasn�t the largest castle Aubrey had ever seen, but as a private residence it was definitely remarkable. Sited on the top of the hill and surrounded by a massive wall, it loomed over the Empire Gardens and the Istros River like a citadel.

�It�s more comfortable than it looks,� Mrs Hepworth said. �Siegfried�s given Caroline and I the east wing. He is most generous.�

Aubrey stared at the two square towers, the hundreds of windows. �Siegfried is your baron.�

�Of course. Siggy is Baron von Grolman.�

Aubrey contained his shock by the novel method of imitating a stunned goldfish.

The Hepworths were staying with Hugo von Stralick�s mysterious mentor.

Twenty-one

The next morning, early, Aubrey and George stood in front of Baron von Grolman�s residence. In the daylight the edifice was even more impressive. Once, Aubrey thought, it must have dominated the whole area, squatting on top of the hill like a great beast. Even though housing had swallowed up most of the approaches to the castle, it was still the most prominent building in the area, almost a suburb in itself, tucked behind its thick stone walls. Aubrey imagined it having its own postal service, its own police force.

A bell at the gate was connected to a cunning speaking tube which Aubrey sensed, with interest, was magically enhanced. After being admitted, they set off toward the distant buildings. Crunching along well-kept, perfectly clean gravel, he kept wondering about the careless show of wealth behind the speaking tube. It was good, discreet magic � and that was costly. The Law of Attenuation, inverted? Or a novel application of the Law of Similarity? Mulling over the possibilities kept him busy during their trek along the driveway.

After mounting the broad stone steps, they were met at the front door by an officious fellow, somewhat more than a butler, somewhat less than a chamberlain. He looked down his impressive nose at them while they explained they�d arrived to meet Caroline Hepworth. He made them wait in the daunting entrance hall for an uncomfortable time, probably from some sense of necessity. It gave Aubrey and George a chance to become acquainted with each of the six suits of armour standing in the hall, and also to find out how uncomfortable antique Holmland furniture could be.

Eventually, Caroline appeared from one of the arched doors that opened off the entrance hall. �Aubrey, George. The baron wants to see you.�

She looked fresh and excited. Aubrey knew it was the prospect of a day�s adventuring that invigorated her and, wistfully, he longed for her to feel that way about him. On the other hand, he was willing to settle for hoping that his presence didn�t actually detract from her good spirits.

�The baron? He�s in?�

�I didn�t realise it, but he arrived late last night,� Caroline said. �He�s invited you to breakfast, with mother and me. And his guests.�

�Guests?� Aubrey said. He straightened his jacket.

Caroline did her best to hide a smile. Aubrey found the effort fascinating. �You�ll see.�

Twenty-two

Aubrey excused himself from the breakfast as soon as he politely could. It caused an exodus. Kiefer hurried off, saying he had still much research to attend to. Von Stralick watched his cousin go, thoughtfully, and then made his excuses as well. Aubrey wondered if von Stralick was having some pangs over his mentoring role for the young magician. It looked as if it was proving harder than he�d expected, with Kiefer�s changes of mood. The young man was driven, there was no doubt about that, but Aubrey wondered if revenge or ambition were proving the stronger motivation.

Caroline was keen to go as well, but George looked mournfully at his plate before joining his friends.

Aubrey promised himself he�d treat his friend to a fine meal � when they had time.

Back at the embassy, Aubrey accosted the first official he saw. �Where�s the Prince?�

The man gaped. �The Prince?�

Aubrey saw Quentin Hollows descending the stairs. �Never mind. Hollows, where�s the Prince? He�s in danger.�

Hollows looked alarmed. �He�s gone to visit the Elektor. I say, what�s going on?�

�He�s taken his bodyguard?�

�Only a pair of them. He�s visiting the Elektor, after all.�

Aubrey grimaced. The last place you�d expect an incident is exactly the best place for someone to plan one. �Send a squad around to the Elektor�s palace straight away. Is a motorcar ready?�

�Of course.�

�Good. Can you telephone ahead? Let them know to expect us?�

�I can.� Hollows frowned. �Can�t you tell me what�s going on?�

�Remember the attempt on the Prince�s life? The one we were sure wasn�t going to happen? It looks as if it could be under way.�

The motorcar trip was rapid and probably illegal, thanks to George�s sitting in the front seat next to the driver and brandishing a gold ten-mark piece whenever he slowed down.

At the palace, a troop of Imperial Household Guards was waiting for them. George put his arm over the back of the seat. �Not quite the welcome we were expecting, old man?�

�Not quite. But let�s see.�

The officer in charge clicked his heels, but Aubrey noticed how he kept his hand on his sabre. Even though the uniform was laden with gilt and crimson, the sabre looked rather more than ceremonial. �Mr Fitzwilliam?� the officer said in passable Albionish. �You will come with us, if you please. And your friends.�

�Sorry, but we must see the Elektor. Or Prince Albert.�

�You will come with us,� the officer repeated and it was clear that the invitation had moved from a request to a demand.

Aubrey sighed and touched the Beccaria Cage. �If you wish.�

They were taken to an office. It had been renovated reasonably recently, but its origins as a room in the original baroque palace were clear in the remaining cornices, where cherubs peered down at them from among plaster clouds and sunbeams.

A beefy man was looking out the window, over the parade grounds. �The new Werner lorries have arrived,� he said without turning. �The best in the world, you know.�

His Albionish was harsh, but fluent. He was wearing a dark suit of conservative cut. When he turned, the first thing that Aubrey saw was the truly impressive set of mutton-chops that swelled down his cheeks to reach the corners of his mouth, as if two skinny cats were lounging about on his face.

His head was mostly bald, which made his broad brow seem even broader. The whole effect was a man who was top heavy, especially since he was tall and large framed.

�Chancellor Neumann?� Aubrey said.

The chancellor frowned, then nodded. �You must be Fitzwilliam. You have the look of your mother about you.� He studied Aubrey for a moment. �And your father.� He bowed to Caroline. �Miss Hepworth. I welcome you and your mother back to Holmland.�

�Your Excellency.�

�And Doyle.�

�Sir,� George said, startled to be recognised.

Chancellor Neumann studied them for a time in a silence that soon became uncomfortable. He didn�t scowl � not quite � but Aubrey saw him committing them to memory. Eventually, he waved a hand � an impatient, peremptory gesture. �What is it you want?�

Aubrey glanced at his friends. They couldn�t trust the Chancellor, but could they save the Prince without trusting him?

It was time for subterfuge.

�The Prince�s medication,� Aubrey said. �He left the embassy without it.�

The Chancellor�s impressive eyebrows shot up. �Medication? For the Prince? I have heard nothing about this.�

�Oh.� Aubrey did his best to look torn. �It was meant to be a secret.�

Caroline came to his side. �You can�t keep it hidden, Aubrey. Not now. He could die.�

The Chancellor�s eyes narrowed very slightly, while he shook his head with evident concern. Aubrey knew then that the trick had worked. The Chancellor was filing this titbit of information away. Prince Albert unwell? Needing life-preserving medication? Useful. �You have it with you?�

Aubrey touched his appurtenances vest and was rewarded with the satisfying �clink� from a tiny bottle of ink he�d stowed earlier. �Right here.�

The Chancellor held out his hand. �I will take it to him.�

That wasn�t the result Aubrey was after. He froze with his hand on his chest. �I...�

The door opened. The Chancellor stiffened. �Your highness.�

A young man stood in the doorway, and Aubrey was startled at the family resemblance to Bertie. He was tall, slim, dark haired, dark eyes, with a razor-sharp moustache. He was younger than Aubrey had thought, too, lucky to be thirty. He wore the dark blue uniform of the Holmland navy.

�Neumann,� the Elektor said, his expression open and curious. �Who are these people?�

The Chancellor worked his jaw. It was apparent to Aubrey that the last thing he wanted to do was make introductions, but he had no choice. �Your highness, this is Miss Hepworth, Mr Fitzwilliam, and Mr Doyle.�

The Elektor brightened. �Fitzwilliam? Aubrey Fitzwilliam, the Albion Prime Minister�s son? Bertie has told me so much about you!�

Aubrey seized the opportunity so hard that he was in danger of throttling it. �It�s Prince Albert, sir. He�s unwell. I have to get his special medicine to him straight away.�

�Bertie is here?� The Elektor frowned. �You didn�t tell me this, Neumann.�

What is going on here? Aubrey thought. The ambassador said Bertie had gone to see the Elektor!

�He hasn�t been here long, your highness. I was about to inform you.�

The Elektor clicked his tongue with exasperation. �And where is he, then? Quickly, man!�

The Chancellor hesitated for only an instant, but Aubrey knew calculation when he saw it. The Chancellor was sorting through possible answers before arriving at one that he was obviously unhappy with. �The Prince is in your laboratory. He asked to see it.�

�This way,� the Elektor said to Aubrey.

A strangled noise came from the Chancellor. Aubrey was startled to see that he was sweating, a fine sheen appearing on his forehead. �I don�t think that�s wise, your highness. We have word that an intruder is loose in the palace.�

�An intruder? Why wasn�t I told?�

�The matter has just come to light, your highness.�

�I will take guards.�

The Chancellor stood rigidly, his jaw clenched tightly. �I will go, your highness. It may not be safe.�

�Not safe in my own palace with my own guards? Nonsense! I will find Bertie while you organise the search for this intruder. Now, quickly Fitzwilliam!�

Twenty-three

Aubrey spent the rest of the morning with an abiding sense of relief. While the Prince had a battle on his hands to convince Quentin Hollows that he was all right and that he shouldn�t be heading straight back to Albion, Aubrey was able to stay in the background and be thankful that he�d managed to thwart Dr Tremaine�s plans. He shuddered whenever he thought of what strife would have followed if the rogue magician had been successful in placing a puppet on the throne of Albion.

Aubrey, Caroline and George were interviewed by both the ambassador and Major Vincent, which gave Aubrey time in his room, alone, to reflect on the affair. Stretched out on his bed, he turned over the stones of the day�s happenings to see what crawled out.

It was clear that Dr Tremaine had access to the highest places in Holmland. His position as the special adviser to the Chancellor ensured that. He could easily have slipped into the laboratory and set events in motion.

But what about Baron von Grolman? Was the golemmaking machine really a product of his company? But why, then, would he divulge Dr Tremaine�s plot to Aubrey?

And what about the Chancellor? At first, Aubrey had thought that the Prince was the target, but with the Chancellor�s background there was no doubt he was shooting to destroy the golem maker. His story about an intruder, too, must have been a ruse to hide his involvement in the scheme.

Aubrey decided it was time to revise his reading of the situation. The Chancellor was proving to be remarkably bold in moving against Prince Albert � in the Elektor�s palace, too, of all places. That sort of arrogance was a worrying sign with the prospect of imminent war.

Aubrey rubbed his forehead. He could feel a headache coming on, and he had a ghost to catch. It wasn�t a good combination.

Twenty-four

The basement was on the eastern side of the house where the floor had given way, leaving it open to the sky. Aubrey crept gingerly around the gap, looking down, and he could see the remains of stone walls and pillars. He counted three arched openings that dived into the blackness beyond and he studied them grimly.

The others were busy with Fromm and Madame Zelinka. He felt a pang, for he did appreciate having George�s steadiness with him in a tricky situation. And, all things said and done, he would rather be with Caroline than not.

Even though he hadn�t truly extended his magical awareness, he could feel the power pouring from below. It pulsed irregularly, raw and chaotic, and it set his teeth on edge. The fate of poor Merikanto was testimony to its power; Aubrey didn�t want to put Caroline and George in such danger.

He, on the other hand, was feeling prepared. The Beccaria Cage was a wonderful asset in any soul-risking situation. After a shaky start, it had proved its worth. Since he�d freed it from Dr Tremaine�s influence, he�d suffered none of his accustomed debilitation from his disrupted soul. He�d had no episodes requiring expenditure of will and effort to keep his soul united with his body, efforts that, in the past, had left him sapped of energy.

It was what he�d been striving for ever since his stupid experiment with death magic. Whole, united, much as people were meant to be � and feeling strong enough to risk it against rogue magic that was capable of shattering souls into fragments.

Foolhardy? Reckless? Imprudent? He shook his head and spied a stairway leading downward. He approached it with care.

He knew he had to test himself. He couldn�t sit at home, avoiding all danger. He had to know his capabilities, for he had plans. His future depended on knowing how much he could achieve and how far he could extend himself.

The stairs hadn�t been damaged by the fire. Cracked by falling beams, they were treacherous but not impossible. Aubrey started down, leaning into the buffets of magic coming from the depths.

He heard someone above, calling his name, but he needed to concentrate in the swirls of magic. He ignored it and pressed on.

The basement was a wasteland, the place where most of the house ended up after the fire. The debris would take an army to clear, but Aubrey thought he could see a way through. Keeping close to the wall, he squeezed between fallen beams and splintered, charred flooring, moving with delicate care over broken furniture, window frames, and � most painfully for Aubrey � the scorched, ruined corpses of hundreds of books. Aubrey hated to see books mistreated, and the loss of whatever library Dr Tremaine had assembled hurt him deeply.

He tested each footfall before committing, never resting his weight against anything other than the stone wall, and ignoring the way his heart hammered as he approached the arched openings.

Then the wooden floor gave way beneath him.

Aubrey flung out his arms, clutching for a handhold, but found nothing. He fell, and did his best to twist and protect his head. Before he could utter a sound he struck the floor shoulder first, and he went tumbling, skinning the heel of his hands on rough stone.

For a moment, half-stunned, he sprawled there, doing his best to remember how to breathe while raw, wild magic rolled over him like storm-driven breakers.

He flinched, grunting as the jumbled, chaotic confusion of magic pounded him. It was like being pelted with wads of clay � as long as the clay was imbued with colours (reds, browns and something that was a nauseating off-white) and smells (a dizzying mash of industrial smells and the sickening, cloying smell of boiling sugar mixed up with faint hints of things barely smelled � glass, stone, snow).

He closed his eyes and tried to make sense of the shifting mess of magic, but the rawness played havoc with his magical senses. It grated on him, and he immediately had a headache the size of a football.

Grimly, Aubrey sifted through this torrent of sensation, looking for its origin. He wasn�t surprised when he found, at the core of it, a trace of tightly constructed magic that could only be the work of Dr Tremaine.

He grunted as a shift in the welter of magic made him dizzy for a moment, then he concentrated on examining the remnants of Tremaine�s spellcraft.

Clearly, it was an experimental spell gone wrong, and was probably what had brought the house down. Aubrey probed a little more, tasting the elements of the spell, and was sure that the spell had something to do with the making of golems.

A step toward the sort of improved golem that could replace a prince? Aubrey thought.

He gritted his teeth. Raising himself on all fours, he ignored the pain from his skinned hands, and he opened his eyes.

The real world came rushing back in. He could see the rough stone flags, the cracks between them filled with a combination of ash and dirt. The sharp tang of scorched wood rasped at his nose. His own breathing was loud and hoarse.

He was glad he hadn�t asked Caroline and George to come with him.

He couldn�t stay where he was. Still on all fours, he closed his eyes for a moment and regretted it. Colours swirled in his mouth and his ears were filled with a startling peppermint sensation that made him flinch. The pounding in his head redoubled.

It was enough to get him moving. He braced himself, then climbed to his feet. He swayed there for a moment as he took in his surroundings.

The ceiling of the sub-basement � the floor of the upper basement above � wasn�t far overhead. He wouldn�t have been able to stand upright when this sub-basement was new � and Aubrey was grateful. It had meant his plunge had been painful but not fatal. The walls were roughly finished stone, as was the floor and the rudimentary slabs for stairs. The entire effect was of age and crudity, as if the place had been constructed by primitives.

The notion made Aubrey shiver. How long had it been here? What magics had been practised here over the centuries? And when had a young Mordecai Tremaine found the place?

Light coming from the Aubrey-shaped hole above showed that the basement was cluttered with rubbish � papers, reagent bottles, lengths of copper wire � the detritus of magical experimentation. On the floor, he wasn�t surprised to see the blurry chalk outlines of restraining diagrams, dozens of them.

After taking this in, Aubrey steeled himself, closed his eyes and turned in a circle, trying to locate the source of the magical eruption. The walls on all sides fairly radiated unformed magic, the leftover residue splattered the same way a maniac cook would splatter a cake batter if he beat it too fast.

He hissed, and staggered, putting a hand to his chest where he felt the comforting shape of the Beccaria Cage. He grunted at the impact and opened his eyes, searching in the gloom. There, by the stairs, was the concentration of magic that he�d been looking for.

He took a step closer, then stopped himself. Keeping a distance seemed like a good idea, at least until he�d discovered what he could.

Which I�d do if I�d remembered to bring a lantern, he thought. He glanced up. The light coming from above was enough

to make really good shadows, but that was about all. If he took more than a few steps, he�d be swallowed by darkness.

Aubrey crouched and swept around, looking for something to help. Wood shavings and scraps of paper, some of which he stuffed in his vest for later scrutiny, were good fuel sources, but � of all the things � he�d forgotten to stow matches, even though he�d brought two candle stubs along.

He bit his lip, feeling the malignant beating of the magical residue. The Beccaria Cage on his chest began to feel warm and he swallowed. The magic was testing the strength of his bond between body and soul; the cage was responding.

He shifted his weight and something tinkled. He cocked his head and saw his boot had disturbed some broken glass, the remains of a bottle, to judge from the tattered label.

At that moment, Aubrey had an odd, familiar sensation. It was as if he were moving out of himself. His body continued to function � he picked up a piece of the broken bottle, held it up, admired the clarity of the glass � while his mind was bounding ahead like a hound that had caught wind of an exceptionally desirable fox.

Glass. Focus, he thought . Lens. Concentration.

He turned the glass over in his hands. It was a sizeable chunk, most of one side of the bottle. It was first rate, too, not wavy, very few bubbles. For moment he wondered what Dr Tremaine had kept in it, then his mind caught wind of the fox again.

Light. Heat. Law of Intensification.

He held the glass up to the light and turned it, first concave, then convex. Peering through it, he saw his hand as larger. Only slightly, but it was enough for him to smile.

He�d caught his fox.

He scrabbled for one of the candle stubs in his vest. Clutching it in his left hand, he held the glass shard between it and the light. Then he raced through a spell to intensify the light coming through the glass, magnifying it � and magnifying the heat.

A bright spot landed on the floor. Aubrey adjusted, moving the glass until the spot fell on the candle wick. In seconds, the wick began to smoke. He grinned, held the glass steady, and the wick sprang into flame.

Pleased with himself, Aubrey slipped the glass shard into one of the reinforced vest pockets and held up the candle. One little light dispels all the dark, he thought and realised he had a metaphor on his hands as well as dripping wax � but no time to ponder it.

Armed with light, he advanced into the face of the magical outpouring.

At first, he was surprised that the candle didn�t flicker and he had to remind himself that the disturbance he felt was magical, not physical. It was only apparent to magical senses, not impinging on the physical world.

Not yet, he reminded himself.

�Aubrey?�

George�s voice came from above and Aubrey stopped in his tracks. �Stay where you are.�

�Need any help, old man?�

It was a well-meant question, but Aubrey didn�t need the sort of help that George could provide. A crack team of specialist magicians, trained in dealing with high-intensity magical residue, would be more than useful, but he doubted that George had such a thing in his back pocket.

�Not at the moment,� he managed to reply without looking around. �But if you back away a little, and stay handy, I�ll make sure to call if I need you.�

�Ah. You�re messing about with magic again.�

�Not for long.�

�How long?�

�Just long enough to stop it from destroying us all.�

A pause.

�Right. I�ll let you get on with it, then.�

�Capital idea.�

Aubrey was pleased that the light was steady. It meant that the candle was burning well and unlikely to go out, and it also meant that his hands weren�t shaking.

It was the curse of having too much imagination and too much knowledge. He knew enough about wild magic to understand what it was capable of, and his imagination was quite happy to race ahead and supply all sorts of details about messy transmogrifications, arbitrary changes and long, lingering, painful deaths.

If he were alone, it may have been different, but in the immediate vicinity were two people he cared for, and three others he wouldn�t wish ill on.

Steady-handed, he advanced in the face of the howling magical storm.

When the candle light fell on the wall, his ordinary sense of sight told him a patch of moss or lichen was growing there. A dark, unhealthy green-grey, it was an irregular shape splashed on the stone, about as large as a dining table. If he hadn�t the evidence of his magical senses he would have ignored it and kept searching for the source of the magical disturbance.

And the way it ripples is a bit of a giveaway, too, he thought and rehearsed his method of attack.

When Aubrey had been able to disrupt Dr Tremaine�s spell casting under Trinovant, the rogue magician had abandoned his scheme but had left the magical flame running amok, out of control, more dangerous than ever. Aubrey�s experiences with magical suppression devices, and the parlous situation of his friends, trapped close to the runaway flame, had sharpened his mind wonderfully, to the extent that he was able to craft a spell under great duress, a spell that achieved the same end as magical suppression devices � it quelled and negated the magical flame, snuffing it out completely.

So he inspected the residue with as much coolness as he could summon, glad for the hand-steadying, gut-settling confidence that comes from having done something before.

He leaned forward, slowly. Close up, he decided, it didn�t look so frightening. Even when he closed his eyes, the tumult that assailed him was rather less disconcerting now that he knew that it emanated from something that looked as if it would be at home in an unsanitary bathroom.

Time to clean you up. A faint, dissenting thought flitted through his mind, something about famous last words, but he ignored it.

He�d been rehearsing the quelling spell as he approached, recalling it and taking the opportunity to polish some of the roughness, the understandable awkward phrasing that had come from trying to formulate an intricate spell while bound by copper wire to a possibly living mechanical construction in the face of a magical flame that was threatening to wipe out the largest city in the world.

He tightened the elements for distance and duration, estimating the area of effect by eye. He rearranged the order of the elements that controlled the negation, the anti-magic heart of the spell, to speed up its efficacy. No sense in letting it rampage any longer than it needed to.

He rolled the long, complex string of elements backward and forward, settling them in his mind, ready to go. He adjusted his stance, squarely facing the belligerent patch of dross. Then he gathered himself and began.

The spell came to him as easily as a well-rehearsed speech on opening night, each element falling into place with the sort of solid certainty that was the mark of a well-crafted piece of magic. He was pleased. His focus, his concentration was absolute � the rest of the world had gone away. He was in the realm of magic, shaping and wielding the power that humanity had struggled with since time immemorial. It was the Great Test, taking the mystical energy that arose from the interaction of human consciousness with the universe itself and using language to control and direct it.

He was doing magic.

A smile came to his lips as, only a third of the way through the spell, the patch of residue quivered, as if struck. He kept his focus, working on the Principle of Negation, taking the magic, appraising it, and applying the equal and opposite to make it disappear.

About halfway through the spell, however, he wished he could spare the effort to wipe his brow. He�d begun to sweat. Things weren�t going as smoothly any more.

The problem was the shifting nature of the residue. The unpredictable coming together of many cast-off spell fragments had created something that was so raw that it defied categorising. Aubrey was finding it hard to pin down, to construct the precise opposite needed to negate it. The residue was a many-headed beast, a hydra made of slippery magic. When he�d clamped down on one aspect of it, another oozed out on the other side, malignant and ready to do mischief.

But he�d coped with this sort of thing before, he reassured himself. The flame under Trinovant had been much larger and much more menacing. This was puny in comparison.

It had, however, been strong enough to shatter souls across Fisherberg.

Aubrey gritted his teeth and ploughed on. He spat out the elements one after the other and was grimly satisfied to see that the residue was losing its shape and colour. And was it smaller?

Shortly, he was certain that was the case. The residue was shrinking. While he continued chanting, it contracted unevenly, a jelly having scoops taken out of its edges, definitely growing smaller. No longer the size of a dining table, it had shrunk to the size of a sideboard. Even as he watched, it dwindled until it was only as large as a hall table, but before he could compare its diminishing with any other items of household furniture it shrank quickly, drawing in on itself until it was a fist-sized circle just as he finished with his signature element on the spell.

Then, in a desperate last effort, it lashed at him.

A solid extrusion jumped from the remains of the residue, an arm as thick as a tree trunk. It struck Aubrey in the chest, hard, with a blow that was both magical and physical.

Dimly, he felt himself toppling backward. Then it was a numb, painful, cracking sensation that was probably the back of his head � but it was distant and almost unimportant. Most of his being was taken up, absorbed, by an assault on his senses.

The world was a whirlwind of experience where colours, aromas, textures, sounds and flavours were shredded, combined, recombined, layered and mixed together in a chaos that defied shape and meaning. He was being twisted, contorted, disassembled, remade.

Some time passed before he understood that his eyes were open, and that he was looking up at the charred and splintered ceiling of the sub-basement.

I�ve fallen over, he thought. His head throbbed. His chest hurt.

Hands on his shoulders. They weren�t his, he decided, because he could see his in his lap as he was propped up.

Bone grated in his chest and he hissed, mumbling a smothered oath.

�Broken ribs?� George said brightly.

Aubrey nodded, which was a bad idea. He swore again, which was marginally better.

�Take your jacket off,� Caroline snapped.

He considered this. �Can�t.�

�I see.� She came into his vision. She was holding her mother-of-pearl-handled knife. �Don�t move,� she said unnecessarily.

She disappeared. He felt a tugging from behind. It hurt, but not too badly.

�Lean forward,� Caroline�s voice said. He couldn�t see her and it took a few seconds to realise that she was doing something. Something to his jacket?

He leaned. This time, it hurt. His jacket separated and fell apart into his lap. He considered protesting about the damage, but decided to save his energy. And his protesting. He might need it later.

More tugging. His necktie fell and joined his suit remnants in his lap. He pondered it philosophically. He didn�t like mulberry anyway.

The sound of rending cloth came to him from somewhere nearby. His shirt became two half shirts. �Tear it into strips, George,� Caroline said. She scrooched around and put her face close to Aubrey�s. He tried to smile, but his mouth was wobbly. �We�re going to strap those ribs,� she said. �They�ll still hurt but we�ll be able to get you out of here. You�ll have to take off that vest, too.� Then she stared, wide-eyed, at his chest. �What happened to your cage thingy?�

Aubrey looked down. The action made him grind his teeth but what he saw nearly made him forget about it.

The Beccaria Cage was gone. Only a vivid red mark on his chest showed where it had been.

Twenty-five

The embassy had a fine doctor on staff, and she had a medical magician on call. Together they patched up Aubrey so that his ribs were merely painful instead of a knife in the side. While they worked, Aubrey swooped between exhilaration and a stubborn unwillingness to believe that his body and soul were actually reunited.

In between his mood extremes, he found time to appreciate the irony � that he could be a beneficiary of Dr Tremaine�s carelessness in cleaning up after himself. He would have laughed if not for his sore ribs.

Caroline and George were waiting for him outside the infirmary. Caroline was tapping her foot. �Well?�

�They took good care of me. No lasting damage.�

�That�s not what we�re talking about, old man,� George said.

�Indeed,� Caroline said. �We�re not oblivious, you know. We saw that something happened in that basement.�

�Something more than cracked ribs.� George studied Aubrey�s face. �You�re looking surprisingly well.�

�That�s a good way of putting it.� Aubrey rubbed his chin. �I think I�m cured.�

Caroline gasped, then she smiled, tentatively, and Aubrey forgot any lingering pain. She reached out a hand, then seemed to remember herself and withdrew it. Disappointed, Aubrey consoled himself with hoping that she was holding her hands together as the only way of stopping herself from reaching out again.

�You�re sure?� she asked, with the slightest catch in her voice. To Aubrey�s delight, she put her hand to her throat and repeated herself. �You�re sure?�

�The Beccaria Cage has disappeared. I think I�ve absorbed it.�

�What?� George stared. �When did this happen?�

�Dr Tremaine�s residue. Just before it disappeared it lashed out at me. It broke some ribs, but it also affected the Beccaria Cage.� He grinned. �Random magic sometimes has good outcomes as well as bad.�

�This cage contraption is still working?� George said. �Protecting you, I mean.�

�My body and soul are bound together as strongly as ever.�

�And this is enduring?� Caroline asked. She looked hesitant, as if unwilling to believe what Aubrey was saying. Not sceptical, but simply unable to trust herself to be pleased.

�Every indication is that it�s particularly stable. I�m confident.�

George grinned. �That�s good enough for me, old man. I�m convinced. At least, until the next disaster.�

Caroline nodded. She was standing straighter, Aubrey noticed, more restrained. �That�s excellent,� she said briskly. �Your condition has been a concern for some time.�

�Your concern?�

Her lips twitched, just a little. � A concern. An issue. Something affecting our tasks. It�s much better that you�ve improved.�

�Much better? In a completely impersonal, objective sense?�

There, he thought . That was a smile. A knowing smile.

�Of course.�

Twenty-six

The next day, Von Stralick was waiting for them in front of the Western Hospital, a grand brick building that took up a whole block in Barnstadt, a busy commercial part of Fisherberg. �Hello, everyone,� he said as he tucked his newspaper under his arm. �I had intended to bring Otto along to help you with any magic, Fitzwilliam, but the scamp insisted that his preparation for his symposium paper was at a crucial stage.�

�What happened to his obsession with Dr Tremaine?� George asked.

�I asked him the very same thing. He simply scowled at me, so I assume that he hasn�t forgotten.�

�I should hope not.� Aubrey studied the entrance of the hospital. �Now, remember that you�re all medical students. Take notes, look serious, nod at whatever the real doctors say.�

�I brought a stethoscope.� George pulled it out of a jacket pocket. �Pilfered it from the embassy infirmary.�

�I have one also,� von Stralick said. �I know someone who works for a surgeon.�

Aubrey was grateful he wouldn�t be carrying the single most clich�d item of medical equipment. He caught Caroline�s eye. She was stifling a grin. �Caroline and I will have to do without, it seems.�

�I�m sure we could scout up a pair, old man,� George offered.

�We�ll content ourselves with looking knowledgeable and full of anatomical learning,� Caroline said.

�Exactly,� Aubrey said.

Twenty-seven

That afternoon, Aubrey emerged from his meeting with the ambassador to greet Caroline and George. �The pearl is in the embassy safe and we�ll be able to take it back to Albion once this symposium is over. Hollows is already in communication with the Security Intelligence Directorate to let them know what�s happened.�

Caroline was standing at the window, gazing out at the passing traffic. Her face was thoughtful. �And Dr Tremaine will face trial?�

�Certainly.� Aubrey had worked through his fatigue. Now he was feeling satisfied and found it difficult to keep from smiling. Triumph on triumph, success on success. How could Caroline not be impressed? �Craddock�s people will work on keeping him powerless until his time in court. Magical suppressors should hold him, I expect.�

�What about Sylvia?� George said gruffly. He was sitting in an armchair, lingering over a large slice of layered apple and almond pastry.

�I don�t think there are any charges against her. On her release she�ll be free to return to Holmland, or stay in Albion, whatever she likes.�

George dusted some crumbs from his lapels. �Could you really have used her as a lure?�

Aubrey dropped into a seat opposite George. �I thought I could.� He poured himself a cup of tea. �You know, become all callous and calculating, greatest good for the greatest number, ends justify the needs, all sort of rationalisations like that.�

�I wanted to.� Caroline joined them but declined George�s offer of tea. �I wanted to take Tremaine, but not like that.�

�I thought you were determined to use her,� Aubrey said.

�And I thought you were.�

�Von Stralick was happy to do it,� George said. �And Kiefer would have been, too, if he�d have been around.�

Aubrey was silent for a moment. �People behave differently in groups,� he said finally. �We do things we wouldn�t when we�re alone.�

�That�s right,� George said. �People stand around waiting for someone to say �Hold on a minute� and when no-one does, they go ahead and commit awful deeds.�

�Large groups of people are called nations,� Caroline said.

Aubrey steepled his fingers in front of his chin. �Perhaps this is the time when we need a few more people to stand up and say �Hold on a minute�.�

�They are, Aubrey,� Caroline said. �But their voices aren�t heard over the din of the warmongers.�

�The warmongers drown out the voices of reason,� he said, �and the masses in the middle move in their direction.�

�No need to be so gloomy,� George said. �We�ve struck a blow here for the cause of righteousness, so to speak. You�ve saved the Prince from a horrible fate. And without Tremaine�s manipulating and scheming, Holmland�s plans will be knocked into a cocked hat.�

Aubrey sipped his tea. �Amazing man, really. Not afraid of getting his hands dirty, but a master strategist at the same time.�

He felt uneasy at that thought, but shook it off when Caroline pursed her lips. �Don�t sound so admiring of the man. He�s evil.�

�So it seems,� Aubrey said.

�And tucked away safely,� George said. �We survived the worst he could throw at us. Now all we have to survive is the symposium.�

Aubrey groaned. After their adventures, the prospect of enduring hours of esoteric lectures was less than appealing.

Prince Albert and Lady Rose came in, chatting. �Sit, sit,� the Prince said as all three came to their feet. �Any chance of a fresh pot of tea?�

Aubrey rang for a maid. �Been on the social round?�

The Prince smiled. �That�s why I�m here.�

�We�ve been at lunch with the Elektor.� Lady Rose raised an eyebrow. �And the Chancellor.�

�Among dozens of other dignitaries,� the Prince added. �A garden party in honour of tomorrow�s symposium opening. Rather jolly, it was, in the best Holmland manner. An admirably energetic brass band kept going forever without seeming to draw breath.�

�It�s bound to make a fascinating report,� Aubrey said. �Er. I assume you�ve been told that�s the sort of thing you have to do while you�re here.�

Lady Rose made a face. �After we refresh ourselves here we both have to dictate our observations to a secretary.�

�Father will pore over them,� Aubrey said. �And what about the Chancellor? I�m sure he was suitably apologetic for the incident in the Elektor�s laboratory.�

�Of course.� The Prince smiled grimly. After reading Aubrey�s report on the incident, his anger had been coldly furious, and had hardened into an icy determination not to run away. �He was doing his best to be affable, but I�m not sure if it comes naturally to him,� Prince Albert said. �Gave me a detailed explanation of the investigations he�d instigated, that sort of thing.�

�I didn�t like the way the way he managed to bring Holmland industry into any conversation,� Lady Rose said. ��We made these plates in our new ceramics plant in Wissebard.� �I like your dress. We have four new factories making similar fabric in Stahlbord.��

�He�s an advocate for his country,� Prince Albert said as a maid brought in a new tea tray. The Prince helped himself, shaking his head when George offered him a slice of pastry. �You can�t criticise a leader for that.�

�I suppose not.� Lady Rose scowled. �I wish this whole symposium were over and we could head back home.�

Aubrey thought this an opportune time for his surprise. �We can relax a little now. You especially, Bertie. We�ve captured Dr Tremaine.�

The Prince was stirring his tea. He jerked, nearly sending his cup spinning away. �You did what?� he said after he put down the cup and mopped at his sleeve with a monogrammed handkerchief.

�We had a plan, you see,� George said.

�But it went topsy-turvy,� Caroline said.

Aubrey nodded. �So while George and Caroline were wrestling with Dr Tremaine��

�At the hospital,� Caroline put in.

�At the hospital,� Aubrey repeated, �I managed a bit of magic that trapped him in a pearl. With his sister.�

�As neatly as that.� Lady Rose looked from one face to the other. �I have the distinct impression that that was the merest outline of an outlandish affair. You�ve left out any incriminating parts, I take it?�

Aubrey shrugged, even though he knew the noncommittal answer wouldn�t escape his eagle-eyed mother. �The pearl is in the embassy safe. We�ll take it back to Albion when we go.�

�I�m sure Craddock will be happy to take it off your hands,� the Prince said. �And we can deal with this blackguard, once and for all.�

�I hope so,� Aubrey said and wondered why he felt as uneasy as he did.

Twenty-eight

They split up. In the crowds that were thronging through the Academy it was the only sensible thing to do.

Aubrey decided to head for the library, the obvious place for Kiefer to do last-minute research. Kiefer wasn�t an evil person, he reminded himself as he pounded along the cloistered walkways of the Law Faculty, glad that the crowds had thinned this far away from the Academy Hall. But he wouldn�t be the last who�d be duped by Dr Tremaine, either.

The rambling collection of stone buildings that was the Medical Faculty led Aubrey directly to his destination, but he skidded to an abrupt halt when he saw the two people in earnest conversation in the forecourt of the library.

Handing Manfred an envelope was Mr Thomson, of Thomson and Sons, Fine and Rare Books.

Plots, plans and suppositions ran together in Aubrey�s mind and smashed into a million pieces. Frantically, he sorted through them, discarded most and started building a new whole theory.

The Security Intelligence Directorate wouldn�t have found anyone coming to the Trinovant bookshop to collect the secret documents because the owner was the one who the documents were for. Here he was in Holmland handing a suspiciously similar envelope to the suspiciously ubiquitous Manfred. Aubrey could see that in a short time, Holmland agents would be making a move on the precious guano cargoes.

He smiled. Tallis�s reworking of the document would mean the information may not be as helpful as Manfred thought.

Regardless, Thomson�s business was a perfect cover. Moving back and forward between Albion and the Continent, managing shipments of books and documents. Thomson would have plenty of opportunity to ferry useful information to whoever he was working for.

Another peek and Aubrey saw that Manfred and Thomson were moving off together, Manfred with a small leather suitcase in one hand. Aubrey chewed his lip, glanced in the direction of the prominent clocktower overtopping the Academy Hall, and set off after them.

After only a few minutes, they reached a laneway between a service building and the Biology Department. Aubrey crouched behind a large rose bush and almost groaned when Manfred and Thomson shook hands and parted. Thomson took the lane that led to Fransman Street and the city, while Manfred marched off toward the Academy Hall.

Indecision, then decision. Aubrey would make sure to get a report to the Security Intelligence Directorate about Thomson. The only books he�d be seeing when he got back to Albion would be in a prison library.

He�d follow Manfred.

Manfred strode through the campus. His suitcase swung like a pendulum and Aubrey was certain that nothing would have changed if the way had been packed with people. Manfred was a man of purpose, a man on a mission. He would have ploughed through them.

He reached the Academy Hall. The forecourt was still crowded with Holmland�s finest edging along, filing through the massive arched doors.

The crowds actually made Aubrey�s job of following Manfred easier as he could hide in the numbers, but he was conscious that time was growing short. Surely the Elektor and the Chancellor would be arriving soon, and that would be the signal for proceedings to begin.

Manfred surprised Aubrey by veering wide and heading along the outside of the Academy Hall. Aubrey was forced to ease his way through an untidy garden bed to keep the man in sight as the way narrowed to a service lane sandwiched between the long side of the Academy Hall and the Physics Laboratory. Manfred pressed on, past rubbish bins, piles of wooden boxes and the assorted debris of countless academic functions. When the laneway reached a brick wall, Manfred didn�t pause. Relentless, he climbed on top of an old, broken handcart and then vaulted over the wall. He landed on the other side with a grunt that Aubrey could hear from his position in a clump of acanthus.

The sound of the assembled multitudes in the Academy Hall was like the buzzing of the world�s largest bee hive. Aubrey stared at the brick wall, then at the hall, then back again. He rubbed his side and wished for more time.

Five more minutes. He�d follow Manfred for five more minutes and then he�d have to find Kiefer.

Aubrey ran through the garden bed, bent almost double. When he reached the cart he bounded, barely touched the wall and was over.

Only to see Manfred, waiting and smiling coldly at him. �What took you so long?�

Aubrey took a step backward and found how close he was to the wall when he had no more room to move. He felt a drop of sweat slide down his throat and disappear under his collar. �Manfred.�

Manfred clicked his heels together and bowed. The whole performance was heavy with irony. �I knew you were following me. Dr Tremaine warned me about your persistence.�

Aubrey was grimly satisfied when Manfred�s words confirmed what he�d been thinking. Manfred�s shadowy involvement in affairs was connected with the master of conspiracies, Dr Mordecai Tremaine. �He�ll betray you in the end, Manfred. He�s using you and then he�ll spit you out.�

Manfred shrugged. �He pays well, though. I�ll take his money for as long as I think it�s safe. Then I�ll get out.�

Aubrey nearly laughed. Greed tended to cloud one�s sense of timing.

�But I have you now,� Aubrey said. �One less henchman to help Dr Tremaine.�

Manfred picked up his suitcase. �You might be able to hold me. And then again you might not. So I prepared a little insurance.� He pointed. A brown paper package was sitting against the rear wall of the Academy Hall. �A compressed spell. It�s due to go off at any minute, taking your Prince down with this place. You can stop me, or try to stop it. You can�t do both.� He shook his head sadly. �You shouldn�t go up against him, Fitzwilliam. You don�t know what he is capable of.�

Aubrey was about to retort, but at that moment, Manfred hurled his empty suitcase. It spun straight at Aubrey, and he had to duck to stop it hitting him in the head. When he straightened Manfred was sprinting in the opposite direction, and was already halfway along the rear of the hall.

Aubrey was left alone.

The package looked harmless, a brown paper parcel such as one would see under the arm of a happy shopper. It looked as if someone had dropped it while hurrying to an appointment.

With urgency hammering at him, he closed his eyes and readied his magical senses. He had visions of the compression giving way at any second, but he steeled himself � and tried to ignore the way his heart was racing. Carefully, with as much delicacy he could summon, he extended his awareness.

With his magical pseudo-sight, the package blazed like a sun. It was so overwhelming that Aubrey didn�t know where to start. After taking a deep breath in order to steady himself, he imagined his magical senses as a thin needle, the better to probe the package. His lips drew back from his teeth as he edged his awareness closer, with as much gentleness as he could, looking for a spot of weakness in the magical inferno.

There, he thought, and he was in.

He hissed, then cut it off. He knew this magic. The texture, the construction, the signature. It was typical of the ex-Sorcerer Royal�s arrogance, not disguising his efforts, confident that the outcome would obliterate all traces of the origin of the spell � after it had obliterated much, much more.

Inside the package was a coil of compressed weather magic. And unlike the weather magic spell that Aubrey had encountered in Albion, this was a perfectly constructed, expertly compressed magical object, a perfect example in a fiendishly difficult area. The weather spell in Albion had erupted prematurely, and Dr Tremaine had mocked Rokeby-Taylor for it. This one was an example of how to do it right.

He opened his eyes. The sunburst of magical power disappeared and he was once again looking at a nondescript brown paper parcel.

He rubbed his hands together slowly, trying to stem a rising tide of panic.

He�d learned who had constructed the spell � and he was determined that it wouldn�t be the last thing he learned. The spell was beautifully refined as well as being tightly controlled. It wasn�t the sledgehammer approach of an entire thunderstorm. It took a single aspect of a storm and concentrated it, singling it out and intensifying it, winding it up and packing it tightly, then meshing a timing component among the compression layers so that it would erupt at the appropriate time.

Lightning. A dozen or more individual lightning bolts had been twisted together and packed into a brown paper parcel that was about to give way.

But even with this imminent danger, Aubrey�s curiosity wouldn�t give up. He probed a little further and was puzzled to uncover a number of complex limiting elements in the spell. If he was interpreting correctly, this was an intricately shaped spell. When released, the lightning bolts would erupt solely in a vertical plane.

He looked up. The bulk of the clocktower soared overhead � in the direct line that the unbound lightning bolts would follow.

The clocktower would be blasted. Destroyed, almost certainly, with some damage to the Academy Hall itself � but this spell wasn�t intended to slaughter the assembly inside. It would be noisy and highly destructive, but not the lethal weapon that it had appeared at first.

Then what was it for?

Aubrey slapped himself on the forehead. The spell was a sower of discord. The people inside were Holmland�s most important, most influential. If they experienced, first hand, an attack that would no doubt be blamed on Holmland�s enemies, they would be galvanised behind the Chancellor and his plans.

So I have another reason to stop it, Aubrey thought with a slight trembling in his knees, apart from a desire not to be blown apart myself.

He took a deep breath and shook himself, as if he could dislodge the fear that was doing its best to take hold of him. He locked his knees, the better to stop them trembling, then relaxed them.

It�s simple, really, he thought. All he had to do was either reinforce the compression, delay the release of the compression, or render the tightly-packed lightning inert.

I�m spoiled for choices. He looked along the length of the rear of the Academy Hall, but he was still alone. No help within earshot, no police constable, no convenient corps of genius magicians, no-one.

It was up to him.

Tinkering with a compression spell that had already been set was a delicate affair, somewhat akin to shaving a tiger, especially if that tiger had particularly sensitive skin. He couldn�t use magic suppression � no magic was actually in action yet. The compression spell and the timing spell were inert, passive magic that would release the lightning in an instant. He could try casting the suppression spells as soon as the spells let go, but they needed time to work and he was sure the lightning wasn�t about to wait around.

He gnawed his lip. He knew that a theoretical approach existed. He�d read about it in a biography of Harland James, a Caledonian magician who died a horrible � and quite spectacular � death. The trouble was that James�s theoretical approach was the cause of his demise and, sensibly, no-one had ever tried it again.

The principle was sound, though. Cast another spell that would latch onto the end of the existing spell. The new spell would contain variables that would alter the effects of the original spell, extending the time before the release of a timing spell, for instance. Naturally, casting a spell to attach to a spell that had already been cast some time ago meant including some sort of temporal inversion constant. In other words, the tricky little appending spell had to send itself back in time to grab onto the compression spell at the moment of its utterance. And in this case, it had to avoid all notice by the original spell caster and blend itself seamlessly, doing its good work unseen and undetected.

All in all, it struck Aubrey as about as simple as teaching a goldfish calculus. On the other hand, the alternative was being crisped by an angry lightning bolt, so he didn�t have much to lose.

While his body went through the physical symptoms of fear � churning stomach, dry mouth, propensity for his feet to want to take the rest of him well away from this undeniable source of danger � he concentrated on constructing a taut, well-defined spell and not on imagining the results of a suddenly uncompressed lightning storm. Not knowing when the compression spell was due to release added a certain urgency to his deliberations, but he needed to do it right. If he didn�t, he was likely to trigger the compression spell and release the lightning himself. In fact, he realised, there was a number of ways for him to come to a messy, charcoaled end here, and only one way not to.

He had to cast a perfect spell.

Duration was simple � he wanted to add a few days to the release of the lightning, enough to allow for safe disposal of the package. Range, dimensions, intensity, all these factors were easy to put into place. The tricky part was the temporal inversion component.

He had to define the temporal inversion so that, once the spell was cast, it would effectively disappear, fold itself back into time and attach itself to the compression. He could use the signature element from the compression spell � Tremaine�s signature � splice it into his spell so that the inverted spell would be able to track the compression spell to its source, the same way a bloodhound would use a scrap of cloth from a burglar to track the villain to his den. Straightforward, in a rather twisty way.

Aubrey opted for Sumerian. He was comfortable with it and its circumscribed vocabulary left little room for ambiguity, which was always helpful when time elements were concerned.

He ran through the spell twice, then a third time, before readying himself to pronounce it aloud.

He paused for a moment. The lane was silent. The hubbub from inside the hall was a far-off drone, business, diplomacy and simple human interaction going on oblivious to the imminent disaster that was taking place not far away. Aubrey spared a moment to smile wryly over how much that was like all of human history, then he pressed his hands together.

A few mildly curious pigeons looked down from the roof below. Aubrey decided they�d have to take their chances. He began.

The elements marched from his mouth like well-drilled soldiers. It was a long spell, as he�d spared no detail in trying to get it right. Dimensionality, duration, range of effect all fell into place one after the other and his hopes rose. He felt confident in his delivery and his final, signature element was firm and steady.

The package tilted.

Aubrey took a step back and waited to be blasted out of existence.

Then he patted himself. He glanced at the pigeons, who hadn�t moved and were giving him a look of �What was that all about?�, decided he was still in reasonable physical shape, and reassessed. The parcel hadn�t moved at all. He�d simply had the impression that it had tilted. It had shifted its existence, but not in a physical way. He waited a moment, savouring the feeling of not being charcoal, then probed the parcel with what was becoming his customary delicacy.

The compression spell was nailed down tightly. Probe as he might, he could find no signs of weakness, no signs of release, nothing that indicated destruction was a heartbeat away.

He sighed. With a hand that was only slightly trembling, he touched his brow. Then, his control lapsed for an instant and his body reasserted itself, relief warring with the desire for immediate flight from danger. The result? He felt like throwing up. He sagged, as if all the air was being let out of him by way of a valve in his heel, and had to steady himself against the wall. He let his head rest on the brickwork.

This can�t do, he thought, eventually. He straightened, and then realised how tense he�d been, because every muscle protested as if he�d been in the gym for hours. He shook himself, then he bent and picked up the parcel.

Now, he thought as he limped off, to find Kiefer.

Twenty-nine

Outside the entrance to the Academy Hall, Aubrey found a police officer herding the crowds. He pushed the parcel on him, explained in a few words what it was, watched the police officer blanch and rush off, then he went off to try to get backstage.

He did his best to slide through the crowd that was emptying from the trade annex. Hundreds of people had apparently realised, simultaneously, that the opening ceremonies were about to start and they were all seeking their seats.

Aubrey was distracted from his quest for an instant when he saw a tall, dark-clad figure standing near one of the ornamental columns in the foyer of the Academy Hall. He was startled, for he hadn�t known that Craddock was going to be present, but it made some sense. He assumed Quentin Hollows had let Craddock know of the developments in Fisherberg. Craddock would have lost no time crossing the Continent once he heard the details of the plot against Prince Albert.

It was an explanation that needed following up, but it didn�t account for the extremely familiar manner in which the habitually taciturn Craddock was talking the sublimely beautiful Madame Zelinka.

Aubrey would have been gobsmacked if he�d had time. As it was, he had to postpone his amazement for another time � but he promised himself he�d have an explanation from Craddock before too long. The man was actually laughing!

Thirty

A week after the extraordinary events of the symposium opening, a launch pulled alongside the HMS Invulnerable with commendable sureness, given the choppy sea. Aubrey watched from the bridge as his father came onto deck looking neat and trim. He took his time to greet the captain and his officers, even though it was apparent to Aubrey that he�d rather be on his way to meeting Lady Rose. It was subtle � the duration of the handclasp, a touching of his hand to the brim of his hat � but Aubrey knew his father well. He was sure that every man on the Invulnerable would remember the Prime Minister�s visit and how he talked with them about their particular duty.

�I�m surprised he could get away,� George said. His sandy hair ruffled in the wind as they walked down the passageway from where the captain had let them watch their arrival into Imworth harbour.

�It would take more than chaos in Gallia to keep him away,� Aubrey said. Almost unconsciously, he touched his chest � where once the Beccaria Cage had nestled � and then put his hand to his pocket to feel the comforting weight of his pocket watch. He was glad to have it back, even if its return simply meant it was more difficult to fathom Dr Tremaine and his motives.

Kiefer�s announcement had caused such an uproar that the symposium had been abandoned. While Prince Albert was ushered out safely, pandemonium ruled. Academics and analysts gathered and argued about the political implications of the revelation, diplomats hurried out to spread the news, curious guests surged about trying to glimpse the young man who could soon be the ruler of two countries. Within an hour, the only people left were trade exhibitors, who were glumly packing up their displays and counting the costs of the lost opportunities.

Fisherberg exploded with gossip and speculation. In packed coffee houses and tense meeting rooms, Albion�s ambitions were dissected, international treaties discussed, and plans were redrawn.

The Albion Embassy was besieged. Prying journalists, countless petitioners and the simply inquisitive had trapped Prince Albert, Lady Rose, Aubrey and the others for days � time which Aubrey used to probe what had happened when the chaotic magic interacted with the Beccaria Cage. The way that it had fused his body and soul together was baffling, but it showed no signs of deteriorating. The events of the Fisherberg trip had been mixed in their outcome, but this looked as if it was undeniably positive.

He really was cured.

They found a ladder and went below to the next deck. He peered over the rail to see a large group of able seamen grappling with a large crate. In the days of chaos after Otto Kiefer�s speech, Ambassador Hollows had done well to organise the payment and shipment of the golem maker to the Invulnerable. Craddock was below, supervising the loading of the crate onto the same launch that had brought Sir Darius. Aubrey was sure the arcane machinery would be whisked into the lowest reaches of the Darnleigh Buildings, home of what used to be the Magisterium. He could imagine magicians in the employ of the military rubbing their hands in anticipation, ready to deconstruct it.

Before leaving Fisherberg, Aubrey caught up with an angry Hugo von Stralick. Betrayed and bitter, von Stralick dropped a number of broad hints that made Aubrey very suspicious about the origin of the golem-making machinery. Aubrey was keen to examine the apparatus itself to see if he could find anything to connect it to a certain Holmland industrialist. If they were, the events in Holmland were even more complex than they seemed. Baron von Grolman was a player who needed further analysis.

Seeing Craddock reminded Aubrey that he hadn�t questioned him about how he knew Madame Zelinka. Since the symposium, he�d learned that Craddock and Tallis had indeed caught an emergency dirigible flight to Fisherberg as soon as news had made its way back to Albion about the plot to replace Prince Albert, but they�d barely spoken to Aubrey � apart from insisting on his compiling a detailed report. Their attention was on ensuring that the Prince � and Lady Rose � were safely escorted from Holmland.

Tallis was waiting for Aubrey and George on the deck below. He was standing, arms behind his back, eyeing the sea with the suspicion of the true land dweller. �Thomson the bookseller,� he said without any preliminaries. �Hollows sent your report on to my department.� He scowled. �We�ve investigated further. You may be right.�

�You�ve taken him into custody?�

Tallis turned away from the sea. He smiled. �Hardly.�

�He�s given you the slip?� George shook his head. �Cunning chaps, those booksellers.�

�We�ll keep a good eye on him,� Tallis said, ignoring George, �and use him to feed false information to his masters. It may prove invaluable.�

�And Stafford Bruce?�

�He was mortified,� Tallis said. �Resigned immediately. The Opposition is disarray. Some analysts in Foreign Affairs are saying that this could have been the actual plan in the first place.�

Aubrey saw the shifting movements of international intrigue all over again, the shadows under the surface of the sunny world. Complex, tortured, tangled, the unseen armies already at war.

They met the others in what had been the officers� dining room but had, out of necessity, become a debriefing room. The room itself was well lit, with many ports allowing light in from the outside, and it was surprisingly well appointed. A number of round tables with heavy, starched tablecloths were surrounded by heavy-based chairs that swivelled � a sensible arrangement for heavy weather.

Caroline and Lady Rose were already there. Caroline waved to him as he entered and Aubrey�s heart was hers. He wasn�t sure if she knew it, but he wouldn�t have been surprised if she did. She was anything but unperceptive. If she chose not to acknowledge it, Aubrey had decided, it must be her sense of responsibility again, laying as heavily on her as his did on him. She was determined to pursue her studies, her career and her wider ambitions in the world. Aubrey had had the tantalising hint from her that politics was something that she was thinking of. And then there was this adventuring, which she had thrown herself into in a way that only increased her appeal to him � if that were possible.

With such aspirations, Caroline�s firm view that single-mindedness of outlook was paramount meant that any personal dalliances were seen as unnecessary uses of time. The optimum route to success called for dedication and couldn�t countenance anything frivolous.

But had he detected some thawing in Caroline�s attitude? He was aware of how easy it was to misinterpret such things. Acutely aware. He swallowed at the multitude of memories that presented themselves, evidence of his inability in this area. They made him hesitant to conclude anything, but could there be some hope?

He greeted Caroline and his mother, then sat next to Caroline. She didn�t object, and even patted his elbow absently as she craned her lovely neck to look toward where the captain was entering via another door.

I can always hope, Aubrey thought and vowed to be content with this.

Sir Darius strode into the room. Immediately, he found his wife and crossed to her side.

Aubrey had grown accustomed to warm displays of affection between his parents. It set them apart in a society where decorum was the norm and Aubrey loved them for it. The genuine feeling that had brought them together was as strong as ever, unaffected by the censorious eyes of the world.

Lady Rose stood. Sir Darius swept his wife into his arms and held her tightly. She put her head on his shoulders and closed her eyes. They said nothing.

Having seen this before, Aubrey discreetly watched Caroline. She smiled at Sir Darius and Lady Rose. Aubrey thought her smile was wistful, and the way she rested her hand on her cheek added to the contemplative cast of her face. Or did it? Perhaps she was simply tired. Or thinking of something else.

I have no idea, Aubrey admitted to himself, and he sighed.

�Something wrong, Aubrey?� Caroline asked.

�Apart from Gallia questioning their alliance with us and thereby providing an opportunity for Holmland to start aggression?�

�No need to be so testy.� She patted his arm again. �You did well.�

Aubrey had never had fireworks go off inside his skull, but he imagined that this is what it would feel like. �I did?�

�You did, old man.� George leaned across the table. �Don�t you think that Dr Tremaine would have actually taken the Prince, even if that wasn�t his main aim for the symposium?�

Lady Rose smiled. �Aubrey, dear boy. You can be hard on yourself. Take some pride in what you�ve achieved.�

Aubrey sat back, surprised. Ever since their precipitous departure from Fisherberg, he�d been kicking himself for not anticipating Dr Tremaine�s plot within a plot within a plot. Even now, warming to the praise, he wondered if he�d missed a plot or two.

Craddock entered. He took his hat from his head and beat it against his leg. Behind him was Tallis and Prince Albert, who was accompanying Caroline�s mother. The Prince saw the party at Aubrey�s table, waved and escorted Mrs Hepworth across the room.

Requisite greeting, bowing and curtseying completed, the Prince waited until Mrs Hepworth was seated before taking a place himself. �Have you heard the news? Your friend Kiefer has disappeared.�

�Not exactly a friend,� Aubrey said, with a pang. He�d liked Kiefer, despite his eccentricities, and he hated seeing the way Dr Tremaine used people and then discarded them. �An acquaintance.�

Tallis glanced at the open notebook he held. �Hollows�s people report that he�s not been seen in any of his old haunts since his speech.�

�The poor boy who made the speech at the symposium?� Ophelia Hepworth said.

�The poor boy who seems to have helped Holmland to the secret of ammonia synthesis.� Aubrey stopped and blinked. �He was studying pressure containment magic while he was at Greythorn. I�ll warrant that Dr Tremaine organised his placement here to facilitate that.�

�Used and then thrown away,� George said.

�He�s not the only one who�s missing,� Craddock said. �I believe you know Professor Mansfield? Ancient Languages at Greythorn? She was meant to present at the symposium but didn�t appear. Our Holmland operatives think she�s been abducted.�

Lady Rose put a hand to her mouth. �Mercy. Anne.�

Sir Darius took her other hand. �We�ll do what we can?�

Tallis made a decisive note. �Of course.�

Ophelia Hepworth looked puzzled. �I�d still like to know why poor Kiefer�s work on ammonia is so important. I thought his revelation about the Prince was far more interesting.�

Aubrey went first. �Explosives. Munitions. Holmland�s war preparations have been hampered by uncertain supplies of nitrates � which can be extracted from guano.� He paused. �If you don�t have guano, you have to get it from ammonia, and that process has been hideously expensive.�

�Until now,� the Prince said.

�Oh dear.� Mrs Hepworth folded her hands on the table.

Sir Darius touched his moustache. �Our best estimates have said that the Holmland armed forces only had three months� supply of bullets, for instance. Not enough for a serious war.�

�But that�s all changed now,� Aubrey said. �Cheap ammonia means plenty of bullets. Plenty of bombs. Plenty of torpedoes.� He shuddered at the prospect. �I�m starting to think war is inevitable.�

�That�s depressing,� George said.

�Is Dr Tremaine behind this?� Caroline asked.

�If it was just him, I think we�d have a chance of doing something. But after seeing the state of play in Fisherberg ... Too many important Holmlanders seem to think war might be an opportunity.�

�War as an opportunity?� Lady Rose said. �What a depraved notion.�

Sir Darius shrugged. �They see it as a chance to expand Holmland�s borders, to seize resources, to become the dominant nation on the Continent.�

�And don�t forget profit,� George pointed out. �War�s good for business, if you�re in the right business.�

George�s suggestion suddenly threw light on something that had been nagging at Aubrey. �That�s it, George. Baron von Grolman. That�s what he�s up to.�

�The consummate businessman,� Caroline said softly, immediately following Aubrey�s lead. She clenched a fist. �He�s not against war. He just wants to be in a position to make the most money from it.�

�That would explain why he was interested in getting rid of Dr Tremaine,� George said. �Tremaine was keeping the baron away from power.�

�Sorry, Caroline,� Aubrey said. �Sorry, Mrs Hepworth.�

�Ophelia, Aubrey dear. And no need to apologise. Siggy has changed. I was glad to leave him behind.�

Aubrey slipped away as the others pulled apart the revelations. He was pleased when Caroline and George followed.

Together, they stood at the rail and watched as the great ship edged its way toward the dock. The pretty town of Imworth was perched overlooking the harbour, white-washed houses cheery in the sunlight.

�Well, George,� Aubrey said. �I suppose our adventure had left you with enough to fill a few newspapers?�

�I�m not sure if the papers would be after the sort of thing I want to write.�

�Meaning?�

�I wouldn�t mind writing about the Holmland people, the ordinary folk, not the politicians. Good sorts, they are.�

�Sounds as if you�re talking about a book.�

George looked alarmed. �A book? Steady on, old man. An essay is the sort of thing I was thinking about. Find a place for it in one of the journals, perhaps.� He put his hands in his pockets. �Speaking of such, I�m heading down to talk to some of the sailors. Get their opinion about things, their view of what�s going on.�

Whistling, he strolled away, leaving Aubrey and Caroline alone.

�He did that deliberately,� Aubrey said.

�I know. He�s very well-meaning.�

�To a fault.�

The breeze ruffled Caroline�s hair. Aubrey thought it was the most wonderful thing he�d seen since he last looked at her.

�Let�s just see what happens,� she said suddenly.

�I beg your pardon?�

�You were going to ask about us.�

�I was?�

She smiled. �Your need to know everything is one of your most appealing and most infuriating traits.�

The ship sounded its horn as it neared the dock but Aubrey didn�t hear anything over the roaring in his ears.

Appealing?

Some response was necessary. �We should let things take their course?�

�It sounds like the most sensible idea.�

�Sensible. I like sensible.�

�I thought you would.�

�And you won�t get irritated, or upset, if I press my suit?�

�Press your suit? What a charmingly old-fashioned way of putting it.�

�Charming? I can see it�s working already.�

�Don�t get your hopes up. I reserve my right to be irritated, or upset, at any time.�

�I�ll endeavour never to give you cause, then.�

Caroline gazed out at the welcoming sight of Albion waiting for them. �I�ll be interested to see how that turns out.�

As will I, thought Aubrey as they made their way, at last, into a safe harbour.