Leo hesitated. If he agreed with the others, Hal would lose his one possible ally. If he agreed with Hal, it would strengthen Hal’s determination to be cautious.
And Leo understood Hal’s caution – understood it perfectly. But he also understood the excitement felt by everyone else, because he was feeling it too. Why is it always down to me? he thought fretfully. It’s not fair!
Then he met Hal’s worried eyes and his irritation abruptly died. Hal wanted to stop the Blue Queen just as much as anyone else did. But it wasn’t in his nature to rush headlong into danger without full knowledge of what he might be risking.
It’s not in my nature either, thought Leo, realising yet again just how like Hal Langlander he was. Rondo makes me want to be a hero, and it sometimes makes me act like one, too. But that doesn’t mean I can’t think things through. I can be a hero, and still be me.
And with that thought, everything clicked into place.
‘This is what I think should happen, Hal,’ he said steadily. ‘You, Tye and Wizard Wurzle get the Flitters working on the web straight away. You also organise a secret meeting of the seven witches and wizards to get their agreement and make a final plan.’
He paused, holding Hal’s gaze, waiting for Conker’s whoops and Bertha’s cheers to die down.
‘Meanwhile,’ he went on, ‘Bertha, Conker, Freda, Mimi and I go after Spoiler, and do our best to find out what the queen’s up to. That way, no time will be wasted. By the time we get back, the web will be ready and the plan made. So if we’ve got the information you need, you can go ahead straight away if you want to. And if we haven’t… well, the plan can be put on hold.’
He waited, and with relief saw Hal smile slightly and nod.
‘Not bad,’ Freda said approvingly.
‘Leo, you’re so sensible!’ cried Bertha.
She sounded just like Aunt Bethany! Leo caught Mimi’s gently mocking glance. He felt his face grow hot, but forced himself not to say anything.
‘It is a good plan,’ Tye said crisply. ‘It will indeed save time. And it has another advantage. A search party that includes Leo and Mimi may divert the queen’s attention from what is happening here in the wood.’
A little trickle of fear ran down Leo’s spine, and the vision of the snarling dragon filled his mind. He struggled to remain expressionless.
‘Excellent!’ Conker roared, rubbing his hands. ‘Let’s be off, then, while the trail’s still hot!’
‘Keep in touch,’ said Hal. His voice was casual, but Leo could see he was worried. Bertha was very quiet, too, and Mimi’s mouth was set in a hard, straight line. I’m not the only one to have been scared by what Tye said, Leo thought, and felt a bit better.
‘We’ll be fine,’ Conker said breezily, shouldering his pack. ‘After all, we’ve been in mortal peril before and escaped with our lives. Why should it be any different this time?’
Leo really wished he hadn’t said that.
A few minutes later, the search party was emerging from the swirling grey mist of the Flitter Wood Gap into the deserted first floor of the Black Sheep tavern. Leo felt dizzy and sick, and thought he probably looked it, too, because Mimi kept glancing at him as they followed Conker, Freda and Bertha to the stairs.
‘I’ll be okay in a minute,’ he muttered, before she could say anything.
Mimi nodded. She herself, Leo noted with annoyance, was as clear-eyed and pink-cheeked as she usually was in Rondo. Gaps didn’t bother Mimi. She just accepted them as useful short cuts. When Leo had worried over them at home, finally coming to the scary conclusion that they were the result of tiny spaces left blank by the Artist who had painted the music box, she had serenely agreed that he was probably right. Then she had yawned and started talking about something else.
But for Leo, the idea of plunging into mysterious nothingness – leaping through what might as well be wormholes in space – was deeply disturbing. He doubted he’d ever get used to it.
As they crept downstairs, they began to hear the sounds of people shouting and crying, and to smell the faint, sinister odour of burning wood. Dots scuttled around their feet, making no effort to hide. No one spoke as Conker led the way into the alley that ran behind the tavern.
But it wasn’t until they turned into the path leading up to the main street, and saw the view framed by the path’s narrow mouth, that the reality of the dragon attack really came home to them.
The air was thick with smoke. Posy the flower-seller sat slumped on an upturned bucket, paying no attention to the firefighters still battling the flames in the bank behind her, or the frantic people scurrying past with bundles of rescued possessions in their arms. Sooty water bobbing with the blackened stems of flowers swirled around Posy’s feet. The awning of her stall sagged above her head, its red-and-white stripes hidden beneath a shroud of soggy ash. On her lap was Crumble’s pie tray, scorched scraps of pastry still clinging to its cracked and blistered surface.
As the friends reached the street, Pop the balloon-seller, his face and bald scalp fiery red and streaked with black, limped up to Posy and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
‘Come on,’ said Conker gruffly. ‘There’s nothing we can do here.’
They turned left and began walking, skirting the people who were standing staring at the place where Crumble the pie-man usually sold his wares. Crumble’s space looked desolate. The paving stones were swimming with black water, which eddied sluggishly around a soggy mass of smashed pies and hundreds of scorched, dissolving dots.
The shops and stalls beyond this spot were undamaged, because the dragon had swooped back into the sky once it had snatched up Crumble. But everything was covered in a fine coating of ash, and people were shuffling through a haze of smoke.
Leo’s heart ached as he remembered the last time he had passed this way. Then the street had been bustling, bright with colour, full of life. Now there was no bustle, no colour, and the faces of the people were grim or blank with shock and fear.
Conker, Freda and Bertha crossed the road. Leo was just about to follow when he saw two blue butterflies perched motionless on a lamp-post just ahead. Rage swept through him like flame.
‘Go and tell her, then!’ he shouted at the butterflies. ‘Tell her what a good job her dragon did!’
Startled passers-by glanced at him. The blue butterflies rose into the air and fluttered away towards the north.
‘Leo!’ Mimi pulled at his arm.
He let her drag him across the road. Conker, Freda and Bertha were waiting for them outside the small shop with a heavily curtained window that Leo had always thought of as ‘the shop without a name’.
‘Leo, how could you attract attention to yourself like that?’ Bertha scolded.
‘Get inside, all of you,’ Conker snapped, twisting the knob of the shop door. ‘And keep your mouths shut. I’ll do the talking.’
‘What is this place?’ Mimi whispered, as the door creaked open and a bell jangled.
‘Brewer’s,’ Freda hissed back. ‘Potion ingredients – and other things.’
They followed Conker through the door, which swung shut behind them. The shop was very dim, and its stale air was heavy with strange, unpleasant odours. Glass-fronted cabinets crammed with bottles, jars and packets lined the walls. At the back there was a doorway covered by a knobbly brown curtain. Directly in front of the curtain, a bony man with limp, ginger-coloured hair and thick wire-framed glasses stood leaning over a counter.
‘Hello, Brewer,’ growled Conker.
The man smiled ingratiatingly, showing yellow, rabbity teeth. ‘Why, Conker!’ he said. ‘And Lady Bertha too! This is an honour.’
‘Four bottles of dragon repellent, please,’ said Conker, feeling for his money pouch.
Brewer’s smile broadened. He felt under the counter and drew out four small brown bottles. ‘There you are,’ he said, pushing the bottles towards Conker. ‘Finest quality Dragon’s Bane. That will be eight dabs, thank you.’
Conker froze in the act of opening his pouch. ‘Eight dabs?’ he spluttered. ‘But Dragon’s Bane’s only ten dibs a bottle! It’s always been only –’
Brewer’s face took on an expression of unconvincing regret. ‘Sadly,’ he said, pressing his fingertips together, ‘the price has risen.’
‘Since this morning, I’ll bet,’ said Freda, and snapped her beak.
Brewer took a hasty step backwards. At the same moment the curtain behind him was thrust aside, revealing a wild-haired old woman in a pointed black hat. The woman pushed forward, jabbing the potion-maker violently between the shoulder blades with the handle of the broom she was brandishing in one claw-like hand.
‘Oof!’ Brewer gasped, crashing into the counter.
‘Where is it, Brewer?’ the woman shrieked in a high, cracked voice that set Leo’s teeth on edge. ‘I need it now!’
‘It’s still not ready!’ moaned Brewer. ‘It has to stand a while. I told you!’
‘All I want is a simple hair-growing cream!’ the woman shouted. ‘How long can it take?’
‘You’d think she was hairy enough already,’ Freda muttered.
The old woman glared at her over the counter. ‘Who are you?’ she spat.
‘Who are you, for that matter?’ Conker retorted, moving closer to Freda, his hands on the handles of his dot-swatters.
‘This is Crabclaw,’ Brewer said hastily. ‘She’s the coast witch employed by the town defence committee to help protect –’
‘She didn’t do a very good job today, did she?’ Freda quacked. ‘Half the town’s burnt to a crisp and the pie-seller’s been kidnapped.’
‘Today’s my day off!’ snapped Crabclaw. ‘I’ve got my own affairs to attend to, you know. I just popped through the Gap to pick up the No-Fail Hair-Gro I ordered, and now I find that –’
Brewer groaned under his breath and glanced furtively at Conker.
‘So you do have a Gap in your brewing room!’ Conker crowed. ‘I knew those rumours were true! The Gap ends at Woffles Way, right? Just south of the Crystal Palace?’
‘Yes it does!’ rasped Crabclaw, stomping from behind the counter and pushing her way rudely to the shop door. ‘And if I’d known how inefficient this potion shop was, I’d never have bothered to rent a tower close to where its Gap ends. I thought I’d be saving myself some trouble. Hah! Fat chance!’
She flung herself through the door and out into the street.
Brewer adjusted his glasses. ‘You don’t want to pay any attention to poor old Crabclaw,’ he said, showing his rabbit teeth again. ‘She gets… confused.’
‘Don’t give me that, Brewer!’ Conker snarled, slapping some coins on the counter. ‘Here’s four dabs. That’s payment for four bottles of Dragon’s Bane, with full access to your Gap thrown in. Otherwise, I’ll report you for impeding a registered quest team in the performance of its duty – and you a member of the town defence committee, too! Plus I’ll mention your Gap to Officer Begood.’
Brewer gulped. ‘There’s no need to be so harsh,’ he whined, watching resentfully as Conker pocketed the four small bottles. ‘Use my Gap by all means. I’m happy to be of assistance. Naturally.’
He stood looking stiffly ahead as one by one Conker, Freda, Bertha, Leo and Mimi squeezed past him and pushed through the brown curtain.
The back room of the potion shop was much larger than the room where Brewer saw his customers. Against one wall there was a cluttered workbench where brightly coloured liquids bubbled in glass beakers set over low flames, and bowls of strange substances sat surrounded by jars and sticky stirring spoons. Another wall was equipped with a large sink and a stove from which green smoke was seeping.
The other two walls were packed high with boxes of every size, colour and shape. Hidden away in a corner was a narrow pink door marked Ladies’ Rest Room.
Conker gave a rumble of satisfaction and, ignoring Bertha’s gasp of protest, threw the pink door open. The familiar drifting grey mist of a Gap was revealed.
‘He’s a cunning villain, Brewer,’ said Conker. ‘He knows Begood’s far too much of a gentleman to open a door marked Ladies.’
‘Why does he want to keep his Gap secret?’ asked Mimi, as she followed Conker and Freda through the pink door.
‘He uses it to smuggle out orders he doesn’t want Begood to know about, doesn’t he?’ sniggered Freda. ‘Love potions, truth serums, addling mixtures…’
‘Lawks-a-daisy!’ exclaimed Bertha, hurrying after them. ‘But aren’t those things illegal without a doctor’s prescription?’
Leo stepped into the swirling mist. Just before the Gap dizziness overcame him, he heard Conker speaking, his voice sounding very far away. ‘Brewer’s too interested in money, that’s his trouble. One day he’ll really cross the line …’
The voice was still ringing in Leo’s ears when he found himself thudding onto solid ground. Looking blearily around, he saw brown road, green fields and clear blue sky. In the distance, to his right, the glass towers of the Crystal Palace rose above the trees, flashing in the sun.
He shook his head to clear it. He was determined that this time he would show no sign of how upsetting he found Gap travel.
He needn’t have worried. Bertha, Mimi, Freda and Conker were paying no attention to him. They were all gathered together a few steps away, bending over a heavily creased piece of paper that looked like an unfolded paper plane. As Leo walked unsteadily towards them, he realised that Bertha was reading some words aloud.
‘Help!’ Bertha read, her voice rising in excitement. ‘I am Dame Dally, being held prisoner in Crabclaw’s tower. Please save me!’
‘Oh, my lungs and liver!’ Conker grumbled. ‘We haven’t got time for saving damsels now!’
‘That must be the tower over there!’ Mimi exclaimed, pointing to a tall, rather decrepit-looking stone structure in the centre of a nearby field.
‘Not much of a tower,’ said Freda critically. ‘It hasn’t even got a door. Crabclaw must pay a rock-bottom rent. Well, do we go on with the mission or try for a rescue? I’m easy either way.’
‘Rescue,’ Bertha said firmly. Mimi and Leo nodded agreement.
Conker sighed. ‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ he said. ‘But we’ll have to make it snappy. I don’t want that witch catching us releasing her prisoner. She could turn nasty. Which reminds me…’
He pulled out the bottles of Dragon’s Bane. ‘Give yourselves a sprinkle of this,’ he said, handing Leo and Mimi a bottle each. ‘It keeps dragons off like nobody’s business.’
‘It keeps everyone off,’ Freda said sourly as Conker shook a few drops of liquid on to her feathers and a smell like very dirty socks filled the air.
As they tramped towards the tower field, wrinkling their noses at the foul stench now rising from their clothes and hair, they discovered many more paper planes. The planes all bore the word ‘Help’ in large letters, and when unfolded they all contained the same message as the one Bertha had read.
They had nearly reached the tower when yet another paper plane was launched from the window at the top. The plane soared over their heads and buried itself in a thorn bush.
‘Well, she’s a trier, this maiden, or princess, or whatever she is,’ Conker said, appreciatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Dame Dally!’ he bellowed. ‘Yoo hoo! Dame Dally!’
‘I told you, witch!’ shrieked a hysterical voice from the tower window. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times! I can’t let down my hair for you to climb up! It’s too short!’
‘Aha!’ said Conker. ‘So that’s why Crabclaw wanted the Hair-Gro cream. I might have known. All right, Freda. Same drill as usual?’
‘Right,’ said the duck.
Conker pulled a rope from his pack and made a noose at one end. Freda took the noose in her beak and flew up to the tower window with the rope trailing behind her.
‘She’ll slip the noose over a bed post or something,’ Conker told Mimi, Leo and Bertha, smothering a yawn as Freda disappeared through the window. ‘That usually does the –’
There was a startled squawk from the tower room and the next moment Freda shot out of the window in a flurry of feathers. She was quickly followed by a large figure in a frilled bonnet. The figure clambered out onto the windowsill, took hold of the rope and began to slide clumsily down, purple skirts billowing in the wind.
‘What’s the matter with Freda?’ squeaked Bertha.
Freda was zooming towards them, her eyes wild. She was quacking loudly, but it was impossible to make out what she was saying.
The rescued prisoner thudded onto the ground and rolled over, displaying a vast expanse of red flannel petticoat, long white pantaloons with lace around the hems, and large black shoes.
Conker, Mimi, Leo and Bertha ran to help, but Freda got there before them. To their astonishment she landed heavily on the prisoner’s stomach and crouched there, her wings raised menacingly.
‘Look at this!’ she hissed.
She leaned forward and tweaked the prisoner’s bonnet aside.
And there, framed in frills, was the red and sweating face of Spoiler.