Conker, Freda, Bertha and Mimi looked round in one abrupt movement, as if they were puppets whose heads were worked by a single string. Spoiler buried his face in his hands and moaned softly as they pressed past him to join Leo at the window.
Leo felt them beside him, but he didn’t move or speak. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the grotesque, terrifying sight that his mind kept refusing to accept as real.
A glowing cloud was swirling through the storm, its edges torn and whipped by the wind. In the heart of the cloud was the Blue Queen – the Blue Queen as Leo had never seen her before. Her pale gold hair flew about her head, sparking with electricity. Her midnight blue cloak flapped like the wings of a giant, predatory bird. Her face was frowning and intent. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a snarl of concentration. Her eyes were burning.
Gone was the immaculate, arrogant woman who haunted Leo’s nightmares. Gone were the cold, beautiful face and the coils of smooth, pale gold hair. Here was the raw force that the smooth exterior concealed. Here was the sorceress unmasked.
‘She can’t see us,’ Mimi breathed. ‘She doesn’t know we’re here.’
And at once Leo realised that it was true. The Blue Queen hadn’t come for them. She had come to the sea, into the heart of the storm, on business of her own. He clutched the windowsill for support as the terror that had held him rigid leaked away and his legs began to tremble.
‘What’s she doing?’ Bertha squeaked.
The queen had drawn a tall blue bottle from beneath her cloak. She took the stopper from the bottle and raised her arms above her head. Her mouth moved, as if she were screaming at the storm. The bottle jerked violently in her hand and with a shout of triumph she thrust the stopper back into place.
‘She’s released something into the wind,’ Conker gasped. ‘Oh, my liver, lungs and kidneys, we’ve got to contact Hal and warn him!’
‘Write a message,’ Leo said urgently. ‘Call a mouse!’
‘The mice won’t come here,’ said Freda.
‘Bunch of cowards!’ Conker fumed. ‘Call themselves a messenger service! Ogres’ castles, vampire dens, dragons’ lairs – they’re all black spots. It’s a scandal!’ He thrust his fingers into his hair and tore at it in frustration.
Lightning flashed. Thunder roared almost at the same moment. The ogre’s snores rose to a crescendo and broke off in a snorting growl. Everyone froze, listening, then breathed out in relief as the snores began again.
Mimi was the first to turn back to the window. She gave a start and leaned forward till her nose was pressing against the glass. ‘Look!’ she urged.
The cloud was plunging towards the surging sea. Leo was seized with the desperate hope that something had gone wrong – that the might of the storm had overcome the queen’s power, and was about to dash her into the waves. But just above the wild, white-capped surface of the water the cloud levelled out. Buffeted by wind, pelted with spray, it rocked, but did not fall. Only then did Leo see that the queen had put the bottle away, and now clutched a blue glass jar. She took the lid from the jar and raised her arms. Again her mouth moved as she shouted words that none of the watchers could hear.
Lightning flashed jaggedly above her, illuminating her face with ghastly radiance. Thunder cracked and roared, and a towering wall of water reared up beside the cloud. For a breathless moment the wave seemed to hold itself motionless. Then its tip whitened and curved, and its whole enormous weight crashed down, smothering the cloud in boiling foam.
‘It got her!’ Bertha squealed, as the thunder roared again.
‘No,’ said Mimi quietly.
And somehow Leo knew that Mimi was right. He felt no surprise when the foam fell away and the cloud was still swirling above the deep, the queen inside it standing untouched, a look of gloating triumph on her face, her hair whipping in the wind like a nest of striking snakes.
The queen capped the blue jar and put it under her cloak. She raised her arms above her head for a third time. The cloud swirled, faster, faster. It rose from the waves, spiralling up into the clouds. Then it was gone.
The room was filled with gusty sighs as everyone breathed out at once.
‘She wasn’t releasing something that time, Conker,’ Mimi said, turning from the window. ‘She was collecting something. And I think that’s what she was doing the first time, too.’
‘Collecting?’ Bertha whispered. ‘You mean –’
‘All she could have collected in that wave is a bit of salt water,’ Conker objected. ‘She could do that anytime. Why do it in the middle of a storm? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Maybe the storm was the whole point,’ Mimi said slowly. ‘The storm, the wind, and the high tide.’
‘That could be it,’ Freda agreed.
Leo looked round at Spoiler, who was still sitting with his head in his hands. ‘Spoiler,’ he said urgently, ‘that potion that the queen always wanted to make, but couldn’t – the big potion you were telling me about? Was seawater one of the ingredients? Maybe seawater collected in a storm?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Spoiler mumbled. ‘Maybe. I told you – I hardly listened when she went on about spells and potions and stuff like that.’
‘He’s useless,’ Freda muttered.
Spoiler lifted his head. His watery eyes were angry. ‘Useless, am I?’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, you’d never have known the silver box existed. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have the ogre’s keys. And if it hadn’t been for the ogre taking a fancy to me, you’d have all been in real trouble.’ He jerked his head at Mimi. ‘That little spitfire there lost her temper and insulted him. She nearly got us all killed. She’s the useless one, if you ask me.’
Mimi’s face went stony.
‘Shut your mouth, Spoiler,’ Conker snarled.
The room lit up briefly as lightning flashed outside. The thunder came before Leo could even begin counting. The storm was showing no signs of abating.
They all found places to sit down. Bertha closed her eyes, and fell into a doze. Freda followed her example. The dying coals of the fire settled with a sigh. Spoiler shifted unhappily in his chair. Mimi, Leo and Conker sat staring at one another, listening to the ogre’s snores.
Time passed with agonising slowness. Bertha twitched, groaned and occasionally bared her teeth, perhaps dreaming of her old enemy, Sly the fox. Leo felt his eyelids drooping, and several times he jerked upright, realising that he’d fallen asleep. But every time he woke he saw Conker’s small black eyes gleaming as the lightning flashed, and heard the jingling sound of Conker restlessly fingering the ogre’s keys.
When at last the thunder had become a series of deep rumbles, and the ogre’s snores had settled into a regular rhythm, Conker stood up. ‘We can’t afford to wait any longer,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Let’s go.’
Leo was instantly wide-awake. Bertha and Mimi yawned and blinked. Freda preened her feathers vigorously. Spoiler staggered up from his chair.
‘You stay here, Spoiler,’ Leo said, but the man shook his head vigorously.
‘I’m going with you,’ he gabbled. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight.’
‘Please yourself,’ said Conker indifferently, shouldering his pack. ‘Just keep quiet and don’t get in our way.’
They let themselves out of the bedroom and crowded silently along the dim gallery. Light still filtered up from the floor below, but the black door would have been almost invisible had it not been for the brass studs that still gleamed faintly through the shadows.
Conker fitted the black key into the lock. It turned smoothly.
‘This is my very first forbidden chamber!’ breathed Bertha. ‘Oh, lawks-a-daisy, the suspense is killing me! What do you think is in there? Besides the silver box, that is.’
‘In a story it would be the heads of all the ogre’s dead wives,’ said Mimi. ‘But this ogre’s never been married.’
‘It’ll be the heads of dead guests, maybe,’ Freda suggested.
Spoiler whimpered.
‘Shh!’ hissed Conker, pulling the key from the lock. ‘So far so good. Now let’s just hope the hinges don’t squeak.’
He turned the doorknob and pushed cautiously. The door swung open without a sound. The chamber within was almost completely dark, but as everyone pressed forward, lanterns hanging from the ceiling began to glow.
‘In! In!’ Conker urged. Feverishly he pushed them all inside and locked the door again, trapping the trailing hem of Spoiler’s skirt in his impatience to hide the light.
‘I’m stuck!’ wailed Spoiler, vainly trying to free himself.
‘Good,’ said Conker. ‘We need someone at the door anyway. If you hear the ogre coming, hoot like an owl.’
Spoiler went pale.
‘Not much point,’ Freda commented. ‘If he springs us in here, he’s got us.’
As the lanterns slowly brightened, everyone could see what she meant. Though the forbidden chamber was as large as a small ballroom, it had no hiding places whatsoever. No doubt, Leo thought, it had been designed with that in mind. Uncurtained windows were evenly spaced along the wall facing the door. Below them stood a long row of tall ornamental jars covered with delicate paintings of fish and seabirds and overflowing with gold coins and jewels. All the other walls were lined with shallow black shelves filled with carefully arranged objects that gleamed in the lantern light.
In all that huge room, there were only two other things to see.
The first was a long, plain wooden table on which sat six small, black chests. It stood close to the windows, where in the daytime it would be flooded with light.
The second, in the exact centre of the stone floor, was a very large iron cage. Leo wondered what fearsome beast it had once contained and felt very glad that it was presently unoccupied.
‘Well, this isn’t my idea of a forbidden chamber,’ Bertha exclaimed, looking around in disappointment. ‘It’s got no atmosphere at all. Except for that cage thing, there’s nothing spooky or terrifying or disgusting about it!’
‘There will be if the ogre turns up,’ said Freda. ‘Six headless corpses, for a start.’
‘Fan out!’ Conker ordered, shrugging off his pack. ‘Let’s find that box and get out of here.’
As the team scattered, Leo made straight for the table and the six black chests. He opened the first chest and saw that, as he had suspected, it was filled to the brim with a mass of different objects – goblets, vases, flasks, trinket boxes, jewelled combs, necklaces, tiaras, silk scarves and even a sad little stuffed bird – all jumbled together as if they had been thrown in at random.
He saw that Mimi had joined him at the table and was rummaging through a black chest too. She had already pulled out a delicate lace shawl, a huge striped seashell, a rope of pearls, a crystal bell and a rather grubby silk purse.
‘I don’t think the box we’re looking for is here after all!’ Bertha cried in distress from the shelves on the back wall. ‘I’ve just noticed – these treasures are arranged in groups. Look! The trinket boxes are all here, in this one section. There are plenty of silver ones, but none of them is heart-shaped.’
‘If it’s here, I’m sure it’ll be in one of these chests,’ Leo called in a low voice. ‘The ogre probably uses them to store things he brings home until he has a chance to sort them and work out what’s worth keeping. And he only got the silver box a few days ago.’
‘Good thinking, Leo!’ said Conker, hurrying over to the table and throwing another of the black chests open.
‘Very logical, Leo!’ Bertha agreed, trotting to join him. ‘And Mimi had the same idea!’
Mimi glanced up with a quizzical smile. ‘No I didn’t,’ she confessed. ‘I was just curious. I love treasure chests.’
‘Hurry up!’ moaned Spoiler from the door. ‘Look at the sky! It’s getting light!’
Startled, everyone looked up. They were shocked to see that the storm had blown away, and that the cloudless sky was a pale grey-green. It was far later than any of them had realised.
Conker opened the nearest window, and poked out his head to peer towards the east. ‘Keep looking,’ was all he said as he turned back to the table. But the fact that he had left the window gaping open, the way he upended the chest he had been searching and began sorting urgently through its contents, told everyone that he knew time was running out.
Leo finished with the first chest, and started on the one next to it, tipping it over as Conker had done. He sorted through the jumble of curious and precious objects on the tabletop, looking for a flash of silver.
He saw it. He scrabbled through the glittering pile and pulled it out.
It wasn’t the silver box. It was a mirror, backed in silver, with a plain silver handle.
Leo stared at his face reflected in the glass. He looked very tired, and far older than he usually did. His resemblance to Hal was very marked.
His thoughts flew to Hal, whose brief message to Conker had said so little, and yet so much.
Things here going as planned…
The image in the mirror shifted. It darkened, and changed. And suddenly Leo was staring not at his own reflection, but at seven cloaked and hooded figures in a shadowy wood.
Leo’s heart seemed to stop. He stared, dumbfounded, as the cloaked figures moved one by one to clasp the hand of a tall man standing at the base of a great tree.
The tree was the Flitters’ Nesting Tree. The man was Hal. Tye was standing behind him. Leo could see her tiger-stripes gleaming through the dimness.
And the cloaked figures, tall and short, fat and thin, could only be the seven witches and wizards who were in charge of Rondo’s defence. The meeting about the barrier plan had taken place.
One by one the cloaked figures gravely shook Hal’s hand, as if to seal an oath. One by one they stepped back, bowed, turned, and melted away into the darkness.
This is happening now, Leo told himself, trying to take it in. This mirror…
‘Got it!’
The scene in the mirror vanished abruptly and Leo’s own startled reflection took its place. He looked up. Emptied black chests littered the table, surrounded by treasure. Grinning in triumph, Conker was holding up a heart-shaped silver box.
It was bigger than Leo had expected – at least as big as his hand. He turned to Spoiler, drooping by the door. ‘Is that it?’ he demanded. ‘The box you took from the queen?’
Spoiler shuddered and nodded.
As everyone gathered around, Conker prised the lid of the box open. Inside was a thick substance that looked like brown whipped cream. Conker touched it with his fingertip. ‘Sticky,’ he said, wrinkling his nose. He started to wipe his finger on his shirt, then changed his mind and wiped it on the windowsill instead.
‘Conker, you shouldn’t have touched it!’ Bertha gasped. ‘It might be dangerous.’
‘It just looks like some sort of face cream to me,’ Mimi said.
With sick dismay Leo remembered what Spoiler had said about the Blue Queen’s vanity, and her endless efforts to keep herself looking young and beautiful after she lost the Key to Rondo. Surely they hadn’t come this far, taken all these terrible risks, to stop the queen getting her favourite face cream back?
Conker snapped the silver box shut and pushed it into his pack. ‘Time to go,’ he muttered, glancing at the window again.
‘Hoo!’ Spoiler screeched from the door. ‘Hoo! Hoo! Hoo…’
The door burst open with a crash. Spoiler flew backwards, screaming in terror, and thudded onto the floor in a tangle of skirts and red flannel petticoat. And into the room stormed the Ogre of Cruelcliff, his face twisted with rage.