While I waited for the ink to dry, I changed into the grey woollen dress and the shawl from the pawnshop, powdered my face till it looked pasty, then put on the spectacles, and tied the bonnet unbecomingly close to my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I was certain there was no question now of the Count recognising the fine lady from the ball in this mousy creature.

I took the twig out from the desk and found that another leaf had unfurled. I picked it and put it in my bag, replacing the twig in the desk along with the casket of pearls and the forged documents. Once the ink had thoroughly dried, I folded the letter, slipped it into the envelope, and sealed it with a blob of red sealing wax. I didn’t put it in my bag, for I did not want to run the risk that the magic might somehow interfere with it. Drawing on my gloves, I unlocked my door and looked out into the corridor. I thought that if anyone saw me, I’d just say I had come for an interview as a maid for Miss Tarneleit. But in the event there was nobody, so I set off down the back stairs the hotel staff used. Though I encountered a couple of staff members on the way, they barely glanced at me, and I reached the ground floor and slipped out of the service entrance with no problem at all.

I was back at the Palace Protocol Office in hardly any time. Nobody recognised me and, after I stated my business, the same policeman ushered me in, the same clerk took my new name – I called myself Tilda Smit, a suitably innocuous and common sort of name – and the same official I’d seen as the incarnation of a Menglu merchant’s daughter sat across the desk and looked at me with disfavour but not recognition.

‘Count Otto is an important man, and is very busy,’ snapped Officer Hedde. ‘Give me the letter, Miss Smit, and I will see it gets safely into his hands.’

I gave a nervous laugh, the kind that suited a Miss Tilda Smit. ‘I’m very sorry, honourable sir, but my mistress was very insistent.’ I made my accent thick and slow, and saw the impatience on his face.

‘Your mistress being this Lady Grizelda?’

‘Yes, sir, Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor, wife of one of the richest and most important Ashbergian nobles, Sir Claus dez Mestmor, and a personal friend of the Count’s, as I explained to your clerk.’

Officer Hedde frowned. ‘I have not heard of these people.’

‘I am sure, sir, that if you look in The Golden Dictionary, you will find the name “dez Mestmor” has great honour,’ I said, primly, having noticed it on his bookshelf. It was a book that listed all the noble families in the empire, and something of their ancestral history. My father had it in his own library.

He grunted and, as I’d hoped, reached over to his shelf and pulled out the book. He opened it and leafed through the pages.

‘Hmm . . . Arden . . . Ashberg – here we are . . .’ He ran his finger down the column of names. ‘Yes, I see, dez Mestmor. Let me see . . . “One of the oldest families of Ashberg with an unblemished record of service to the empire” . . . um, blah blah, “one of the biggest fortunes in Ashberg . . . present holder of the title: Sir Claus dez Mestmor”. Let me see, two marriages “first to Jana Lubosdera, one issue, a daughter; second to Grizelda Krasenstein, widow of the late Officer Sigmund Krasenstein of Faustina.” Why didn’t you tell me your mistress was Officer Krasenstein’s widow instead of gabbling about provincial nobility I’ve never heard of! Officer Krasenstein was a colleague of mine and much respected in this office.’

‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, taken aback. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Officer Hedde, in a noticeably softened tone, ‘I suppose, coming from sleepy, little Ashberg, Miss Smit, you can’t be expected to know much of what happens in this great city. Is this your first time here?’

‘Yes, sir, this is my first time. And I can’t believe my eyes, sir! I’d seen pictures but it’s not the same! Oh, it’s like being in a dream, it’s all so amazing –’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, holding up a hand to stop my gabbling. ‘Quite overwhelming for a little provincial, I’m sure. After all, you are in the centre of things now, not stuck in some obscure little backwater. Quite a relief for your mistress, too, I imagine.’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ I said eagerly, while inwardly amused by his patronising stupidity, and at the thought that for all her airs and graces, my stepmother had just been the widow of some obscure little pen-pusher in this office. ‘My mistress is thrilled to be back in her native city.’

‘Quite. Now, then, let me find out if there is any possibility that Count Otto might be able to see you today. Briefly, mind. Like I told you, he is very busy.’

And he got up, went to the door and called out, ‘Messenger! Come here!’

They were the longest ten minutes of my life, as I sat in Officer Hedde’s office waiting for the messenger to come back. And it wasn’t just that I was on tenterhooks. It was also that Officer Hedde clearly saw it as his duty to instruct an ignorant little provincial on the history, customs, manners and wonders of the imperial capital to make me understand just how lucky I was to be here. Torn between boredom, anxiety and indignation, I almost wished I really did have the power I’d told Babette I did and could turn the pompous old fraud into a toad or something. As it was, I just had to sit tight and smile eagerly and ooh and aah.

Finally, my ordeal ended. The messenger came back with good news: Count Otto had agreed to give me a few moments of his time and I was to be taken to him at once.

I bid a fawning goodbye to Officer Hedde and followed the messenger out of the office towards the palace. We did not go in through the main gates, but down a side street into the entrance of a building that stood apart from the palace proper, separated by a locked gate. This, the messenger informed me, housed the offices of the senior advisers and palace staff.

The place was like a rabbit warren, with corridors leading off here and there and rows of closed doors. The messenger led me down one corridor and up another, then up some stairs and finally to a door down the end of the next corridor. He knocked twice, then the deep voice of Count Otto said, ‘Come in.’

It was quite a big room, with a window that gave out onto a courtyard. Simply furnished, it was obviously a working space and not a place to impress. The walls were lined with shelves crammed with books and papers, and tall wooden filing cabinets. The only decorations were the usual portrait of the imperial family on one wall and a plain carriage-clock on the stone mantelpiece. A fire burned in the gate. Count Otto himself sat at a leather-topped desk covered with papers, writing busily. He looked up at me, but without recognition.

I thought, with a pang, that he didn’t look well. There were dark circles under his eyes and a tension in his lips that suggested some gnawing anxiety.

‘This is Miss Smit, my lord,’ the messenger announced.

‘Please take a chair, Miss Smit,’ the Count said, quietly. ‘I won’t be a moment. And you can leave us alone now, George.’

The messenger bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

For a moment all was silent apart from the ticking of the clock and the scratching of Count Otto’s pen on paper. And the rapid beating of my heart, though I didn’t suppose he could hear that. My hands were shaking a little and I tried to keep them still. Finally, he finished writing, folded the letter, and put it to one side. He looked up again, and this time he smiled – a tired smile, of a man ground down under some burden.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Smit.’ He spoke as though his mind was elsewhere. ‘Now, I understand you have something to give me?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ I said. ‘This letter, from my mistress, the Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor, she was most insistent you receive it personally.’ I handed it to him.

‘Such a pleasant surprise,’ he murmured as he slit open the envelope with a paper knife and extracted the letter. Watching him as he scanned what was written inside, I thought of what he’d been like when I’d met him in the corridors of Ashberg Castle. Big, confident and exuding power. Now he seemed fretful, a little shrunken, and hunched, as if he’d aged years – not days – since I’d last seen him. Something was wrong and I knew what it was.

He looked up again. ‘I am very sorry to learn of your master’s illness,’ he said. ‘He seemed like a good man.’

‘Thank you, my lord. He was – is. It was very sudden, his illness. Quite a shock to everybody.’ To my horror, I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. ‘But we hope he will be better soon.’

‘Amen to that,’ he said gently. ‘Your mistress has done the right thing bringing him to Faustina. We have the best doctors in the world. Please tell her that if there is anything I can do to help, I will do so without hesitation.’

‘Thank you, my lord, I’ll be sure and tell her.’

‘It is really most kind of your mistress to invite me. I have fond memories of meeting her, her charming daughters, and your master, of course. Good food and very good company – an exemplary household.’

Ha, I thought, without letting my feelings show on my face.

‘Unfortunately, though I should very much like to accept her invitation, I am afraid that may not be possible right now. Later, perhaps.’ He made as if to hand me back the letter.

I said, quickly, ‘My lord, if I may, I know my mistress will be greatly disappointed.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Smit. I really am, but I have too much on my mind at the moment. Too much work. Perhaps later, as I said. I should very much like to call on her one of these days.’

‘If I may be so bold, my lord,’ I said, desperately, ‘might you perhaps nominate a date when you and your son might be able to honour us with your presence? I know it would mean so much to my mistress.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t be sure,’ he said. ‘And as to my son, he’s away. I don’t know when . . . he’ll be back. Perhaps we should wait till he is home.’

There was no doubt in my mind any more. The expression in his eyes as he spoke was fear, naked fear. And it decided me.

‘Is he abroad, my lord?’

‘Yes. No. Yes . . . He’s on important business.’ His hands were shaking now as he pushed the letter across to me. ‘Now if you don’t mind, Miss Smit, I have a good deal of work to attend to, and –’

I took a deep breath. ‘Don’t be afraid, Count Otto,’ I said, very quietly. ‘He’s safe.’

For an instant he stared at me as though turned to stone. Then he got up slowly and in a terrible voice, he said, ‘What did you say?’

I stammered, ‘Max . . . your son . . . he is quite safe and well, my lord. I swear it.’

He sat down again, heavily. He had gone very pale. ‘What . . . how – who are you . . .?’

‘I am a friend, my lord – a friend of your son.’

‘What? He doesn’t know a Miss Smit – what are you –’ He was babbling, and I interrupted him gently.

‘No, my lord, I’m not Miss Smit. She doesn’t exist. The letter – I stole it so I could get to you and tell you – to set your mind at rest.’

‘That is . . . very kind of you,’ he said, mechanically. There was a little colour starting to come back to his cheeks. ‘Tell me . . . tell me where he is that I may go to him and –’

‘I can’t tell you where he is, my lord, only that he is safe and on his way to right the terrible wrong that was done to him.’

‘Oh my God . . .’ He covered his face with his hands.

‘They told you he’d been sent on some secret mission or something like that, is that right?’

He looked up and stared at me. ‘Y– yes.’

‘But you didn’t believe it.’

‘I tried to but it just didn’t add up. I am usually briefed about such things. I felt uneasy –’ he broke off. ‘What really happened? Please. You can’t hide it from me, not now.’

‘What really happened,’ I said, ‘was that your son was dragged off in the dead of night and secretly locked in a Mancer prison. They were going to have him blanked and, if he hadn’t escaped, then, well, he’d pretty much be a zombie now.’

His eyes flashed, and he stood up. ‘No, I can’t believe that! I can’t! It’s just not possible. The Mancers would never dare touch a hair on the head of my son, I’m certain of it – certain! I’m on the Mancer Council, for God’s sake! And how, if he really was in a Mancer prison, could he have possibly escaped? It’s never been done before.’

‘Thankfully, a way was found, my lord,’ I said, discreetly. ‘As to the rest, well, Max believes it wasn’t an official Mancer operation – he believes it was done on the sly by rogue elements.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Think, my lord,’ I said. ‘Think.’

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’ But I had seen the expression that flashed in his eyes and I knew that he understood, that he had already suspected the truth.

‘A blanking order can only be authorised at the very highest levels. A rogue Mancer could certainly not do it, not even the General Secretary of the Mancers can do it. You know that, my lord.’

‘You are surely not saying that the Emperor –’

‘No. I do not think it was the Emperor. He has been as deceived as the Mancers. Count Otto, I know it was Prince Leopold who forged his father’s signature on the order and that it is he who is behind it all.’

There was a dead silence.

Then he said, slowly, ‘It can’t be. The Crown Prince and my son – they are best friends. Close as . . . brothers . . . since childhood.’

I saw the knotting of his hands as he wrung them together. He was protesting, I thought, but it was no real surprise to him.

After a time, he said, ‘Why? It makes no sense. What has Max done to deserve –’

‘It’s not what he’s done, sir. It’s what he knows.’

He jerked his head up and stared at me. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Max knows something about Leopold – a secret so big and dangerous that the Prince is willing to kill him for it and to take the most enormous risks, like counterfeiting his father’s signature on a blanking order.’

‘Max – Max told you this?’ he quavered.

‘No, I worked it out for myself. But I know that’s why he was worried for you. He’d hoped you’d believe the fairytale they told you about a secret mission and that you wouldn’t ask awkward questions.’

‘Why, in God’s name, would he think that?’

‘Because he was afraid that if you got even an inkling of the truth, you’d be in great danger too. That’s why he didn’t try to get back here, and why he hasn’t tried to contact you.’

He swallowed, running a nerveless hand through his hair. ‘But he has changed his mind as he sent you here.’

‘No, my lord, he did not send me and he doesn’t know I’m here. I just thought you needed to know.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how important this is to me. Oh, my poor son.’

‘He is very brave, my lord,’ I said. ‘Brave and loyal and steadfast and true . . .’ My throat thickened, for I’d had a sudden image of Max and all at once I missed him so much it was like a dagger thrust in my heart. ‘He is a real hero. A true prince of the heart, not like Leopold who is a prince only in name.’

He winced and I thought I’d gone too far. Then he looked at me shrewdly and said, ‘You love him, don’t you?’

I swallowed. ‘Yes, I do. I love him very much. And he . . . he feels the same.’

‘I can see why,’ he said. ‘You are the most unusual person I have ever met. And still I do not know your name.’

‘That is not important, my lord,’ I said. ‘What matters is that I am a friend of your son.’

‘And of mine too, now, I hope,’ he said, getting up. He walked around his desk and held out his hand. ‘May I hope for that?’

‘It would be an honour, my lord,’ I said, and we shook hands. It felt like such a solemn moment, and yet like such a joyful one, too. The tears in my eyes were now as much of gladness as of sadness, for I no longer felt so alone.

‘Well, my dear friend, I think we cannot let things go on as they have. We need to help my son.’

I thought of telling him what I planned to do but two things stopped me: one, I was not sure if the shock Count Otto had already received would be stronger than the loyalty of a lifetime dedicated to the Emperor and his family; and two, I remembered the warning Thalia had given me at Dremda. I could not tell anyone about my mission, no matter what happened. But I had to say something. ‘Yes, but what can we do? What do you suggest?’

‘I think we need to know what we are up against,’ he said. ‘And for that we need some answers. We need to know what secret Leopold is hiding. I think I may have just the idea as to how we might be able to trick it out of him. Listen . . .’