AUBREY HAD NEVER FELT SO EXPOSED. HIS IMAGINATION, never needing much prompting, immediately told him that dozens of snipers with supernaturally good night vision were all taking bets on which of them would be the first to bring him down.

Which would be an achievement, he thought, as he was as down as it was humanly possible to be. If he were any downer, he’d be moving in a subterranean mode. Wriggling along on his stomach, he’d positioned the sack of flour directly in front of his head, following the theory that a bullet would be better off hitting anything, foodstuff or not, before it hit him.

The next hour was a mixture of terror, panic and loss of skin. Periodic phantom attacks swept across the ruined landscape. Cavalry charges, waves of infantry, and even an elephant brigade at one stage. With each one Aubrey experienced the gut-wrenching trepidation that the phantoms had been designed to inspire. Every time a wave of attackers appeared from nowhere he huddled in shell holes or rolled up as close as he could to barbed wire barriers until he was sure that the shadowy figures weren’t real. Then he crawled on, pushing his bag of flour in front of him, and dragging the satchel with his precious notes behind him.

At one stage, Aubrey froze when, some distance away, a figure approaching his level of furtiveness made its way between two shattered trees. Aubrey watched as the stranger progressed in inches, swarming along on his belly. Since every movement was taking him close to the Allied lines, Aubrey decided that he was a Holmlander raider.

Aubrey’s heart, which had been running at a steady gallop ever since he left the Albionite trench, showed it was fully capable of a lift in tempo. Aubrey was tempted to blame the trembling in his hands on the sheer amount of blood being pumped about his body by the overactive organ, and not on fear – but he wasn’t that foolish. He was right to be afraid in a place where evidence of certain death was only too plain and too commonplace. Once again, though, all his rational thinking and appraisal had little effect on his body and its reactions. Accepting that being afraid was sensible was one thing. Trying to slow his heart was another.

Aubrey lay beside a mound of earth thrown up by an explosion and his hand moved almost of its own volition toward his sidearm. The range was extreme, so there was no point in his having it in his hand, but nevertheless something in him wanted to be armed in such a situation. Shaking, he made a fist of the traitor hand so that it couldn’t open his holster, and he peered toward the enemy raider.

A slight ‘clink’ came from the raider. In his hands, he held a cylinder a few feet long, blackened but showing a tiny gleam of metal. He pushed it ahead of him as he crawled.

After making the noise, the raider didn’t move for some time. Aubrey applauded his discretion. At night, sentries on both sides used hearing as much as sight.

The raider was moving again, but he wasn’t getting any closer to the Allied lines. Aubrey risked taking out his field glasses and saw that the raider was unscrewing the cylinder, working with both hands.

Another ‘clink’ and the end of the cylinder popped off, but before anyone from either trench could commence firing, a torrent of ghostly figures poured from the cylinder as if it were a Roman Candle. In an instant, the figures had assumed solidity, colour and shape, milling about uncertainly until the last had emerged, then they arranged themselves in a line. A cavalry charge, complete with regimental colours and a bugler, thundered toward the Albion trenches.

The raider quickly reversed and began scrambling back to Holmland territory. A wild fusillade of shots rang out from the Albionite lines where someone wasn’t willing to bet that the cavalry charge was another illusion. Aubrey pulled his head in, aiming to make himself the smallest target possible.

By the way the shots died out quickly, Albion officers had summed up the situation and declared the cavalry as unreal. He lost sight of the horses as they crested a barbed wire barrier and plunged in the direction of the trenches, and he’d also lost interest in them because of something much more urgent.

Someone was nearby.

He cursed himself, internally. He’d taken his eye off the Holmland raider, lost him in the shadows – and someone else had crept up on him.

He caught his breath. That fall of earth over there couldn’t be natural, especially since it had followed a scraping sound; the two together were enough to make his gaze dart about, trying to sort harmless shadow from Holmland raider. The difficulty was, in this frame of mind everything looked like a Holmland raider – and a battle-hardened one at that. That broken wagon, for instance. That tangle of barbed wire. And that smashed ammunition box could be two Holmland raiders at least.

He sought for some magic, something silent but disabling, but his mind was too full of the transference spell to accommodate anything else. Fragments eluded his grasp as he clutched for them.

He felt the tip of the blade touch him just behind the ear, just before he heard the voice – very soft, very deadly. ‘It would be a very bad idea to move, except to take your hand away from your pistol. Turn slowly.’

For once, Aubrey followed orders, to the letter, to see Caroline on the ground next to him. He could have kissed her, so he did.

THEY HAD TO NESTLE VERY CLOSE TO EACH OTHER TO FIT into the tiny shell hole Aubrey had found. It had a bank thrown up toward the Holmland direction, which was useful, but it was open to the Albion side, so they had to – perforce – come even closer to whisper in each other’s ear. To communicate, share intelligence, status reports, that sort of thing.

‘You were appalling,’ Caroline said and her breath on his ear nearly made him swoon. She, too, had used the burnt cork on her face and looked exotically adorable. ‘You may as well have worn a sandwich board saying, “I’m about to sneak off and risk my life to try to save you all.”’

He was moderately crestfallen; he found it hard to be entirely crestfallen with Caroline in his arms. ‘It was that obvious?’

‘Not to someone who doesn’t know you. Colonel Stanley probably assumes you’re following the orders he thinks he gave you.’

‘You noticed that too?’

‘Between the three of us, we have most things covered.’

‘I feel like I’m up on stage for you all to laugh at.’

‘No you don’t. You feel surrounded by loyal and concerned friends.’

‘One of whom followed me out here.’

‘Captain Robinson was kind enough to tell me where you’d gone. He’s a lovely man.’

‘I’m sure he is. And I’m sure he fell over himself to help you.’

‘Something like that. Or it may have been Sophie. We both questioned him.’

Aubrey spared a moment to feel sorry for the captain. The poor man hadn’t stood a chance. ‘But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here. This is magic. I know what I’m doing.’

‘That’s as may be, but the three of us agreed that someone had to be with you to take care of what you’d forgotten.’

‘Forgotten? What have I forgotten?’

She looked sternly at him. ‘We’re just taking it on past experience that you’ve forgotten something.’

Aubrey should have been offended, but couldn’t be. He was surrounded by faithful and concerned friends. ‘You know, this is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had in the middle of a battlefield.’

‘I want you to remember it, Aubrey. For a long time.’

‘I shall.’ Realising he was taking his life into his hands in a way he hadn’t been anticipating, he gazed into Caroline’s eyes and said: ‘I want you to go back.’

‘Go back? To our trenches?’

‘That’s right. I can’t take you into danger like this.’

Through a tilting of a shoulder and an abrupt shift of her hips, they were suddenly as far apart as they could be in a shell hole a few feet across. She crossed her arms and fixed on him. ‘And what makes you think that you have any say in my actions?’

Aubrey instantly decided it was a poor time to bring up small things like his being her commanding officer. ‘Now, I understand that you’re angry, having come all this way …’

‘Angry? If you think this is angry –’

‘Irritated, then. Annoyed. Miffed.’

‘Miffed? Miffed?’

‘I didn’t mean miffed. What’s that word that sounds like miffed but describes exactly how you’re feeling right now?’

Aubrey could hear the slow breath Caroline took as she tried to control herself. ‘Aubrey, my being here is my decision to make, not yours. You simply have to overcome this desire to move people about to suit your own ends.’

‘It’s not that.’ For an instant, Aubrey felt as if he were balanced at the top of the world’s highest skiing slope, then he plunged. ‘It’s just that I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.’

Caroline was silent for a moment. She touched her cheek with a hand, then went on: ‘If I got in the way of whatever it is you’re planning, you mean.’

Aubrey realised that matters were well and truly running away from him, but in this unlikeliest of places he had a moment of insight, a moment of apprehension where he understood something that had been frustrating him for ages. ‘It’s your decision to make,’ he said slowly, ‘not mine.’

She speared him with a look. ‘What did you say?’

He grinned. ‘This is why some people back in Albion are so afraid of women’s suffrage, you know. They don’t realise that we all have the right to self-determination.’

‘Aubrey, you’re going off at a tangent.’

‘Not really. Thousands of men, oldsters mostly, take it for granted that they can tell women what to do. The idea that women should be in charge of their own lives is completely alien to them. It may as well be a foreign language.’

‘Ah. You’ve seen our problem.’

‘Independence. Freedom. Liberty.’

‘Well worth fighting for, I would think.’

He took her hand. He was pleased – and relieved – when she didn’t resist. ‘I’m sorry, Caroline. I shouldn’t order you about like that. I accept your decision, whatever it may be, but –’

‘I don’t know if I like buts.’

‘But please – can you accept that I feel protective toward you?’

She studied him. ‘I can.’ She paused and she touched her lips. ‘Probably because I feel the same way about you.’

Aubrey had never been punched so hard that it made him smile, but he imagined it was something like the sensation he had now. ‘You do?’

‘All in all, Aubrey, I’d rather be near you when you’re in danger than not. Especially since that might mean I could do something about it.’

It was difficult to talk, Aubrey found, when he was smiling as broadly as he was. ‘I understand entirely.’

He wasn’t exactly sure what happened next, but suddenly – without any apparent movement – he had an armful of Caroline.

They talked – in low, private voices – and waited for the right hour to come.

AUBREY RELUCTANTLY DISENGAGED HIMSELF. ‘WE HAVE to move.’

‘Do we?’

‘Only if we want to win the war.’

‘Oh, very well then.’

Aubrey explained about the need to find the double shell crater he’d spied earlier. Then he had to detail his plan for Caroline. Carefully. Without leaving out anything, or covering up in obfuscation.

When he finished, she crossed her arms and studied him. ‘That is one of the more fanciful, flamboyant, outrageous schemes you’ve come up with.’

‘Ah ha.’

‘And probably the most heroic.’

‘It is?’ Aubrey felt the warmth of a blush creeping up from under his collar.

‘It’s one of the things I love about you, Aubrey. The extent of your imagination is only matched by your willingness to put yourself in harm’s way for the right cause.’

‘I do?’

‘That, and your penchant for two-word answers when you’re dazed.’

Dazed was a fair description. Aubrey was still lagging behind, trying to come to terms with what Caroline had said. ‘I don’t!’

‘And there you have it.’

Aubrey shook himself. ‘And here’s where you try to dissuade me from this course of action, correct? Where you try to tell me it’s too dangerous, too risky, something like that?’

‘I should say not. I wouldn’t think an expedition with you would be complete without an extremely hazardous situation.’ Caroline peeped over the lip of their shell hole. ‘I can see the best way. Follow me.’

THE DOUBLE SHELL HOLE PROVED TO BE JUST AS AUBREY had hoped. Large, and close enough to the middle of no-man’s-land to serve his purposes.

He began preparing the spell. Caroline divided her attention between him and the surroundings, keeping low but alert, pistol in hand.

Firstly, Aubrey had to organise a relatively flat area. To this end, he’d brought the wonderfully named entrenching tool, the neat folding spade favoured by raiding and expeditionary forces. He used it to level the bottom of the crater, working steadily, and eventually used his hands as much as the metal tool, sweeping the dry earth away until he had rough oval area formed from the intersection of the two shell impacts and, once again, he was grateful that the weather was clear. Rain would no doubt have filled the bottom of the crater and the earth was fine enough to make the sort of glutinous mud that would be a misery.

He crawled around the perimeter of the desired area with the flour, marking his restraining and focusing diagram with a substantial line. Making the required symbols was trickier, but they were necessary adjuncts in bringing the results of the spell to the correct location and to no other. The symbol was a combination Aubrey had invented after some consideration, bringing together the spiral of the Babylonian sigil for ‘sun’ and the Chaldean symbol for ‘moon,’ both powerful symbols in their day for renewal and return, handy in this context.

He knew that these symbols were relics, survivors from an earlier age of magic when it was less scientific, but at this stage he was willing to call on whatever help he could.

Aubrey rubbed his nose, which was suddenly itchy, then he sat back on his heels and looked at the sky. For an instant it shimmered, but not with any colour the normal eye could see.

‘What is it?’ Caroline whispered.

‘Magic. Lots of it.’

‘Where?’

‘The Holmland lines. And it’s getting nearer.’

‘A good reason to move ahead with your spell?’

‘With all haste.’

Originally, Aubrey had imagined himself standing, arms spread in dramatic magical mode, perfect for greeting the surprised Holmlanders. Discretion, however, told him that standing up in the middle of no-man’s-land would be an unfortunate idea, akin to volunteering for target practice in the role of target rather than marksman. He opted for the rather less imposing position of sitting cross-legged, ensuring his head was well below the level of the lip of the crater.

Following Aubrey’s instructions, Caroline took up a position at one end of the crater, outside the diagram. He shook the photographs from his satchel and spread them in front of him, anchoring them with earth – and he came to his first hiccup.

He couldn’t see them well enough in the dark. He needed to see the faces, and see them well, in order to use the Law of Familiarity to draw the owners of the likenesses to this location.

Helplessly, he patted his chest in a forlorn longing for the marvellous appurtenances vest of George’s invention. If he had it, it might have included the handy cat’s eyes, neat devices that fitted over the eye to provide useful night sight.

While I’m at it, he thought, I might as well wish for a cease-fire and a magic carpet to take us all home.

He wasn’t about to give up because of a minor problem like this. He could summon a glowing light but was reluctant to do so in an arena where a cigarette lit for too long could attract a sniper.

He gnawed his lip, aware of Caroline’s calm scrutiny, knowing that she’d soon realise that he’d hit a snag, but appreciating her silence. Of course, it meant he had to live up to that confidence, but that was a role he was willing to adopt.

Attempting another spell wasn’t his preference. With the complex transference spell already packed into his memory, trying to wedge in another was fraught with danger – but he had a theory that casting a second spell in a language diametrically different from those used in the transference spell could prevent confusion.

He had a spell in mind. He’d read about some recent experiments in using the Law of Amplification on parts of the eye in an effort to remedy sight problems. The footnote that had lodged in Aubrey’s memory mentioned one outcome where the function of the rods in the eye, the light receptors, was intensified, resulting in the experimental subjects being dazzled in ordinary light.

Naturally, after reading this Aubrey had turned the experiment around in his mind and considered that such an outcome could actually mean useful seeing in condition of low light.

Aubrey had a very healthy regard for his eyes. His imagination left him in no doubt that losing sight would be a dreadful blow – not being able to read, ever again? An awful fate. In normal circumstances, he would be quite happy for experiments on sight to be done by careful researchers in good laboratories. Since squatting in the middle of shell hole halfway between two armies dedicated to wiping each other out was about as far from normal circumstances as it was possible to be, he accepted the necessity to undertake such a spell on himself.

He understood it, but it didn’t mean that he was entirely happy about it.

Keeping a brave face, and knowing that Caroline would see through that façade immediately, he constructed the spell in his mind using Vedic, the ancient language of the Indus people, a whole continent and a sea or two away from the languages he’d used for the transference spell.

The effect was immediate and profound, to the extent that he actually had to squint a little and shade his eyes, so bright were his surrounds. He could clearly make out every detail of the photographs, from the Chancellor’s bald head to the extraordinary array of whiskers, sideburns and beards on the faces of the other Holmlanders. Each of the men was posing proudly for the camera, chest outthrust and doing his best to present himself as the epitome of a wartime leader.

Aubrey took the spell from his satchel and riffled through the pages. It was undoubtedly the most complex, the most convoluted and the longest spell he had ever attempted, but as he cast his eye over each element he was confident that he held it deeply in his mind ready for casting.

That he could cast it, he was confident, but he was apprehensive about the consequences. A thin, cold voice asked if he was really sure of the state of his reunified body and soul. Would it stand the sort of backlash that such a spell could produce? He touched his chest, briefly, and shuddered at the prospect of returning to the appalling half-dead state, balanced on the edge of slipping away forever. Even with his plan to deflect much of the recoil onto the world around him, he was sure he would suffer.

He looked up to see Caroline’s gaze on him. Her eyes were bright and fierce in his enhanced sight, unblinking in their resolve, and she broke her silence: ‘I believe you can do it.’

It was enough. In his hour of need, it was enough. He nodded, closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself, and began.

In a remarkably apt simile, somewhere in the middle of the lost time of spell casting, it came to him that it was like marching through an unknown city, late at night, with a thousand wrong turns available at any minute, the consequences of which were grim.

The strain was most apparent in his mind and his mouth as they worked together to produce the language that was doing the work of wrestling the magical field, raw and inchoate, into the methodical, patterned arrangement that was a spell. As was typical for a dense spell, it began to take on a quasi-life of its own, the syllables and elements actively resisting being shaped, making the job harder and harder as it went on.

Aubrey lost all sense of his surroundings, swept away as he was in the ordeal of spell casting that was unlike any other he’d endured. His focus was on each syllable, each word, each element of the spell as it came to be pronounced. They lined up unwillingly, testing his resolve as they waited, shifting uneasily, losing their shape and intent. It was the force of his will alone that kept them in line and maintained them in the way that he needed. Each one presented itself, was spoken clear and correct, then it was replaced by another, and another and another.

In the magic firmament, Aubrey Fitzwilliam was making a spell, most powerful, most sweeping. He didn’t flag. He had the fate of nations and of individual people in his hands. When he saw, far away, his signature element at the end of the line of spell elements, he realised that he was nearly finished. He gritted his teeth, knowing it would be mad to waver now, so he took each element as it came and gave it its due. He spoke them and made them real.

Finally, only his signature element was left. He uttered it, proud to have completed what he’d done.

Then he doubled over as if kicked in the stomach. His magical senses flared. He felt as if he were caught in a vast current, one that was tearing him in all directions, dragging his limbs, his torso, his very essence. Then it surged and spread, and he had an apprehension of it moving away, a wave, a ripple spreading and being consumed by the hundreds, thousands of consciousnesses in the area.

Including Caroline. She gasped and her eyes widened, but before she could say anything Chancellor Neumann, the head of the Holmland government, was standing in front of them.

Aghast, Aubrey watched as Caroline levelled her pistol at the chancellor and fired.

Aubrey reached for her, but the magical wave chose that moment to roll back and smash him into oblivion.