And I want him out of here before Paulette shows up in the morning, Miriam thought. Paulie was a good friend and true, but some things weren’t appropriate for her to be involved in. Like kidnapping.

“Okay, I’ll sort it. Where do I go?”

“You come here.” Miriam rattled off directions, mentally crossing her fingers. “I’ve got a new amulet for you, one that takes you from the other side to world three, my hideaway. Watch out, it is very different, as different from this world as you can imagine.”

“Okay—but you’d better be able to explain why if the duke starts asking questions. I’ll roust Xavier and Mort out of bed and be round in an hour. They’ll keep their mouths shut. Is there anything else you need?”

“Yeah.” Miriam licked her lips. “Is Angbard over here?”

“I think so.”

“I’ve got to call him right away. Then I’m probably going to be gone before you get here. Got to go back to the far side to clean up the mess when the little prick broke into my house.”

“He broke in—hey! Are you alright?”

“I’m alive. Olga and Brill can fill you in. Got to go. Stay safe.” She rang off before she could break down and tell him how much she wanted to see him. Cruel fate… the next number was preprogrammed as well.

“Hello?” A politely curious voice.

“This is Helge Lofstrom-Hjorth. Get me Angbard. This is an emergency.”

“Please hold.” No messing around this time, Miriam noted. Someone was awake at the switchboard.

“Angbard here.” He sounded amused rather than tired. “What is it, Miriam? Having trouble sleeping?”

“Perhaps. Listen, the Clan summit on Beltaigne is three months away. Is there a procedure for bringing it forward, calling an extraordinary general meeting?”

“There is, but it’s most unusual—nobody has done it in forty years. Are you sure you want me to do this for you? Without a good reason, there are people who would take it as a perfect opportunity to accuse you of anything they can think of.”

“Yes.” Miriam took a deep breath. “Listen. I know you’ve got my mother.” Dead silence on the phone. She continued: “I don’t know why you’re holding her, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt—for now. But I need that meeting, and she needs to be there. If she isn’t, you’re going to be in deep shit. I’m going to be there, too, and it has to be now, in a couple of days’ time, not in two months, because we’ve got a prisoner and if you’ve not found your leak yet the prisoner will probably be dead before Beltaigne.”

“A prisoner—” he hissed.

“You told me about a child of the founder who went west,” Miriam said, very deliberately. “I’ve found his descendants. They’re the ones who tried to kill Patricia and who’ve been after Olga and me. And I figure they may be messed up with the mole in your security staff. You want to call this emergency meeting, Angbard, you really want to do this.”

“I believe you,” he said after a momentary pause, in a tone that said he wished he didn’t. “How extraordinary.”

“When is it going to be ready?”

“Hmm.” A pause. “Count on it in four days’ time, at the Palace Hjorth. Any sooner is out of the question. I’ll have to clear down all nonessential mail to get the announcement out in time—this will cost us a lot of goodwill and money. Can you guarantee you’ll be there? If not, then I can’t speak for what resolutions will be put forward and voted through by the assembled partners. You have enemies.”

“I will be there.” She hesitated for a moment. “If I don’t make it, it means I’m dead or incapacitated.”

“But you’re not, now.”

“Thank Brilliana and Olga,” she said. “They were good choices.”

“My Valkyries.” He sounded amused.

“I’ll see you in four days’ time,” Miriam said tersely. “If you need to know more, ask Olga, she knows what I’m doing.” Then she hung up on him.

Two days later, Miriam looked up from her office ledger and a stack of official forms in response to a knock on the office window. “Carry on,” she told Declan, who looked up inquiringly from his drafting board. “Who is it?” she demanded.

“Police, ma’am.”

Miriam stood up to open the door. “You’d better come in.” She paused. “Ah, Inspector Smith of the Homeland Defense Bureau. Come to tell me my burglars are a matter of national security?” She smiled brightly at him.

“Ah, well.” Smith squeezed into the room and stood with his back to the cupboard beside the door where she kept the spare stationery. The constable behind him waited in the hall outside. “It was a most peculiar burglary, wasn’t it?”

“Did you catch any of the thieves?” she asked sharply.

“You were in New London all along,” he said, accusingly. “Staying in the Grange Mouth Hotel. Into which you checked in at four o’clock in the morning the day after the incident.”

“Yes, well, as I told the thief-taker’s sergeant, I dined in town then caught the last train, and my carriage threw a wheel on its way from the railway station. And I stayed with it because cabs are thin on the ground at two o’clock.”

“Humph.” Smith looked disappointed, to her delight. Gotcha! she thought. She’d set off from her office in Cambridge at midnight, floored the accelerator all the way down the near-empty interstate, and somehow managed not to pick up any speeding tickets. There were no red-eye flights in New Britain, nor highways you could drive along at a hundred five miles an hour with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching an insulated mug of coffee. In fact, the fastest form of land travel was the train—and as she’d be happy to point out to the inspector, the last train she could have caught from Boston to arrive in New London before 4 a.m. had left at eight o’clock the night before.

It had been a rush. She’d parked illegally in New York—her New York, not the New London the inspector knew—and changed into her rich widow’s weeds in the cramped confines of the car. Then she’d crossed over and banged on a hotel door in the predawn light. She’d been able to establish an alibi by the skin of her teeth, but only by breaking the New Britain land speed record on a type of highway that didn’t exist in King John the Fourth’s empire …

“We haven’t identified the Chinee-man who was asking after you,” Smith agreed. “Nor the unknown assailant who fled—who we are investigating with an eye for murder,” he added with relish.

Miriam sagged slightly. “Horrible, horrible,” she said quietly. “Why me?”

“If you turn up in town flashing money around, you must expect to pick up unsavory customers,” Smith said sarcastically. “Especially if you willingly mix with low-lifes and Levelers.”

“Levelers?” Miriam glared at him. “Who do you have in mind?”

“I couldn’t possibly say.” Smith looked smug. “But we’ll get them all in the end, you’ll see. I’ll be going now, but first I’d like to introduce you to Officer Fitch from the thief-taker’s office. I believe he has some more questions to ask about your burglar.”

Fitch’s questions were tiresome, but not as tiresome as those of the city’s press—two of whose representatives had already called. Miriam had pointedly referred them to her law firm, then refused to say anything until Declan and Roger had escorted them from the premises with dire threats about the law of trespass. “We will call you if we arrest anyone,” Fitch said pompously, “or if we recover any stolen property.” He closed his notebook with a snap. “Good day to you, Miss.” And with that he clumped out of her office.

Miriam turned to Declan and rolled her eyes. “I can live without these interruptions. How’s the self-tightening mechanism coming along?”

Declan looked a trifle startled, but pointed to a sketch on his drafting board. “I’m working on it…”

Miriam left the office in late afternoon, earlier than usual but still hours after she’d ceased being productive. She caught a cab home, feeling most peculiar about the whole business—indignant and angry, and sick to her stomach at what she’d done—but not guilty. The morning room was a freezing mess, the glaziers still busily working on the shattered window frames. The elderly one tugged his forelock at her as she politely looked over his shoulder and tut-tutted, trying to project the image of a house-proud lady bearing up under one of life’s little indignities.