‘There,’ he said, grinning and running his fingers over the edge of the gate. ‘Now do you believe me?’

‘What am I meant to be looking at?’

‘ There!’ He pointed at a collection of fresh scars and scratches in the timber of the gate, just near the latch. ‘Do they look like the kind of marks someone would make trying to get through a locked gate? The kind of marks they might make with a little knife?’

‘Very well, I admit it,’ Amelia agreed. ‘But I still don’t think you should march up to the… Oh no,’ she sighed. ‘Where are you going, Philmon?’

Calling back over his shoulder, he said, ‘To the palace. I’m going to have words with Rendana.’

Amelia caught up with him just as he reached the street. She grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. ‘Philmon, think about this for a minute.’

‘What is there to think about? We need to ask this man where he’s taken our friend.’

‘What, and you think he’s just going to tell you? You think you can just walk up to him and say, “Hello, I’m Philmon, and this is Amelia, and we want to know where our… Oh, look, I’ve got a little knife stuck in my gut! ”? Come on, Philmon, not only does he work for Janus, but there’s a whole squad of huge, ugly Unja guards out the front of that palace. Now I think about it, you won’t have to worry about getting a knife stuck in your gut, because you’re going to get speared to death by Unja soldiers before you even get through the gate.’

Philmon closed his eyes and heaved a deep breath. ‘You’re right,’ he said, his shoulders slumping forward. ‘You’re right. I just want to know where Torby is. And Tab. And Stelka.’

‘Yes, and so do I. And I’ve just had a better idea.’

‘It’ll never work,’ Fontagu said, nervously glancing around the New Paragon’s backstage area.

‘Can’t we at least try?’ Amelia pleaded.

Fontagu shook his head. ‘It’s foolish. And we shouldn’t be discussing it here.’

‘We’re alone,’ she said.

‘You can’t be sure. You can’t ever be sure any more. And your plan won’t work.’

‘Are you doubting yourself?’ Philmon asked.

Fontagu scowled at him. ‘Whatever could you mean by that?’

‘You say that getting into Skulum Gate can’t be done. Is that because you don’t think you can prepare a disguise that’s good enough?’

‘Now let’s not go too far,’ Fontagu warned. ‘I’ve been working in the theatrical arts for -’

‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’

‘Look, it’s not all that important,’ Amelia told him. ‘We just need to see someone.’

‘But in Skulum Gate? Why there, of all places?’

‘I need to see someone who lives in there,’ Amelia explained. ‘It’s important, Fontagu. We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t. We have to find our friends. Your friends.’

‘Oh, wait!’ Fontagu clapped his hands twice, threw open a wardrobe chest and began pulling clothes out of it. ‘I could do you a lovely palace guard’s outfit – you could wander in there and ask Florian anything you wanted!’

‘She doesn’t need to get into the palace,’ Philmon said. ‘She needs to go to Skulum Gate.’

Fontagu began to wring his hands together. The knuckles of his long fingers popped and crackled. ‘Please, children, I beg you, don’t go down there. It’s a bad place! It’s very bad. It’s where all the dregs live now, all the magicians that fled when Florian took over.’

‘Yes, and many of those “dregs” are my old friends. And so we’re clear, they didn’t flee – they were sent there.’ Amelia could feel her face beginning to flush red and hot. ‘They were supposed to feel grateful that they weren’t tossed over the side like some. And they’re not bad people – not if you know them. If you think they are, you’ve been spending far too much time with Florian and his horrid little friends -’

‘Shh,’ said Philmon, placing his hand on Amelia’s shoulder. ‘Calm down.’

‘Oh, it just makes me cross,’ she said. ‘It makes me cross that I have to get a disguise to go to talk to my old friends.’

‘Why do you need a disguise to go to Skulum Gate anyway?’ Fontagu asked.

‘Just in case Florian has people watching the entrance,’ Philmon said. ‘Amelia needs a disguise that she can throw away as soon as she comes out. We’ll pay you for it.’

‘It’s a bad idea,’ said Fontagu. ‘Besides, how can I concentrate on opening night if I know you’re in danger? And knowing that I’ve been an accessory to -’

‘Can you help us or not?’ Amelia asked him. ‘Because if you can’t …’

‘Very well, very well. But if you get caught, I’ll deny that I was ever involved.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything else,’ Philmon muttered.

‘I just noticed something, old woman,’ Philmon said as he and Amelia took one of the back lanes leading towards Skulum Gate.

‘Oh yes? What is it?’

‘You know how Fontagu said that if we got caught he’d deny everything?’

‘Yes.’

‘His name is stitched inside the neck of that cloak you’re wearing.’

Amelia laughed. ‘That’s funny.’

‘Not as funny as you,’ Philmon said. ‘He’s actually done a pretty good job, you know. I keep looking at you and wondering who it is I’m walking along with.’

‘Yes, well you’re not walking along with anyone any more. It’s time to make yourself scarce. We can’t have anyone seeing you with the old woman who’s about to go into Skulum Gate.’

‘Are you scared?’ he asked.

‘A little. To be honest, I’m more scared of getting caught when I come out. But I bet I’m not as scared as Torby was when he was taken.’ She shuddered then, as she remembered Stelka’s voice, screaming out in her mind. ‘And I know I’m not as scared as Stelka.’

‘Well, all the best. I’ll be waiting right over there,’ Philmon said, pointing to a small flight of stone steps that led up to another, higher street. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘With any luck,’ she replied.

It was hot under the wig and all the make-up, even with the weakness of the sun’s rays through the cloud cover. Amelia bent over a little more, reminding herself of the last thing Fontagu had said: ‘Less is more’. He’d told her how the best actors didn’t overact, but rather sank into the role in a natural way. She’d almost laughed when he told her that, since she’d always thought that Fontagu’s whole life involved overacting.

‘You might smile, sweet one, but nothing will get you noticed faster than trying not to get noticed’, he’d said.

But it was good advice nonetheless, and the closer to Skulum Gate she got, the more she had to remind herself that she wasn’t a young former apprentice magician on a mission, but an old woman out walking the street.

The temperature fell noticeably as she rounded the last corner and stepped into the lane which led to Skulum Gate. She took a deep, fluttery breath. At the end of the street was… nothing. A dead end. The wall of a double-storey building stood there, leaning slightly inward. Its windows were empty. Dead.

‘Calm, Amelia,’ she muttered as she stepped forward. The further in she went, the cooler it seemed to get, and the drier her mouth became. As well as that, the walls on either side were closing in. With a struggle, she resisted the urge to look back. She’d really thought that going into Skulum Gate during the day would be the easy option, but now that she was approaching the entrance, it felt anything but easy.

She was almost at the very end of the alleyway now, and was just beginning to think that she’d come into the wrong lane when a deep chill passed over her. She shuddered all over. She was sweating, and yet she felt terribly, terribly cold, as if she had a fever.

Somewhere behind her eyes she felt noise, conversations, cries and moans. Her fingers tingled and her toes began to cramp. And that deep thrumming pain in her stomach was back, but it wasn’t nerves. It was something of a far more magical nature, and not necessarily the good kind.