‘He told you? What? What did he tell you?’

‘Do you remember Cyan, his daughter?’

‘Of course I remember Cyan.’

‘She has gone missing.’ Eleonora paused, dramatically.

I said, ‘What, again?’

‘Pardon?’

‘She was kidnapped once,’ I explained. ‘While you were busy wresting the throne from Staniel Rachiswater and exiling the poor fool.’

Eleonora tipped her foot and thoughtfully rolled her rowel spur up and down on the floorboards, leaving a line of dents. ‘Oh, I see. Well, that explains Lightning’s extreme reaction. He jumped to the conclusion that Cyan has been snatched. She is, after all, the future governor of Peregrine and the daughter of Governor Micawater, so she’s a target for kidnappers. They know he would give his manor for her safety.’

‘Where did she go missing? Awndyn?’

‘Hacilith. In the city.’

‘Why? What was she doing there?’

‘I don’t know. I was hoping you’d sort it out. Eszai should bloody well tell each other if something goes wrong instead of moping around and drinking.’

I nodded. ‘Maybe I can help.’

I was much more familiar with Hacilith than Lightning was. In fact, I know it like the veins in my arms. I could put the word around and if any hotelier or spa owner had spotted a girl as glitteringly important as Cyan the city would be buzzing.

Eleonora followed me out of the church-and pinched my arse hard as we passed through the door. I sped up to get away from her and returned to the hall.

A servant was moving around the table placidly, collecting plates and glasses, and pouring yet more claret for Lightning. He was talking to Frost but I barged in on their conversation. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that Cyan’s gone missing!’

Lightning looked confused for a second, then narrowed his eyes at Eleonora. ‘I…Well, I admit I have been a little preoccupied.’

‘You can hardly concentrate,’ Eleonora told him.

‘On the contrary, the planning is taking my mind off the problem.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘But I can’t stand the fact that Cyan’s life may be at risk.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Frost.

Lightning sighed. ‘I suppose I should tell you. My daughter has contrived to get herself lost while on the Grand Tour. It is an Awian tradition, Frost. I received a letter yesterday morning from my steward, Harrier. He was accompanying her. They’d toured Awia and were stopping once in Morenzia to see the sights of the city. That morning they had visited the Agrimony Campanile, the church at the place where the Emperor was born, and the great bronze façade of Aver-Falconet’s palace. Harrier went to sign into the Costrel Hotel and when he turned his back, she vanished.’

‘I would, too, with an itinerary that dull,’ I said.

Lightning gave me a look with the force of every minute of his fourteen hundred and forty years. He was older than everything in this reclaimed valley, even Lowespass Fortress that you would have thought immutable. I shivered.

‘It is not easy to give Harrier Disante the slip. He could have traced her anywhere but in Hacilith.’

‘Did he see any kidnappers?’ I asked.

‘No. When she started the tour I thought it was essential tutoring for her to see the world, but now I am afraid she is learning too much. I would do anything for Cyan, buy her any present, let her travel anywhere except she must not be alone in the city.’

‘I can put your mind at rest,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to Hacilith and see if I can discover news. If I can find Cyan, I’ll bring her back.’

Frost stared at me with incredulity. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘On the eve of the advance? Certainly not.’

‘It’s only four days’ flight there and back,’ I said blithely. ‘You’ll scarcely notice I’ve gone.’

‘Of course I will!’ Frost snatched her notebook off the table and held it pressed to her chest, her arms folded across it and her eyes round. ‘Honestly, Jant. Another of your picaroon ideas! Just because it’s Lightning’s daughter. Just because it’s him! Quite frankly I think all those beads you wear are cutting off the blood supply to your brain. The Emperor asked thee to work for me this year. Thou knowest I need thy help. I need communication and logistics more than anything else!’

I can tell Frost is distraught when she starts to pepper her speech with the remains of her old Brandoch accent. Nobody, not even in the Plainslands, has spoken like that since the seventeenth century.

I said, ‘I’ve already sent out my dispatches. The troops are on their way and no matter how much I chivvy them, they won’t march any faster. I want to see you raise the gate as much as the journalists do, but it’s eight days from now. Even if I don’t find Cyan, I can easily make it back in that time.’

Eleonora said, ‘How like an Eszai to take too much on!’

Lightning said, ‘Frost is right. When Cyan was kidnapped before, I deserted my duty and went looking for her even though Insects were swarming. The Emperor was unforgiving-and rightly so-because there are still bite marks in the gates of Shivel manor house and paper stains in the parlour of Tanager Hall. San only gave me one more chance and his decrees are set in stone. I do not want to have to crawl to him like that again. He went so far as to say that every one of those thousands of people killed had been worth as much as Cyan.’

‘You’re afraid of the Emperor.’

‘Yes, I am. For myself and for you.’

Frost said, ‘How old is this Cyan, anyway?’

‘Seventeen,’ said Lightning, refilling his glass.

‘Seventeen!’ Frost exclaimed.

Seventeen…I thought, and confirmed my decision to go and find her. Mortals seem to age very fast these days. I had been thinking of her as a child but now she must have a mind of her own, and a body too. Her father was born with the silver spoon and could afford to believe the best of human nature. Her mother, who died at Tris five years ago, was a schemer convinced of humanity’s worst. How had these traits mixed in Cyan? How had she turned out?

Frost said, ‘She’s probably just enjoying herself and she’ll come back when she’s ready. Don’t you remember what it was like to be seventeen?’

‘Yes. Why do you think I’m worried? I did a lot of stupid things when I was that age…There was that incident with my father’s chariot and the lake…Anyway, we had a sense of propriety and Cyan, I fear, has none. It is strange. Why should she run away? She can’t be angry with me or I would definitely know about it, otherwise she would have wasted the effort. Either she has been untruthful for some time or this was a temporary aberration. I imagine her coming to her senses again and realising she’s lost.’

‘She’s smart enough to get herself found,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t exactly led a sheltered existence.’

Lightning twiddled his glass and gazed at the stationary surface of the wine inside it. ‘She has not visited the city before…Meanwhile I’m supposed to be drilling these archers who seem to think they’re here for a stroll by the water stair.’

I thought Lightning was wrong. He had always said Cyan could do what she wanted, but now she chose to exercise that freedom he was up in arms. If she had only just discovered freedom, of course she’d want to know how much she could use it without losing it. She would just drink too much and spew in the street at three in the morning. She’d have gut-rot and a hangover, recover and feel ashamed. Then she would find the sheets rough in the coach house and bedbugs too; cold water in the pitcher and no soap in the bowl. I said, ‘Lightning, she’ll come home wiser in the ways of the world, with her tail between her legs, and vow not to leave the palace for a long time.’

Lightning passed a hand over his forehead. ‘Oh god. You don’t understand. Cyan has the blood of a thousand-year-old dynasty. She is the new heir of the house of Micawater…Why does nobody have the slightest inkling what that means to me?’