‘I hope you do get to see him again,’ said Clariel, all too conscious of those she would never see again.

‘Yes,’ said Bel, the laughter gone as he caught her mood. ‘I, um … Kargrin said he thought your parents … that they were … were killed … I don’t know …’

‘Yes,’ said Clariel quietly, almost to herself. ‘They are dead. It was all so very quick. We were at this dreadful dinner, and I was thinking about how soon we could leave, and how soon I could leave … I mean leave the dinner and also leave Belisaere altogether. Aronzo was annoying and Kilp scared me, but I never thought … I never thought anything could happen, not like that …’

‘Then the world was changed, all in a few moments,’ said Bel. ‘I never thought Kilp would try to take the Palace either. If Gullaine wasn’t so suspicious, I’d be dead too.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘The Abhorsen’s rooms are in the lower west court,’ said Bel. ‘Much easier to attack, but almost completely separate from the rest of the Palace. They broke in there and I suppose they thought there’d be an easy way into the Palace proper. The first I knew about it was Gullaine shaking me awake just after midnight and rushing me along a maze of secret ways, with guard sendings popping out the walls and floors and growling off behind us, and then there was Anstyr’s horn echoing everywhere. There was no chance of them taking the Palace after that, though they did try an escalade on the lower wall by the gatehouse. Not one ladder reached the top. It was horrible, not least because so many of the guild people were clearly half-hearted, unsure what was really going on …’

He fell uncharacteristically silent. Clariel didn’t think she’d ever heard Bel stop speaking without someone asking him to, or some other interruption.

With Bel not talking, Clariel noticed it was much quieter than she had expected. They were borne up by the breeze and carried along by it at a pace far swifter than any horse could gallop, but she could only hear a dull humming sound, and that was almost more a vibration felt rather than heard.

‘Why is it so quiet?’ she asked.

‘What? Oh, we are inside the wind, carried with it, rather than having it pass across us,’ said Bel. ‘But the Paperwing is also imbued with charms to still the air here where we sit, and to make it warmer as well. Though if we go much higher, you’ll still need your cloak. It gets very cold, like being up a mountain.’

‘Kargrin said you are to take me to the Abhorsens,’ said Clariel.

‘He thinks that will be the safest place for you,’ said Bel. ‘Gullaine agreed. She let me take this Paperwing, it’s one of the royal ones, though I guess you knew that from the colour.’