“Never fear, Count Karlstein!” he said, looking back and bobbing his head up and down on his narrow little shoulders. “I shall obey your every command!”

“Of course you will,” said Count Karlstein, without any expression at all.

“Good night, sir! Good night!” said Snivelwurst, and pushed the door carefully shut before turning and going down the stairs in a light, tripping scuttle, like a rat in the ballet. Thank Heaven! He didn’t see me. I stood quite still for a long time before I dared move, but I had to eventually, as I was shivering so much I was sure I’d drop the candlestick—and that would be the end: I’d find myself in the hunting lodge too, trussed and gagged, wide-eyed in the darkness, waiting for the first ghostly wail of the hunting horns in the midnight sky….

There was nothing for it. I’d have to tell the girls; they’d have to run away. But where, in the name of Heaven, could they go?

I felt my way down the stairs, pausing only to light my candle at the dim fire in the hall before climbing again to the east wing, and to the two rapt faces over their leather-bound book of phantoms.

They were still wide awake. They had a fingernail’s-length of candle left and the wick was beginning to lean over, like a sleepy soldier on parade. Lucy pinched it out straight away when I came in with mine, so as to save it for later.

“Hildi, what is it?” said Charlotte. “We heard you coming—we’d just got to the bit where the Phantom appears on the battlements, and we thought—”

I shushed her and she stopped, rather startled, a real person, alive and anxious, being more worrying than a host of phantoms in a book.

“What is it, Hildi?” said Lucy. “You look upset. Have you been to see Susi Dettweiler? Is she hurt badly?”

“No, Miss Lucy, I haven’t. But you’ll have to listen, now, without interrupting, because this is serious. You understand?”

Lucy sat up, but Charlotte just pulled the quilt around her and watched me with wide eyes. I told them what I’d heard. And they seemed to shrink as I told it: not to get smaller so much as to get younger—more innocent, somehow.

“You’ll have to hide, Miss Lucy,” I said when I’d finished. “Only till All Souls’ Eve; then you can come out again, because the danger’ll be past.”

“But where can we go?” she said, and I thought: oh, no, she’s going to cry. Her voice was shaking and her lip was quivering, and she swallowed hard. But she didn’t give way.

“I think I know of a place,” I said. “It’s a fair way off, but you’ll be safe there for a while.”

Then Charlotte sat up.