“Because we need them,” said Alyssa. “Why were you looking for me?”

Iona remembered she had reasons of her own to be angry with Alyssa. “Because they questioned me about the building that burned down, the one that you and I had been to a few hours earlier, and the bureau thinks my friend faked his own death to do it, and I’m sure you must be involved in all this and I want to know how.”

“But you didn’t tell the bureau you were there, right?” said Victor urgently.

“No, I didn’t want them to know I had any connection to it at all.”

Victor turned to Alyssa. “What do you think?”

Alyssa considered for a moment. “I think she’s telling the truth.” She gestured to Iona. “Come inside.”

Iona looked up, unsure what it was she was being invited inside—but as Alyssa’s torch flashed around, she realized her surroundings were as familiar as her own shoes.

“The Mull of Kintyre,” she breathed.

* * *

The king had returned to bed. One of his attendants had brought the newspaper for him so he could read how his assault had been reported. The article’s description wasn’t quite as he remembered it but then again he’d suffered a significant brain trauma, so maybe the report was right and his memory was wrong. He’d barely gotten a glimpse of his attacker and couldn’t now picture him at all—the man’s face was a blank in his mind. There were also several details the king hadn’t told the reporter and he wondered where those had come from. Probably Clarence had filled those in.

On the second page was an article about Ward, his attacker. This explained more about who he was and speculated on why he had done it. Ward had been a construction worker, passed over for a teaching post several times. His colleagues noted he’d been struggling with physical tasks and speculated he might have a repetitive strain injury. Perhaps he had feared retirement. Perhaps that was why he wanted that teaching job so much. Perhaps he could see no way out. But, as his neighbors were quoted as saying, nobody had suspected he would do something like this.

The king thought about his attacker for a while.

After some consideration he called all his attendants. He would need them.

* * *

Iona felt queasy to be walking once more along the corridors of the Mull of Kintyre. Alyssa led the way through the ruined spaceship. Iona noticed parts of the interior had been dismantled—whole rooms were missing—and she wondered aloud why that was. She didn’t expect an answer but she got one.

“This is where all the city’s metal comes from,” said Victor, walking alongside her. “There’s no naturally occurring metal here and even if there was we haven’t got the means to process it. So when they need more they get it from the ship.”

Iona was stunned by this. “But this mine’s been disused for . . . I don’t know how long it’s been disused for.”