Suddenly I saw clearly: this whole excursion had been a plot to get me to marry Siegfried. I was never Matty’s dear friend at school. The queen could more properly have sent her own daughter to the wedding and not me. I was, as they say in American gangster films, set up. Framed. Duped. Ladies swarmed around me, patting me and offering congratulations. Even my mother came to peck me on the cheek. “Very sensible,” she whispered in my ear. “You’ll have a lovely dress allowance and he won’t bother you. A little difficult about future babies that Darcy has dark hair, but so does Siegfried’s mother, so that’s all right.”

I looked up to see Belinda looking at me with wonder and amusement on her face. As soon as she could she dragged me aside. “Have you lost your mind?” she demanded. “You can’t be that desperate.”

“I’m not and I haven’t,” I hissed back. “It’s all a horrible misunderstanding. I never said that I would marry him, but I had to humor him last night and he took it the wrong way. What on earth am I going to do, Belinda?”

“Can I be a bridesmaid?” she asked, mirth bubbling up again.

“That is not funny,” I snapped. “You’ve got to help me.”

“You could let him know you’re not a virgin,” she said. “I gather that rather matters to people like Siegfried.”

“But you know I am.”

“Then remedy it rapidly.”

“Thanks!” I laughed nervously. “And how am I supposed to do that? Darcy has gone away again, and I’m not desperate enough to want to remedy it with anybody else.”

“I could lend you Anton, I suppose,” she said as if we were talking about gloves.

“Belinda, you’re not taking this seriously.”

“You have to admit it is too, too delicious for words, darling. You becoming Mrs. Fishface. At least you’ll be a princess and Fig will have to curtsy to you.”

“I hardly think that makes up for being married to Fishface,” I said. “This is turning into the worst day of my life. Speaking of which, you haven’t seen my maid, have you?”

“Probably sneaking off again to get at the cakes,” Belinda said.

“No, I asked and she wasn’t below stairs. And she wasn’t in her room, either. I’m worried about her, given everything that’s happened.”

“What do you mean?” she asked and I remembered that she wasn’t in on Pirin’s murder.

“The vampires and everything,” I said, making her laugh again.

“Sweetie pie, you don’t really still believe there are vampires in the castle, do you?”

“In a castle like this it’s easy to believe in anything,” I said.