“Where is Danjers? I don’t remember seeing him at the dinner table, and he’s pretty hard to miss. What’s the butler’s name again?”

“Whitecrake,” said Ripton, but Nick was already striding over to the butler, who was issuing orders to his footmen, who in turn were busy feeding the fires with more straw.

“Whitecrake!” Nick called before he had closed the distance between them. “Where is Mr. Danjers?”

Whitecrake rotated with great dignity, rather like a dreadnought’s gun turret, and bowed, allowing Nick to close the distance before he replied.

“Mr. Danjers removed himself from the party and left at five o’clock,” he said. “I understand that the curtains in the dining room clashed with his waistcoat.”

“His man went with him?”

“Naturally,” said Whitecrake. “I believe Mr. Danjers intended to motor over to Applethwick.”

Nick felt every muscle in his shoulders and neck suddenly relax, as a ripple of relief passed through on its way to his toes.

“We’ll be all right! Danjers’s valet is bound to have sent that telegram! Let’s see, if they got to Applethwick by seven thirty . . . the telegram would be at Wyverley by eight at the latest. . . . They’d get the message on to the Abhorsen’s House however they do it. . . . Then if someone flew by Paperwing to Wyverley, they’ve got those aeroplanes at the flying school there to fly south . . . though I suppose not at night, even with this moon. . . .”

The tension started to come back as Nick came to the realization that even if the Abhorsen or King Touchstone’s Guard had already received his message, there was no way anyone could be at Dorrance Hall before the morning, at the very earliest.

Nick looked up from the fingers he’d been counting on and saw that Ripton, Whitecrake, several footmen, a couple of maids, and a number of the guests were all hanging on his every word.

“Help will be coming,” Nick announced firmly. “But we have to make the fires last as long as we can. Everything that can burn must be gathered within this ring. Every tiny piece of straw, any spare clothes, papers you may have on you, even banknotes . . . need to be gathered up. Mr. Whitecrake, can you take charge of that? Ripton, a word if you don’t mind.”

No one objected to Nick’s taking command, and he hardly noticed himself that he had. He had often taken the lead among his school friends and at college, his mind usually grasping any situation faster than his fellows did and his aristocratic heritage providing more than enough self-confidence. As he turned away and walked closer to the fire, Ripton followed at his heels like an obedient shadow.

“There won’t be any useful help till morning at the earliest,” Nick whispered, his voice hardly audible over the crackle of the fire. “I mean Old Kingdom help. Provided Danjers’s man did send the telegram.”

Ripton eyed the burning straw.