“Can you feel your toes?”

“Yes, and I wish I couldn’t!”

Brave lass! “No you don’t. If they hurt they’ll be all right.” I felt I owed her more of an apology. “I’m sorry about the clouds. I wouldn’t have invited you if I’d known you wouldn’t see anything.”

“It was lovely before,” she said staunchly.

We flew on. The seconds crept by. It felt like an hour by the time fifteen minutes had ticked off. Well, we’d given it our best shot; we’d never find anything out here tonight, and neither would anyone else.

“That’s it, Stedman, let’s go,” I said. “This is a washout. Hold your height. And take care.”

“See you back in Scotland,” crackled Stedman’s voice.

“Heading two-zero-five,” said Silver.

I began to turn, eyes glued to the instrument panel. Poor Louisa probably couldn’t tell which way was up. Outside was nothing but suffocating cloud and the faint, pale glow of the frosted airframe.

The flight home seemed longer than it should have been. It wasn’t; I could tell by the clock. But I began to feel I was flying in circles, even though I knew I was holding a steady course.

“Aren’t we there yet?” I asked Silver.

“Give it another minute on this heading,” he answered, and there was strain in his voice, too.

Time crawled on. The luminous clock dial told me so.

Louisa dared to ask, “Are we lost?”

“No, we’re not lost,” I assured her. “But it’s not fun to fly in.”

“Oh,” Louisa said. She didn’t sound reassured.

“Heading one-nine-zero,” said Silver.

Louisa didn’t say anything else. There wasn’t anything she could do to help.

“Can’t you give me a direct course?” I asked.

“No, in case we overshoot and fly into a mountain,” Silver answered. “We don’t want to descend below safety height. Not in cloud like this—one-nine-zero—”

I banked slowly to port.

Louisa’s voice yelled in my ears.

“Kingsleap Light!”

I saw it too, far below, a brilliant green ray piercing the clouds for one second. I spiraled down over the lighthouse, knowing I wouldn’t hit anything out at sea. The cloud was so low it sent fingers wreathing around the lighthouse tower. But we could see white foam against the black waves below, crashing on the Kingsleap Rocks.

Louisa’s voice came urgently in my headset.

“‘Hold green light await fog’!”

“What?” I asked automatically. “‘Hold green light’?”

A second later I realized why the words were familiar.

HOLD GREEN LIGHT AWAIT FOG

“‘Await fog’! It’s an instruction!” Louisa cried. “They always say ‘green light’ when they mean Kingsleap—it means wait for a fog and then have another go at Windyedge!”

She’d cracked it.

“What the—?” Silver asked.