The gate creaked open, and they went in.

They were inside the Garden of the Midnight Swan.

Her first thought was how beautiful it was. There were flowers everywhere, many of them roses, white and red, shimmering in the moonlight. The fragrance of their petals was heavy and sultry.

Nothing moved down the winding paths.

No leaf stirred in the clipped box hedges.

Everything seemed deeply asleep.

She saw that among the rose bushes were striped poles, topped with figures of lions and unicorns and dragons, all holding crests and shields. They were probably very brightly painted but in the moonlight they seemed all shadow and silver, and Seren thought their eyes opened and watched her sleepily as she passed beneath them.

Above the trees loomed the dark parapets and towers of a mighty castle, and she so wanted to go and explore it, but the mouse squeaked, ‘No, this way, please, and keep up,’ in its bossy little voice, and they turned left round a corner of the path.

And they saw the lake.

Seren breathed in.

It was a vast silver expanse. Moonlight shimmered on its surface like a magic pathway to a land of dreams. All around, black trees, heavy with leaf, stood against the starry sky.

‘This is it!’ she breathed.

‘Yes,’ the Crow muttered. ‘This is it.’

She glanced at him. He looked more hunched up and moth-eaten even than usual. He fussed and fidgeted and preened a feather.

‘It’s all right,’ Seren said kindly. ‘After all we’re bringing what She wants.’

‘Yes, but you never know with these faery creatures. As I am always having to tell you, you can’t trust them an inch.’

‘Don’t be tetchy.’

‘I’m not tetchy.’

Seren opened her mouth to answer when Tomos said, ‘Listen!’

From the high towers of the castle a bell began to chime.

Twelve slow, heavy chimes.

It was midnight.

‘Just in time,’ the mouse breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, that’s my job done.’ It jumped out of Tomos’s pocket onto a low branch of honeysuckle. ‘Now, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll…’

‘We have no need of your advice, thank you,’ the Crow said loftily. ‘I can take it from here.’

The mouse wrinkled its nose. It looked at Seren, ‘Feel a bit sorry for you. Having to put up with him.’

She shrugged. ‘I know. But we love him.’

The Crow looked astonished.

The mouse nodded. ‘Good luck then.’ And with a flicker of its tail it was gone, running along the branch into a tiny hole in the wall.

‘What a nerve these creatures have.’ The Crow turned to Tomos. ‘Quickly. The Box. We have to make sure the Egg is all right.’

Tomos pulled it out. The silver bands and the writing on the casket shone in the moonlight; he opened it and looked in.

His face went white. ‘It’s cracked!’

‘WHAT?’

‘There’s a crack. But how … I’ve been so careful…’

‘Let me see!’ The Crow flapped over and stared. Seren wriggled in next to Tomos and saw it was true. There was a tiny crack, thin as a hair, in the perfect white shell.