She might have been thinking of M, but it was Rupert who appeared a moment later, smiling his best smile at her. His jumper was on back to front, and covered in croissant crumbs. Celeste stared outside harder than ever. Max left them to it. They seemed very far away, somehow: as though they were still on a nice safe train, where friends weren’t thieves and nuns didn’t carry hidden weapons, and Max was now somewhere else entirely.

Safely locked in the tiny toilet, she looked at herself in the mirror, trying to work out what she felt. She was somewhere in the middle of Hungary on a train and her only friend here had pointed a gun at her. What was she supposed to do now?

She stood like that for a while, but got no answer besides the thrumming of the train. All her homesickness had returned with such a rush that she thought she might really be sick, and the vibrating little room wasn’t helping, so she stepped back outside. Sister Marguerite was there, clutching a bundle of habit and a washbag. She looked around, and then leaned in to Max.

“When we pull in,” she muttered, “follow me lickety-split. I promise I’ll explain, mon lapin.”

And with that, she bustled into the toilet, looking for all the world like a nice nun in pyjamas, and not at all like a gun-wielding thief. Silver-gold fields rolled past sedately. Tales of guns in dark train carriages seemed silly now, somehow.

But it had been real.

When the time came to disembark five minutes later, Max was still so distracted that she managed to leave behind her case. That was how she came to meet Celeste Le Blanc. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Celeste holding the case out, and smiling.

Max hadn’t seen her smile before. She had small pointy teeth, which added to the dragon effect.

“You left this,” she said. Her voice did not match her smile.

“Oh! Thank you.”

“No problem. You want to be careful on these trains. Someone went through my bag last night.”

“Oh!” Max said, twirling a plait casually. “Really?” She must have put things back too hastily in her excitement over the note. Of course Celeste would notice a disturbance in her so-tidy suitcase.

“Yes, really,” said Celeste. “Luckily nothing went missing, but if I were you, I would be very careful.” She smiled her unwavering dragon smile at Max. Somehow, even though she had turned up the corners of her mouth, it felt more like she was snarling.

More to escape that smile than anything else, Max gabbled, “Oh, I’ve got to go, I’m going to lose Sister Marguerite,” and ran off after the nun. Her heart was skittering about. She knew that she ought to be afraid of Sister Marguerite, but she found to her surprise that she was more afraid of Celeste.