Storm excused herself from yet another formal dinner as soon as she could, pleading tiredness. Days spent doing nothing but eating and shopping were surprisingly exhausting! There had been no sign of an elderly man with a pet monkey in the crowds. But then, neither had she spotted a Fire-witch among the dozens of witches she had seen entertaining shoppers and seamen for a handful of silver. She had not been given any more mysterious messages, but the sense of being watched – and not just by Talon’s guards – increased day by day.

Storm slipped away from the crowded gathering room, murmuring apologies to Talon and his daughter, nodding farewell to the dozen guests whose names she couldn’t remember.

She escaped into the rear courtyard and out through the ancient wooden gate that led on to an expanse of communal garden. Like the formal garden in the central square, the rear garden served all the houses of the Pact, wrapping round them. Betaan had boasted that it was nearly as large as the town itself, extending to the sea cliff that fell away into the distant harbour.

She wandered neatly tended paths for a long time, planning how she would escape to the tavern long enough to speak to Uncle. Tomorrow it would be a five-day since she had come to live with the Pact. Storm glanced towards Talon’s house and spotted a guard standing at the gate, watching her. Storm sighed, turned her back and strode deeper into the mock wilderness.

She soon forgot the watcher. The sound of water was everywhere, trickling from pond to pond, running in shallow rivulets between flower beds. Songbirds trilled, singing all the more frantically as the sun sank towards the sea. Butterflies flirted in fading pools of sunshine.

Storm paused in the middle of a wooden bridge leading from one flower-strewn mini-island to another. How Ma would have loved this place! For the first time since Dain’s death, Storm felt a strange comfort at the memory of her mother. She wandered towards the cliff edge, found a bench perfectly placed and sat down to watch the sun sink into the sea.

Why have so many witches travelled to Bellum Island? But she thought she knew: the Dolphin, Tortoise and Albatross had sent them because the Salamander’s most powerful witch was here to kill her. The very fact that she hadn’t yet seen one Fire-witch in the town was worrying.

She pulled the tiny gold monkey from her waist pouch and examined it. “Seek out the old man with the monkey,” the goldsmith had said. If she found the old man, would he know the answers to these riddles?