Grace didn't want to admit that it was beautiful, but it was. Overriding her fear was a dumb wonder at the vast, glittering structure. The white shapes, some of them seeming more like clouds than solid structures, were pierced here and there by spires, and around them all she could see the haze of spell-working, constant, pulsing, but also shifting and unmistakeably living.

There were different colours in it all, and she imagined for a moment that each represented a different boy. She wondered, achingly, which one was Benjamin's and what it was the Queen was forcing him to do.

For a moment, a fiery red spark flashed out at the very point, and she decided that it must be Benjamin's colour. The thought made her smile, though it was a sad smile. How could she face it if she stayed captive, and had to see him in a maddening trance?

She reached out for Afi's arm, but he slid his hand down and wrapped his fingers around hers.

"It'll be ok," he murmured. Grace saw the guard who was supporting her weight glance over at him, but his face was young and full of the memory of horror. She could see that he wanted to believe what Afi was saying, and wasn't suspecting him of anything.

What has happened? She thought. She had expected to find the palace a hostile, intimidating place with guards who would defend the Queen to the hilt. Instead, it seemed to be shot through with uncertainty and fear, and under systematic attack. She felt a sympathy with these men that she would never have anticipated.

Their three-man escort led them up a flight of shining white steps, going slowly enough for her to keep up with the help of the young guard, and through the largest pair of double doors Grace had ever seen.

It must cost a fortune to heat, she thought to herself, though the thought didn't do a great deal to make her feel better.

There were another dozen men within the vast entrance hall, lined up six to each side. They stood unmoving, but with long shimmering blades drawn and resting on the ground, a strange echo of the guards at Buckingham Palace her Aunt Frances had sent her a postcard of. Stranger still was the line of bronze-coloured statues behind them, each in an identical pose though with full traditional armour. She wondered if they were intentionally a note of mockery, or if humour worked a little differently here.

There were two huge staircases rising on each side of the wall, but their escort walked them straight past the rows of guards and towards a gently glimmering cylinder of light against the back wall.

"Is this an elevator?" Grace asked Afi quietly, as the guards ushered them to stand within its glimmering space.

"It's an Intention Wind," Afi told her. Before she could ask what on earth that meant, the guard behind them had stepped in and they were suddenly moving upwards, as quickly and fluidly as they had inside the Travelling Wind.

To Grace's shame, she found herself clutching Afi's hand and the guard's shoulder tightly as they veered in one direction and then another, entering passages between rooms and flickering in and out of each. She had glimpses of vast spaces and small ones; of indoor gardens and rooms that seemed to be full of light; of echoing emptiness and crowds of people; of simple, basic rooms and some crammed full of opulent furniture and ornaments, and one which looked like a strange armoury.

After the first minute, she shut her eyes and tried to pretend it was a roller-coaster. She felt herself slowing shortly afterwards, and her feet touched down gently on something solid.

She blinked, and looked up and down a surprisingly ordinary corridor.

"Here," the leading guard said, and opened a door to their left.

Grace moved, and only then realised that she was still gripping Afi's hand tightly enough that her fingers hurt.

"Sorry," she said, and blushed, which made her feel worse.

One of the worst concepts in nature, Ma always said. I'm embarrassed, so I'll show it by going a really unattractive shade of scarlet, just in case you hadn't noticed.

"It's fine," Afi said, and gave her a slightly wicked grin. "I don't need it right now."

He shook his fingers, and Grace nudged him with her elbow, pointedly, as the guard let her hobble into the room.

She shouldn't have been expecting a hospital room with lots of beds, but she still stopped in surprise when she saw a vast space with what looked like dark blue seed pods at intervals around the walls.

There was a woman sitting behind the desk, writing something on a piece of paper - that, at least, she recognised. She looked up when they came in, and walked around to meet them, her flowing dress wafting around her ankles as she moved.

"Captain Roschan's pair?" she asked, her voice brisk. "I'll need your mark."

She held the paper out, and Grace had to re-evaluate quickly as it rippled of its own accord. The young guard held out his hand and the paper folded around it, flashing with light briefly, and then floated back to the woman's hand.

She put it on the desk behind her, and then peered at Grace. She had the uncomfortable impression that she was being looked through instead of at. The gaze lingered on her head, and then on her leg.It was a relief when it moved on to Afi instead.

"Tell Roschan he can see them in twelve hours."

She held out her hand, and a ball of light detached itself from the wall and landed in her palm. The young guard spoke to her, quietly but urgently.

"I think he wanted them a little earlier."

"So hard, isn't it, not getting what you want."

She seemed so very unconcerned that the guard closed his mouth and nodded.

"Here." She held out her hand towards Grace. The little ball of light darted forwards, and flowed over Grace's skin, much like the tailor's Help Hands had done. With it came an instant relief from the pain of her ankle, as well as a wave of contented sleepiness.

"There's a pod free for you there," the doctor, as she must have been, indicated, and Grace's helpful guard edged her towards it. On the third step, she put her bad foot down to steady herself and realised that it no longer hurt.

She looked back at Afi and the little globed of light circling around his head, and wished she could take this part of the Cold Lands home too if she ever made it. Though she also wondered whether there were things it couldn't heal.

Afi pulled a face at her, but she could see that the drawn, greyish look had gone and there was a heaviness to his eyes that she recognised.

She eased herself away from the guard's support and stood on the ground close to the pod. It didn't surprise her this time to feel herself lifted, and to watch the pod open up to reveal a dim, cushioned interior.

She was laid down so gently that she had to crane her neck to see that she was lying down. When she sank into it, it was the most achingly soft bed she had ever experienced.

The pod closed itself up, silently, and then asked in a soft voice, "Darkness, dim lighting or daylight?"

She mumbled back "Dim lighting," and watched the light drop down until it seemed just like the sliver of light which came round her bedroom door at night.

"Please adjust the brightness to your liking."

"It's perfect, thank you," she said, feeling a little silly thanking a disembodied voice. But she knew Ma would forgive many things in a new world: forgetting her manners wasn't one of them.

Twelve hours, she thought. Part of her knew that twelve hours meant another half day with Benjamin in that trance, losing a little bit of himself with each minute that past. But another part of her was already drifting away, profoundly grateful that she was finally forced to rest.

She dreamed about Benjamin. It felt as though she woke from the sleep pod into a large, almost bare room, but with all her exhaustion gone.

She was standing on a marble floor, and the dream was so real that she could feel the cold of it seeping into her feet. There was a throne ahead of her, a strange, twisting thing that seemed to be made out of twisting tree branches. A little stool stood off to one side, and she walked towards them to see better.

As she approached, she saw that it wasn't wood, but some kind of gleaming white metal that had been shaped. Each twisting branch ended up in a point, and the points surrounded the seat. She imagined sitting in it, feeling those twisting shapes as a protection but also a danger.

And just like that, she was sitting in it. She felt the points almost touching her skin on inside and she shuddered. When she turned her head, she could see the stool next to her, a little in front. And then she realised that it wasn't a stool - it was another throne, a miniature version of the one she was sitting in.

Then the room contained someone else. It wasn't that they arrived, just that the room suddenly had them in it. A boy of eight or nine, with long raven-black hair and light blue eyes that she could somehow see, even halfway across the room.

He hadn't come to see her, she was certain of it. He had come to look at the throne. She saw the moment when he registered that someone sat within it. His anger was shocking.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her, his voice a little boy's but also an old, old man's. It made her shiver to hear it.

"I don't know," she said. "It's just a dream..."

He looked around, nervously, aggressively. "Why here, though? Why did you come here?"

He stepped towards the throne, as if he was going to force her to leave it, but then Benjamin appeared next to him.

"It's just Grace," he said, his voice light and raucous as it had always been. She had never been so relieved to hear a sound, even though she knew this was a dream. "She's dreaming about where I've gone."

The raven-haired boy looked at her, his suspicion gradually fading into a look of superiority. "It won't do her any good," he said, and then he was gone.

Grace held out a hand to stop Benjamin from following him, and before she knew it she was next to him, and had gathered him up into a hug.

"Get off!" he said, grudgingly, but she felt the way he hugged her back, and how slowly he let go of her.

"I've come to rescue you," she told him, and he grinned at her.

"I guessed you had. I saw you last night, in another one of these dreams. I had to drift a little way to find you but I knew you were coming. You must have been exhausted. You didn't even stir."

Grace thought back, her memories of the world outside this dream unfocused. "In the cabin?"

For a moment, the room behind Benjamin changed, becoming smaller and wood-built. It was lit warmly and a fire burned in a grate, a kettle poised over it.

Benjamin turned, looked at it. "That's it. But there was a guy there. Sitting watching you. Kind-of creepy, I thought." He pulled a face at Grace, and she shoved him, gently.

"He saved my life. And then was probably worried I'd go ahead and die on him anyway."

"Oh." He flickered for a moment, as if he had moved between one moment and the next, and then asked, "You brought him with you?"

"Yes," Grace said, and was aware that she was sounding a little defensive. "He has a brother here too."

Benjamin shrugged. "I guess a lot of people do."

"Look," Grace said, grabbing his arm. "I need to know where you are. Can you show me?"

"Sure."

Benjamin flickered again, only this time she felt a tug, and then was standing in the middle of a smaller chamber with soft lighting and soothing music. Scattered around on cushioned mats on the floor were boys, so many she had trouble counting. A web of tiny, slender lines joined them all, and Grace knew she was looking at the spell that linked their magic; the spell that controlled them.

Benjamin nodded towards a sleeping form and even though she had expected it, it still made her feel dizzy to see that it was him.

"We're all here. It's in one of the highest rooms in the tower."

Benjamin spoke normally, unafraid of waking any of them, it seemed.

"Of course it is," Grace murmured, with a sigh.

"Don't be fooled by any of the spires that head off and up to the side," he went on. "It's in the main body of the tower. I've walked around the place every night and it's not so hard. You just have to keep going up. And use the stairs, not the winds. They're enchanted to throw anyone with bad intentions to the Queen into the prison."

"I'm going to have to climb two thousand feet on foot?" she asked.

Benjamin gave her a look like she was stupid, the same kind of look she was used to getting from him back home.

"This is a rescue," said Benjamin. "Since when have you seen a rescue where the hero got to take the elevator?"

Grace thought for a moment. "Die Hard?"

Benjamin sighed. "He also had to tread on glass with bare feet."

"OK, I'll take the stairs." She gave Benjamin a small grin, relieved beyond measure to see and hear him acting as he always had.

"But you need to do it quickly Grace," he said, and suddenly his voice was older, undoing all her positive thoughts. She blinked, and they were floating outside the tower, their feet on nothing. She had to fight the urge to grab hold of him.

It was dark out here, which surprised her. She thought it was still daytime.

"There are cold creatures attacking everywhere."

Below them, in the street that ran around the palace, she saw shapes moving. At first she thought they were more of the dog-creatures, until she squinted into the dim light of the street-lamps and realised that they gleamed.

"Flesh wolves," she whispered. As she said it, another shape broke out of the shadows, clearly a man running for his life. The flesh wolves set up a howl and began to pursue him.

"Is the Queen using your magic to fight them?" Grace asked, her heart stepping up, even though she knew it wasn't her real heart when she was standing in the middle of a dream.

"She doesn't want to believe it's happening," Benjamin told her, his voice flat. "And we aren't free to use the magic we have where we want. You have to free us, soon. There's more coming, we can feel it. And it's so much worse than what's here."

Grace watched, appalled, as the wolves caught and fell on the man. With a snap, she was back in the room with the boys.

"Did they get him?" she asked.

Benjamin raised a shoulder in a shrug. "I guess so."

Grace wanted to cry. She knew that Benjamin could be a little mean sometimes when he teased, but he had never in his life been heartless. He had always cried when his rabbits died, as hard as Maggie had, and the two of them had set up little graves for them in under the aspen in the garden.

How could he be so unconcerned about the death of a man?

Because he's seen so much of it in just a few days, she thought, and there was a cold feeling of anger spreading through her chest.

"I'll do everything I can, Benjy," she told him, and saw his nose curl up as she used his baby-name. At least that part of him was still there.

"There's another reason, too. The boy, the one you saw."

Grace followed his gaze, and saw that one of the sleepers was the raven-haired boy. He looked a lot less strange with his eyelids closed over the unsettling pale blue.

"He's looking for something. At first I thought I should help him, but I've started to realise-"

He broke off, his face crumpling slightly.

"What is it?"

"You're waking up."

Benjamin pointed to her hands, which had become translucent. She held one up and could still see his sad face through it.

She grabbed him and hugged him, realising that she couldn't feel it properly now.

"I'll be there soon, I promise," she whispered, fiercely. Benjamin buried his face against her shoulder, and then she blinked her eyes open onto the brightly-lit interior of the pod.

I'll be there soon, she whispered, tears running freely down her cheeks.