Grace drifted, her legs and arms weightless. There was a soft feeling on her face, like the brushing of feather after feather past it, and she wondered if she could be back in that cabin in the woods. Perhaps she had never woken up, and slept there still.

But little by little, the light touches became colder and colder and she blinked once, twice, and opened her eyes.

She looked up at a confusion of moving, falling shapes and put a hand over her face to protect herself. And then she realised that they were snowflakes; the fat and fluffy sort of fall that turns into drifts within hours.

She sat up, and snow fell from her legs and arms. She was wearing the clothes she had arrived in, and the winter coat was keeping her from freezing, but she was growing cold by degrees.

She put a tentative hand up to her shoulders and found that she had no backpack. Only her clothes. Which seemed strange, when she was sure they had all been together.

Grace wondered how she came to be out here in the snow, instead of... She wasn't sure where. Perhaps somewhere in the city, since she could remember travelling on the winds with Afi. Or perhaps somewhere in the palace if they had ever reached it.

She clambered to her feet, and tried to remember coming here. Through the thick fall of snow she could see almost nothing; only the dark outlines of trees against an absolute white. It was almost impossible to look beyond the closest flakes of snow. Her eyes kept snagging on one here or there and following it to the ground, only to look up and find another to watch.

The movement was hypnotic and she might have stood there for hours, but there was a small itch somewhere in her head that told her she needed to move. She lowered her head and lifted one foot out of the snow, and wondered why she had the heeled lace-up boots on instead of her hiking boots. And then she blinked, and they were her hiking boots, all practical, thick suede and brown laces.

A single spike of worry coursed through her as she saw that, and then it faded away to be replaced by a patient certainty that something important was going to happen soon.

She smiled to herself as a gust of wind lifted the snow ahead of her for a moment, and revealed a glimpse of a stumbling figure. Then the wind fell away and the risen snow cascaded back down in a sheet to block the vision out again.

Grace walked onwards, absorbed for a while in the sensation of her feet breaking through the surface of the snow and crunching it downwards. When she looked up again, she was close to the trees, and saw that the figure had stopped beneath one of them.

She moved closer, into the shelter of its branches, and there was suddenly nothing between her and the bundled figure. Clearly, now, she could see that it was a woman, raggedly dressed and shivering. She was bundled in layers and layers of dirty brown and grey cloth, and she was curled over herself.

No, not over herself, Grace realised, as she heard a frantic whispering. She was curled over a child.

Grace crouched down over her, knowing that she couldn't be seen without understanding why. She could see little of her face except a fall of dark hair, but she could hear the words now. Though they seemed to be nonsense now that she heard them.

"Mi znandemo de nebuda, ya obіcya you."

It wasn't nonsense, she realised, as she listened. She couldn't understand it, but they were words.

"Skoro, mi budemo teplі. Ya obіcya you me malainkee," the woman said, and Grace heard desperation in her voice and wanted to help her. She wanted to help this woman and this child, but she knew that she wasn't really here, and that she was seeing something that had already happened even while it unfolded in front of her.

The woman brought the child up towards her face, and Grace didn't need to understand the words that came next.

"Gregori? Gregori?" The woman put her hand up to the child's face, though Grace couldn't see any more than a bundle of torn blankets. "Gregori! Mi Gregori! Buyd laska, Gregori. Buyd, laska!"

And Grace felt as if her own heart was breaking as she heard the woman wail, and watched her cry over the still form of the child, which Grace now understood could no longer answer her back.

She tried to put her hand to the woman's shoulder, to comfort her, but she was floating backwards, pulling away from the scene, and the snow was dimming and turning into little points of light.

I needed you to understand, she heard a voice say, but it was her mind that heard it, and not her ears. It spoke within her head. When you wake up, you'll understand. And you will be where you need to be.

The drifting, floating feeling became the soft, realness of a bed, and she opened her eyes properly this time, to see the soft light of a single, dim globe over her head.

She watched it for a while, as she gathered herself from wherever she had been. She remembered, little by little, how she had run from the Empty Room and found Ruidic sitting with her brother. And she remembered what had happened before that, too, and that the book was still with the Captain.

But her mind came to rest on the vision of Ori and his mother, and a little piece of understanding fell into its place.

It was her, she thought. The Queen who is so beautiful and yet so hard, and so loving with her son and yet so heartless towards others, lost a child once, and she is terrified of it happening again.

And Grace began to wonder whether the glowing light she had seen around Ori was his own, or whether she was so much afraid that she had him encased within spells of protection so powerful that they shone off him in Grace's eyes.

Grace also understood where she was, although not why. Not yet. She was in the Empty Room again, and the circlet that she had fought to escape rested on her forehead. But there was no feeling of dread, now. She knew that there was something she needed to do. She just had to understand what it was.

She sat up, slowly, and as she did so she felt something dig into her leg.

She drew out the wand, which was tucked into the waist-band of her trousers where it had been, and in spite of the lingering heart-ache that had stayed with her after the dream, she smiled.

So you're not all bad then, Ruidic, are you?

She moved the wand a little so that it was more comfortable, and then looked around this place, seeing more now that she was no longer terrified and struggling to escape.

The room was unconventional in shape, like so many of the rooms in the tower. She suspected that they couldn't all sit together, with their bizarre ceilings and curved walls, without a hefty dose of possibility to help them. This one was circular but with a high, domed ceiling on top of it. There were murals along most of the walls, lending them a riotous colour, and Grace wondered whether these were the Queen's doing or the inmates'. They were as extravagant as the Queen's garden, certainly, but made with simple paint on plaster.

Scattered around the room, amidst cushions and tables, were thirteen couches that had been turned into beds for the night with the addition of a pillow and blankets. Grace had been lying in the only real bed, and she suspected that it was only a temporary measure.

On every one lay a young woman or a girl with one of those circlets on, none of them older than twenty-five, she thought. Yet the Queen had been capturing them for years, since before her mother had fled and Grace suspected for a good while before then. So where were the older women? It was another mystery that Grace was certain she needed to solve, and quickly.

She saw, as she had expected to, that the couch nearest the door held the sleeping form of an older woman, fully dressed in the scarlet and gold robes of the palace. Beside the door, in a deep armchair, sat Merrily. She looked up as Grace moved, and gave her a small but wary nod, and then glanced pointedly at the door, where there was no key this time.

Grace ducked her head and turned away, remembering with shame how she had thrown the woman onto the cushions before she ran. Though a small part of her thought, a little defiantly, that it would have taught her to be less trusting.

She saw that there was a window cut into the curved wall at the far side of the room. It was still night out there, and although they were not at the very top of the tower, they were still high enough that Grace could see the gleaming clusters of lights that marked out other cities. Each one centred around the shapes of broad boulevards like the ones here in Kryzna, visible only as strong dark lines drawn through the lights.

The protective wall that each one hugged wasn't visible at all, except by the way the lights were each cut off along a curved line, and it was like looking at cities perched on the edge of the sea.

She moved over to the window and pressed her fingers against the cold glass. The little ache that had struck her when she first arrived here started up within her. So much of the kingdom was beautiful, and yet she knew she had to unravel most of it. The beauty rested on foundations of hunger and pain and desperation, and that was a great deal too expensive as far as Grace was concerned.

Though perhaps she wouldn't have to unravel it. As she looked out at those other cities, she felt a growing fear that it was going to shatter, all on its own.

There's something coming, Benjamin had told her, and she knew that he was right.

But she was here, in the Empty Room, held captive in a place with no possibility, armed only with a useless wand. What was she supposed to do? And how was she going to do it?

She looked back at the sleeping forms, wondering if it had something to do with these girls. The dim light gleamed off the circlet on each head.

Grace reached a hand up to touch the stone on her forehead, and a slow thought formed that this was what stopped her from being able to use possibility. Were these black stones blocking it somehow?

She ran her hands along the window-ledge and felt the bump of one of them set into the frame. It sent a spark of dread through her as she touched it, and she withdrew her hand. Then she followed the wall around its curve until she found another set into the wall - though she only found it by touch, as whoever had painted the wall had used it as the centre of a flower. Just as she had with the first one, she cringed away from it.

And then she touched the stone that rested on her forehead again, and curiously crossed to one of the sleeping girls.

She glanced over at Merrily, but she had picked up a book, apparently satisfied that Grace meant to do no more than explore the room. Grace looked back at the sleeping form. She was one of the youngest girls, probably around Maggie's age, and her face was creased into a furious frown even in sleep.

Grace reached out her hand, gingerly, to touch the stone on the girl's forehead, and the moment her skin came into contact with it she felt that same jolt of dread. She sat back, and thought about this - about why the stone on her forehead did nothing to her when she touched it. Why didn't it?

And then she thought about Ruidic and his circus-tricks, and she couldn't help grinning. She knew the answer, without needing to be told. He had left her the wand, and he must have performed a wonderful sleight-of-hand on that circlet. She wondered what had happened to the real one, and what sort of stone he had stuck to this one.

She was busy smiling as the girl in front of her stirred in her sleep, and then settled, the frown gradually relaxing into a small smile as whatever she dreamed of changed. And then Grace realised that she recognised this girl.

"Kelly," she said, very quietly, remembering that face in newspaper print.

Nine-year-old Kelly Irish went missing from Saranac Lake after her parents found her bed empty...

She didn't know why it was such a shock to realise this. Of course Kelly would have to be here. Ruidic had come with his fair, and taken two girls away.

Which meant that Lily Wong had to be here, too. Grace stood, and looked around until her eyes fell on the face of a pretty twelve-year-old with glossy black hair. She might not have recognised her from the photo in the Lake Placid Times, because it had been an old school photo from when Lily must have been eight, but she was certain it was the same girl now that she knew what she was looking for.

He was looking for me, she thought, and went to sit back on the edge of her bed. He snatched them away to find out if they were me, or one of Ma's children. And then he kept hold of them. Why?

Probably because sending them back might trigger a few people to start looking for their world, she thought. Well, whatever the reason, she was going to take them back with her when she went. She just needed to work out if that was why Ruidic had sent her here, or if there had been another reason.

Grace sat and watched the sun rise over the Kingdom, while she worked and worked away at all this in her head. Her eyes kept coming back to the travelling winds, their brightness standing out even against the early morning sun. They brought back to her mind the web of possibility which had joined all the sleeping boys.

And just as the germ of an idea was settling into her mind, there was a rapping at the large carved door and she jumped.

Grace saw the girls close to her stir, as well, and there were three or four of them watching with her as Merrily rose and pulled out a key. She unlocked the door and then removed the bar, and into the room strode Captain Roschan, his face drawn into a strange smile, followed by a shuffling young soldier who stopped in the doorway.

"I've come to talk further with your newest guest," he told her, but Merrily looked straight over at the heavy figure of the older woman who was sitting up clumsily on her couch.

Grace stood, hoping a little wildly that he was going to free her, before remembering that she had to do something here before she left.

"It's barely dawn," the older woman said, her voice hoarse and resentful.

"I'll keep my voice down," Roschan replied, and there was steel in his voice. "I'm sure I can persuade your guest to as well. Though if you're unhappy, perhaps we should conduct the interview in my office."

"No!" the woman said, and then, more quietly, "No, I'm afraid not. The Queen was most insistent that she should be kept within this room from now on."

Grace saw Merrily flush, and suspected that the two of them had been made to feel the full force of the woman's anger for letting her run from them the night before.

"Whatever the Queen commands," Roschan said mildly, and stepped quickly across the room towards her. She saw him looking around, and seeing that there was a clear space a little way from any of the couches, he nodded over to it.

Grace went, gladly, briefly checking the wand in its place at her waist as she went.

Roschan gestured to one of the cushions, and she sat, crossing her legs. The Captain sat opposite her, and Grace smiled slightly as she saw him attempt to keep his upright posture even when sitting on the floor. He shifted uncomfortably, gave a small sigh, and then unbelted the heavy scarlet tunic and slid it over his head.

"Absolutely full of useful compartments and pockets," he said, drily, as he deposited it on the floor, "but uniquely designed for standing situations only."

Grace waited for him to settle himself again, and then asked, quietly, "Is Afi... my cousin... all right?"

"He's well," the Captain said, and gave her a small smile. "We have been talking at some length, young Afi and I."

Grace felt a surge of worry, unsure whether this was a good thing or not. Did he meant that he had interrogated him? Is that what he had come to do to her, too?

He went on, lightly, "I'm delighted to discover that you gave the Palace Guard a morning call yesterday."

"A... what?" Grace asked. She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

"Oh. Well, you made them realise their shortcomings," he tried again. "I've been reporting to the Queen for months that we're in a dire situation, and you've actually been of some help in proving it to her." He glanced over at the girls on their couches, two of whom were pretending to be asleep but actually watching them, and he dropped his voice a little. "None of them found you until you stumbled across Ruidic, and that is worrying in the extreme."

"But you train them, don't you?" Grace asked. "Surely they aren't that bad."

"I trained the ones I had a year ago," he said, and his quiet voice rang with bitterness. "I have a handful of them left now. The well-trained ones were picked off in twos and fours whilst patrolling, or massacred by creatures out of a nightmare when we came under direct attack. These men and women we have left are barely able to hold a weapon," he spat, "and they're here because they have no other way of earning money, or because they hope that they might be able to protect their families that way, which is absurd when they can't even protect themselves."

Grace suddenly understood what had happened at the gate, when soldier after soldier had fallen and then the rest had huddled together in fear. She nodded, slowly.

"It's all building towards something, and you know it," he said, meeting her eyes with a gaze that reminded him of the way Afi had looked at her at first. There was a desperate hope in them, and she felt such an awful weight of responsibility descend on her that she had to look away. She had come to save Benjamin, and now she found herself responsible for saving a kingdom. And she wasn't even sure she could save her brother.

"Ruidic knows it, too," the Captain went on, that subtle dislike tingeing his voice. "He's as frightened as I am, even if he's too stupid to let it show past that overweening arrogance of his."

For an absolutely bizarre moment, Grace found herself wanting to jump to Ruidic's defence. And then she told herself, severely, that she had to remember who had caused all this.

He took Benjamin, she thought. But if he hadn't, she would never have come here, and at least if she was here she could try to help all of these people.

"I told you before that my loyalty was to the palace," he said then, quietly, "and it is. But I can see what she does to this Kingdom, what she risks, all for the sake of a child."

Grace nodded, thinking of the scene she had witnessed in the snow. It was so much harder to condemn the Queen for that, now.

"She's terrified of losing him, isn't she?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "but the sway he has is too great. And I don't know..." He looked at her with a strange expression, uncertain and a little horrified. "He doesn't age," he said at last.

"He doesn't..."

"The child you see has been a little boy for the last fifteen years," the Captain said, and shook his head. "And fifteen years ago, the Queen outlawed true-seers."

Grace nodded, slowly, realising that little Ori was older than she was. The thought was bizarre. Was the Queen keeping the illusion of youth? Or was it worse? Was Ori not really a child at all?

She looked back at the Captain.

"So what are you going to do?" Grace asked, quietly.

The Captain sighed, and looked over towards the window. From down here on the floor, all they could see out of it was the deep blue of the early morning sky, and the little web of the winds over the top of it.

"My duty," he said. And then, after a pause, he added, "But I'm also going to hope that I might help you, Grace Lane. And that helping you might help others, too."

He reached over to retrieve his coat, and as he lifted it, Grace saw, where it had been lying, a little rectangular bundle of cloth.

The book, she thought, and she felt such a surge of gratitude and relief that she thought she might cry.

"I think you might help me," she said, a slight catch to her voice.

He met her eyes, steadily, as he replaced his tunic and his belt, and then nodded in approval as Grace quickly covered the bundle with one of the cushions.

"I'll be leaving my young colleague on guard," he went on. "Until evening."

Grace followed his gaze over towards the door, and then felt an even greater rush of happiness and had to restrain herself from hugging the rugged Captain. Standing there in the uniform of the Palace Guard was not some under-trained boy soldier, but Afi, and she decided then and there that she was never letting him out of her sight again.