Take a deep breath in through the nose.

Hold it and count to three.

One

Two

Three

Blow the same air out through your mouth. Do it hard and explosively. Repeat this process.

It's an old exercise. Long term readers will know that I have used this exercise before in an effort to keep my head before completely losing my mind. It's one of the very first things that Kerrass taught me all that time ago. Apparently what this does is cause exactly the right amount of air to flood the body in order to fight off adrenaline when that adrenaline is not needed or wanted.

It works as well. Try it, next time that you're having a fit of temper or want to commit a scientific experiment wherein you test exactly how much force and from what angle to strike in which to force someone's head through a table.

I was employing it then.

We watched the Empress be crowned, the four of us craning our necks and looking around for Francesca. We must have been the only people there not looking at the Empress herself as Lady Yennefer placed the crown upon her head. Instead, as we all rose to witness the Empress being crowned, a number of small, pale but above all polite young men in black came to us and beckoned the four of us to follow them at a time that we wouldn't be noticed leaving.

We were lead through a side door where we were met by Lord Voorhis who smiled at the four of us apologetically. None of us spoke. I don't know what the other three, Sam, Emma and Laurelen were thinking but I could feel my brain running through lots of different thoughts. So fast that I couldn't concentrate on any single one of them. All that I kept remembering was that old breathing exercise that Kerrass had taught me.

Eventually Mark joined us. Equally as bewildered and looked at the four of us questioningly. He managed to catch my eyes and I shook my head. Was it only in my imagination that he paled or was it his illness making it's presence felt.

We were in the servants corridors. A place where normally we would have no business being and it was frantic with activity. Men and women running around, sometimes at full tilt in a variety of regalia, colours and uniforms all with that very special look that suggested that the entire world would collapse if they were kept from their particular mission. The noise was spectacular and I just had enough time to marvel at the Elven architecture that kept this constant noise from the other people in the castle.

Lord Voorhis beckoned for us to follow him.

It was not lost on me that we were also under guard. Three very large soldiers in the faceless black armour of the Imperial guard followed with us. Sam and I exchanged looks.

“Lord Voorhis,” Sam began, “Could you...”

“No talking please,” Voorhis snapped quickly but without anger. “Forgive me, things need to be done in order, follow please and remain silent.”

“I don't see why...”

“Remain silent or you will be made to be silent.” This time Lord Voorhis put a little more force into it.

Sam almost let his temper get the better of him but Mark put his hand on Sam's shoulder.

Voorhis saw the interaction and nodded. He beckoned again and we were led down some stairs. The air turned cool and I guessed that we were somehow underground. Within the rock that the palace sits on top of.

We came to a table which had five large wooden boxes on.

“No questions.” Said Voorhis again. “All loose belongings into a box each please. Shoes, belts, laces and threads. Jewellary, blades, hidden weapons, vials, medicines, potions, money, pouches, all of it into the box. I managed to exchange looks with Emma. I'm not sure if she could even see me.

“What's going on?” She whispered, or tried to whisper anyway. Her voice came through clear to me and I could see Lord Voorhis open his mouth to speak. I held my hand up to him though.

“We're prisoners. He's asking for our things so that they can be searched but also so that we won't harm ourselves in captivity.”

I raised an eyebrow at Voorhis. He nodded and it didn't seem as though I would be punished for speaking. I guessed that Emma needed someone to say it and if it was me rather than some faceless Nilfgaardian then so much the better.

I emptied my pockets and belts, putting my shoes and socks into the box. I was quick enough to see Voorhis give Laurelen a bracelet. She spent a long time looking at it before putting it on with a sigh. She paled visibly as she put it on.

“So cold,” I saw her whisper. I don't know if she meant it to be heard or not.

“All being well your belongings will be returned to you forthwith.” Lord Voorhis nodded. “Please follow me.” He came to a series of rooms. He gestured for someone to walk inside. We all looked at each other, fear and confusion warring on each others faces. I sighed again and walked into the first room. The room had a table that was fixed to the floor, a bench and two stools on either side of the table. The door was shut behind me and locked.

I shivered again and paced around the room a little bit. Six feet square give or take a bit. There was a bucket in the corner but there was nothing in it. I paced a little bit before giving up and sitting back down. I sat down and tried to think but the nervous energy in my body made me get up and pace again. Six feet doesn't give you a lot of room though. Light was granted by a pair of torches high up on the walls. The Holy Flame knows what the rooms were meant for. I had difficulty imagining that this place was meant for the housing of prisoners as there is only limited room in so ornate a palace. I much rather believed that it was some kind of store room. I jumped up and tried to reach one of the torches. More for something to occupy myself with than any kind of desire to actually reach it and decided that it must have been lit with some kind of holder.

I tried sitting again and went through the exercises that Kerrass had taught me. I felt wretched.

I don't know how long I sat there. I know that after a while I began to rock backwards and forwards in an effort to keep time. It's almost impossible to keep a sense of the passage of time in such a place. In the end the door opened and Lord Voorhis came in with a jug and two cups. I leapt to my feet as he stood at the door. I wanted to throw questions at him. To demand to know what was going on. Failing that I wanted to wring his scrawny neck until his dead fish like eyes boggled out of his skull.

He stood in the entranceway looking at me calmly. “Do I need to have you locked into manacles?” he asked.

“Would it help matters?” I asked as I sank back to the stool.

“Not necessarily. You're taking this rather calmly if I might say so.” He sat opposite. The door remained open but I could see that there were guards in the corridor outside. I would never make it and I guessed that the open door had been left so as a temptation to see if the guilty man would make a run for it. Lord Voorhis poured some watered wine into both cups.

“Have you put some truth drugs into it?” I asked.

“No. But would I have told you so if I had?”

I grinned and took a drink. Even watered down wine for prisoners in Toussaint is better than some of the best wine that I had been served elsewhere on the continent.”

“Why so calm Lord Frederick?”

“It all seems a little familiar to me.” I said. “Working with a Witcher means that I've seen more than one type of questioning and have been on the other side of the interrogation table several times.”

“You're talking about that instance with your cousin?”

“That and there have been others.”

“The possession in North Eastern Temeria?”

“And the Werewolf attacks in Eastern Maecht.”

Lord Voorhis nodded.

“In which case. I suppose you know how this all works.” He said. “All I need you to do is to tell me what happened.”

“Tell you what happened?” I asked. “I don't know what happened.”

“Come on Lord Frederick. Your sister Emma isn't stupid, she runs the business enterprises of your family and as a result she practically runs the economy of the North. Sooner or later, you dig into just about anything that has to do with mercantile affairs in the North and you find your family. Sitting there like the fat worm gnawing through the apple. So tell me what the plan was.”

“What plan?”

“Look,” Voorhis blew some breath out of his nose in exasperation before he leant forward. “Let's be honest with each other. Your older sister's the brains of the outfit isn't she? Mark is a clever man but at the same time, your sister leaves him standing. He's far too naïve for anything of this kind of magnitude. Far too innocent to fall in with the kind of plot that you and your sister are involved in.

“Samuel seems like a decent enough sort of fellow but, he just doesn't have the balls. So tell me what's going on and I'll let you get on with your life. I'll only lock your sister up for deviancy and stupidity to go with high treason. With a bit of luck I can get it converted so that she lives out the rest of her life in a convent somewhere and you can marry your vampire harlot or whatever and you and I never need to cross paths again.”

“Have you gone quite insane?”

In my defence I was in shock.

“Insane Lord Frederick?” He leant forward and slammed his fists on the table. “Do you think I'm a fool. A plot to assassinate the Empress on the day of the coronation. I find people with your livery at the site along with anti Nilfgaardian propaganda. Even as we speak your younger sister is giving us everything she knows about your families dealings. Poor girl. You used her didn't you?”

“Used her for what?” I yelled. “I haven't seen Frannie for over four years.”

“I know. But you've sent enough letters between the two of you.” He snarled. “She's given us most things. If not all of it by now. If you listen carefully you can still hear her screaming....”

“What have you done with her you piece of filth?” I bellowed. I leapt to my feet, threw the table aside and went for Voorhis who rose and backed off. Two guards were through the door in seconds and threw me back onto the stool as Lord Voorhis searched my face for some kind of clue. I struggled but there was nothing that I could do. The men holding me were armoured and I only ran the risk of hurting myself. Abruptly Voorhis turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

I sagged against the two men and they let me go and I sank back down into a seated position. I was stunned and appalled at the implications of what the Lord had told me. I was shaking and at first it did not register with me that the door had reopened again. Lord Voorhis was standing there. A servant was with him, a bowl, another jug and a fresh shirt.

“Apologies Lord Frederick but I had to be sure,” he said. His tone not really conveying any hint of apology. “Take a moment to freshen up and join me outside the cell. I had the liberty of having a fresh shirt brought from your quarters.” He vanished again just as quickly before I had chance to ask him anything else.

Out in the corridor I found Sam straightening his tunic. It was definitely not the same one that he had been wearing earlier. He couldn't meet my eyes as I clapped him on the shoulder.

We were ushered up some large plain stairs and through several back corridors. There were still lots of servants running around and the odd hastily closed door let out sounds of merriment and music. It sounded like the festivities to celebrate the Empresses coronation were in full swing. I had been looking forward to them in the kind of absent way that you might look forward do a long anticipated holiday. The way that you look forward to the Yule festival when you're a child or any of the many Equinox's after you get old enough to properly enjoy their meaning.

I felt sick and a little dizzy.

We filed into what was being set up for a part office with a large writing desk and as well as some kind of changing room. It was oddly surreal. On one side of the room, several very serious men were positioning a large table, a chair, blotting sand shaker along with several quills, ink pots and a small sharp knife that I assumed was used for trimming quills. There was also, rather pessimistically, a waste paper bin. On the other side of the room, was a dressing boutique.

I had once had the privilidge to accompany my sister when she went shopping to her favourite boutique in Oxenfurt. I like to think that it's not often that my family flaunt our wealth other than in the state of our residence, our investment in our lands and the industry that is contained on those lands but oh boy did I have my eyes opened. It was on the run up before my sister departed for the south and she had commissioned several gowns for her use and for the use of Laurelen when they arrived for the coronation. I also needed to be fitted for some new clothes as apparently my normal shirts and doublets would not be considered acceptable. It was an education.

First Laurelen and then my sister were ordered to climb up on a box that was surrounded on three ides by huge long mirrors. The dressmaker, who challenged my preconceptions again, by being a man rather than a woman, came out with a tape measure and several large rolls of fabric. There were also a couple of dressing mannequins that were set nearby. As I had watched, far more fascinated than I had thought possible, the dressmaker had tried four different fabrics on my sister, had folded two of them together in order to demonstrate how they would look before my sister was measured, thoroughly from head to foot, including in some areas that I would not have dreamed to stick a tape measure. My sister made her selections and then we had left.

It was like that only more so.

There was a dressing screen while a small army of women came and went, running to and fro and yelling at each other. All the while they were waiting for an important personage to arrive. They whispered of her presence in a way that might suggest that this person held the power of life and death over their souls. It reminded me of all the hubbub that used to happen whenever my Father declared that he was going to inspect the garrison.

I might be forgiven, given my state of mind that the person that they were waiting for with such nervousness was the Empress but I would have been wrong. Instead it was the Imperial dressmaker. A woman who, up until recently, had only had the responsibility of dressing the Imperial consort was now in charge of dressing, not just the Empress but also the Empress' ladies in waiting. When she arrived the women that were rushing around snapped into place and no military unit was served with more discipline.

She was a tall woman, Sharp in her beauty, immaculately dressed and made up. I would guess that she was a woman in her early fifties but she was beautiful in a way that made it all look so easy with a regal air and poise that seemed innate and automatic. She inspected the preparations with a jaded air before taking her place between the mirrors and the dressing screen.

Lord Voorhis gestured the five of us over to this side of the room which put us more on the part with the desk. Kerrass had trained me, hard, to be aware of my own mental state. When dealing with enchantments or the many and varied tricks that can be played on your mind by the supernatural creatures that he sometimes had to deal with, you need to check sometimes so that you could know. Are my thought patterns the same as they would be normally? Has my moral code suddenly switched directions without warning. Am I considering taking an action that would normally be out of character for me? It was one of the reasons that Ariadne was and still is so frightening to me.

Ariadne is a long, pale, cool brunette with hair so dark that it might as well be black. Her sense of humour is sly, dry and sometimes rather subversive, an effect that she gets from being on the outside of society looking in. All the time her intelligence is a finely tuned and honed sharp as a razor. She is a creature of another race and another world. Previously, Kerrass' comments not withstanding, I would have chosen much more.... I wanna say “normal” a love but Ariadne had wandered into my life. I don't know what kind of woman I had wanted but when imagining my ideal woman, someone like Ariadne was too far from what I had imagined. That change in my thinking and my desires was one of the things that frightened me.

What I'm saying is...I was aware that I was in a state of shock and allowed myself to be steered by Lord Voorhis.

The Empress entered the room like a whirlwind. The Witchers came first. Eskel and another man that I didn't recognise opened the doors and had a look round but Kerrass and Gaetan were hard on their heels and marched past them and into the room. The Empress came next.

Or rather her voice did. She was swearing in a way that I've heard some sailors say, “hang on that's a bit much,” and she was doing it in at least four languages. I recognised Nordling, Elven, some dwarven and the strange rhythmic tongue of the Skelligan isles. The Empress came next, still in the dress that she had worn while being crowned, the long train of the dress being carried by two pages who had had to run to keep up with her.

“Fuck, fuck, fucking cunting, cheese licking, arse chewing bastards. Fucking cocksucking cowardly drunken fops with their stupid imbecillic incestuous drunken cunts.”

I'm paraphrasing as she was speaking so quickly that I didn't catch all of it.

“I'm gonna rip out their testicles and beat them to the point of death with them. Which is going to take some work as their manhoods must be so fucking shriveled that I'm gonna struggle to find them.”

She was also hissing and spitting like a cat.

“Ciri, what if it's a woman?” The White haired Witcher that walked behind the Empress asked. “We haven't truly....”

“If it's a woman then I'm going to rip out her ovaries with my own bare hands before stamping on them until there's nothing left.”

The two page's who had been carrying the train of the dress were tittering nervously.

“Fuck off,” she snarled at them and they fled out the door. Lord Voorhis judiciously shut the doors behind them.

The Empress snatched the silver circlet off her head and threw it in indiscriminately into the room like a discuss thrower.

As an aside to those experts that are wondering. The Imperial crown rests on the throne so that, if she wishes to make an announcement she reaches behind her to put the crown on her head. In day to day life she wears a simple circlet so that everyone is reminded of who she is.

Along with the White Wolf, another Witcher entered with her that I didn't recognise, as well as the Empress' personal secretary who was carrying a large packet that contained the Empress' seal and the golden wax that was used to seal imperial decrees. The secretary marched over to the desk to set out the wax and seal.

The Empress span on Lord Voorhis who managed not to quail in terror.

“Well?” she spat.

“She still hasn't been found Majesty.”

“Fuck,”

Emma groaned, Mark staggered and leaned against the wall. I think I turned away.

“Right, What the hell is going on?” Sam demanded.

“Careful Lord Kalayn,” Lord Voorhis boomed ominously.

“Fuck your careful and fuck you too.” Sam snarled back.

“That's enough,” the Empress proved that she knew how to quell a room. “Well Lord Voorhis?”

“Majesty,” he bowed. “I don't believe that these people are involved directly. I think that we can almost completely discount Lord Mark and Lord Frederick from our enquiries. Lord Frederick only arrived the day before yesterday and his movements are well known to us. Lord Mark arrived some weeks ago but, likewise, his movements are a matter of record and I don't think he can have done anything about it. For Lady Emma and Lord Samuel, we are still running down some of their activities but if any of the family are involved then we're pretty sure that it would have to be done through intermediaries and agents. We're still working on that.”

The Empress nodded before turning to the five of us.

“Here's what we know. Servants went to wake your sister, Lady Francesca at dawn as they had been instructed to do so by me so that she could help me get ready and make her own preparations as she was to serve as my sword bearer. She was not in her room and there was no sign that her bed had been slept in. The guard were not immediately concerned as, although this would be out of character for Francesca, it has not been unusual for my ladies to be hopping from bed to bed and it was assumed that she would turn up. She still had not turned up when I was due to walk down to be crowned which was when someone decided to let Lord Voorhis know that there was a problem.”

“That's rather a long time isn't it?” I asked. Already investigating and looking for someone to blame. I hated myself a little then.

“Oh believe me, that is going to get talked about Lord Frederick,” The Empress hissed. “Now, you know as much as I do.”

“Majesty?” The secretary interjected.

The Empress turned to him and he gestured towards the waiting army of women.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

She stalked off towards what I had labelled as the “Dressmaker's side of the room”, where she just barely managed to make it behind the privacy screen before the waiting ladies pounced on her and started to pull all of her clothes off, the Empress herself was being handled, turned around and didn't seem as though she had much of a choice on the matter.

“Then what was all that nonsense about?” Sam demanded. “You don't think... You don't think we had anything to do with it? How dare you?”

“Of course he thought that Sam. It's his job to think like that.” My family turned to me and I was a little astonished to realise that it was me that had spoken. “He's the head of “confidential agencies” or “Intelligence,” or whatever and it's his job to, first of all, see an attack against the Empire and the Empress in any situation and then think about who is attacking regardless of whether he's being attacked or not. He had to suspect us. He has to suspect us.” I looked around for a seat, of which there wasn't one so instead I slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “In fact, we should be damn grateful that he hasn't just locked us up in a cell somewhere “for our own safety” if for no other reason until the crisis is over.”

I put my head in my hands. I felt sick.

“Well done Lord Frederick.” Lord Voorhis commented over the general din that was coming from the other end of the room which appeared to be the sound of the Empress arguing violently with the dressmaker.

“Would you like a job, presuming you're innocent of course?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I don't want to have to teach myself to think like that. To suspect everyone like that.”

“It's actually quite good for the soul,” Lord Voorhis suggested. I looked up at him to discover that he had found a stool and was helping Mark to sit down on it. “If you always suspect the worst of everyone then all they can do is surprise you in a good way.”

“Besides, you can't have him, he has employment.” The Empress had emerged, she looked dishevelled wearing a loose fitting cotton shirt whose sleeves were two long for her and a pair of scuffed and stained leather trousers that were held up around her waist with a length of rope. She stamped over to the desk where she was handed a piece of paper by the secretary. The door on the other side of the room had opened and there was a stream of waiting messengers there with scrolls and pieces of paper under their arms or in their hands.

The Empress started reading the paper with astonishing speed.

“Do we know if she's definitely still in the city?” I asked. “A location spell or something similar?”

“It's been tried.” Lord Voorhis told me. “The results were.... inconclusive.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Sam snapped. His face was red and I was beginning to worry that someone would have to slap him down at some point and if it was the Empress then there was a better than even chance that he wouldn't survive the event. Emma must have sensed the same thing as she reached out and laid her hand on his arm.

“It means, Lord Kalayn, that we don't know.” Lord Voorhis told him “But that could mean anything. I'm told that such things are not always dependable.”

“Why not?”

“There can be any number of reasons?” Laurelen answered for Lord Voorhis. “Up to and including the target's mood and the skill of the caster. She could be shielded in some way, or protected or she might have been given some dimertium to protect her from scrying.” She took a deep breath. “She could also be dead and if the spell was cast to find a living person then that might be significant.”

“Also she might have been moved,” Lord Voorhis went on “or be outside the area of effect, be actively hiding as well as being hidden as she is well aware of what magic users are capable of. Even more so if she has been taken by a magic user. The search is being refined as we speak. Lady Eilhart insists that no-one has used a gate to escape the city and the existing gate site is guarded. If those guards are lying then we have a larger problem than that.”

“So what's next?” The Empress asked from her desk. She was frowning at the piece of paper that she was working on. “This is wrong, several small but significant spelling mistakes.” She pointed at the manuscript for the benefit of her secretary who smiled and took the offending paper away to replace it with another one.

Lord Voorhis moved to stand in front of the desk “We have to assume that we are under attack.”

“Why?”

“Because Lady Francesca is a route through to your person Majesty. The worst case scenario here is that there was some kind of plot against you, that Lady Francesca was involved in some way and that that plot is still going ahead, regardless of her disappearance.”

“Oh come on,” Sam exclaimed in protest. Emma was sobbing quietly and Mark had his head between his legs and was concentrating on breathing in and out.

The Empress' opinion was rather more brutal and profane.

“I'm not saying that that's what happened Majesty, what I'm saying is that we have to assume that. We have to protect ourselves in case that is the circumstance here.”

“I don't see it.”

“Neither do I.” Voorhis admitted “But we have to work as though that is the case. We have to assume that by now, your itinerary and plans have been given to an enemy. That your routines and strategies for the coming weeks and months are now no longer kept a secret. We have to assume that.”

“Francesca would never do that.”

“Even if she wouldn't do it willingly she would do it under torture. Everyone breaks Majesty and so we have to assume that every fact, every plan or conversation that you've ever had with her or that she has been party to is now a resource for your enemies.”

The Empress signed her name again and took another piece of paper off her secretary.

“For our enemies, you mean.”

“Yes of course I do,” Lord Voorhis' temper flared suddenly.

“So what do you suggest we do?” The Empress frowned at something that was written on the paper in front of her. “This is wrong,” she told the Secretary. “That means that the border is two miles out of the way.”

“Are you sure Majesty?”

“Pretty sure, check it would you, before I sign it into law.”

The Secretary nodded, passed her another treaty to sign and left the room briefly.

“Why must we assume that we are under attack Lord Voorhis?” she asked him as she began to scan the new piece of paper.

“Because it has thrown you off centre. May I speak frankly Majesty?”

“Go on.”

“You are no longer an Empress Your Majesty, you are a woman who is worried about her friend.”

“Mmm, so you think this might have been done to put me off balance?”

“Maybe, I don't know. If that was the plan then it might have worked but that would only be the first part of the play. We don't know what the plan was so we must assume the worst.”

The Secretary came back in with a new arm-load of paperwork. Lady Yennefer slipped in behind him and went to stand in the back of the room next to the White Wolf.

“What do you suggest we do then Lord Voorhis?”

“Close the port, declare martial law, impose a curfew and anyone who tries to leave the town should be searched and stopped.”

“That would require usurping Toussaint's autonomy.”

“Yes it would.”

“The Duchess won't like that.”

“You're assuming that the Duchess isn't involved.”

I found that I was hyperventilating and forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths. “Your Majesty, if I may?”

“Yes, what is it Lord Frederick?”

“I agree with Lord Voorhis Majesty. You have to assume that you are under attack but full on martial law, curfews and closed borders has the potential to cause panic. Not least of which to whoever has taken our sister.”

My voice broke on this last part. But I swallowed and tried again.

“Instead of being overt, why not a message to your customs inspectors that they need to search everything in question. Everyone who's anyone wants to be here. Merchants, nobles, common-folk of every stripe. They're all here and none of them are going to want to leave unless they have sinister motivations. So a quiet watch on the roads in and out of the city will reap some benefits.”

Another thought occurred.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Does the Duchess know what has happened?”

“She does,” Lord Voorhis answered.

“Then would she be agreeable to the prospect of helping us?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well, propose a game. Suggest that Francesca has offered an entertainment. That she has been “kidnapped” and that the “kidnappers” need to be apprehended. The person who finds her first will be declared the winner and will win, I don't know....”

I waved my hand in the air, searching for some kind of fancy sounding title.

“Her majesties permission to court the lady Francesca.” Said Lord Voorhis with a smile. “That might work. It would certainly give the errant knights something to do in the meantime. But it's not as certain.”

He turned back to the Empress.

The Empress nodded, “Then we'll do that. In the meantime we need to investigate who would want to harm Francesca for her own sake and who would do it to harm me.

“What can we do?” Sam stomped over. “All due respect to everything else and I can well imagine that many people will find it fun to hunt our sister across the duchy but at the same time, I don't want to be stuck in the palace while my sister might be in danger.”

“Your absence from the parties would be conspicuous Lord Kalayn.” Voorhis put just the slightest emphasis on the word “Lord”.

“So?”

“So we don't want to do anything that might give the game away to Francesca's captors.”

Sam stared at Voorhis with his mouth hanging open. “This isn't a game, this is my sister's life.”

“And we will find her Lord Kalayn, you have our word on that.”

“Your word? Your word means fuck all to me right now. You lost her once when she was under your protection.”

“That's enough, Lord Kalayn,” The Empress snapped. That she did so without looking up from the piece of paper that she was in the process of signing was not lost on me. She set the piece of paper aside and looked up and skewered him with an icy stare. I've not actually taken the time to look up how old the Empress is but in that moment she was terrifyingly regal. Sat in her literal shirt sleeves, she faced him down. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the only person that likes or loves your sister in this room Lord Kalayn. Your sister will be found but you must also remember that the fault is with the people who took her. Direct your anger at them if you will. Their lives are already forfeit and if you really want to go all in then you can even swing the blade if you wish. But for now you will sit down and you will be silent.”

The Empress doesn't speak with any particular volume but you can't help but hear every single word that she says. I caught myself wondering if it was some kind of special technique that she had been trained in at some point.

“What else needs to happen?” she turned back to Voorhis.

“Send gallopers to the Third and ninth Light divisions and tell them to start conducting maneouvers.”

The Empress nodded at her secretary who was making notes. “So ordered.”

“Minimise your attendence at the balls tonight, cursory visits only under the pretence that you have better things to do.”

“Which is true,” I distinctly heard the Empress mutter.

“Summon the Ambassador from Kovir and the Ambassador from Zerrikania and invite them to help you inspect the Imperial guard parade. Let them know that we're not fucking about if this is them playing everybody for fools.”

The Empress nodded at her Secretary again. “So ordered.”

“I will work my sources and see if anything else comes up. In the mean time, stick to the “hunt,” story in all things.”

The Empress nodded again. “I want a report in an hour,”

“Yes Imperial Majesty. Thank you Your Majesty.”

He marched out. The Empress signed the next piece of paper and handed it to her secretary. “Just three spelling mistakes this time. Mostly in our favour though.”

“Not all of our scribes had the benefit of your education Your Majesty,” he commented. “There are many more treaties to be signed however.”

The Empress sighed. “I know. Bear with me though.” She took hold of his sleeve to keep him still and raised her voice to the other servants in the room. “Leave us,” she said.

“But majesty the gowns...”

“Will wait.” That note of command again.

“Yes, Imperial Majesty.”

The servants filed out. The Empress sat back in the chair again for a moment and rubbed at her eyes.

“Empress for two hours and I'm already tired.” She said, almost to herself before pushing herself to her feet. “Father?”

The White Wolf stepped forward from the wall. “What is it Ciri?”

“I have a contract for you.”

Geralt, the White Wolf of Rivia raised a solitary eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes. I want you to find my friend please. People will make jokes that you want to marry her or something but I don't care. Find her for me would you? I'll pay you a decent rate.”

“No,” Geralt had opened his mouth to speak but it wasn't his voice.

Kerrass had stepped forward from his position next to the door.

“In all other matters, Majesty, I would bow before Cousin Geralt and his experience. He is the greater in swordplay, signs and just about every other aspect of the Witcher's craft but this one. I know this family and they know me and that might be significant here. Also, I owe them. More than they can know.”

He moved until he stood in front of the Empress and locked his eyes to hers.

“This hunt is mine,” he said.

The Empress looked past him to where Geralt still stood, Kerrass turned and stared at that most famous of Witchers. It was a long moment and I didn't really know what was happening. In the end though Geralt bowed and moved back to his place by the wall.

“Very well then,” The Empress said. “It seems I don't even get to make that decision.” She said it with a smile though and even I, who can't really claim to know the Empress could see the marks of strain in the corners of her eyes.

“I want Freddie to come with me.” Kerrass went on, clearly deciding to push his luck. Some people might think that this gives me an unfair advantage in the hunt but... I find him useful and he can report back to his family to keep them calm and keep them informed.”

The Empress nodded. “Done then.”

Mark shook himself and climbed to his feet. He lumbered over to Kerrass, seemed to want to say something but couldn't quite make it, so instead he clapped him on the shoulder before turning and bowing to the Empress and moving towards the door.

Kerrass beckoned to me and I followed him out to the corridor outside.

We just made it to the corridor outside before I couldn't hold it in any more. I staggered against the wall and had to take a little while to concentrate on breathing in and out. My breath kept catching in my throat around the huge lump that had formed there. I felt dizzy and there was grey at the edge of my vision. “Ok Kerrass what the fuck is going on?” I sobbed out.

“I wish I knew Freddie I really do.” He stopped me and put his hand on my shoulder so that he could check my eyes. “Are you alright with this?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? I don't want you flying off the handle at any given moment just because we might have found something. The chances are pretty good, given what's going on at the moment, that this is something political and I know the Empress enough now to know that if it came to it then you and I would look awfully disposable.”

“She wouldn't though would she?”

“I am not Geralt, who she calls “father” when she forgets herself. I'm just some Cat Witcher who, if push comes to shove...”

I shook my head again.

“If you're not going to order me to stay behind as in our old deal then I'm coming. I need to know Kerrass. I need to know that this isn't my fault.”

“Why would it be your fault?” Kerrass looked at me strangely.

“Because she wouldn't be here in this position if it wasn't for me. That and, we've made some friends in our travels Kerrass but we've also made a lot of enemies as well.”

“We have, but that's just life on the path. This would take means and money and.... effort. This is to risk the wrath of the Empress herself. I've seen her lose her temper Freddie. It ain't pretty.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“You'd better. Come on then.”

“Where are we going?”

“Her quarters to start with. See if we can pick up a trail before it goes completely cold.”

Kerrass led me through the labyrinth of corridors so fast that I would quickly have gotten lost without his support. We went down, well beneath the human layer of buildings and into the old elven ruins that the city of Toussaint had been built on. The corridors were still in use, servants and guards were still walking around at a quick rate and several times I had to flatten myself up against a wall to make sure that I wasn't flattened by stampeding people. As best as I could tell we climbed down several flights of stairs before heading along on the same plane of movement before a single flight of stairs brought us up and out into a corridor that I found to be on the northern side of the palace.

“The royal wing,” Kerrass told me, given over to the Empress and her immediate circle of people which in this case means, your sister, her other ladies and a few others. There are rooms here for Lady Yennefer and Lord Geralt as well as Lady Merigold and a few other people that you won't know or have heard of.”

He led me further along the corridor.

“Which one's the Empress' room,”

“The smallest believe it or not. She once told me in passing that she gets nervous when there are large open spaces around her and much prefers smaller rooms where she can watch the windows and the doors equally.”

“What happened to make her like that?”

Kerrass just looked at me for a while. “Many, many things.”

It was clear that I wasn't going to get any further with it than that. He brought us to another room that had two guards outside along with another, younger man that was pacing backwards and forwards in the way that you do when you're waiting for something and have nothing else to do.

“Master Kerrass sir,” he seemed ridiculously young. I would have put him at somewhere between fourteen and fifteen to look at him. Blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes. There was a glimmer of intelligence in those eyes as well as a bit of attitude that suggested that he watched the world with an ironic sense of humour. I decided that we could either be the very best of friends or that we would hate each immediately. He saluted us.

The other two men were as broad as they were tall, solid walls of men wearing enough metal that they might have been sculptures only the occasional rasp of metal on metal betrayed the fact that there were men in there somewhere.

“Sir Thomas. May I present Lord Frederick von Coulthard.”

The young man bowed to me.

“Your servant Lord Coulthard.” He said in a high voice that betrayed his voice not quite having broken yet. “May I take this opportunity to say that I am a fan and to pointedly not get you to sign my copy of your travel journals.” He said to me gravely.

“Thank you Sir Thomas. Maybe later.”

“Being cousin to the Empress sometimes comes with some perks,” the young man said. “I get to meet all kinds of famous people.”

“Do I count as famous people?”

“More famous than some sir?”

“Sir Thomas is here because we were in need of competent officers,” Kerrass said. “Sir Thomas is today's new officer of the watch. After the previous officer managed to lose your sister.”

As a note for those who aren't familiar with military terminology. The officer of the watch is the person that's nominally “in charge” for that area for that period while the other officers or superior officers are sleeping. They are the people that take care of paperwork, order rations, organise shift rotations and check sentries. If a crisis happens then it's the office of the watch that takes charge until more senior men arrive.

“A bit young for the post?” I asked.

“As I say Sir. Being Cousin to the Empress comes with some perks.” He sniffed. “I say perks. Today was my day off and I was looking forward to getting squiffy on Toussaint red.”

“The former officer of the watch is under arrest in case of collusion.” Kerrass told me.

“Is that realistic?” I asked.

“At this point anything is possible. Anything to add Sir Thomas?”

“No sir. Door locked from the outside and I took the liberty of having two of my burliest, angriest and least imaginative men positioned inside in case anyone tries to sneak in from outside sir.”

Kerrass nodded. “Open up then please?”

“Yes sir,” He nodded to the two guards and made a complex hand gesture. They stepped aside before Sir Thomas produced a key and unlocked the room.

“So no-ones been inside since these doors were sealed.”

“No sir,” Thomas answered. “Just me and my men but I had thoughts that if the young lady slipped out herself or if there's a secret passageway or something then others could come back and tamper with evidence?”

“Good thinking,”

“Thank you sir.”

“Who was on duty last night.”

“Four men sir. All cooling their heels in the cells waiting for your pleasure sir.”

“Pleasure. That's an odd word for it. We'll need the duty log.”

“Yes sir, it's under guard at the guard post sir.”

Kerrass nodded.

“We moved into the room. It was bright, opulently furnished and looked as though it had barely been lived in. The bed was made, the furniture was plush and rather garish to my eyes and the only thing that seemed to be in constant use was the wardrobe. There was no fire set in the vast and mostly ornamental fireplace but it looked as though there had been one recently. Kerrass held out an arm to prevent me walking in though. He took a deep breath, sniffing the air.

“Wait here,” he said before moving into the room. He took his medallion off and started moving around with it held in front of him as he sniffed at the air.

Then he closed his eyes and started moving around the room, slowly, nose out in front looking for all the world like one of my father's hunting dogs.

“Does it often look like this?”

Sir Thomas had returned with a couple of leather bound books under his arm.

“Does what, look like what?” I asked faintly, I was too busy concentrating on Kerrass to listen properly.

“His hunting. Does it always look like this?”

“It depends,” I said faintly,

“On what, sir?” The “sir” appellation seemed to have been attached in an effort to placate me or pay me some kind of compliment.

“On what it is he's hunting.” The lad was fair vibrating with energy. “Can I help you Sir Thomas?” I attempted in an effort to get him to sod off.

“Well sir, since you mention it. Those chronicles I mentioned.”

He held one of those books out.

“I don't have a quill.”

“Funny you should mention that sir,” He held out a small ink pot and had produced a small quill from somewhere.

I sighed and signed the book.

“Grateful to you sir,” he said putting it back under his arm.

I watched Kerrass work for a bit. He had made his way over to the dressing table and was looking through all of the potions and perfumes that make up the essential tools of being a woman in the modern world.

“What brought you into service?” I asked, the silence suddenly felt oppressive and I had the need to fill it.

“Into the guard sir? Family tradition. Squired to my uncle when I was twelve and worked my way up. Youngest knight in the guard sir.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Sometimes it is. I sometimes wonder if I was knighted so young because the guard needed a mascot of some kind.”

“Did they?”

“Depends who you ask sir. In my more charitable moments I've begun to believe that there are new and younger people being brought into the guard so that the Empress can change the nature of the guard as she sees fit without having to fight all the dreadful old men telling her that it wasn't done like that in their day,”

He did an astonishingly accurate impression of a querulous and obstinate old man's voice. I glanced up at one of the even more gigantic armoured me who were stood just inside the door of the room. Unlike the shield and sword that the outer guards were armed with this man carried the largest battleaxe that I had ever seen. Large and with the looks of him I reckoned that he could handle it easily. The guard didn't even twitch.

“He's selling himself short,” Kerrass' voice intruded. “Young master Thomas here is considered one of the finest military minds of his generation. One of the first graduates of the Imperial war college which he passed well enough that they had to rewrite the exams for him.”

I looked down at the young man who had the grace to be blushing. I looked back up at Kerrass.

“There's an Imperial war college?” I asked.

“Oh yes. They study old battles and old campaigns to see what they could learn from them. Successful and failed campaigns. Apparently it's only open to the best of the best.”

“Which in reality means those of us who come from the right bloodlines,” Sir Thomas commented scornfully. “It has to be said that I learned more from a month on campaign with a decent Sergeant than I learnt at all in the college.”

“Often the way,” I commented. I felt trapped in this simple little conversation. Right then and there the fact that I was talking with a young man about his education and signing books seemed ridiculous when what I wanted to be doing was tearing the place apart and finding my sister. It felt a lot like a pressure on my skull, as though I was hemmed in, that the walls were closing in. I had to concentrate. “Did you find anything?” I asked Kerrass.

“Yes and unfortunately it's utterly useless.”

I stepped forward into the room. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there's no doubt that this is your sisters room. Her scent is everywhere but it's masked and obscured by the perfume that she uses.” He indicated the dressing table.

I spent a bit of time trying to shake the cotton wool out of my brain. It didn't work.

“Ok then,” I walked over to the window and opened it to look out. There weren't any obvious hand-holds that I could see. There were some ivy strands above and to one side of the window but you would need to be a braver person than me to use them to climb in. Plus the window would have been smashed if someone jumped in. Or the window would have to be open.

“Was the window closed when you came in to find my sister?”

“I don't know for sure sir. It was certainly closed when I came on duty.”

“Something else to check,” Kerrass commented. He was unstopping the perfumes and having a sniff. I've never been able to distinguish between perfumes before but he claims he can. I had always wondered about that and found it odd. Surely if your nose was more sensitive then it was more likely to get overwhelmed.

After a while he shook his head and put the bottles down.

“Right,” he said abruptly, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's try to think logically.” He stomped up to me as he said this and took me by the shoulders before giving me a little shake. “There are two options here. Either she left on her own two feet or she was taken from this place by force. You either walk or are carried out of a room.”

“Yes. Compelling still means that someone has to make a decision to be compelled.”

“Right. The guards claim that she didn't leave by the door.”

“They would though wouldn't they.”

“Sir, if I may?” Sir Thomas stepped forward. “Regardless of whether or not Lady Francesca left the room on her feet or carried off her feet. She didn't leave the room by the door.”

“Why so sure?”

“She would have been noticed.”

“What makes you so sure...”

“Well uh...” The young man actually blushed. “The Lady Francesca was...”

Kerrass nodded. “Francesca was beloved?”

“Yes sir,” the young man seemed relieved. “Very....beloved. Yes, that was the word.”

“So even if one, or two of the guards on watch were corrupt. Someone in the corridor would have seen something.” Kerrass asked him.

“yes sir. Especially at night. These rooms were filled with the personal attendants of Her majesty and Lady Francesca was a favourite of the Empress so...”

“Is a favourite,” I heard myself comment.

“Yes sir. Sorry sir.”

“Already with a past tense.” I muttered. My stomach was churning and I wanted to be sick.

“Truly Sorry sir.”

“Don't worry about it Sir Thomas. It was a good point. By the door though, if you please.” Kerrass told him.

Sir Thomas marched back to his place.

“The lad has a crush on my sister.” I commented. I felt a headache coming on.

“He is not alone.” Kerrass commented. “A significant number of the guard have a crush on her. When the Empress decides to allow men to court your sister, there will be a queue of knights to request her hand in marriage.”

“They'll have to fight me for it.”

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. “So let's work the problem as we would work any other problem. The door is locked which means...”

I sighed and tried, again, to make my brain throw off the hair shirt that it had been wearing for such a long time. I scratched my ear.

“Magic?”

“The Sorceresses say no gate or teleportation has taken place in any other place than the platform where it was set up.”

I nodded. “Windows,”

“Are mostly locked on orders of the guards precisely for reasons like this. Far too many eligible young ladies have been seduced into leaving their rooms for even the most innocent of reasons.”

“Innocent?”

“Yes. Seductions and such like. There are a particular kind of Lord that make it a game to try and take the virginity of as many of the Lords or ladies of the court as they can. They keep score and exchange notes by the end of the parties.”

“I never got invited to that kind of party.” I commented faintly. I was trying to picture my young and innocent sister in such gatherings.

“She's not so innocent any more,” Kerrass commented, reading my thoughts.

A thought surfaced from among the soup that was my thought processes at the time. “You don't mean she...”

“Nah. But she knows what kind of thing happens and is clever enough to play them off against each other.”

I shook my head. “I feel like I barely knew her.” I heard my own use of the past tense. I swore briefly and fiercely.

“You will Freddie. We just need to think through it. So Windows? Try them all.”

I did so to discover that only the one that I had opened earlier and two others would open. The rest seemed as though they had been sealed by a strange metallic method that meant they couldn't be opened. Kerrass examined them all. In one case he leant right out and climbed up onto the sill so that he could look up and down the wall before climbing back in.

“I could climb it but your sister would struggle by herself and it would certainly be noticed. Unless... Thomas?”

“Sir?”

“There's a walkway above here and presumably a way onto the roof. Is there any way to check that anyone has tied a rope on or set up a harness and lifting system?”

“No-one's reported anything sir?”

“No. But those guards spend a lot of time looking outwards rather than some dust or something at their feet. Check would you? Don't let anyone test it or muck around with it if they find anything. They should guard it fiercely and then send word for me.”

“Yes sir.” He turned and muttered a few words to one of the guards who was still standing next to the wall.

He saluted and stomped off, armour jangling.

Kerrass returned to me. “So, if not windows then what?”

“She was never in it?”

“Possible, and we will explore that if we don't find anything here. But she was witnessed going into the room.”

“By the same kind of witnesses that watched the door to make sure she didn't get out?” I snarled.

“Valid point, but there were many more them at the time and of much higher rank. The Empress was in that group who wished her a good night.”

“Fucking wonderful.”

“They were making plans as I remember, for the morning and for the future.”

“Shit,” I took a deep breath as Kerrass waited expectantly, he was walking round the room examining the walls, knocking at odd places. Of course I know now what he was doing but at the time my brain just refused to wake up and work.

I stared at him for a long moment. “I'm sorry Kerrass, my brain isn't working.”

“I know Freddie, take your time.” He turned and started closing curtains and plunged the room into darkness.

“If it can't be the door.” he prompted as he worked, “and it can't be the windows or magic then what...”

“Some form of other passageway?” I felt absurdly pleased as he nodded. “Off to the edge of the room please.”

I did as I was told. Kerrass moved to the centre of the room and took a glass bottle from his belt and threw it at the floor. Extremely fine silver dust exploded into the room and began to spread throughout the room.

“Unfortunately Elven corridors and elven construction makes their secret doors much more difficult to find than the average human construction.” He stopped and waited for the dust to spread out properly. “Now let's see.”

Everyone has seen this in one form or another. Specks of dust dancing in beams of sunlight. That was exactly what Kerrass was doing. He prowled around the room, slowly, taking his time, just letting his eyes drift and see things, looking for eddys and currents of air flow.

“Here we go.” He said standing before a particular patch of wall that I couldn't distinguish from any of the other equally plain patches of wall. He tested a few stones, leaning on them and pushing them in before shaking his head. “Normally there's a charm or something...”

“Kerrass,” I said. “Kerrass, time's wasting.”

“I know.” He looked back at the wall and sighed before shrugging. “Ah well, The Empress told me to hunt the girl and failing all else, hopefully, she will protect me against the Duchess.”

He stood back, braced his legs and gestured at the walls. Air exploded from his hand in a buffeting wave.

Dust emerged from masonry cracks in the walls. A brick fell backwards into open air, but it didn't let sunlight through. Instead there was only darkness.

“Once more with feeling,” Kerrass muttered before gesturing again. This time the wall fell down with a crash and a crumbling of masonry. Dust billowed out.

“Fuck me,” It was the young knight from the door.

Kerrass edged forward, hand raised to his sword strap. The other had waving the remains of the dust were waved away from his face as he edged forwards.

I was still feeling woolly and blinked stupidly at the debris for some time before the fact that Kerrass had managed to find something got through to my brain. I turned to Sir Thomas who was shouting through the open door for guardsmen and that the door into my sisters room to be blocked.

“Send someone to get my spear.” I ordered. The lad had no reason to listen to me or to do anything that I might have ordered but he took it as such. I turned back to Kerrass.

I've often thought about my reaction to my sister's disappearance and how it all worked. I made jokes and commented instantly but when I tried to make any kind of conscious decision and this was one of the instances.

I was unarmed, unarmoured and absolutely unprepared for action. But I stepped forward to back him up. He sensed it on some level and waved me backwards as he stepped forward.

He was right to do so. I knew it was foolish to do so and there was even more than a little bit of a thought that I shouldn't follow him into the gap. But somehow, my brain was just not working.

Fortunately Kerrass was thinking for both of us and he waved me back.

He stuck his head through the hole before slowly and cautiously climbed through the hole. He stomped around a lot and there was some rattling that came from the opening. After a small amount of time a small section of the wall swung outwards and Kerrass emerged from the shadows back into the room. He played around for a little while until he found a lever behind one of the wooden panels on the wall.

“Right then,” Kerrass drew his sword and looked at me. “Don't get too hopeful Freddie. This could just be a most unremarkable hidden corridor.”

“Yes, but...”

“It's just one answer amongst many potential answers. We still don't know if this is useful information. Just don't get your hopes up.”

A young page had come into the room and walked up to Sir Thomas with the scabbard that had been

fashioned for my spear. The Young knight waited a moment before approaching and holding the spear out. He was still giving orders. I didn't hear all of them but it seemed to be along the lines of “secure the room, don't let anyone in.” That kind of thing.

I fitted the two parts of the spear together and moved forward to back up Kerrass. The corridor led to a spiral staircase which seemed to be hidden in one of the modern columns. We climbed up but we did so slowly and carefully, Kerrass bent down to examine the floor and the lower walls.

“Clean,” he commented at one point. “With a small amount of background magic, presumably to keep it so clean.”

“Seems a little frivolous to me.” I commented, looking over his shoulder.

“Fucking elves,” he said with feeling. “All it means is that we don't have any tracks to work with.” He sighed. “Still, little windows to let light in so we're not completely blind. Take our time. Slowly now.” We moved forward gently.

We came to a spiral staircase that went up and down. It seemed to be hidden in one of the decorative columns that festoon the castle. It went up and down.

Kerrass gestured, “Call for Sir Thomas,”

I did so and the lad came running.

“What's up?” Kerrass asked.

“The roof.”

As it turns out those rumours about having rooms closer to the roof really are the easier ones to secure.

“And down?”

“The next floor down is a smaller one with lower ceilings that are set aside for personal servants and the like.”

“I'm going to leave that there without commenting on it for now.” I said. “What's further down?”

“More guest rooms, smaller, normally reserved for visiting merchants rather than any kind of serious diplomats but at the moment they are filled with nobles.”

“What ranks?”

“Dukes, Duchesses and the odd client king.”

“Where are the rest of the client Kings kept?”

“In another wing.”

“How well are the lower floors secured?”

“Well secured. The guard aren't idiots.”

“They managed to lose my sister.” I snarled. I was surprised at the amount of fury in my voice.

“I know that ignorance isn't an excuse,” Sir Thomas said, unperturbed by my anger. “We've mapped many of the secret and hidden passages when we arrived but in a palace as old as this. We simply didn't know that this was here.”

“Dereliction?” Kerrass asked.

“I swear, not on our part sir.”

“The knights Errant?”

“Possibly sir, although if I'm honest, I don't think it would be active. If someone knew about these corridors, at all which is not guaranteed with respect to the Knights Errant. It's possibly even likely that someone just forgot.”

As an aside to those readers who don't know how Toussaint works. Toussaint has no real standing army as I have mentioned before. Instead they have the Knights Errant. These knights are responsible for the security and safety of the realm. As such there is no guard system. If Toussaint or the “royal” family of Toussaint needs guards then she just says that there is a need for half a dozen men and suddenly the court is ringing with the sounds of big, strong and muscled men in huge and shiny armour filling the air with ringing cries of “I swear to the heron that you will be safe,” or words to that effect. Then she picks her favourites of those men that volunteer and they serve until the Duchess or, more often, they decree that the task is completed.

This is beneficial in that those men who fill the ranks of Knights Errant don't need to be paid and do it for the love of the job. They can get by on this on the grounds that Toussaint is never ever going to be invaded unless the political landscape changes beyond all recognition to where it is now.

The downside is that there is no continuation of command. No laws or rules or, really, any kind of oversight. If the task is failed then the failures answer to the Duchess. At worst they are sentenced to death but more often they are exiled which, to the knights, seems to be a fate worse than death as they often beg for death before exile.

The truth meant that there was a very real possibility that the existence of these tunnels and corridors was simply forgotten when the security was handed over from the knights errant to the Imperial guard. There was also the possibility that the knight errants responsible for the security of this part of the castle was angry at handing over command of the corridors to the Imperial guard and withheld information in an effort to undermine the efforts of the guardsmen.

Wars have begun over smaller slights in and around Toussaint.

Kerrass nodded his accepting of the point.

“Up then,” he decided. “If they went down then anyone is more likely to be spotted. If they go up then ropes, ladders, anything could have got them to wherever they wanted to go.

We went slowly and cautiously. Kerrass was sniffing the air from moment to moment.

“Well, if she didn't leave this way then she certainly knew about this passage and used it. The smell of her perfume is here.” He muttered, half to me, half to himself.

“Could that have been faked?” I asked, “Someone comes into her room, splashes the perfume around a bit and maybe on themselves before walking through the corridor in an effort to throw us off the scent.”

“Not really. Perfume changes on contact with the skin, mixing in with all of the other little things that make a human's scent up. Sweat, oils, pheremones and the like which means that some people suit certain scents whereas others do not. This is definitely your sister's scent. The question is, was she carried out this way or did she walk. Lack of dust means that I can't tell.”

We climbed up another stair and I guessed that we were up in the ceiling of the building now. We came to a trap door. Kerrass made a gesture that I know that he refers to as his “Quen” sign. A dancing golden light covered him before he took a deep breath, nodded to me and opened the hatch.

Daylight flooded down and into the stairwell. Kerrass went first hand cocked ready to draw his sword at a moments notice. I stayed in the stair well to give him room but he quickly nodded to me and I climbed out after him.

The roof sloped up above us, the trapdoor had opened into the side of the red tile that made up the roof and we were standing in a gutter that was lined with some kind of metal that clanked as I put my weight on it.

Kerrass looked at me. “Left or Right?”

“You're the expert.”

“Then we shall go left. If it was right then the person would have been more exposed and for longer.”

We followed along. Kerrass seemed uncaring about the height but I would be lying if I said that it didn't bother me. I leant on the roof tiles to my left to make sure that if I was going to lose my balance in one direction or another then it would be to fall into the tiles.

We even found a small group of Imperial Guardsmen who were carefully examining a section of the wall. Kerrass exchanged a few words with them and I got the gist that we were directly above my sister's room.

They had found nothing.

There was a small amount of time as we shuffled past them and went on our way. We came to the trapdoor that the guards had used which was open and under guard. Kerrass gave a password and we were let down into the corridor.

Kerrass looked left and right and sighed.

“Sorry Freddie.”

“Don't say that.... Don't give up.” I felt panic scrabbling at the back of my throat followed by disbelief and then anger. “What's happening Kerrass? I thought that we were going to find my sister.”

“Freddie, Freddie calm down.”

“I can't calm down I...”

“I know Freddie just take a breath. What I was saying was that now that we're here we lose the trail. If trail it was. Now we need to think a bit more.”

“What is there to think about? My sister is gone.” I knew it was a stupid thing to say even as I said it. Kerrass blew his breath out in entirely justified exasperation.

“Freddie, I'm not suggesting we give up. We just have to give up on this method of tracking. Now we need to think it through. Carefully and slowly.”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

“I don't want to be careful and slow Kerrass. I want to punch something.”

“I know Freddie, and hopefully you know exactly why that would be a bad idea.”

“I do as a matter of fact but that doesn't help things.

“Right. Well. We've made a good start anyway.”

“Really? I thought we'd found Jack shit.”

“What we found was a secret corridor, that no-one other than, possibly, your sister knew about.” He began ticking the points off his fingers, “We know that she was in that corridor, relatively recently. We also know that the passageway would let her out, outside of her normal guard perimeter. All she would need to do is to dress in a relatively simple dress with a hooded cloak and anyone who saw her would simply assume that she was, like many in her position, out on a stroll to meet a paramour.”

“But Frannie wouldn't do that.” I protested.

“I know Freddie, that point in and of itself is the most significant of everything that we have considered. That is the reason why I've got you with me on this one. What's my rule when it comes to tracking down lost people when it's supposed to involve a monster?”

“That the family or loved ones should stay as far away from you as possible.”

“That's right. Because they run the danger of letting their emotion cloud their judgement. It is only useful in certain circumstances. Those being to inform me of what the missing person would do at any given circumstance.”

We had moved to the side of the corridor where we sat on a bench.

“I agree by the way. Your sister is a lot more resourceful and intelligent than many of the women that turn up at court in an effort to try and attract the eye of some noble or another. Your sister came with the express intention to make friends with the Empress. A task for which she is eminently suited. She listens well, knows when to keep her mouth shut, knows when her input might have a bearing and when to step in and when to step out. I've seen her declare, in a loud voice, that the Empress needed to take a break and marched her out to the practice yards where the Empress proceeded to take her frustrations out on the nearest training dummy. Your sister is a good woman. The Empress dreads losing her to some charming nobleman but won't have the heart to deny your sister anything but.... and this is important.... your sister is aware of how much the Empress leans on her and would not desert her Empress' side for anything. She is a rare woman. So let's apply that here.

“Would Francesca leave the Empress on the day of the Empress' coronation?”

“No, never.”

“I agree. Therefore we have assumed that she was taken against her will. But why else would she have left? We have established that she wouldn't allow herself to be drawn out for matters of the heart but family?”

“Maybe, but she would be much more likely to send messages in this case to...probably Emma followed by Mark.”

“Probably. She would do the same if it was a matter of any of her friends. So who has so much of a command on your sisters mind that she would leave voluntarily. I'm not asking rhetorically I genuinely need your thoughts.”

I mused. I suddenly realised that I was absolutely famished having not eaten anything since the morning. I signalled a passing servant and ordered some brain fuel to be brought.

“The Empress.” I suggested. “But the Empress lives just down the hall. And surely no guard or anyone else would comment on the matter if she went that way.”

“I agree. I don't think that's likely though. The Empress is not one to stand on ceremony. If she wanted to speak to your sister she would have stomped over to your sister's room and talked.”

“But the Empress might be a root cause.” I mused as a plate of Nilfgaardian Garlic sausage as well as bread and cheese was brought to our little table. “We're working on the assumption that Frannie left the room by a secret way on her own and of her own volition here aren't we.”

“Yes. I don't think that some kind of vast conspiracy amongst the guards to allow your sister to leave the room through the door is possible. Either she, or she and her captors used the secret corridor. Your sister is no slouch at combat and is well trained enough to be able to defend herself. The Empress demanded it. There would have been signs of a struggle in her room if she was taken by force.”

“The room could have been tidied.”

“Give me some credit Freddie. But let's allow for that and say that I am so inept that I couldn't see if there were signs of struggle in the room. Your sister would have screamed or shouted and the guards outside would have been notified almost immediately.”

“True,”

“So, she goes through the door. She gets in her room, changes her clothes from her normal clothing types and takes the corridor to the roof and then along until she comes out just over there before making her way....somewhere.” Kerrass waved his hands expansively.

“She did so secretly and quietly,” I said. “Why would she do that. Unless I misunderstand from everything you've told me she's quite important, respected and has no small amount of personal power. If she decided that there was a threat or needed to go somewhere she could have ordered the Imperial guard to take her there without much comment. If she was suitably above suspicion...”

“Which she was,” Kerrass interrupted.

“Then no-one would have thought twice about it. Why so secret?”

We ate a few mouthfuls each and I stopped, mid chew and stared at Kerrass. “She was protecting someone.”

“Blackmail?”

“Maybe. If she had received a message or some other such signal that someone had some damaging information about, let's say, the Empress. Something that would bring down the Empire. She's told to come alone to discuss the matter. If she saw no other alternative then she would go. Playing for time is a long held strategy of my families.”

“And a good one.”

“So what was she being blackmailed about?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well of course it matters. If she was being blackmailed then what she was being blackmailed about would give us the answer to the question of who has her.”

“It might. But what would be more likely to give us the information that we need is if we had the method by which the blackmail was delivered.”

“It would have to be a note.”

“So lets check the fireplace in her room again.”

We scurried back. Kerrass purposefully kept me from going to quick. “Walk slowly,” he said, “appear unconcerned. It's possible we have enemies watching us and we want them to think that we are calm and collected. That we know what we're doing.”

“That's an ominous thought.” I commented. “That most of the times when people look as though they know what they're doing, they're actually pretending.”

“More likely than we would possibly like to admit”

We got through the checkpoints. Kerrass was known to the guard and he couched for me so we soon found ourselves outside my sisters room.

Sir Thomas let us in. There were already plasterers and stonemasons at work on the wall.

“We're looking for papers,” Kerrass told me. Something not in your sister's writing. She's unlikely to have kept a diary with the relevant security concerns. I will check the fireplace.”

I nodded and made my way over to the writing desk. There were indeed many letters from various people asking for news or for a favour or for an introduction. Francesca seemed to have them sorted into a number of different piles according to priority or some other kind of sorting system that I couldn't guess at.

“Might have found something.” Kerrass called. I hurried over and Sir Thomas was alongside me. There was a corner of very rigid paper or card. Most of it was charred and covered in ash so Kerrass was handling it with great care.

“I know this paper.” Kerrass said, “See this colouring here.” He took his gloves off and scratched at the least damaged part of the paper which revealed a pink tint. “This is Messenger paper.”

He passed it over to Thomas who turned it into the light.

“It's a crime to burn this kind of paper,” Thomas commented. “There has to be a reason for it and she will be expected to answer to the Empress for it.”

“How does Imperial paper work,” I asked.

“It's the most careful messenger service in existence,” Kerrass explained. “That doesn't include magi or some other method of messenger. It's used to pass secrets around.”

“Oh,” I said sourly. “Another clue.”