Bubbles was wide awake but kept very still with eyes tightly shut during the mistress's visit and so she felt rather than heard the elderly lady shuffling about the room. There seemed a pause and some hoarse whispers. What was Thornshrike up to? Normally she just inspected the beds, counted heads on pillows, and left. This unusual break with routine tempted Bubbles to take a peek from one eye, the one nearest the princess's bed. There she could see the blue lamp hovering over Rappy's bed, the bent figure of Thornshrike swaying near as sibilant sounds were exchanged with the occupant. A gasp and a shudder from the bed was followed by reassuring gestures from the kindly woman, and then she went away. As soon as she heard the click of the closing door Bubbles threw back her bedclothes and leapt across the room to be at her best friend's side.

The latter clutched at her with wide shining eyes that seemed to light up the darkness with witchfire.

"He has disappeared!" Rappy choked out dismally, not at all in her languid princess style of speech.

"Who? The Prime Mover?" Bubbles asked, sitting upon the bed and squeezing her friend's clutching hand, hot and clammy with sudden emotion.

"No, Baron Vonrigg." The blank expression on the shadowed face of the Frangea girl prompted the princess to sneak out the forbidden tablet again from under her bed and brought up the news post from Xenia. She flipped through pages and came to a row of faces of older barons and dignitaries. She pointed at a scarred and glowering visage with silver-grey hair, rugged features and eagle eyes that seemed like they could tear into the soul of anyone they transfixed. Here was a proud and dangerous man, Bubbles thought.

"Good thing, surely?" she gulped, edging back from that glaring gaze. "That he's disappeared. The man's a monster. Not a relative, um, is he?"

"No. He is the chief of security in the capital. Always at my father's side. Yet rumours abound he was partly responsible for the coup attempt. From an old family, House Vonrigg is almost as old as House Saxotiern, and they say he wishes to found a new dynasty upon the ashes of the old, my family."

"And he's disappeared? Perhaps Zolly, I mean, His Exalted Majesty tired of his double dealing and rid himself of the old crow at last," Bubbles nodded reassuringly, her eyes shining with peculiar reflected light and her curls bobbing pleasantly. Rappy gazed at her a moment.

"I wish it were so," she pursued in that more familiar graceful style of speech so engagingly sweet to all who heard it. "Yet I fear it is a secret scheme of another sort. This is the second day of Foam Fullness."

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In spite of the tension Bubbles smiled at the use of this local name for a phase of Winkel World's giant moon. It had been dubbed Foam because whereas Winkel World seemed to be all squares and geometric straightness upon its surface, so the maps proclaimed upon the schoolroom walls, the moon as it hung hugely in the sky during closest approach, appeared a mass of crater circles and domes and lava froth. Thus, like the beach foam that laced the coast of Frangea's western edge, the moon had been so named by the people of the land across the equator. Officially it was called Serenity, for it brought a calm to the Winkel border storms that prevented all travel sometimes for months at a time. It was this blessing of Fullness which was exercising Rappy's anguish.

"You think he's fled Xenia?" Bubbles put words to the princess's thoughts. Rappy gave a great shudder and sob all in one.

"I think he's coming here to kill me," she said and all the Frangea girl could do was hug her tightly.

"The staff know?" she whispered into the thick brown hair of the princess, fragrant with priceless perfumes. She felt the girl nod as she continued to hold her.

"Your government are informed. They'll guard borders in the north. He will not have time to seek a place in the east to enter your beautiful country and he is no ocean creature." She took a few deep breaths and the trembling increased a little. "Dear Bubbles," and she looked into her friend's eyes, "he has death spiders. Your people could be injured."

"My people are fighters, don't you worry," Bubbles said with a wry smile. "We've got more than a little pluck on our side too you know, and if the evil baron comes among the pines of Mount Syzywyg we'll pelt him with every cone we can find, you mark my words girl. Even the boys of Chancefleet will want a piece of him and his death spiders."

With that she kissed the princess on the forehead reassuringly and went back to her own bed with a thrill at the thought of such colourful adventure, straight from the Highly Romantic Winkel of Xenia, adventure only till then read about in stories.

Bubbles thought she was too excited to sleep but thrills have a way of sapping even the most energetic natures and she soon succumbed to the warm, spicy air of Dormitory Flare. She dreamed of travelling across the stormy borders between Winkels to attend the Frozen Games upon the soaring icy peaks of Xenia, wrapped in luminous fur from Octora's Powderpuff trees that Sharshua brought samples of last Winter Festival, all the way from the other side of the world.

She did not know what it was that woke her up, but it was still dark, except for moonlight reflected off the distant hills beyond the balcony window. Bubbles sat up with an unladylike snort and looked around the dim room, eyes gravitating to the hazy clouds of drapery over the princess's bed in the corner.

"Rappy?" she hissed but got no response. A good sign if after all that worry she had managed to slumber. Wanting to satisfy herself it was truly so, Bubbles quietly got up and her bare feet took her across the lush carpet to the other bed to check on Miss Plazenby's most distinguished pupil. What she found was the reverse of reassuring.

The bed was empty.