Paul took a very small sip of his glass of water and looked around what appeared to be a large, Victorian hall. Aspidistras and leather couches were arranged throughout the space with a large fire at one of the vast room. At the other end, trestles were covered with vertiginous mounds of food, from glistening sausages and hams, through soft and saggy jacket potatoes, to gleaming fruit pies and desserts spangled with sugar crystals. Meringues of all types were heaped on huge platters interspersed with wide dishes of fudge. Looking at it was enough to give any sane person heartburn.

Away from the food, knots of people were scattered around making awkward conversations. Most were congregating between the bar, run by Caelin, and the large, wingback chair where Lord Richard sat in awkward state. Most of the guests looked, for want of a better word, normal, but some definitely did not. “How do I know what everyone is?” Paul asked. “I mean, if this is the inauguration of the new Prince of the non-normals then anything could be here.”

Sir Craig laughed. “Tonight you just keep your head down and hope,” he said. He smiled pleasantly as Mike came up to them.

Paul made the introductions. “Sir Craig, this is Mike Dixon who is the head of the local werewolf pack and his wife, Lottie. Mike, this is Sir Craig, the representative of the Knights Templar. He’s here to be a witness and to give me a few pointers.”

Mike gave Sir Craig a long, appraising look as he shook his hand. “I heard about what happened at the Village with Sir Jason,” he said. “It was a bad business.”

Sir Craig kept a pleasant smile on his face. “It was a bad business all over. But it got settled in the end.”

Paul looked from one to the other. “Is there a problem?”

“Not at all,” Mike said, dropping Sir Craig’s hand. “I hope that you enjoy the evening.” He stalked off towards his wife who was chatting to what appeared to be an elderly man wearing a dusty frock coat and a top hat.

Paul looked at Sir Craig. “What do I need to know?”

“A bad posting went wrong,” Sir Craig said flatly. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep focused on what’s happening around you now. Who the hell is that?”

Paul looked over to where a tall, slender blonde had appeared. She was wearing a strapless, form fitting dress in sugar pink that just about covered the top of her thighs and left nothing to the imagination. As she prowled forward on ridiculously high heels, she blew a kiss to Richard who was watching warily. “That’s Knightsbridge,” Paul said. “She’s an elfen. She used to call herself Mildred but thought she should change her name.” Paul took a deep breath. “She liked the name Chelsea but wanted something a little different.”

Sir Craig shook his head. “Elfen have their own ways of looking at the world. And of all the Boroughs of London, Knightsbridge isn’t the worst name in the world. She could have called herself Tooting.”

Paul chuckled. “I know one of the local elfen changed from Cowslip to Matthew, which made sense, I suppose.” He looked around. “Let me introduce you to my housekeeper, Liz Green, and my friends, Theo McGuire and Carol Simpkins. Carol is also Richard’s housekeeper.”

“You mean, Lord Richard,” Sir Craig said, smiling at the group. “It’s probably going to take some getting used to.”

Carol nodded as she slipped her arm through Paul’s. “But he always was the one who got things done around here,” she said. “It’s not entirely new, at least, not while I’ve known him.”

Sir Craig cast his eyes around the room. “How many of these people have you known longer than the big announcement, though?” he asked. “I imagine all sorts of people are crawling out of the woodwork.”

“There have been some characters,” Carol said with magnificent understatement as she looked at Knightsbridge. “And there are going to be a lot of changes.” For a moment she looked uncertain.

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Sir Craig nodded. “Lord Richard is going to find a lot of challenges,” he said. “But I think that he’s started on the right foot.” He caught the eye of an elfen across the room. “Excuse me, I need to speak to Rioja.”

Carol looked up at Paul. “Do you think that she will try and come here?” she asked. “I mean, do you think that there’s going to be an attack?”

Paul nodded. “It’s almost guaranteed,” he said. “If you look, hardly anyone is drinking, and everyone’s alert. If it does all go wrong, you need to follow Lottie and get out.” He looked at his friends. “That goes for you as well, Liz and Theo. You need to leave.” He took Theo’s arm. “You remember what it was like in your workshop. You need to make sure that Liz and Carol get out and stay safe.”

“I hope nothing does happen,” Carol said, looking over to the trestle tables. “Liz and I put a lot of work in for the food. I’d hate to see it wasted.”

Liz nodded. “I never thought I’d be sick of making meringues, but we must have made hundreds of them.”

“Probably more than that,” Carol said. “I bought in the fudge as it’s so fiddly if you have other things to do, and I ordered the hog roast from Huddersfield, but we covered most of the rest ourselves.”

“If we have to do this regular, we’ll need a better kitchen,” Liz said. “Don’t get me wrong, we can manage, but it would have been a lot quicker with different equipment.”

Theo ignored the women but leaned in close to Paul. “Who and what is here?” he asked.

“Well, you know Richard, I mean, Lord Richard, right?” Paul said. “And I think you know his friend, Nathan, who is also a vampire.”

Theo nodded, taking a breath. “Do you ever regret your choices? he asked. “I mean, I came here wanting to be a vampire…”

Paul chuckled. “That’s Knightsbridge, talking with Lord Richard. They’re an elfen, like Matthew and Ragthan, and they hang out around Todmorden. That’s almost a safe distance away.”

Theo shook his head. “There is no safe distance,” he said. “Not from her. So that group over there are brownies, like Liz?”

Paul followed his gaze to an elderly couple and a few younger, misshapen creatures. “The older ones are brownies, and then there’s Gavin, a goblin. He’s the one tending the fire, and the older creature next to him is Sion Jenkins. I’m told he’s a well behaved boggart.”

Theo narrowed his eyes. “Are you okay with that?” he asked. “I mean, with everything?”

Paul let his eyes wander over the large hall. “It may have been a boggart that killed my parents, but what stayed with me was the rage. That creature was mad, insane, twisted with their fury. It could have been a local addict or a mentally ill normal who hadn’t been taking their meds. But at least now I can be honest about the shape of them. Mr Jenkins is an embarrassing old man, but he’s not a threat, not in the same way. Those, however, could be, in theory.” Paul nodded at a group chatting around a brass side table. “That’s Steve Adderson from York. He’s a powerful magician and half elfen. He’s in good standing with the prince of York and related to the prince of Leeds and dangerous in his own right. He’s next to someone called Ian Tait. He’s a werewolf that once summoned a demon in Lord Richard’s house. Ask Carol about it sometime. She was terrified.”

Theo looked over to Carol who, with Liz, was drifting over to the food. “I can’t imagine her being scared of anything,” he said. “I mean, she even takes those elfen in her stride.”

Paul looked across to Carol. The light gleamed on her hair and he was struck once again by her poise under pressure. “I don’t think that it’s been that easy for her,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s been easy for any of us.”

Carol paused next to a vat of pea soup and looked around. “You can feel it as well, can’t you?” she asked Liz. “There’s so much tension in the air. I feel like I’m fighting to breathe.”

Liz nodded and huddled next to Carol. “I’m not used to this,” she said. “I mean, Theo seems to think I know all about werewolves and boggarts and wights, but we were respectable and kept ourselves to ourselves. We stayed away from trouble.” She wrung her hands. “I wish I hadn’t come tonight.”

“We have to be here for Paul and Richard,” Carol said. “Besides, I think you have to be here because you’re a brownie.”

Liz flinched. “It feels so odd to have it said out loud,” she said. “And I’ve always kept myself so nice and proper. Hold on a moment, who’s that?”

Carol instinctively looked around for Lottie and shivered. “All these new elfen,” she said. “I can’t keep track.”

Liz looked at the dark shape filling a corner. “I’m not sure it’s just an elfen.”

Darkness spread for a moment and then rushed together to form the shape of a tall woman. Her hair was glossily black and hung to her waist and her dark eyes glittered with malevolence as she stared around the room. She was wearing a prim, black, Victorian gown with dark lace at the high collar and on the cuffs of the long sleeves. She stalked over to Richard. “You’ve come on quite well,” she said. “The labyrinth was almost a challenge. But I’ve learned a few things over the years, and one thing I know is that you are sitting in my place.”

Richard stood slowly, suddenly darkly powerful and radiating authority. “You have never known your place. And this ends now.”

Then everything went dark.