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First published in Great Britain 2018
by Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © 2018 Katherine Woodfine
Illustrations copyright © 2018 Karl James Mountford
The moral rights of the author and illustrators have been asserted
First e-book edition 2018
978 1 4052 8704 3
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1798 4
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
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To all the readers who asked
for more of Sophie and Lil
CONTENTS
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PART III
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PART IV
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PART V
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
PART VI
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
‘Arnovia is as pretty as a picture postcard. It feels rather like we have gone back in time to another century. We arrived yesterday by train, travelling through a tunnel that cuts through the mountains: Papa told me it is the longest railway tunnel in Europe.
Arnovia itself is a tiny country, sandwiched in between Germany, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary. We are staying in the capital, Elffburg, on the banks of the River Elff, in lodgings close to the Royal Palace. This morning we saw the Royal Family drive out in their carriage – quite a spectacle!
Papa says that his business here will be complete in three days, and then he has promised me a trip into Arnovia’s wild countryside. Until then I believe I shall be perfectly happy trying all the cakes in the city’s wonderful cake shops, which are as famous as the glorious mountains I can see in the distance . . .’
– From the diary of Alice Grayson
Wilderstein Castle, Arnovia
Anna knew that there was something strange about the new governess.
She’d had the odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right about Miss Carter from the first day she’d arrived in the schoolroom. She’d been dressed exactly as you’d expect a governess to be: spectacles, sensible shoes, hair in a neat bun. But as she’d glanced around, taking them all in – the Countess, her pouchy face patched scarlet with rouge and white with powder, the Count with his bristling moustache and his head as pink and shiny as a boiled ham, and of course, herself and Alex – Anna had thought at once that she didn’t really seem like a governess at all.
To begin with, Miss Carter was young and pretty. Their last governess had seemed at least a hundred years old. She’d had grey hair and a bonnet with a drooping black feather in it, and Alex had made up stories about how she was really a